Dr. Devra Davis

Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH, currently serves as professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Dr. Davis is the author of When Smoke Ran Like Water and The Secret History of the War on Cancer.  In her book, Dr. Davis is critical of the approval of aspartame and alleges a possible link between aspartame and cancer.  However, Davis fails to mention several factors regarding this alleged link:

• Dr. Davis is a fellow of the Ramazzini Institute.  The Ramazzini Institute has also suggested a possible link between aspartame and cancer.  However, Ramazzini studies have been refuted by numerous scientists and leading regulatory agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and as the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).  Davis should not be perceived as an “independent” scientist when it comes to her comments on aspartame due to her affiliation with Ramazzini.
  
  
• A comprehensive review of more than 500 studies involving a panel of eight leading experts in the areas of toxicology, epidemiology, metabolism, pathology, biostatistics etc., conclusively determined that aspartame is safe.  The review, “Aspartame: A Safety Evaluation Based on Current Use Levels, Regulations, and Toxicological and Epidemiological Studies,” was published in the September, 2007, issue of Critical Reviews in Toxicology, the premier journal in its field.  The expert panel concluded, “Controlled and thorough scientific studies confirm aspartame’s safety… .” 
  
  
• An epidemiology study from the National Cancer Institute confirms that there is no link between aspartame consumption and cancer.  Researchers evaluated over 500,000 men and women between the ages of 50 and 69 over a five-year period and found (compared with those who did not consume aspartame) that there was no evidence of an increased risk of leukemias, lymphomas and brain tumors among those who use aspartame. 
  

• At the request of Senator Howard Metzenbaum, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, examined the process of approving aspartame and concluded  “FDA adequately followed its food additive approval process in approving aspartame... Throughout aspartame's approval history, GAO found that FDA addressed safety issues raised internally and by outside scientists and concerned citizens.” 

• The FDA has affirmed the safety of aspartame twenty-six times, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, culminating in the agency's approval of aspartame as a general purpose sweetener in 1996.  Additionally, regulatory bodies around the world (including the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives of the Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization, Health Canada, the French Food Safety Agency, the Scientific Committee on Food of the European Food Safety Authority and others) have re-confirmed the safety of aspartame over and over again.  If some type of “conspiracy theory” were actually true (or if the FDA approval process was questionable) then it must be a worldwide conspiracy theory and the regulatory bodies and eminent scientists involved with a number of international committees and authorities must all be a part of this conspiracy theory – a theory that can hardly be true or taken at face value. 
  
  
• Aspartame brings nothing new to the diet.  It is composed of two amino acids, the building blocks of protein, and a small amount of methanol.  These components occur widely in the food we eat every day, such as eggs, meat, cheese, fish, fruit and their juices, and mother's milk.  When we consume aspartame, it is broken down in the digestive system to very small quantities of these common dietary components and handled by the body in the same manner as when these components are consumed from other sources.  Thus, there is no reason aspartame would cause such adverse effects.

For more information about the benefits and safety of aspartame, visit: www.aspartame.org and www.aspartametruth.net.