I’m not sure how this works–but somehow saccharine is no longer considered bad for us. Even though it used to be. Maybe there are so many more bad substances out there the problem of saccharine doesn’t even match up? Or maybe there was never a problem at all. Does this mean that stevia leaf stuff I use now in my coffee, which is considered good for me, will actually some day be considered bad? Should I switch back to Sweet & Low? This is from last month, but thought you should know because confusion loves company 😉
EPA: Saccharin no longer considered a hazardous substance
Saccharin is in a lot of products you might use everyday. It’s in items like sugar-free gum, diet soda and mouthwash. It’s even in some of your pills. But now there’s one less place where you can find the popular artificial sweetener. The Environmental Protection Agency is taking saccharin and its salts off its list of hazardous substances. According to the agency, the crystalline powder “is no longer considered a potential hazard to human health.”
Saccharin was first listed as a hazardous waste in 1980 after studies in rats showed the sweetener caused higher rates of bladder cancer. The EPA subsequently determined it to be a “potential human carcinogen”. Yet two decades later, the National Toxicology Program and International Agency for Research on Cancer reversed that classification after scientists failed to link saccharin consumption to cancer in humans.
Saccharin was removed from their listings of hazardous substances. The EPA has now followed suit, after a petition was filed earlier this year by the Calorie Control Council, an advocacy association that claims to represent the low-calorie food and beverage industry.
Aren’t they 30 years late? What will they discover next – that Raiders of the Lost Ark had a sequel?
Yes, indeed.
At least it only took a few years for the “inoculation/autism connection” to be debunked. And that, only because the motives of the quack who made that connection were revealed just recently.
In the meantime, many parents of young children paid more attention to movie stars who touted the “inoculation/autism connection” than to their own pediatricians!
The absence of critical thinking is not only harmful to the individual, but to an entire people as well.
This type of retrospect nonsense always reminds me of the 1973 Woody Allen movie “Sleeper.”
Drink your coffee the way I do: black and strong enough to keep you up 3 days after you die.
My maternal Grandma ate food fried in hog lard, fresh eggs, whole milk and lived to the ripe old age of 91. Nutritionists just need to get some healthier lab mice, or stop feeding them the equivalent of 2 tons of something.
The EPA? … not the FDA? … or the USDA?
what a strange back story …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Government_regulation
The food issue was apparently settled years ago, but it’s just now coming off the list of environmental hazards.
I guess up to now you could drink it in your ice tea, but not pour the unfinished portion down the drain? 🙂