FDA Says Unmoved by Aspartame/ Cancer Report
(Reuters Health, 6/26/07)

In light of a new study by Morando Soffritti and team of the Ramazzini Foundation in Bologna, Italy, which showed that aspartame may cause various forms of cancer in rats, Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest called for an FDA review of the artificial sweetener’s safety. Jacobson believes that the current results indicate the cancer risk more accurately because the scientists allowed the rats to live until they died naturally, instead of killing them at two years as done in other experiments. On the other hand, Herndon of the FDA countered that, since the new findings “are not consistent” with a large number of FDA-reviewed aspartame studies, they do not warrant followup.

(Environmental Health Perspectives,
 published by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences)