Specific Quotes from Regulatory Authorities

"We do not have any medical or scientific evidence that undermines our confidence in the safety of aspartame. This confidence is based on years of study, analysis of adverse reactions, and research in the scientific community, including studies supported by FDA."

Frank Young, commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, in testimony before the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, November 3, 1987

"The data and information supporting the safety of aspartame are extensive. It is likely that no food product has ever been so closely examined for safety. Moreover, the decisions of the agency to approve aspartame for its uses have been given the fullest airing that the legal process requires."

John M. Taylor, associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, Food and Drug Administration, in correspondence rejecting petitions seeking to ban aspartame as an "imminent hazard to public health" November 21, 1986

"Few compounds have withstood such detailed testing and repeated, close scrutiny, and the process through which aspartame has gone should provide the public with additional confidence of its safety."

Former FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes, commenting in his final decision to approve aspartame,
July 24, 1981

"Objections to aspartame's approval in carbonated beverages were fully dealt with in the earlier proceeding leading to the approval of aspartame for dry uses."

Food and Drug Administration in denying a request for a public hearing on aspartame, Federal Register,
February 22, 1984

"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."

General Accounting Office report to Senator Howard Metzenbaum, "Food Additive Process Followed for Aspartame,"
June 18, 1987

"FDA properly denied a hearing after finding that petitioners have raised no material issue regarding the safety of the wet use of aspartame."

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