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I Spy Something Red
Could Your Child Be Sensitive to Red Food Dye? By Deborah Boehle
Hersey became interested in this field when she discovered her own children reacted to certain food additives.
"My daughter's reaction to a single gum ball was very extreme," says Hersey. "If you had seen her earlier in the day, you would say she was a normal little child, but if you saw her after her reaction started, you would have said she was severely emotionally disturbed."
After removing artificial colors and additives from their diet, Hersey says her husband's migraine headaches also disappeared. Although he previously suffered from migraines that would keep him in bed for days, he has now been migraine-free for 25 years.
Currently there are only seven dyes approved by the Food and Drug Administration, all made from petroleum. Red dye #3 can be used as a pesticide.
"It's been used for years," says Hersey. "If you spray it on manure piles, it will kill fly eggs."
Yet when the FDA tried to take it off the market, the makers of fruit cocktail lobbied to keep it available: It is the only red dye that does not bleed. According to Hersey, fruit cocktail makers said it was necessary because if the cherries were removed from their products, sales dropped.
Although red dyes #3 and #40 are the only ones that can be used in food, other red dyes can be used in cosmetics and medicine. Some of those dyes have also been used as pesticides or to kill marijuana plants.
"If your child gets Tylenol, they can be consuming dyes that are too harmful to be put in food," says Hersey. "Where's the logic there? If someone is not supposed to be exposed to this, why are we exposing a small, sick child to it?"
Although the dye industry justifies its use of such dyes by saying the quantity is small, Herseysays that is like saying a little bit of arsenic is not harmful. Furthermore, dyes used in medicines do not have to be listed on the labels.
