Smoldering aspartame controversy reignites

Abstract

New claims that the sweetener aspartame—sold in the U.S. under the brand names NutraSweet and Equal—may cause brain cancer or other serious side effects are being vehemently denied by the Food & Drug Administration, NutraSweet Kelco Co., and many independent researchers. At a press conference last week in Washington, D.C., John W. Olney, a psychiatrist at Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis, said his examination of U.S. data shows that a 10% increase in brain cancer rates in the mid-1980s may be linked to introduction then of aspartame (L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester). However, an FDA spokesman counters that analysis of the National Cancer Institute's public database on cancer incidence . . . does not support an association between the use of aspartame and increased incidence of brain tumors. Olney—who was deeply involved in efforts in the late 1970s to get FDA to rescind its 1974 approval of aspartame as a food additive (C&EN, ...