- Print Friendly - Help

Letter to the Editor, Ashburton Guardian (3 August 2007): Aspartame

NZFSA is always pleased to meet and talk with respected scientists and experts with recognised qualifications and experience. With anti-aspartame activist Betty Martini, this is not the case. In any event, we are not aware that any request for a meeting with NZFSA was made.
A request was made for her to meet with NZFSA’s Consumer Forum, an independent group of consumer representatives that discusses issues it feels are relevant and has concerns about. This group, and not NZFSA, declined to hear what she had to say.

Stephen Fox’s assertions about aspartame are quite wrong. Nothing he states is accepted by reputable scientists, by the world’s government food safety and public health agencies, nor by the World Health Organization.

We are puzzled how these campaigners can explain the decision by food safety regulators around the world, such as the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency and the European Food Safety Authority (all set up with one goal only - to protect their consumers) to continue to allow its use? A large amount of very good science shows that aspartame is a very safe substance. Studies that purport to show otherwise have thus far been overwhelmingly rejected as flawed by leading food safety authorities.

It concerns us when people create unfounded suspicions about aspartame – a safe alternative to sugar. This could lead to people eating more sugary products with the well-known and accepted potentially life-threatening effects associated with diabetes, obesity and similar.

Even so, anybody who wants to avoid foods containing aspartame can identify its presence from the label. Consumers can make informed choices because food manufacturers are required to list food additives and other ingredients, including sweeteners, on labels.

Sandra Daly

NZFSA Deputy Chief Executive