Back to Saccharin Safety

img_family“As far as scientists were concerned, for instance, a 1981 epidemiologic study put to rest a suggestion that saccharine (sic) can cause bladder cancer–one of the few cases in which epidemiology had managed to put an end to a suspected association.”

  • From a July 14, 1995 article in Science, “Epidemiology Faces Its Limits.”

“Based on the evaluation of the NCI/NTP data base plus numerous other studies, it is clear that some chemicals that cause cancer in rodent models pose little or no hazard for humans, sodium saccharin being a classic example.”

  • Boorman, Maronpot and Eustis, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, in a 1994 paper published in Toxicologic Pathology.

“Based on mechanism and dose, the effect of saccharin appears to be confined to rats, and is not anticipated to be a factor in humans. This fits with the extensive epidemiological data which has thus far not shown any significant relationship between artificial sweetener ingestion and the development of bladder cancer.”

  • Dr. Samuel Cohen, University of Nebraska Medical Center, in a presentation of his research at the annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, April 5-9, 1992

“But to be harmed by saccharine, one would have to take enough to turn yourself into a giant saccharine crystal.”

  • Dr. Vincent DeVita, Jr., then director of the National Cancer Institute, from his presentation to an American Cancer Society science writers’ forum, March 1988

“The use of artificial sweeteners [saccharin and/or cyclamate] either in beverages or as tabletop sweeteners was not associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer.”

  • J. M. Piper, of FDA’s Center for Drugs and Biologics, and associates G. M. Matanoski and J. Tonascia, who investigated risk factors for bladder cancer in 173 matched pairs of women, aged 20 to 49, American Journal of Epidemiology, 1986

“No chemical additive for food has been tested in as many laboratories, for as long a period, in as many species of animals (including man) and in successive generations, and yet has been found to be as innocuous as saccharin.”

  • Bernard Oser, Ph.D., noted toxicologist and former president and director of the Food and Drug Research Laboratories from his study, “Highlights in the History of Saccharin Toxicology,” published in Food and Chemical Toxicology, April/May 1985

“Few chemicals have been studied epidemiologically to the same extent as artificial sweeteners have been. The remarkable approximation to unity of the summary relative risk from all studies is impressive, and one wonders how many common foodstuffs would be found on such testing to be as safe as that.”

  • Robert W. Morgan, M.D., Senior Physician Epidemiologist, Environmental Health Associates, in his review of epidemiologic studies of artificial sweeteners published in Food and Chemical Toxicology, April/May 1985

“Thus, saccharin produces profound biochemical and physiological changes in the rat at high doses which do not occur in humans under normal patterns of use. . . . The appearance of tumors in rats seems to be a species- and organ-specific phenomenon for which there is at present no explanation.”

  • Report of an international panel of scientists which met at Duke University Medical Center in May 1983 to review relevant research and assess the safety of saccharin

“…the present level of exposure of humans to saccharin, through its use as a food additive, presents an insignificant cancer risk.”

  • Report of an international panel of scientists which met at Duke University Medical Center in May 1983 to review relevant research and assess the safety of saccharin

“Saccharin is not a carcinogen. Period. Certainly not to man.”

  • Concluding remarks of Dr. Michael B. Shimkin, University of California School of Medicine at San Diego, at the International Study Center for Environmental Health Sciences’ symposium, “An Academic Review of the Safety Assessment of Artificial Sweeteners,” May 13, 1981

“The cancer risk of the carbohydrates that saccharin replaces are (sic) several hundred times greater than the (alleged) cancer risk for saccharin.”

  • Dr. Morris Cranmer, a noted toxicologist and former director of the National Center for Toxicological Research of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who was assigned the task by former FDA Commissioner Kennedy of evaluating the risks associated with saccharin use, in Saccharin, 1980

“The available laboratory data suggest that saccharin, in normal human use, is not carcinogenic. . . There is, at present, no epidemiologic evidence to suggest an increase in bladder cancer in the U.S.”

  • Benjamin L. Van Duuren, Institute of Environmental Medicine, New York University Medical Center, reported in the Journal of Environmental Pathology and Toxicology, 1980

“In the total study group, there was no evidence of increased risk with long-term use of AS (artificial sweeteners) in any form or with use that began decades ago.

  • Preliminary results of the largest-ever bladder cancer study (9,000 individuals), conducted in the United States by the National Cancer Institute, December 1979

“Ingestion of non-nutritive sweeteners, at least at the moderate dietary levels reported by our patient sample, is not associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer.”

  • Dr. Irving Kessler, John Hopkins University, U.S.A., who compared saccharin and cyclamate consumption among 519 bladder cancer patients with a similar number of individuals without the disease, 1978

“We judge that most readers will find the case against saccharin unimpressive.”

    • Editorial comment in The Lancet, a British medical journal, September 17, 1977

More references of scientific study on the artificial sweetener saccharin.