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<\/div>\nSTORY AT-A-GLANCE<\/h3>\n\n\n- The World Health Organization has finally gotten around to declaring the popular artificial sweetener aspartame a potential carcinogen<\/span><\/li>\n
- The ruling comes from sources with WHO\u2019s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who said aspartame will be listed as \u201cpossibly carcinogenic to humans\u201d in July 2023<\/span><\/li>\n
- I\u2019ve been warning about aspartame\u2019s cancer-causing potential since 2010, so you can see just how long this danger has been known<\/span><\/li>\n
- For over a decade, researchers have been warning of aspartame\u2019s neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity, stating reevaluation of aspartame consumption is \u201curgent and cannot be delayed\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
- A 2022 large-scale cohort study found people who consumed higher levels of artificial sweeteners had higher risk of overall cancer compared to non-consumers<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
The World Health Organization has finally gotten around to declaring the popular artificial sweetener aspartame a potential carcinogen.1<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0I warned about aspartame\u2019s cancer-causing potential on my site over 25 years ago, in my best-selling book, \u201cSweet Deception: Why Splenda, NutraSweet, and the FDA May Be Hazardous to Your Health,\u201d in 2006, and in an article I wrote for The Huffington Post.2<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0It\u2019s since been deleted \u2014 but you can see just how long this danger has been known.<\/p>\nThe ruling comes from sources with WHO\u2019s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who said aspartame will be listed as \u201cpossibly carcinogenic to humans\u201d in July 2023.3<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0Additional findings from the Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization’s Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which is in the process of updating its aspartame risk assessment, are also expected.4<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\nDonald Rumsfeld\u2019s Hand in Aspartame\u2019s Approval<\/h2>\n
JECFA has vouched for aspartame\u2019s safety for decades, stating since 1981 that it\u2019s safe when consumed within accepted daily limits.5<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0It was 1981 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved aspartame.6<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0At the time, the late Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. secretary of defense, was chairman of G.D. Searle, aspartame\u2019s manufacturer, and he was reportedly instrumental in its approval.<\/p>\nAt a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, the FDA had refused to approve aspartame due to concerns that it could induce brain tumors.7<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0The late John Olney, a renowned neuroscientist who tried to prevent aspartame\u2019s approval, also wrote a letter to the Board of Inquiry in 1987, warning of aspartame\u2019s neurotoxicity, including the potential for brain tumors and damage to children\u2019s brains.8<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0As reported by Rense.com:9<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\u201cThe FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld \u2026 vow to \u2018call in his markers,\u201910<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0to get it approved.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nOn January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame in food sweetener, and Reagan’s new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry’s decision.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIt soon became clear that the panel would uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then personally broke the tie in aspartame’s favor.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nHull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller, the chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAspartame\u2019s Cancer Link Known for Decades<\/h2>\n
Despite aspartame\u2019s approval, by 1987 a series of investigative reports raised concerns that the chemical\u2019s approval was mired by conflicts of interest, poor quality industry-funded research and revolving-door relationships between the FDA and the food industry.11<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\nBy 1996, a team with the department of psychiatry at Washington University Medical School questioned whether increasing brain tumor rates had an aspartame connection. \u201cAn exceedingly high incidence of brain tumors\u201d has been identified in aspartame-fed rats compared to rats not fed aspartame, they explained, adding:12<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n\u201cCompared to other environmental factors putatively linked to brain tumors, the artificial sweetener aspartame is a promising candidate to explain the recent increase in incidence and degree of malignancy of brain tumors.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThen, in 2006, a study led by Dr. Morando Soffritti, a cancer researcher from Italy who\u2019s the head of the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, found that, even in low doses, animals were developing several different forms of cancer when fed aspartame.13<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\nThat year, the team concluded aspartame was a \u201cmultipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg\/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake\u201d and stated a reevaluation of aspartame consumption was \u201curgent and cannot be delayed.\u201d14<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\nA 2007 follow-up study confirmed the findings of aspartame\u2019s \u201cmultipotential carcinogenicity,\u201d even at doses close to the acceptable daily intake for humans. Further, it also demonstrated that when lifespan exposure beginning in utero was assessed, aspartame\u2019s \u201ccarcinogenic effects are increased.\u201d15<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0In 2010, Soffritti and colleagues again warned that aspartame was a carcinogenic agent in rats and mice.16<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
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- The World Health Organization has finally gotten around to declaring the popular artificial sweetener aspartame a potential carcinogen<\/span><\/li>\n
- The ruling comes from sources with WHO\u2019s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who said aspartame will be listed as \u201cpossibly carcinogenic to humans\u201d in July 2023<\/span><\/li>\n
- I\u2019ve been warning about aspartame\u2019s cancer-causing potential since 2010, so you can see just how long this danger has been known<\/span><\/li>\n
- For over a decade, researchers have been warning of aspartame\u2019s neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity, stating reevaluation of aspartame consumption is \u201curgent and cannot be delayed\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
- A 2022 large-scale cohort study found people who consumed higher levels of artificial sweeteners had higher risk of overall cancer compared to non-consumers<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\nThe World Health Organization has finally gotten around to declaring the popular artificial sweetener aspartame a potential carcinogen.1<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0I warned about aspartame\u2019s cancer-causing potential on my site over 25 years ago, in my best-selling book, \u201cSweet Deception: Why Splenda, NutraSweet, and the FDA May Be Hazardous to Your Health,\u201d in 2006, and in an article I wrote for The Huffington Post.2<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0It\u2019s since been deleted \u2014 but you can see just how long this danger has been known.<\/p>\n
The ruling comes from sources with WHO\u2019s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who said aspartame will be listed as \u201cpossibly carcinogenic to humans\u201d in July 2023.3<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0Additional findings from the Joint WHO and Food and Agriculture Organization’s Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), which is in the process of updating its aspartame risk assessment, are also expected.4<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
Donald Rumsfeld\u2019s Hand in Aspartame\u2019s Approval<\/h2>\n
JECFA has vouched for aspartame\u2019s safety for decades, stating since 1981 that it\u2019s safe when consumed within accepted daily limits.5<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0It was 1981 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved aspartame.6<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0At the time, the late Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. secretary of defense, was chairman of G.D. Searle, aspartame\u2019s manufacturer, and he was reportedly instrumental in its approval.<\/p>\n
At a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, the FDA had refused to approve aspartame due to concerns that it could induce brain tumors.7<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0The late John Olney, a renowned neuroscientist who tried to prevent aspartame\u2019s approval, also wrote a letter to the Board of Inquiry in 1987, warning of aspartame\u2019s neurotoxicity, including the potential for brain tumors and damage to children\u2019s brains.8<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0As reported by Rense.com:9<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
\n
<\/div>\n\u201cThe FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld \u2026 vow to \u2018call in his markers,\u201910<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0to get it approved.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
On January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, Searle re-applied to the FDA for approval to use aspartame in food sweetener, and Reagan’s new FDA commissioner, Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., appointed a 5-person Scientific Commission to review the board of inquiry’s decision.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It soon became clear that the panel would uphold the ban by a 3-2 decision, but Hull then installed a sixth member on the commission, and the vote became deadlocked. He then personally broke the tie in aspartame’s favor.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Hull later left the FDA under allegations of impropriety, served briefly as Provost at New York Medical College, and then took a position with Burston-Marsteller, the chief public relations firm for both Monsanto and GD Searle.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Aspartame\u2019s Cancer Link Known for Decades<\/h2>\n
Despite aspartame\u2019s approval, by 1987 a series of investigative reports raised concerns that the chemical\u2019s approval was mired by conflicts of interest, poor quality industry-funded research and revolving-door relationships between the FDA and the food industry.11<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
By 1996, a team with the department of psychiatry at Washington University Medical School questioned whether increasing brain tumor rates had an aspartame connection. \u201cAn exceedingly high incidence of brain tumors\u201d has been identified in aspartame-fed rats compared to rats not fed aspartame, they explained, adding:12<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
\u201cCompared to other environmental factors putatively linked to brain tumors, the artificial sweetener aspartame is a promising candidate to explain the recent increase in incidence and degree of malignancy of brain tumors.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Then, in 2006, a study led by Dr. Morando Soffritti, a cancer researcher from Italy who\u2019s the head of the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, found that, even in low doses, animals were developing several different forms of cancer when fed aspartame.13<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
That year, the team concluded aspartame was a \u201cmultipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg\/kg body weight, much less than the current acceptable daily intake\u201d and stated a reevaluation of aspartame consumption was \u201curgent and cannot be delayed.\u201d14<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
A 2007 follow-up study confirmed the findings of aspartame\u2019s \u201cmultipotential carcinogenicity,\u201d even at doses close to the acceptable daily intake for humans. Further, it also demonstrated that when lifespan exposure beginning in utero was assessed, aspartame\u2019s \u201ccarcinogenic effects are increased.\u201d15<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0In 2010, Soffritti and colleagues again warned that aspartame was a carcinogenic agent in rats and mice.16<\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n
- The ruling comes from sources with WHO\u2019s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who said aspartame will be listed as \u201cpossibly carcinogenic to humans\u201d in July 2023<\/span><\/li>\n