The Food Intolerance Network group is demanding six artificial clourings are banned in Australia.

The additives are found in cordials, fruit juices, fruit snacks, yoghurts, lollies and ice cream.

Those additives include food colourings sunset yellow (also referred to by the colour additive number 110), tartrazine (102), carmoisine (122), ponceau red (124), quinoline yellow (104) and allura red (129).

The additives have already been banned in Europe and will be phased out by 2010.

An open letter, which is intended to be the first shot in a planned eight-week campaign calling for the additives to be banned by 2010, asks the food authority to "take further action as a matter of priority".

A study in Britain found 153 three-year-old children, and 144 eight- and nine-year-old children given one of two drinks containing different mixtures of some of the additives experienced small but significant increases in hyperactivity symptoms.

The Food Authority is also being urged to use warning labels until a full ban can be introduced.

The Food Authority says the British study is "quite weak" and the six colourings were present in Australian foods at much lower levels than in Europe. + Some health experts have hit out at the study and campaign against the additives, saying the argument is misleading.

The Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald says he doesn't believe a change to the Food Standards Code was required.

Mr Macdonald has said existing mandatory ingredient labelling equipped consumers with enough information to make a decisio.

Do you agree? Would you like to see the coulourings banned?
Tell us below...