Hopkins Lab Notes

From here -> http://www.hoptechno.com/book2.htm

Americans have been consuming saccharin for more than 100 years. It is - like so many other food additives - made from petroleum-based materials. Discovered by a Johns Hopkins University scientist in 1879, it was used initially as an antiseptic and food preservative.


70s Saccharin testing....

Two of the studies that followed only increased public health concerns. One was done in 1972 by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the other in 1973 by FDA. In both tests, male and female rats were fed doses of saccharin from the time of weaning. The offspring of those rats were given saccharin for their entire lives. In both tests, the incidence of bladder tumors in the animals fed saccharin was considered significant. However, arguments were made that an impurity, not saccharin itself, was causing the tumors.

In February 1974, Canada's Health Protection Branch - FDA's counterpart there - began a major rat study to resolve the scientific uncertainties surrounding saccharin. The Canadian project, in which parent rats and their offspring were exposed to saccharin, focused on the effects of the suspect impurity in saccharin, orthotoluenesulfonamide (OTS). In early 1977, the study demonstrated that neither OTS nor other alleged culprits - bladder parasites and bladder stones - were causing the tumors. The substance responsible, the study showed, was saccharin.

*People revolted claiming that the amount of saccharin fed to the rats was equivalent to 800 cans of soda for a person.
*Took it out of contest, those rioting jerks.

Cyclamate

A cigarette placed almost unthinkingly on a pile of crystal powder led to the discovery of cyclamate by a University of Illinois scientist in 1937. When the scientist put the cigarette back in his mouth, he found that the powder, a derivative of cyclohexylsulfamic acid, had a sweet and pleasant taste. In the years that followed, the sweetener has endured both the sweet smell of success and the bitter taste of rejection.

That is...disgusting.

It was really popular until it was banned because of undeniable evidence of tumors in tests.

Abbott Laboratories, North Chicago, Ill., the sole U.S. producer of cyclamate, sought FDA's permission to re-market the artificial sweetener in November 1973, for use only in special dietary foods and for specific technological purposes. Abbott's petition included more than 400 toxicological reports, all completed after 1970, with assessments of cyclamate's carcinogenicity, mutagenicity (capability of producing genetic damage), and metabolism. In March 1976, the National Cancer Institute told FDA that Abbott's evidence did not establish or refute the cancer-causing potential of cyclamate. FDA concurred and informed the company that its evidence did not demonstrate "to a reasonable certainty" that cyclamate was safe for human consumption.

He tried again in the 80s to use it in combonation with other sweeteners but still got denied.

Aspartame

Following the 1983 approval for carbonated beverage use, some scientists and consumer groups charged that aspartame was a health hazard because it broke down and exposed consumers to excessive levels of methanol. At high enough levels, methanol is a poison and can cause blindness. It also is metabolized into formaldehyde, a "known carcinogen," the critics charged.

The critics maintained that decomposition of aspartame could occur - and expose consumers to possibly high levels of methanol and formaldehyde - if a beverage containing the sweetener was stored for long periods at high temperatures. FDA evaluated the charges and concluded "that the levels of methanol resulting from the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages did not pose any safety issues because they were well below levels of exposure expected to produce toxicity." It was also noted that other foods - including juices, fruits and vegetables - exposed consumers to higher amounts of methanol without adverse effects.

After evaluating the complaints, CDC reported in November of 1984 that, although some individuals may have an "unusual sensitivity" to aspartame products, the data obtained "do not provide evidence for the existence of serious, widespread, adverse health consequences attendant to the use of aspartame." Although a wide variety of symptoms were reported, CDC said most were mild and the kind that would be "common to the general populace."
Food Additive Regulations in the FDA;

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act provides, in the now-famous Delaney Clause, tht no new food additive can be used if animal feeding studies or other appropriate tests show that it caused cancer. The Delaney Clause, however, does not apply to additives that were generally recognized by experts as safe for their intended uses. Saccharin, cyclamate and a long list of other substances were being used in foods before passage of the Delaney Clause in 1958 and were considered "generally recognized as safe" -or what is known today as GRAS. (Aspartame, on the other hand, became the first artificial sweetener to fall under the 1958 amendment's requirement for pre-marketing proof of safety because the first petition to FDA for is approval was filed in 1973.)