http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/05/science/05NEJ.html

Food Dye Is Linked to Deaths of 3 Patients

BOSTON, Oct. 4 -- A widely used blue food dye may have contributed to the deaths of three critically ill patients after it was used to color the liquid food pumped into their stomachs, according to a report in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

The three had eaten food with FD&C blue dye No. 1, Dr. James Maloney of the Medical College of Wisconsin said, and their skin and blood turned a bluish-green hours before they died.

The dye, made of coal tar, is routinely added to the liquid food to help doctors see whether any of the food is escaping from the stomach and being inhaled. In healthy people, the dye never leaves the digestive tract.

The three cases involved patients who had digestive track tissues being destroyed by sepsis, an infectious condition, which apparently allowed the dye to enter the bloodstream, causing a deadly drop in blood pressure and an increase in acid levels.

The researcher said the dye, manufactured by several companies, was not dangerous to the vast majority of people. Because it is only in seriously ill patients that it might be a remote threat, as a precaution, Dr. Maloney said, "we’re trying to convince people not to use it in any hospitalized patients."

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company