A new study on aspartame conducted by the Ramazzini Foundation reveals that aspartame causes a dose-dependent increase in cancers (lymphomas, leukemias and breast cancers) when consumed at levels approaching those consumed by humans in diet soft drinks. Specifically, the study shows (reprinted from the abstract):

a) a significant dose-related increase of malignant tumor-bearing animals in males, in particular in the group treated at 2000 ppm; b) a significant increase of the incidence in lymphomas/leukemias in males treated at 2000 ppm and a significant dose-related increase of the incidence of lymphomas/leukemias in females, in particular in the group treated at 2000 ppm; c) a significant dose-related increase of the incidence of mammary cancer in females, in particular in the group treated at 2000 ppm. Conclusions. The results of this carcinogenicity bioassay not only confirm, but also reinforce the first experimental demonstration of [aspartame's] multipotential carcinogenicity at a dose level close to the acceptable daily intake (ADI) for humans. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that when lifespan exposure to [aspartame] begins during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects are increased.

The study, entitled "Lifespan Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning During Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats" has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP), the most widely-read environmental science journal in the world.

This is the second study conducted by the Ramizzini Foundation documenting the cancer-causing effects of aspartame in animals. Most sane people, when faced with such evidence, would ask the obvious questions: Could aspartame also cause cancer in humans? Should we review the safety of aspartame just in case?

Shutting down good science to protect profits

Virtually the entire health and medical system in the United States is not interested in these questions. Following the publication of this study, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a statement flatly denying aspartame poses any safety risk whatsoever, rejecting the idea that its safety or approval as a food ingredient should be reviewed at all. Specifically, FDA spokesperson Michael Herndon said, "...the FDA finds no reason to alter its previous conclusion that aspartame is safe as a general purpose sweetener in food."

In other words, the FDA is not interested in any new science that might challenge a decision it already made. Long live scientific-sounding dogma!

As reported by the CSPI in a recent press release, 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.

Clearly, the FDA only hears what it wants to hear when it comes to protecting the highly profitable aspartame market. Those who have studied a bit of aspartame history know that aspartame was pushed through the FDA by none other than Donald Rumsfeld. Click here to read more articles on aspartame and its dubious history. Since the very beginning, the FDA has done everything in its power to protect the aspartame industry, including denying approval for the natural herbal sweetener stevia as a way to suppress the competition and protect the market for corporate-manufactured chemical sweeteners like aspartame.

CSPI urges re-evaluation of aspartame safety

This latest study on aspartame and cancer caused the CSPI to issue a public press release calling for the FDA to review the study to determine whether aspartame is really safe. CSPI also downgraded its rating on aspartame and is now recommending that everyone should avoid using aspartame.

(For the record, I've been recommending people avoid aspartame since I first began writing about nutrition. The toxicity of this chemical sweetener was obvious to me, and in my opinion there is no safe dose of a substance that breaks down into formaldehyde in the human body. In my view, aspartame is an obvious neurotoxin, not to mention its cancer-promoting effects. No one should consume it, and children or expectant mothers should avoid it like a poison.)

Also reported by CSPI: 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.

Let's poison America!

With its stubborn refusal to even review the safety record on aspartame, the FDA seems to be shouting out loud, "Let's poison America!" Of course, the FDA has no intention of initiating anything resembling real scientific scrutiny on aspartame because aspartame was never proven safe in the first place! It was force-fed through the FDA's approval process based purely on distorted, junk science constructed to win approval for a chemical that would earn billions of dollars for powerful corporations (and the powerful, evil bastards who run them).

And ever since, aspartame has been poisoning Americans each and every day, contributing to seizures, blindness, migraine headaches, vision problems, neurological disorders and possibly even cancers. The fact that no health authority in America is interested in taking a new look at the safety of aspartame is nothing short of astonishing. That is, until you consider the fact that most medical authorities suffer from a severe case of Groupthink and posses no ideas other than the ones spoonfed them by their politically-motivated bosses. It takes real courage to break with the herd and actually state the obvious these days. Most people are satisfied just to go along with whatever the masses say, even if it makes no sense.

Some people call this refusal by the FDA to review aspartame's safety an "oversight" or "mistake" on the part of the agency. Who are they kidding? I call it a crime against the People of America, because to knowingly allow a dangerous, cancer-causing, nerve-damaging chemical to be used in the national food supply -- even while receiving tens of thousands of health complaints from the people consuming aspartame -- is nothing less than negligent homicide. It's a felony, and those responsible for allowing this poison to contaminate America's food supply are, indeed, unindicted felons who deserve to be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes. (A fitting punishment, as always, would be to force-feed them high doses of aspartame and see what happens. If it's really as safe as they claim, there's no harm, is there?)

Anybody with a brain that still functions in this country -- and I admit that number is shrinking by the hour -- knows that all the pro-aspartame studies upon which the FDA based its previous safety approval were partially or fully funded by the corporations making money from the sale of aspartame. The entire history of aspartame boils down to corruption, influence and profit-mongering.

There is nothing resembling scientific scrutiny in the aspartame debacle. Nearly every decision that has been made about aspartame by government regulators or private industry has been a political decision, not a public safety decision. There is nothing resembling public safety still operating at the Food and Drug Administration anymore.

Add aspartame to the FDA's Hall of Shame, right alongside Vioxx, Rezulin and the ordered destruction of recipe books that dared to mention the stevia herb as an ingredient. It's just one more way in which the FDA continues to betray the American people and subject them to life-threatening ingredients that any honest Food and Drug Administration would have banned long ago.