One of my pet peeves and greatest concerns is that red 40 is is so many consumable products especially children's products! or directly marketed for children. WHY???? The adverse effects far out weigh any reason for using it! I have worked with children as a profession for the past 26 years and personally have see what red 40 can do to children. Some children it has a what I will call the zoom zoom effect in which the child can not control their activity level like they are on speed it makes them so hyped up that after a while of this the parents not knowing what the problem is take the child to the doctor at which time many are put on some medication for hyper activity! What a shame! Just by watching what we are feeding these children we could eliminate the need for all this medication which I think in the long run may cause the child even more problems, kind of like the domino effect. Granted there are a few children who do indeed benefit from medication for hyperactivity but my bet would be there are many on medication that need not be. Parents, Grandparents, care takers , teachers anyone dealing with children please read labels!! you would not believe the things they add this useless trouble maker in! I have a grand son who is effected greatly by red 40 I figured this out about 8 years ago when he took a liking to strawberry milk and as a 2 year could not sit still for a minute or even take a nap! I begin reading labels and made the connection so we took away anything with red 40 and abracadabra a different child! even younger we noticed he got really jittery or agitated when he took cough syrup Red of course! I had a child at daycare who was given red cough syrup by her mother at 7 :00 am by 7:45 I could not slow her down after breakfast I took the children out she ran and ran and rolled and never stopped til 12:00 then she sat down on a bench and told me she was ready to go in. I was so afraid that child being big for her age was going to give herself a heart attack! I have a niece who breaks out in a rash all over when she has something with red 40. This stuff is in vitamins, pops, all kinds of kids medicines and they do not necessarily have to be red some are different colors I have seen it in yellow medications, those yummy pop-cycles children love. I feel the FDA should be checking this out and taking some kind of action to protect our children. Until then we have to be their first line of defense!! READ THE LABELS!!!
