Grocery store shelves are filled with foods that contain artificial coloring. Breakfast cereal. Cake frosting. Candy bars. Drink mixes. Up and down the aisles, Blue 2, Red 40, Yellow 5 and other chemical combinations lurk on the list of ingredients.

Such shades are responsible for the rainbow of rice flakes in a box of Fruity Pebbles and Pillsbury’s tub of creamy Bold Purple Vanilla, as well as green M&M’s and Kool-Aid mustaches. They also are responsible for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

So why isn’t the agency warning the public about the risks of food dyes in popular consumables? That is the question the Center for Science in the Public Interest poses in a report titled “Seeing Red.”

“Time for Action on Food Dyes,” reads the headline of the report, which states, “We estimate that over half a million children in the United States suffer adverse behavioral reactions after ingesting food dyes, with an estimated cost exceeding $5 billion per year….”

Studies linking behavioral disorders and learning disabilities to food dyes date to 2011, when the FDA examined the issue but stopped short of requiring manufacturers to post product-warning labels.

“It’s bad enough that the FDA has declined to ban dyes or require warning labels on dyed foods in light of the strong scientific evidence that they cause behavioral problems,” CSPI scientist Lisa Lefferts told The Palm Beach Post in a blog titled “FDA not protecting children from artificial food dyes, CSPI says.” “It adds insult to injury that the FDA will not even inform consumers about the impact these unnecessary chemicals are having on some children and their families.”

Healthcare providers are nearly unanimous in their belief that harm to children – and costs to the country – from food dyes are both needless and preventable. They point to Europe, which has in place a regulation mandating disclosure to consumers about the behavioral problems associated with artificial coloring.

“At this point, American food manufacturers and regulators alike should be embarrassed that we’re feeding kids foods with chemicals that have such a powerfully disruptive impact on children’s behavior,” CSPI Executive Director Michael Jacobson says on the center’s Web site. “European officials are taking the issue much more seriously, and are moving toward a safer food supply as a result.”