New aspartame review in Europe criticised

  • May 30, 2011
  • source: just-food

energy-drink.gifThe European Food Safety Authority has criticised a request by the European Commission for a re-evaluation of the safety of the sweetener aspartame.The Commission’s request comes despite the fact that EFSA reviewed the latest studies on aspartame last month and scheduling a full evaluation in 2020.

“When we evaluated scientific studies on aspartame recently, we didn’t see anything glaring that would lead us to believe people should change their daily intake,” said an EFSA spokesperson.

The latest EFSA-reviewed studies assessed links between aspartame, cancer and pre-term births and its results did not flag up problems justifying a review of the sweetener’s safety, the spokesperson said. “The re-evaluation is not originating from a scientific point of view, in light of this,” she added.

The European Commission admitted to just-food that political considerations were a motivation.

A spokesman said the Commission’s request followed “concerns raised by some representatives of the European Parliament as well as the European Consumers Organisation BEUC”.

Last month, the European Parliament called for mandatory warning labels for pregnant women on all products containing aspartame.

Nevertheless, EFSA will comply with the request. “Safety can’t be defined in one way,” the EFSA spokesperson said. “There are many different aspects, so we will carry this review out.”
just-food is the world’s leading portal for the global pre-packaged food and retail industries. Its daily mix of breaking news, views, analysis and research serves over 100,000 food executives each month. http://www.just-food.com/


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3 Responses to “New aspartame review in Europe criticised”

  1. Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum on May 31st, 2011 2:23 am

    No matter how serious the studies are on aspartame, EFSA will only say “it’s safe” . How do you look at 100 per cent of indeipendent studies showing aspartame not to be safe, and declare it safe? Its called politics. Dr. Koeter of EFSA resigned after a press release where he said, “We were pressured by industry to hijack science.” Evidently, the rest of EFSA was willing to back industry. The free methyl alcohol is 44 times too high in the UK and 50 times too high in the US. The Trocho Study showed the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol embalms living tissue and damages DNA.

    The only reason aspartame got marketed was because of the political chicanery of Don Rumsfeld. Email me at bettym19@mindspring.com for the aspartame resource guide which will give you the history.

    Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
    Mission Possible International

  2. Jim McDonald on May 31st, 2011 9:09 pm

    EFSA has no right to criticise the EC call for a new review. For their own reasons they are covering up new evidence presented to them in 2009 which suggests, due to the methanol in aspartame, their ADI is 35 Times higher than is safe? Also more new evidence presented in March 2011 which suggests the NOAEL used to set the ADI is seriously wrong – If a man consumed the methanol in the NOAEL used (400mg/kg) he would probably die – the Lethal acute dose of methanol in man is 343mg/kg.The full review requested by the EC will be pointless if the NOAEL and ADI are not absoutely correct in the first place.

    We are calling for an independent review and reassessment of the NOAEL and ADI of aspartame including its 10% methanol content.

    Jim McDonald
    UK Aspartame Awareness Campaig
    (UKAAC)

  3. mohamed gamal on June 2nd, 2011 6:17 pm

    http://aspartamekill.blogspot.com/ of course aspartame kill one