(NaturalHealth365) Also sold under the brand names Equal and NutraSweet, aspartame is an artificial sweetener used in many sugar-free products today, such as reduced-calorie fruit juice, sugarless candy, diet sodas, gum, and sugar-free ice cream. For years, there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the artificial sweetener aspartame, and many have had big questions about the safety of this and other chemical additives.

Through the years, various health-related organizations and regulatory agencies have ruled to approve aspartame, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), World Health Organization, and the United Nations Agriculture Organization.  In 2013, a review was done by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluding that after looking at many aspartame studies, they found no reason the artificial sweetener should be removed from the market.

However, a new independent analysis of this risk assessment conducted by the EFSA is raising serious doubts over the safety of this neurotoxic additive.

New independent analysis reveals the safety of aspartame

Scientists from the UK’s University of Sussex published the recent independent analysis on the EFSA’s prior risk assessment of aspartame. The analysis points out that the result of every study that indicated this artificial sweetener could prove harmful – and there were 73 of them – were discounted entirely in the results of the risk assessment.

The EFSA categorized 84% of the studies as reliable and made claims that no evidence could be found of any harm from aspartame. With this obvious bias and the shortcomings found in other official risk assessments done on this chemical additive, University of Sussex scientists argue in their analysis that it’s premature to conclude aspartame is genuinely safe.

Scientists Dr. Elisabeth Dawson and Professor Erik Millstone conducted the forensic examination into the EFSA’s risk assessment, and they found many flaws. One flaw was that the EFSA actually breached its own guidelines surrounding risk assessment transparency.

The EFSA also included pro-aspartame studies that have previously been discredited as worthless or inadequate by other experts, yet it had extremely high hurdles for studies that suggested aspartame is not safe.

In fact, many of the 73 studies that were entirely ignored by the EFSA were more reliable than most studies claiming there was little or no risk.

Looks like commercial interest have affected the EFSA report

As often happens, Professor Millstone notes that based upon the research, it’s possible that it was commercial conflicts of interest that affected the EFSA report.  In 2013, when the EFSA conducted their risk assessment, Professor Millstone had provided a 30-document dossier that detailed how inadequate many of the early studies on the artificial sweetener had been.

However, the scientific advisors working with the EFSA never saw the dossier because the EFSA never passed it on. Based on this new research, Professor Millstone has called for the suspension of the authorization to both use and sell aspartame in Europe until there’s been a thorough and independent investigation into all relevant evidence.

Despite research showing that aspartame has carcinogenic effects that can result in many serious health issues, it continues to be used in food products around the world. Listen now to Jonathan Landsman’s podcast on aspartame poisoning to learn more about this dangerous food sweetener.

Sources for this article include:

BiomedCentral.com
Dr-Rath-Foundation.org
Healthline.com
Europa.eu