The Food and Drug Administration is rejecting calls for a review of the sweetener aspartame despite a new study suggesting links to cancer. The study found that rats eating high doses of aspartame over their lifetime developed a higher likelihood of leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer. Aspartame is widely used in products including diet soft drinks. It was approved in the early 1980s after intense lobbying efforts by Donald Rumsfeld when he worked as CEO for the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle. Rumsfeld is said to have engineered the firing of the FDA commissioner who had held up aspartame’s release following studies showing possible links to brain cancer.
FDA Rejects Aspartame Review Despite Study Showing Possible Cancer Link
HeadlineJun 27, 2007