Why does the United States continue to ignore the research proving that aspartame is a carcinogen, and that sucralose causes renal issues, infertility, and breathing difficulty in lab studies?
Is profit over human health really that important? Do the Big Corps seriously own our lawmakers and the media, telling them what to do?
Apparently so.
The dangers of aspartame were first proven in the 1970s, but aspartame is still around today. Big Corps keep fighting to protect their profits by keeping the damning research hidden from the public – away from you and your children.
The System Is Rigged
One thing that is clear today, the Europeans have the United States beat hands-down when it comes to respectable research on the chemical sweetener additives.
Their research findings receive more public awareness, too.
Many scientists at prestigious American universities will tell you that they cannot get grants for continued research on aspartame or sucralose in Splenda® because their department heads, deans, and provosts have been told to drop all discussions on the topic.
Some will admit that aspartame research isn’t worth the effort because they cannot get their research published in American scientific journals. Other academics claim that the research centers constructed by the large corporations, such as Duke University’s Searle Research Center, were designed with managed research as a construction proviso.
Across The Pond
So, we’ve crossed the pond for some of the most progressive and highly respected academic research on aspartame currently performed. Dr. Morando Soffritti of the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center, European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, has performed such esteemed work.
His research, nonetheless, is not surprising news to the independent research scientists in the United States who proved the dangers of aspartame over 40 years ago. Yes, you read that right – over 40 years ago!
Dr. John Olney, Washington School of Medicine, Dr. Richard Wurtman, MIT, Dr. Diana Dow-Edwards, SUNY New York, and Dr. Woodrow Monte, Arizona State University are but a few of the renown American, aspartame researchers.
Their laboratory studies beginning in the early 1970s resulted in findings such as holes (lesions) in the brains of lab rats fed aspartame, deformed fetuses and lab pups born with lower IQs from aspartame consumed in utero, nerve damage, seizures, and death as a result of aspartame administered during research studies.
This research has been kept from the public eye, receiving little attention to this day. Meanwhile, corporate research and their advertisers have financially pressed on, harder and louder. It’s the politics of greed at its finest.
The Damning Soffritti Study
The Soffritti Study is the most recent experimental demonstration of the multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered in feed to Sprague-Dawley rats. The primary scientists who performed this study were Drs. Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Davide Degli Esposti, Luca Lambertini, Eva Tibaldi, and Anna Rigano1.
Big Corps tried every trick in the book to discredit these studies, so the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) provided a second opinion on the research results, and helped in the final statistical analysis. Each of the original authors of the study defended they did not have any competing financial interests in relation to the submitted article, “as has been expressed in many other aspartame studies”, especially concerning corporate research
The results of this mega-experiment indicated aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic agent, even at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg b.w. (milligrams per kilograms per body weight), much less than the current ADI (Average Daily Intake) for humans in Europe (40 mg/kg b.w.) and in the United States (50 mg/kg b.w.). On the basis of these research results, the Italian research team has recommended a re-evaluation of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of aspartame as “urgent and cannot be delayed.”
Aspartame was administered with feed to 8 week-old Sprague-Dawley rats (100-150/sex/group – number/gender/groups) at concentrations of 100,000; 50,000; 10,000; 2,000; 400; 80 and 0 ppm (parts per million). The treatment lasted until natural death, at which time all deceased animals underwent complete necropsy (autopsy). Histopathological evaluations (the study of body tissues relating to disease) of all pathological lesions and of all organs and tissues collected from the laboratory specimens were routinely performed on each animal of all experimental groups.
The Results
The results of the study show aspartame causes:
1) An increased incidence of malignant tumor-bearing animals with a positive significant trend in males and females, in particular those females treated at 50,000 ppm;
2) An increase in lymphomas and leukemias with a positive significant trend in both males and females, in particular in females treated at doses of 100,000, 50,000, 10,000, 2,000, 400 ppm;
3) A statistically significant increased incidence with a positive significant trend of transitional cell carcinomas of the renal pelvis and ureter (urethra through the bladder), and their precursors (dysplasias) in females treated at 100,000, 50,000, 10,000, 2,000 and 400 ppm;
4) An increased incidence of malignant schwannomas of peripheral nerves with a positive trend in males.
From Birth To Death
In these particular studies, the number of animals per sex per group was much greater, allowing a more thorough and reliable statistical analysis.
Secondly and also unique to the Italian experiment, the lab rodents were not killed at the typical 110 weeks of age, but rather were observed until their natural deaths to allow the aspartame to fully express its carcinogenic potential.
“Had we stopped the experiments at 110 weeks of age,” writes Dr. Soffritti, “we would most likely never have demonstrated the carcinogenicity of important industrial compounds.”
The Italian study has scientifically shown aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic compound whose carcinogenic effects are evident at a daily dose of 20 mg/kg b.w., much less than the current ADI for humans in Europe and in the United States.
The study also demonstrates that the results of carcinogenicity bioassays in rodents are consistent predictors of human cancer risks2. The results of the study call for an urgent re-examination of the present guidelines on the use and consumption of aspartame.
“The decision to use experimental data to protect public health is important,” stated the researchers, “as the time span of widespread aspartame use is still too brief to have produced solid epidemiologic data.”
“Moreover,” they added, “it is unlikely that sufficient epidemiological data will be available in the near future, given the difficulty of finding a control group that has not been exposed to this widely diffused compound.”
Now you tell me WHY these Italian studies aren’t plastered all over mainstream news for the benefit of you and your child’s health and safety ……
1 M Soffritti, F Belpoggi, DD Esposti, L Lambertini, E Tibaldi, and A Rigano. DOI,10.1289/ehp.8711. Online 17 November 2005.
2 Huff. 1999; Tomatis et al. 1989; Rall 1995.
