Dr. Joseph Mercola says on his website that research from Italy shows “once and for all” that aspartame is toxic. The New Scientist magazine, on the other hand, reports that after reviewing the research, the European Food Safety Authority and following it the Food and Drug Administration in the US gave aspartame a “clean bill of health.”
Who’s right? In my opinion, neither one.
Although Dr. Mercola is right to warn readers off aspartame, he crosses from science to religion or marketing when he claims this or any other study proves anything “once and for all.” In science, “once and for all” lasts just as long as it takes scientists to put together a body of research that reveals new facts or changes our explanations for the facts we observe.
The European Food Safety Authority and the FDA just didn’t understand the research.
The study, reported in the March issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, was conducted at the European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences referred to as the Ramazzini Foundation, an independent, non-profit research institution. Dr. Morando Soffritti, the director of the foundation, and his colleagues fed laboratory rats aspartame-laced food at concentrations from very low to very high. They discovered that at doses far below current standards the test animals developed malignant tumors including lymphomas and leukemias.
Upon examination, the European Food Safety Authority and with it the FDA dismissed these findings. An example of their reasoning was that the tumors were explained by the high levels of background lung inflammation. Dr. Soffritti responded by saying that this comes from a principle strength of his research methodology. The rats in Ramazzini studies live a full life. At their natural death, they are examined. In contrast, typical studies “sacrifice” the test animals after two years.
80% of cancers in people occur after the age of 55. Allowing test animals to live out their lives was not only more humane, it enabled the aspartame to run its full course. Rats, just like humans, are more prone to inflammation as they age. It is not a reason to reject the Ramazzini findings. In my view and that of many others, this is science of the highest quality. The European Food Safety Authority and the FDA just didn’t want to believe what they saw—very, very much they didn’t want to believe it. And Dr. Mercola did.
We all have things we want to believe and things we don’t want to believe with varying degrees of desperation. If you believe Antonio DiMassio, as I do, we couldn’t think straight if our ideas didn’t have some juice. The trick is to avoid being a captive of those desires and watch out for those who are captives of what they want to believe. It’s not good science.
The issues in this article are developed (with references) in issue #3 of the Progressive Health Observer in the article titled “Sweeteners: Not So Sweet.”
Related resources are available on the Food and Nutrition page.
