“This year at the annual sugar-and-food-additives fest for children called ‘Halloween,’ I think parents should skip the middle step of handing out candy and just hand out Ritalin directly to the kids. I say this in jest, of course, since I am adamantly against the use of Ritalin in children, but let’s be crystal clear about one thing that’s different from last year’s Halloween: This year, we have scientific evidence that artificial colors cause hyperactivity in children. The evidence I’m talking about is, of course, the study recently conducted in the U.K. at the University of Southampton and published in The Lancet which establishes a strong correlation between the ingestion of artificial food colors and hyperactivity (which is eventually diagnosed as ‘ADHD’).” (10/31/07)