Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear Alan Johnson,

I read through the articles about the effect of additives with great interest this morning.  It is yet another piece of scientific evidence that some additives from food and drinks can lead to hyperactive behaviour in children, in addition to huge amounts of the previous anecdotal evidence.  So what are you going to do about it?

I’m not one for the government getting unnecessarily involved in people’s lives, but we are talking about the health of children being damaged by additives that the Food Standards Agency (a government department) has approved for use – how on earth is that possible?  Surely you should at least take the precaution of banning them until we have more evidence concerning their effects, rather than just letting them be?  As far as I could tell, the study from Southampton University only looked at short-term changes in behaviour and yet they still found “that the deterioration in behaviour after consuming the additives occurred in children in the general population, not just in those identified as suffering from hyperactivity”.  Can you imagine how damaging these additives would be if children are taking them several times a day for several years?!

Sort this out, Mr Johnson.  You’ve done nothing so far as Health Secretary so it’s about time you did something useful.  We cannot allow these additives to be placed in food and drink, knowing what effects they have.  I can only hope that the lobbyists in the Food and Drink industry won’t prevent you from doing the right thing.

Yours in anticipation,

A.Tory