Aspartame War declared three organizations in 11 European countries

The non-governmental Foodwatch organisation, the Union against Cancer and the French application for Yuka diet have now launched a joint campaign to ban , the sweetener at issue as potentially dangerous for . The aim of the text released in eleven European countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Switzerland) is to put pressure on the European institutions to ban this additional and to ask the Member States of the European Union to act preventively. CORVERSE Present, according to Foodwatch, in more than 6,000 products and especially those called ‘light’, such as certain sugar-free soft drinks, yoghurt 0%, gum, aspartame causes discussions about the risks it may pose to health. In 2023, the World Health Organization described aspartame as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. According to Philippe Bergerot, president of the Cancer Association, there is no “no reason why people should be allowed to be exposed to a completely avoidable risk of cancer” and “we are asking political leaders to assume their responsibilities and ban it”. ADVERSE Investigations have also highlighted risks associated with diabetes or premature delivery in relation to aspartame consumption. The substance is identified on the product labels as E951 and re-evaluated in 2013 by the European Food Safety Agency, which is responsible for evaluating products on the European food market, without being incriminated. But Foodwatch, the Association against Cancer and Yuka are concerned about ‘conflicts of interest’, as explained in their joint communication. According to a Foodwatch report on aspartame published today, ‘about three quarters of the studies on aspartame considered reliable by EFSA were funded by the agri-food industry or carried out under its influence, which calls into question the reliability of the risk assessment and consequently the approval of aspartame by EFSA’. At the end of 2019, these three consumer and health protection organisations had carried out a campaign against nitrates in foodstuffs for their role in the emergence of certain forms of digestive cancer. The result of this campaign was some of the food industries to modify how to manufacture their products.