Two powerful dairy organizations, The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to allow aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to be added to milk and other dairy products without a label.
The FDA currently allows the dairy industry to use “nutritive sweeteners” including sugar and high fructose corn syrup in many of their products. Nutritive sweeteners are defined as sweeteners with calories.
This petition officially seeks to amend the standard of identification for milk, cream, and 17 other dairy products like yogurt, sweetened condensed milk, sour cream, and others to provide for the use of any “safe and suitable sweetener” on the market.
They claim that aspartame and other artificial sweeteners would promote healthy eating and is good for school children.
According to the FDA notice issued this week:
IDFA and NMPF state that the proposed amendments would promote more healthful eating practices and reduce childhood obesity by providing for lower-calorie flavored milk products. They state that lower-calorie flavored milk would particularly benefit school children who, according to IDFA and NMPF, are more inclined to drink flavored milk than unflavored milk at school.
Although the FDA considers aspartame to be a “safe and suitable” sweetener, a recent Yale University study appears to directly challenge the claim that aspartame would reduce obesity. In fact, the study concluded just the opposite, that artificial sweeteners actually contributed to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
The IDFA and NMPF argue “that the proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity would promote honesty and fair dealing in the marketplace” yet they don’t want changes to the labels on dairy products.
Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can “more easily identify its overall nutritional value.”
It’s unclear how consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners without labels.
Quoting Section 130.10 of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, the dairy giants claim a new label is not required because sugar is added to milk without labeling it, and “the modified food is not inferior in performance” and “‘reduced calorie’ (labels) are not attractive to children” so marketing as such is of no benefit or detriment.
The FDA has opened public comments until May 21 for anyone interested to “submit comments, data, and information concerning the need for, and the appropriateness of, amending the standard of identity for milk and the additional dairy standards.”
Source http://usahitman.com/aimwlbdp/
ATS thread http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread929133/pg1
Proven Unsafe But FDA-Approved: Are YOU Still Consuming This Man-Made Poison?
August 03, 2011
Americans drink more soda than anyone else on the planet — well over 700 eight-ounce servings each year, on average, and an increasing amount of it is diet soda.
They might be more reluctant to do so if they knew about the safety questions still surrounding aspartame. A number of scientists responding expressed major concerns about aspartame’s safety at the time of its approval, and even more indicated areas where they believed more research is needed on aspartame to resolve their concerns — research on areas such as neurological functions, brain tumors, seizures, headaches, and adverse effects on children and pregnant women.
Grist reports:
“In a 1996 survey, Ralph G. Walton … looked at 166 peer-reviewed studies on aspartame undertaken between 1980 and 1985. He found that all 74 of the studies funded by the industry found no adverse effects from aspartame, while 84 of the 92 independently funded articles did find bad effects.”
Aspartame is the ingredient found in NutraSweet, It is also found in Equal, Spoonful, Equal Measure, AminoSweet, Benevia, NutraTaste, Canderel, and many popular “diet” sodas. This chemical is currently on the ingredient list of nearly 6,000 products worldwide. But since it was approved for use as a food additive in 1981, it has been dogged by complaints about its safety.
Was aspartame ever proven safe for human consumption before it gained FDA approval as a food additive?
Not according to Dr. John Olney, a researcher at Washington University in Saint Louis who first began studying aspartame in 1970. Dr. Olhney believes aspartame should not be on the market today “because it hasn’t been demonstrated to be safe.” Also in agreement with Dr. Olney are the FDA’s own investigations into the chemical from 1975 to 1980.
When the FDA was presented with Dr. Olney’s research, they assigned an outside public board of inquiry the task of deciding if aspartame should be allowed for human consumption. In 1980, the doctors on that board unanimously ruled that aspartame should not go on the market. An internal FDA panel concluded the same thing in 1980.
According to the FDA Chairman at that time, Dr. Gere Goyan, his next recommendation was to set up another FDA committee to study aspartame, composed people who played no previous part in the former studies of aspartame. Dr. Gere Goyan never saw the results of that 1980 FDA internal study, because he was forced to step down as FDA Chairman the day Ronald Reagan took office on January 21, 1981.
His replacement? Dr. Arthur Hill Hayes.
Dr. Hayes is notable for two reasons. First, he had no previous history of dealing with the science of food additives. Second, he was apparently hand picked to head the FDA by a prominent member of Ronald Reagan’s political transition team, Donald Rumsfeld. Yes, the same Donald Rumsfeld who led the United States into the multi trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as Secretary of Defense during the Bush presidency. But in 1981, Rumsfeld had a different title: CEO of the G.D Searle company, the company that owned the patent on aspartame.
One of Dr. Arthur Hill Hayes first acts as FDA Chairman was granting aspartame approval for use in dry goods. Incidentally, one of Hayes’ last acts in office as FDA Chairman was to approve aspartame for use in beverages.
So was aspartame approved because studies ever showed it was safe for human consumption? Or was it approved thanks to the political influence of Donald Rumsfeld?
According to former Sentator Howard Metzenbaum, who reviewed the FDA’s approval process of aspartame in the Senate in 1987, “I think there were a lot of politics involved in its being approved.” Research scientist Dr. Olney is even more blunt, “the issue (aspartame) is really not an issue of science, it’s an issue of politics.”
Source http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/08/03/just-how-bad-is-aspartame.aspx
DOJ memo states: “Buybacks are ineffective unless massive and coupled with a ban.”
BetweenTwoPines 