The organisers of London 2012 may have foreseen some of the criticism they have received since unveiling the Olympic logo - variously derided as an uninspiring emblem, a puerile mess, an artistic flop.

But yesterday evening, they were forced to pull the promotional video for the new brand from the official website after complaints from a completely unexpected quarter - Britain's epileptics.

In the two and a half minute animation, the logo comes alive, springing from athletes' bodies and bouncing vividly across the city, and one flashing section has triggered seizures.

As the flow of complaints about the quality of the £400,000 brand gathered pace yesterday (the emblem was likened to a "broken swastika" and a "toileting monkey"), one viewer, Christopher Filmer, rang the BBC to say he suffered a seizure while watching the footage on television and his girlfriend had also suffered a fit and needed hospital treatment. "The logo came up on TV and I was thinking about the 2012 games and then I was out," he told BBC London 94.9FM.

Last night it emerged that eight people had suffered seizures and several people had contacted the charity Epilepsy Action to say they had been affected. One section of the film, in which a diver plunges into a pool with a multicolour ripple effect, is thought to have triggered the seizures.

Graham Harding, a clinical neurophysiology expert who developed a test to measure photo sensitivity levels in TV material, said the video breached Ofcom regulations and should not be broadcast.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games pulled the animation from the site last night and said it was looking into it as a matter of urgency. "We have just been notified of the problem and we have taken immediate steps to remove the animation from the website," a spokeswoman said. "We will now re-edit the film."

She said a five-second section of the animation, rather than the logo itself, had prompted the problems.

Epilepsy Action said the images could affect the 23,000 people in the UK who have photosensitive epilepsy.