New Italian Study Confirms: Aspartame is a Carcinogen

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Health

A new study of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation has not only confirmed but further reinforced the results of an earlier study by the same research institute that found the artificial sweetener Aspartame to cause cancers and leukemia in rats. The earlier study was condescendingly dismissed by industry and by the European Food Safety Agency as well as US FDA, but evidence of the damage done by the sweetener does not seem to be going away. If anything, the scientific findings overwhelmingly suggest that there are real problems that can no longer be brushed under the carpet.

The new Italian study finds that Aspartame, in doses similar to those found in a modern diet, when given over the whole life span of rats, causes an increased incidence of cancers.

Dr Morando Soffritti, left, receiving award

Earlier this year, the Italian researcher responsible for the studies, Dr. Morando Soffritti, received the Selikoff Award for his groundbreaking cancer research. Soffritti introduced the results of this second aspartame study when receiving the award, but the FDA, with a well-timed press release about the two-year-old FIRST study, distracted the attention of the press from the current news. A clever strategy, to be sure - it kept the press from picking up on the new findings.

The now imminent publication of the new study in the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences's Environmental Health Perspectives, which on its website also provides a copy of the whole study in PDF format, might shake the complacency of our health watchdogs. After all, their priority should be the protection of consumer health, rather than industry's sales. But somehow I think we would be wrong to hold our breaths for that to happen.

The abstract of the new study can be found on this page of the Ramazzini Foundation's website. An interesting response from the study author on dosages tested and their conversion into human terms can be found on this blog.

Long time Aspartame campaigner Betty Martini has documented the FDA's reversals over - and the agency's final approval of - the sweetener through what appears to have been overwhelming political pressure. Betty comments here on this new study which confirms her fears over the sweetener's safety.

Meanwhile, it appears, some rats are abandoning the sinking ship. Supermarkets in the UK have eliminated aspartame and other additives from their soft drinks, and Coca Cola Company, together with Cargill, is doing research needed for the approval of a natural alternative to aspartame: stevia, a sweet herb from the Amazon.

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New Study Proves Low Doses of Aspartame Cause Cancer

Environmental Health Perspectives, the Journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences ranks first among more than 200 environmental science and occupational health journals and is read in 190 countries.

At New York's Mt Sinai School of Medicine DR. MORANDO SOFFRITTI was honored in April with the Irving J Selikoff Award for Outstanding contributions to the identification of environmental and industrial carcinogens, and his promotion of independent scientific research.

The prestigious Selikoff Award is only granted for groundbreaking cancer research. It was created 1993 by the Collegium Ramazzini, an academy of 180 internationally renowned experts in occupational and environmental health from over 30 nations. It has been awarded just twice before being presented to Dr. Soffritti.

His research was conducted for 36 months using 1,800 rats. It forced the conclusion that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogen. Cancers aspartame produced included leukemia, lymphoma, kidney, and cranial peripheral nerves among others. Only the rats fed aspartame got malignant brain tumors. This prodigious work was peer reviewed by 7 world experts.

This work confirmed studies presented to the FDA 25 years ago that documented a catalogue of brain, uterine, ovarian, testicular, mammary, pancreatic and thyroid tumors. Based on the evidence FDA denied approval of aspartame for 16 years from the time it was discovered. Then Don Rumsfeld, who was the CEO of NutraSweet's parent, the G. D. Searle Co., went to Washington to be newly elected Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense. The existing FDA Commissioner was asked to resign and aspartame was approved by Arthur Hull Hayes appointed by President Reagan. He did this over the objections of the FDA's scientific Board of Inquiry who had revoked the petition. President Reagan had written an executive order making FDA powerless to do anything about aspartame until Hayes could get to FDA. Now the floundering Searle became profitable. The compromised FDA had full knowledge of aspartame's toxicity and the approval of this deadly carcinogen sentenced millions to disability and death.

An Atlanta Journal Constitution article dated 9/25/85 was titled "Reagan Says He Quit Using Sweeteners". It was in 1985 there were two congressional hearings over the outrage of the public being poisoned. In this article it states: "President Reagan says he quit using artificial sweeteners because "we don't know what is in them...". Unfortunately it was too late for the public as the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of NutraSweet, even though it was known that the FDA had asked for the indictment for Searle, and revoked the petition for approval.

Soffritti's new study "Lifespan Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning During Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats" focused on damage from low-dosage aspartame consumption over the long term and clearly demonstrated a great danger to unborn babies and children. Newly identified is risk of breast cancer as the aspartame using child matures.

Exposures were at low doses. A 20 kg (45 pounds) child drinking 2 cans of diet soda a day brings into his body 400 mg. of aspartame. Food & Drink Weekly reports that soda is the most commonly consumed beverage among children and soft drink consumption is up 500% over the last 50 years. American consumption has skyrocketed to over 600 12-ounce servings per person per year, and climbing. Coke's goal is to jump sales 25% annually.

The aim of Soffritti's new study was to identify the cancer risk aspartame presents, starting with the mother's ingestion before the fetus is born. The study was conducted on groups of 70-95 male and female Sprague Dawley rats, administered aspartame with feed at concentrations of 2000, 400, or 0 ppm from the 12th day of fetal life until natural death.

The results of this carcinogenicity bioassay confirm and reinforce the earlier study's demonstration of aspartame's multipotential carcinogenicity. Further, the study demonstrates that when lifespan exposure to aspartame begins during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects magnify.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, Chairman of Community and Environmental Medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, says Dr. Soffritti's study on rats strongly implies human risk. He advises parents of young children to think very very carefully about giving drinks and other aspartame-contaminated foods to children. He advocates federal action be taken to review regulation of aspartame and that the chemical be submitted for precise critical investigation.

The abstract and link to the full text to be published on EHP online, is on the homepage of the European Ramazzini Foundation: www.ramazzini.it

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Aspartame carcinogenicity has been known for decades. In 1985 Dr Adrian Gross, FDA toxicologist, warned Congress that aspartame violates the Delaney Amendment
which prohibits our foods to contain any ingredient causing cancer in animals.

See two letters Dr. Gross addressed to Senator Howard Metzenbaum, and the memo that triggered a request for indictment of Searle for fraudulent submissions. Both US Prosecutors hired onto the defense team and the statute of limitations expired.

Atty. James Turner, author of the Chemical Feast and the Nader Report on Food Protection at FDA, explains: "Since 1974 FDA and the Searle Drug Company have known that aspartame causes brain tumors in animals. In 1980 the public has known the Public Board of Inquiry affirmed the Searle studies showed cancer in animals and ruled that it should not be used in the food supply. It is past time that the FDA invoked the Delaney Clause and remove NutraSweet from the market. In July of 2005 further studies (Ramazzini) underscored the cancer causing capability of NutraSweet/aspartame in animals."

See Mr. Turner in Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World explain how Rumsfeld's aspartame got approved after FDA said no. http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/rumsfeld2.html

Ralph G. Walton, M.D. of Safe Harbor Behavioral Health, Erie, PA, emphasizes:

"Dr. Soffritti's two outstanding studies on the multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame add significantly to the ever-growing body of evidence on the hazards of this artificial sweetener. The FDA's stubborn adherence to their original, and controversial, approval of aspartame is unconscionable. The public must be informed that the approvals, both in this country and Europe, are based on highly questionable industry-funded research, or, in the case of recently issued statements on aspartame's supposed safety, on a questionnaire which in no way represents legitimate research. Independent res