The final results of a study conducted by the Italian Ramazzini Foundation, which claimed to have identified a link between aspartame - a widely used artificial sweetener - and cancer, have been accepted for publication by the peer-reviewed scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Environmental Health Perspectives is published by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Studies (NIEHS), which is available free online and by subscription in printed format. The mission of the NIEHS is ‘to reduce the burden of human illness and dysfunction from environmental causes by understanding each of these elements and how they interrelate'.
One of the criticisms made in the past of this study had been the Foundation’s failure to deliver the final results of its investigations for close analysis by independent experts.
The article on ‘First demonstration of the multipotential carcinogenic effects of aspartame administered in the feed to Sprague-Dawley rats’ covers a study which is claimed to demonstrate that aspartame administered at varying levels in feed causes a “statistically significant” increase of lymphomas-leukemias and malignant tumours in the kidneys in female rates and malignant tumours of peripheral nerves in male rats.
While the European Food Safety Authority has yet to receive the detailed data covering the results of this study to evaluate it and carry out a risk assessment, Ramazzini director of resource development Kathryn Knowles said this would be supplied “as agreed” by the end of this calendar year.
At the same time the information would be supplied to the US Food and Drug Administration and the Italian health authorities, said Knowles.