EU Food Watchdog Whitewashing Aspartame: Cancers 'Not Due To Sweetener'

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Rome, 5 May 2006 - The European Food Safety Authority today has performed its ritual to whitewash aspartame, an artificial sweetener made of two amino acids and methanol. In a well organized press conference in Rome, arranged by spin-doctors Hill & Knowlton, attended by an international group of health journalists and streamed live on the internet, the food watchdog explained its reasons for disregarding the study published last year by the prestigious Ramazzini Institute which found multiple cancers in rats fed the low-calorie sweetener.

NutraSweet - is it safe?

Dr Iona Pratt, the head of the working group that reviewed the study, acknowledged the serious nature of the Institute's work but explained that the tumors the Italian researchers found in the rats may well have been "due to other reasons" than aspartame intake.

Dr Pratt also made reference to other, previous studies, that had found no cancer risk, to sustain the panel's view. A special mention went to a recent "large study of over 500.000 people in the US" that found no aspartame-cancer link. Perhaps she should have added that this study was a diet assessment, not designed to evaluate the effects of aspartame, and in contrast to the "life time" study of the Ramazzini institute it assessed only one year's worth of diet with no specific questions relating to aspartame intake.

In what seems to amount to a leap of faith, the panel recommended not only to leave aspartame well alone because "it does not cause cancer", but also stated in its recommendations that there is no reason to look any further. This is somewhat akin to the US Department of Agriculture's refusal to allow testing for mad cow disease - bury your head in the sand and the danger will go away. After some time, Jane and Joe public will have forgotten...

The recommendation to not look further into aspartame safety drew some questions from the journalists present. In response, the huge amount of data from consumers, collected by the FDA, was cited as proof for the sweetener's safety. But when pressed as to why not look, Sue Barlow, the Chair of the the EFSA's Scientific Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings said it would be hard to collect data from consumers and expect an evaluation of those data not to be in some way biased. So it would seem that as long as consumers say that aspartame is great, that would be just fine, but when they start to complain, that shows bias.

It is doubtful that the EFSA's analysis of the Ramazzini study will do much to calm the minds of those who work to bring the sweetener's adverse effects to the attention of the authorities, neither will it make the side effects experienced by individuals less debilitating or, for that matter, less deadly.

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The official announcement of the results of EFSA's review of the Ramazzini study

EUROPEAN RAMAZZINI FOUNDATION STANDS BEHIND ASPARTAME STUDY RESULTS, ANNOUNCES ONGOING RESEARCH ON ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
Response to EFSA's AFC panel decision

Press and comment:

The first press report is from a food industry publication, visibly relieved that "food and beverage makers will not have to reformulate their products and find a substitute" for the sweetener.
Aspartame safe for consumption, food regulator concludes

BBC has a good, factual account of what happened.
Sweetener 'not linked to cancer'

Betty Martini comments

Concerned for the protection of our avian population, and with compassion for defenseless chickens, the International Fox Alliance set up a commission for the establishment of uniform Henhouse Management Practices. (UHMP: the sound of foxes gulping dinner)

Reports of poultry-house fires require immediate measures to protect helpless hens from deadly dangers. Henhouses aren‚t even equipped with fire alarms or extinguishers, and chickens are constrained by gates and fences, this creating a traumatizing concentration-camp environment. Should lightning strike they can be trapped. This breeds depression and fear, and chickens become chickenhearted, as is shown in a recent stud by UHMP's Hencology Research Institute.

The love of Foxes for chickens is historic. For generations Foxes have protected chickens from old age. This unique relationship qualifies Foxes as their natural guardians. Who has greater love for chickens than Foxes? Foxes celebrate chickens in prose and song, for instance:

Serving Chickens in Style (best seller)
I Cried and Cried for Kentucky Fried (country)
Take a Chicken for Lunch Today (foxtrot)
Would You Rather Be a Colonel With an Eagle on your Shoulder or a Private With a Chicken in Your Lap? (swing)

These steps must be taken immediately:

1. Remove of all doors, gates and fences from Poultry Containment Areas, (PCAs) Henhouses must not be concentration camps!

2. Eliminate Floodlights and Illuminatory Devices near PCAs. Chickens need their sleep!

3. Grant UHMP free access to monitor the safety of all PCAs.

4. All matters of chicken safety & security shall come under UHMP Director Bushmore
Redtail, an Honorary Rooster. Lacota Indians call him Dines With Chickens.

If the European Food Safety Authority can cook up a lie, UHMP can cook up a chicken! Pass the salt, Red!

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5/5/06 the European Food Safety Authority, whose officials have outside careers with financial ties to aspartame producers, gave the stuff a clean bill of health. They had to do something, anything, because the 3-year study by an Italian cancer research
institute under the direction of Dr. Soffritti condemned aspartame as a "multipotential carcinogen." The impact of that research was to turn millions from it. In the USA Merisant's sales dropped 22% and they have more debt than the outfit is worth. Holland Sweetener, Europe's largest asparshame producer just announced the biz is a loser and they're ditching it this year.

EFSA is an Alliance of Foxes with a stacked deck! EFSA Chairperson Susan Barlow is bought and paid for by ILSI, the International Life Sciences Institute, a coalition of chemical, drug & food outfits including Asparshame manufacturers like Ajinomoto and Merisant, plus Coke, Pepsi and the rest of the usual suspects. ILSI funds biased research as a "scientific" front for poison makers. UPI investigator Greg Gordon was told that ILSI rejected Dr. Wm. Partridge's grant proposals when he questioned aspartame effects on children.

Gordon said "These and other researchers describe a world of subtle, high-stakes strategy in which the availability of corporate funds and the design of research protocols may have influenced the course of a multibillion-dollar industry and affected the safety of millions of people." The World Health Organization barred ILSI research when warned by health and environmental groups and the Natural Resources Defense Council that WHO would risk scientific credibility and could be compromising public health by partnering with ILSI since 60 percent of their budget comes from "hundreds of chemical, food and drug companies" including DuPont, Merck, Monsanto & Pfizer.

ILSI director Suzanne Harris declared "We're not a back door for industry ... We're not trying to sell anything." True, ILSI doesn't sell, it buys, pays for counterfeit "research" to say a product is great, regardless! ILSI doesn't fund studies that detect problems. UPI's Gregory Gordon told about ILSI Executive Director Jack Filer who conducted numerous "studies" for NutraSweet and had conflict-of-interest judging the "safety" of MSG while being paid by firms that make it. Typical ILSI corruption!

Chairperson Barlow is a also consultant for Exponent International, a corporate regulatory advocacy company. A principal scientist at Exponent is Harriet Butchko formerly Director of Clinical Research at the NutraSweet Co. Karl Heinz Engel received grants from Ajinomoto, the world's main aspartame manufacturer and conducted research on genetically manipulated crops, perhaps funded by Monsanto since Engle is a consultant to Degussa Bioactives. Monsanto recently gave them an award for providing catalysts. He's a lapdog, loyal to his checkbook.

Also on the EFSA committee is Dr. Iona Pratt, who said: "The Ramazini Foundation's study showed an increase of cancers of the blood - lymphoma and leukemia - in the rats." But, she said, the working group concluded that these tumors were not related to aspartame. AFC said the rate of the tumors was not related to the dose of aspartame, which would have been expected if there was a link. The working group believes respiratory disease in many of the rats in Ramazzini's study was the likely cause of the tumors."

We needn't check Pratt's credentials! Anyone who would make such a stupid statement shouldn't work in the industry. Aspartame causes respiratory disease.
She should get the 1038 page medical text by Dr. H. J. Roberts, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, and learn about the diseases, symptoms and drug
interactions brought by this excitoneurotoxic carcinogen. The rats also died in the original studies, the reason the FDA revoked the petition for approval. In a test on 7 infant monkeys, 5 had grand mal seizures and one died, an 86% casualty rate. ILSI
and EFSA want you and your kids to be the monkeys now.

Mark Gold of the Aspartame Toxicity Center investigated the background of the first two speakers and knew they had no intention of giving an honest opinion. Mark commented on the 2005 announcement of EFSA's upcoming "study" which said: "The European Food Safety Agency will review the study linking aspartame ingestion to lymphomas and leukemias... as a matter of high priority, in the context of the previous extensive safety data available on aspartame." Note: the high priority was previous data, the Ramazzini study. Gold foretold "EFSA will find no problem with aspartame. That is a guarantee." Mark is a great prophet! EFSA's Alliance of Foxes whitewashed the hencoop!
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/scf2002-postscript.htm

Now the asparshame industry and front groups like the Calorie Control Council prate EFSA's report as exoneration. If you care for your life and health ignore their propaganda and take time to get the truth from those not profiting from this poison, like The Green Party in the European Parliament.

Their release said: "Where doubts exist, a potential toxin should be banned from the market, rather than being allowed the benefit of the doubt. Apart from the potential links between the aspartame and cancer, there is also evidence linking it to
neurotoxicological damage. The independence of the EFSA panelists is at best dubious - three of the panel members have admitted a direct link to industry."

"Relying on their opinion over that of critical independent scientists is clearly not in the interest of consumers. The credibility of scientific panels must not only depend on statistic interpretations or toxicological methods, but also on the independence of the experts and an open and transparent way to deal with po