I wonder how much of this is correlation with high sugar sauces/candies that just happen to have Red40 vs Red 40 actually causing it. Anecdotal only goes so far. That being said, get that shit outta here for good.
I worked with an autistic kid for a couple years whose grandmother insisted that eating red dye made him very agitated. I didn’t really buy it but kept foods with red dye away from him. One day he got his hands on another kid’s food that had red dye and he went BONKERS for the next couple hours. So red dye making some kids act crazy is real.
Totally anecdotal, I've been getting respiratory issues and extreme tiredness from red and orange sodas. And that's entirely reproducible. So I had to cut them out of my diet for good.
I had a friend in college who said it made her super hyper, so I believe it. She was responsible by that point being an adult and all, so she was quick to ask and avoid it.