Sulphur dioxide (which incidentally is in dried apricots) brings on asthma attacks in my sister! There is a great book called Additive Alert- Your guide to safer shopping by Julie Eady (I just call it the Yellow Book) which is great for food additive info- easy to read and to pick up as a quick reference.

Emma, on a general note (not necessarily TV related) check that any research that you read is published in peer-reviewed journals. These are guaranteed to be proper studies and research, often generated by universities and academics. Such studies need to take reliability and validity into account in their research. That means that the study must accurately reflect the concept being measured and that the way that the research is carried out and analysed is accurate and can be repeated by others with the same results. In short, that means that no guessing or assuming is done. The hypothesis has to be proven or disproven.
A bit heavy for this time of night, but interesting....