Following the 2004 meta-analysis, the British Food Standards Agency (the equivalent of the U.S. FDA) commissioned large studies to further examine whether food dyes, along with a common food preservative, affected children’s behavior. In 2008, the year warning labels took effect in Europe, the D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (the same food watchdogs known to denounce the nutritional wasteland of convenience foods and movie popcorn) petitioned the FDA to ban the dyes.