New Italian Study Confirms: Aspartame is a Carcinogen
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 research, such as the recent Soffritti studies invariably demonstrates the extremely hazardous nature of this product."When the Ramazzini 2005 study was released the government and aspartame manufacturers were responsible for a coverup. They found an old AARP survey sent to a million American seniors: 16 pages with 56 questions. It asked: How high did you go in school? Had a hysterectomy? Do you eat brownies? Oatmeal? Margarine? Question #25 asked "Over the last 12 months when you drank coffee or tea, what kind of sweetener did you regularly add?" There were 6 multi-choice selections, one of which was: Equal or aspartame...
The 10 year old 3-word item instantaneously converted the questionnaire into the biggest aspartame study in history! It showed no problems at all! (None were asked for!) Thru saturation news releases this propaganda spread planetwide in major magazines and other media.
Dr. Soffritti's work was presented to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). The EFSA risk assessment has been criticized from the beginning because of conflicts of interest among the panel members, particularly the chair Susan Barlow, who is an industry consultant. They rejected Dr. Soffritti's study with the lame excuse that cancers were caused by lung infections. Eminent Researchers and scientists know that respiratory infection is a factor in the dying process and never took their excuse as noteworthy.
Ramazzini's control rats had a much lower incidence of cancers than the aspartame-fed rats. Critics of EFSA's risk assessment said that if the cancers were caused by inflammatory lung disease than the control group would have had as many cancers as the rats fed aspartame.
EFSA didn't apologize so they were reported to the Universal Court of Justice. Then EFSA's Dr. Koeter admitted that industry pressured them to hijack science.
Dr. H. J. Roberts, M.D., FACP, FCCP, author of several texts on aspartame disease commented:
"The elegant studies by Dr. Morando Soffritti and his colleagues, coupled with other recent related publications, reinforce my longstanding opinion that aspartame products represent carcinogens -- or co-carcinogens -- for several major tumors in humans, especially involving the brain."The details appear in my text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, and in my article, Does Aspartame Cause Human Brain Cancer? The latter indicated that aspartame or its metabolites 'might activate one or more oncogenes that potentate or initiate cell mitosis, either by direct or indirect effects.'
"The failure of the FDA to acknowledge and act on the ongoing revelations over the last two decades about the hazards of aspartame products in a number of realms, especially when taken by children and pregnant women, remains a source of professional embarrassment. This chemical constitutes an imminent public health hazard. I congratulate Dr. Soffritti for independently underscoring this warning."
Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock remarked on Dr. Soffritti's first study:
"The study released in the European Journal of oncology by Morando Soffritti and co-workers should terrify mothers and all those consuming aspartame sweetened products. This was a carefully done study, which clearly demonstrated a statistically significant increase in several types of lymphomas and leukemias in rats. Both of these malignancies have increased significantly in this country since the widespread use of aspartame."The type of damage was a duplicate of that associated with cancers. Along with this most recent study, this means that drinking a single diet cola sweetened with developing a lymphoma or leukemia.
"They also found an increased incidence of malignant brain tumors, even though it was not statistically significant. This does not mean there is no association to brain tumors, since only the animals exposed to aspartame developed the tumors. With children and pregnant women drinking the largest amount of diet colas, this puts their children at the greatest risk of developing one of these horrible diseases. Their study found that even low doses of aspartame could cause these malignancies; yet, the higher the dose, the more cancers that were seen.
"Since aspartame can increase obesity and may even cause the metabolic syndrome that affects 48 million Americans, there is no reason to ever consume this product. At the least it should be immediately banned from all schools."
Dr. Blaylock is author of Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills about aspartame. In order to save the children this Report For Schools is repeatedly sent to schools and board of educations.
Will FDA finally admit aspartame approval was illegal, violating Delaney and also adulteration statutes? Aspartame is sold as an additive, but it's a deadly excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that interacts with all drugs and vaccines. Aspartame brain tumor cases from New York and New Jersey are being taken at this time.
Just when you think the FDA can't sink lower, they do. They issued a report the day before the release of the new study, denying its research, without any excuse. This was about the 2005 study but releasing this negative statement the day before the new one stands to confuse the public, as they intended.
After a study sponsored by Food Standards in the UK showed additives cause behavioral problems in children, large food chains there began the removal of aspartame from their products. But not the FDA in the US who have known this for a quarter of a century.
See this short video clip from Atavistik Pictures on a lecture by Dr Russell Blaylock about the influence nutrition has on behaviour. Dr. Louis Elsas, pediatric professor, genetics, testified to Congress in 1985 that it's a teratogen and can trigger birth defects and mental retardation.
It's time for Congress to look into the matter that the FDA has allowed aspartame to remain on the market for a quarter of a century even though they know it causes cancer and a host of neurodegenerative diseases. The stream of whoppers continues just like the millions of deaths from aspartame.
Today neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D said:
"My review of the first Ramazzini Study concluded that the study was one of the best designed, comprehensive and conclusive studies done to date on the multipotent carcinogenic potential of aspartame. This second study is even more conclusive, in that it shows a dose-dependent statistically significant increase in lymphomas/leukemia in both male and female rats exposed to aspartame. These two cancers are the fastest growing cancers in people under age 30."Also, of major concern is their finding of statistically significant increases in breast cancer in animals exposed to aspartame. With newer studies clearly indicating that toxic exposures during fetal development can dramatically increase the cancer risk of the offspring, this study takes on a very important meaning to all pregnant women consuming aspartame products. Likewise, small children are at considerable risk of the later development of these highly fatal cancers.
"It should be appreciated that the doses used in these study fall within the range of doses seen in everyday users of aspartame. This study, along with the first study, should convince any reasonable scientific mind, as well as the public at large, that this product should be removed from the market."
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770 242-2599
www.wnho.net, www.mpwhi.com/main.htm and www.mpwhi.com
Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
See also:
FDA Should Reconsider Aspartame Cancer Risk, Say Experts
"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."
FDA rebuffs call for aspartame probe
"This review is particularly urgent with regard to aspartame-containing beverages, heavily consumed by children." FDA spokesman Michael Herndon said the agency had not yet reviewed the study. "However, the conclusions from this second European Ramazzini Foundation are not consistent with those from the large number of studies on aspartame that have been evaluated by FDA...
EFSA Opinion Reaffirms Aspartame Safety Stance
The Panel concluded that:• The majority of the lymphomas and leukemias observed appeared to have developed in rats suffering from inflammatory changes in the lungs, which is characteristic for chronic respiratory disease. In accordance with the previous view of the AFC Panel, these changes were not considered to be related to the treatment with aspartame.
• The increase in incidence of mammary carcinoma is not considered indicative of a carcinogenic potential of aspartame since the incidence of mammary tumours in female rats is rather high and varies considerably between carcinogenicity studies. The Panel also noted that an increased incidence of mammary carcinomas was not reported in the previous ERF study with aspartame which used much higher doses of the compound.
Overall, the Panel concluded, on the basis of all the evidence currently available including the last published ERF study that there is no indication of any genotoxic or carcinogenic potential of aspartame...
Certainly there are indications that aspartame might be dangerous to health, whether the added tumors are caused by aspartame directly or by some secondary mechanism.Just for the sake of argument - what would be wrong with recommending that human studies on aspartame be performed ... to compare the health of aspartame consumers with that of people who don't touch the stuff.
I predict that such a study would lead to some interesting new insights.
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Tuesday June 19 2007
updated on Thursday December 16 2010URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/06/19/new_italian_study_confirms_aspartame_is_a_carcinogen.htm
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December 18, 2005 - Sepp Hasslberger
