The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced April 20, 2009, "…on the basis of all the evidence currently available including the [second] published ERF study that there is no indication of any genotoxic or carcinogenic potential of aspartame and that there is no reason to revise the previously established ADI [allowable daily intake] for aspartame of 40 mg/kg bw/day [milligram per kilogram of body way per day]."

Though the second European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences (ERF, 2007) study had been extensively peer reviewed and confirmed the findings of the first study—which demonstrated that the burden of formaldehyde that accumulates in the tissues of rats fed dietary amounts of aspartame causes cancer in rats—the EFSA invented deficiencies in the study to conclude that aspartame is not carcinogenic.

The EFSA had already determined the ADI for aspartame prior to reviewing the first ERF aspartame study completed in 2005. Though that study solidly linked aspartame consumption in rats to the development of various forms of cancers, the EFSA concluded May 5, 2006, that, "…on the basis of all the evidence currently available, that there is no need to further review the safety of aspartame nor to revise the previously established ADI."
Dr. Morando Soffritti, who led both ERF studies, has noted that so much formaldehyde developed in aspartame-exposed rats that their skin turned yellow. He concluded that aspartame is "…a multipotential carcinogen causing leukemia and lymphatic cancers."

The EFSA is the European Union equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA approved the use of aspartame as a synthetic sweetener in 1981 even though it was shown that studies supplied to the FDA by GD Searle were falsified in an attempt to hide the fact that the sweet poison caused tumors in lab rats.

On May 14, 2009, the National Cancer Institute announced its support of a study confirming the link between formaldehyde exposure and cancer. According to Laura E. Beane Freeman, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute, in an extended analysis of workers exposed to formaldehyde during their careers, formaldehyde was associated with a 37 percent increased risk of death from lymphoma and leukemia.

"The overall patterns of risk seen in this extended follow-up of industrial workers…are consistent with a causal association between formaldehyde exposure and cancers of the blood and lymphatic system and warrant continued concern," NCI researchers reported online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

According to Kristina Fiore of MedPage Today, "Since the 1980s, the Institute has studied a cohort of 25,619 workers employed before Jan. 1, 1966 in 10 industrial plants that produced formaldehyde in molded-plastic products, photographic film, decorative laminates and plywood."

The formaldehyde cohort, originally assessed through Dec. 31, 1979, was then updated through Dec. 31, 1994.
Researchers have not yet identified the mechanism by which formaldehyde causes leukemia but, Dr. Beane Freeman noted, the pattern is consistent with "a possible causal association, with the largest risks occurring closer in time to relevant exposure."
She called for further study to "evaluate risks of these cancers in other formaldehyde-exposed populations and to assess possible biological mechanisms."

"The NCI study confirms the work of Dr. Soffritti," said Mission Possible Director Dr. Betty Martini. "Now all we have to do is get the NCI to realize that the ‘biological mechanisms’ that cause formaldehyde-induced cancers from workplace exposures are likely to be identical to the ‘biological mechanisms’ that cause aspartame-induced cancers. Fortunately, we can show NCI researchers how formaldehyde from aspartame causes lymphoma and leukemia in both lab rats and people," Dr. Martini added after citing several studies from the 1970s to present.

Ironically, the NCI and the National Institutes of Health, which also endorse the study, have both stated recently that, in their opinion, aspartame is a safe, government approved, non-nutritive, non-caloric artificial sweetener.

Note: Science has demonstrated the neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity of aspartame in countless studies since the 1970s (most of which are posted to the websites at www.dorway.com and www.mpwhi.com). What science has unerringly "demonstrated" for 30 years is confirmed by the case histories of people who have suffered chronic ailments and even died from the myriad potential complications of aspartame poisoning. Funny, isn’t it, that 30 years of epidemic, aspartame-induced suffering may come to an end if the NCI were to announce that workplace formaldehyde and dietary formaldehyde may have the same affect on the body with regard to the development of the same types of cancers?

Postscript: A slightly longer version of this release was sent all over the world May 18. Already the aspartame advocacy is in high gear to conduct damage control. It appears that the NCI was too quick on the draw and did not consider that its support of a landmark study linking formaldehyde to leukemia and lymphoma is also an open admission that aspartame can cause those cancers.