FDA BEING PUSHED TO REMOVE ASPARTAME!! JOIN THE FIGHT!!

[Guest guest]

People its just that simple, don't bother contacting the FDA, or your

senator, contact your favorite class action lawsuit lawyer!! Nothing

motivates greedy corporations like Monsanto (provider of Aspartame)

like a class action lawsuit.

 

Found at http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2007/260607Aspartame.htm

 

FDA Should Reconsider Aspartame Cancer Risk, Say Experts

 

CSPI

Tuesday June 26, 2007

 

WASHINGTON—A new long-term animal test from an Italian cancer

institute raises serious safety questions about the artificial

sweetener aspartame, which is marketed generically as well as under

the NutraSweet and Equal brand names. A dozen toxicology and

epidemiology experts and the nonprofit Center for Science in the

Public Interest are calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

to immediately review the study, which found increases in lymphomas,

leukemias, and breast cancers in rats. If FDA concludes that aspartame

does cause cancer in animals, the agency is required by law to revoke

its approval for the controversial sweetener, which is used in Diet

Pepsi, Diet Coke, tabletop packets, and countless other foods.

 

The new study, conducted by the respected Ramazzini Foundation and

published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found

statistically significant increases in lymphomas and leukemias in rats

that were fed as little as 20 milligrams of the sweetener per kilogram

of body weight—an amount that's in the ballpark of what some people

consume. The new study is superior to a similar one released in 2005

in that it began exposing the rats to aspartame before their birth.

 

" Because aspartame is so widely consumed, it is urgent that the FDA

evaluate whether aspartame still poses a `reasonable certainty of no

harm,' the standard used for gauging the safety of food additives, "

said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. " But consumers,

particularly parents, shouldn't wait for the FDA to act. People

shouldn't panic, but they should stop buying beverages and foods

containing aspartame. "

 

The Acceptable Daily Intake of aspartame in the United States is 50 mg

per kg of body weight. The new study looked at doses less than that

(20 mg per kg) and greater (100 mg per kg). Though few people would

consume aspartame at the higher dose, the lower does is equivalent to

a 50-pound child drinking 2½ cans of diet soda per day, or a 150-pound

adult drinking about 7½ cans of diet soda per day. But aspartame also

enters the diet through sugar-free or reduced-sugar gums, candies,

yogurts, and hundreds of other products. Many aspartame-containing

products are likely to be consumed by kids, including sugar-free

Kool-Aid, Jell-O gelatin dessert and pudding mixes, and some Popsicles.

 

A 2006 National Cancer Institute study seemed to ease cancer fears

related to aspartame, but that study had major limitations, including

its reliance on imprecise food-frequency questionnaires, and it

included only subjects between the ages of 50 and 69 who first

consumed aspartame as adults. The effects of consuming aspartame from

infancy or childhood might be very different, says CSPI, as suggested

by the new animal study.

 

Among those who today called on FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach

to review the new aspartame study are former Occupational Safety and

Health Administration officials John Froines (now at UCLA) and Peter

F. Infante (now at George Washington University); James Huff, current

Associate Director for Chemical Carcinogenesis at the National

Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS); and Kamal M. Abdo,

a toxicologist formerly at the National Toxicology Program of the NIEHS.

 

As a result of the new study, for the first time CSPI downgraded

aspartame on its online Chemical Cuisine directory from a " use

caution " rating to " everyone should avoid. " CSPI also urges everyone

to avoid the artificial sweeteners acesulfame potassium and saccharin.

It rates sucralose, also known by the brand name Splenda, as safe.

 

CSPI also called on the food industry to voluntarily switch to other

sugar substitutes.

 

" Switching to safer ingredients now could be a wise precautionary

action, " Jacobson wrote to Cal Dooley, president of the Food Products

Association/Grocery Manufactures Association.

 

According to a 1996 report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the FDA

rejected repeated proposals by NIEHS to test aspartame using more

modern methods than were originally used. David Rall, the former

director of NIEHS and its National Toxicology Program, said, " any

compound that is that widely used needs to be retested with modern

methods every once in a while. " The State of California, too, has

urged new testing of aspartame. The FDA also rejected NIEHS's proposal

to test acesulfame potassium, which CSPI says was " abysmally tested "

by its manufacturer and showed signs of causing cancer in animals.