WHO Aspartame Safety Panel Linked To Alleged Coca-Cola Front Group (theguardian.com) 71
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In May, the World Health Organization issued an alarming report that declared widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss, and long term consumption may increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults. A few months later, WHO declared aspartame, a key ingredient in Diet Coke, to be a "possible carcinogen," then quickly issued a third report that seemed to contradict its previous findings -- people could continue consuming the product at levels determined to be safe decades ago, before new science cited by WHO raised health concerns. That contradiction stems from beverage industry corruption of the review process by consultants tied to an alleged Coca-Cola front group, the public health advocacy group US Right-To-Know said in a recent report.
It uncovered eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi). Their involvement in developing intake guidelines represents "an obvious conflict of interest", said Gary Ruskin, US Right-To-Know's executive director. "Because of this conflict of interest, [the daily intake] conclusions about aspartame are not credible, and the public should not rely on them," he added. [...] Ilsi describes itself as a nonprofit that conducts "science for the public good", but it was founded in 1978 by a Coca-Cola executive who simultaneously worked for the company through 2021, US Right-To-Know found. Other Coca-Cola executives have worked with the group, and US Right-To-Know detailed tax returns that show millions in donations from Coca-Cola and other beverage industry players. Coke ended its official membership with the group in 2021.
Over the years, Ilsi representatives have sought to shape food policy worldwide, and Ruskin, who has written multiple peer-reviewed papers on the group, characterized the aspartame controversy as a "masterpiece in how Ilsi worms its way into these regulatory processes." US Right To Know identified six out of 13 Jefca panel members with ties to the industry group. After it released its report, the WHO acknowledged two more of its members with industry ties. In a statement to the Guardian, a WHO spokesperson defended the industry consultants' inclusion in the review process. "For the meeting on aspartame, Jefca selected the experts likely to make the best contributions to the debate," said spokesperson Fadela Chaib. She said WHO's guidelines only require disclosure of conflicts of interest within the last four years. "To our knowledge, the experts you listed by name have not participated in any Ilsi activities for at least 10 years," she said. But that partially contradicts a statement made by WHO just weeks before to the news outlet Le Parisien in which it acknowledged two people currently working with Ilsi were involved in the process. The Guardian had also asked about those two people identified in the Parisien story but were not listed "by name" in its email. The WHO told Le Parisien: "We regret that this interest was not declared by these two experts either in the written statement or orally at the opening of the meeting."
It uncovered eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi). Their involvement in developing intake guidelines represents "an obvious conflict of interest", said Gary Ruskin, US Right-To-Know's executive director. "Because of this conflict of interest, [the daily intake] conclusions about aspartame are not credible, and the public should not rely on them," he added. [...] Ilsi describes itself as a nonprofit that conducts "science for the public good", but it was founded in 1978 by a Coca-Cola executive who simultaneously worked for the company through 2021, US Right-To-Know found. Other Coca-Cola executives have worked with the group, and US Right-To-Know detailed tax returns that show millions in donations from Coca-Cola and other beverage industry players. Coke ended its official membership with the group in 2021.
Over the years, Ilsi representatives have sought to shape food policy worldwide, and Ruskin, who has written multiple peer-reviewed papers on the group, characterized the aspartame controversy as a "masterpiece in how Ilsi worms its way into these regulatory processes." US Right To Know identified six out of 13 Jefca panel members with ties to the industry group. After it released its report, the WHO acknowledged two more of its members with industry ties. In a statement to the Guardian, a WHO spokesperson defended the industry consultants' inclusion in the review process. "For the meeting on aspartame, Jefca selected the experts likely to make the best contributions to the debate," said spokesperson Fadela Chaib. She said WHO's guidelines only require disclosure of conflicts of interest within the last four years. "To our knowledge, the experts you listed by name have not participated in any Ilsi activities for at least 10 years," she said. But that partially contradicts a statement made by WHO just weeks before to the news outlet Le Parisien in which it acknowledged two people currently working with Ilsi were involved in the process. The Guardian had also asked about those two people identified in the Parisien story but were not listed "by name" in its email. The WHO told Le Parisien: "We regret that this interest was not declared by these two experts either in the written statement or orally at the opening of the meeting."
Santa Claus drinks Coca Cola (Score:4, Informative)
Why do you hate Santa?
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Did original Santa drink also Coke as in cocaine???
He clearly sold out to the cartels long ago - how else could he ever pay for all these presents?
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He's fat, he exploits the indigenous workers of the north pole and he has bestial relations with flying caribou.
Next question?
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So is aspartame safe again? I couldn't figure it out.
Re:One in the same? (Score:5, Informative)
That's a good thing. They clearly attributed the source of the info. They served their purpose for passing on short term reporting.
If China wants to lie then that's on them. The WHO is not in the business of security.
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A good thing that they just directly publish Chinese statements, without the ample context that it was false? It's called corruption.
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Parroting Chinese propaganda that was already pretty clearly false has always been the problem in that tweet. At that point in time, anyone who looked at the number of cases, how they clustered, or the reactions of the Chinese government could see lots of evidence of person-to-person transmission of the disease.
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It was NOT "already pretty clearly false".
"...anyone who looked at the number of cases..."
Bullshit, and this statement IS obviously false. Here is a clear example of how effective propaganda is.
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Wrong.
Two weeks later, a paper was already published summarizing the evidence: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
In order to reach between 1,000 and 9,700 infected cases by 18 January 2020, the early human-to-human transmission of 2019-nCoV was characterised by values of R0 around 2.2 (median value, with 90% high density interval: 1.4-3.8) (Figure 1).
The timeline also shows that by January 2nd, 12 days before that tweet, a number of cases were known without a connection to the Huanan wet market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (The day after that, they were monitoring the health of contacts of this people -- indicating that they knew of the potential for human-to-human transmission.) A week later -- 10 January -- Li Wenliang caught Covid
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There was no "ample" context and it was not corrupt. Some moron saying otherwise on /. doesn't make it so.
The choice was to say that or nothing at all.
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How embarrassing for you, can't even keep your demons straight...or the dates. Leave this dumb shit to Weinstein, you aren't qualified to spread these lies.
Re:One in the same? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's as if the WHO is a large, multi-national organization. It's as if large organizations with many parts, it is often quite hard for one part to keep up with another part, especially those parts that keep tabs on the ethics of other parts.
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Science errs. Yes. Really, it does. It will tell you the currently known situation and if the situation and information level changes, it will correct that and tell you the by-then known position. That's how this works. You gather information, you analyze it and then you publish the results that you have. With more information becoming available, you can refine your analysis and publish more accurate information.
If you're looking for someone to tell you the eternal, unchanging truth, you have to turn to rel
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"no clear evidence"
Generally, this is how viruses start, with no human to human transmission. Then they mutate to transmit. There is nothing concerning with that sentence. It takes time to gather data and analyze it.
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and what is that matter with that tweet? It was January, 2020 and they were reporting on what researchers were claiming. Just because later information proved otherwise is not a condemnation of earlier reporting. Nothing was known at that time.
That is, of course, unless you're a troll.
But science? (Score:3)
Shouldn't scientific results be the same, no matter who you work for..?
Re:But science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but summary reports sometimes aren't.
However, this seems like somebody looking really hard to stir up controversy. There was a report that suggested artificial sweeteners probably aren't really effective (in the real world) for many of the things people supposedly use them for. I'm not sure anybody found that particularly alarming. Then the WHO listed aspartame as possibly carcinogenic, based on limited evidence. Everyone jumped to explain that didn't mean it was going to give you cancer, it meant more study was recommended. Another committee, also tasked with studying aspartame released a report that said, barring new evidence, it was probably safe to continue consuming in currently recommended quantities.
But, you know, when you write it up just the right way, use lots of good adjectives, leave out that it was different WHO committees issuing compatible reports, "forget" to link to one of the reports, and quickly move on to talking about conspiracies, it sounds like a pretty good story.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2... [un.org].
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But, you know, when you write it up just the right way, use lots of good adjectives, leave out that it was different WHO committees issuing compatible reports, "forget" to link to one of the reports, and quickly move on to talking about conspiracies, it sounds like a pretty good story.
And that, sadly, is the state of too much reporting on scientific topics these days. Accuracy is ignored in favor of "how can we write this as scary or angry as possible to generate clickbait?"
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Fifteen years or so ago society was deciding whether or not we wanted to hold on to traditional journalism or whether ad-supported bloggers were fine. The decision was made.
At least the Guardian story cites their sources. It's all seems to be from this US Right-To-Know report. US Right-To-Know itself might be questionable: https://www.thedailybeast.com/... [thedailybeast.com]
You get what you pay for.
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Science has its limits. It can't do stuff, such as getting governments to act, or to inform a large number of people.
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The further away you go from physics, the more the employer -- or the client -- makes a difference. The interactions between elements become too complex to follow and the discipline becomes more fuzzy, even if you are completely honest. When you get to social sciences, more or less anything goes, as we have been seeing lately. We're doing ourselves a great disservice by lumping all these fields of study into "science."
And even in physics the system of values make a difference, as we know. Only mathematics i
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You've already skipped past the lie. You are accepting something as "scientific results" in the face of obvious contrary evidence.
There are many people who believe that "scientific results" are entirely predicated on "who you work for". These people are known as bad actors, and a core misunderstanding for so many people is a failure to understand that bad actors exist.
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If only science were so simple.
In real life, when there you have an area of science such as health, which depends on too many inputs to count. The job of untangling these inputs is difficult and prone to error. Most foods have both positive and negative health effects, and differs greatly based on quantity, lifestyle, and general health, among other factors. It's no surprise that the science of nutrition often contradicts itself, even among the most reputable scientists. Then when science is paid for by tho
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Thanks for helping carry the idea that science shouldn't be beholden those with an axe to grind and money to spend.
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so who (Score:2)
who or what is Jefca ?
Re:who or what is Jefca ? (Score:2)
They make Covfefe.
Makes no sense (Score:1)
Too much real sugar is really nasty to health. I find it difficult to believe artificial sweeteners are worse. Besides, if you have diabetes, then you pretty much shouldn't have any real-sugar drinks.
Maybe those who buy artificial sweetened products tend to be those who already have poor health, skewing the results.
Yes, I realize one shouldn't have ANY sodas, but darn it, we have sweet-tooths.
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Yep. If you drank the "dangerous level of aspartame" equivalent of sugared coke per day you'd be in real trouble.
Re: Makes no sense (Score:2)
An interesting anecdote: (Score:2)
A long time ago I heard it alleged that the reason the Aspartame-cancer link was so hard to prove was that it didn't become carcinogenic until left in direct sunlight for too long, which also meant this usually didn't occur to canned beverages.
Re: An interesting anecdote: (Score:4, Interesting)
this usually didn't occur to canned beverages
You mean that PFAS-lined trash I get to pick up on my walks? People drank from that? Eek.
Drinks were never meant to bring calories. Try getting those from fruit and vegetables, and drink water.
Oh, we've polluted our water reservoirs with PFAS, too? How would the water used for canned drinks be any better than what runs from your tap?
Also, funny how corporate America is, yet again, making the world a better place. /s
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"Drinks were never meant to bring calories. Try getting those from fruit and vegetables, and drink water."
Meant to? And who is doing this "meaning".
People "were never meant to" communicate using keyboards either.
"How would the water used for canned drinks be any better than what runs from your tap?"
Not clear who is saying that it is, perhaps you should ask your imaginary opponent. There could be many, many reasons depending on whose tap is "your tap".
"Also, funny how corporate America is, yet again, making
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Beer and wine have calories. Humans have been drinking that stuff for thousands of years (in one form or another).
Re: An interesting anecdote: (Score:1)
Re: An interesting anecdote: (Score:2)
I drink tap water all day every day. Sometimes turned into tea or even coffee. Tap water is great for me, here.
But the racks in the supermarket and the loads of packaged water(s!) and other drinks they seem to be selling seem to convey another message.
I was more alluding to the irony of people buying canned/bottled stuff cos they somehow must believe it's better for them. Marketing scams work.
Aspartame (Score:4, Interesting)
"widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss"
Dozen of studies have shown this, for DECADES. The very well known problem is that sweeteners cause a "sweet" signal in the brain, which signals the liver to produce large amounts of fat cells and slows digestion to absorb more nutrients.
Artificial sweeteners do not result in weight loss, though they are far healthier for diabetics (and everyone really) because they are not actual sugar and don't need a huge amount of insulin to be created in the pancreas in order to absorb. The kidneys do have to work just as hard to rid it from your system, though, so best to stick to water!
Re:Aspartame (Score:5, Informative)
It isn't that simple. It all depends how sweeteners are used. Studies have shown that people often order bigger meals and then take diet coke to "offset" the calories and that doesn't work. But if someone (like me) is drinking 1.5+ liters of sugar coke per day and switches to diet coke, you do lose weight. I only changed that in my diet/life and lost 20kg.
Re:Aspartame (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you could switch to water and not ingest massive amounts of substances that only entered the human diet in meaningful amounts incredibly recently. We've discovered our folly in doing this with refined sugar, replacing it with something else we weren't built for doesn't seem like a solid plan to me and this is reinforced by the negative findings we're starting to come across for fake sweeteners.
I guess most of us have our unhealthy habits though...
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"widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss"
It's way better for weight loss than drinking the equivalent in real-sugar.
Re: Aspartame (Score:2)
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Look, dammit, some people just really don't share your water fetish, mmmkay? It's not like we're tying you up and force-feeding you diet Pepsi while you scream in terrified agony as your soul dissolves into black nothingness.
It's like the time I had to spend a night in a hospital, and the next morning a nurse complained because I was drinking a contraband can of diet Mtn. Dew I knew enough to bring with me when I checked in. I politely acknowledged and noted her concerns, then informed her that she had two
Re: Aspartame (Score:1)
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"Dozen of studies have shown this, for DECADES. The very well known problem is that sweeteners cause a "sweet" signal in the brain, which signals the liver to produce large amounts of fat cells and slows digestion to absorb more nutrients."
LOL "very well known" by ignorant people who make shit up. There is no such "well known" signal, there is no speculation that what such a signal would do is "produce large amounts of fat cells" in the liver, and slowing digestion would not cause weight gain.
Produce evide
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"Long-term consumption of SSBs and ASBs increased the risks of T2D, CVDs, and all-cause mortality in the present study. These findings of SSBs were stable in sensitivity analyses assessing the influence of population characteristics, potential residual confounding, and publication bias. On the contrary, although ASBs have also shown the ability to increase the risks of T2D, CVDs, and all-cause mortality, the quality of the evidence is limited by potential bias and heterogene
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Bullshit.
On an average day, I drink at least 2 or 3 liters of diet soft drinks (usually Diet Mtn Dew for breakfast, Pepsi Zero Sugar, Diet Pepsi, or Diet Coke the rest of the day). A 2 liter bottle of regular Pepsi contains about 40 grams of sugar & 800 calories.
There is no way in any sane, rational universe that switching from diet to regular, increasing my daily consumption of sugar/HFCS by 60-80 grams, and probably increasing my daily calorie intake by at least 25%, could ever possibly be a good idea
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Why is sugar in everything? (Score:1)
Um (Score:2)
So Coke has an incentive to stop junk science from affecting their sales? Ok ...
Aspartame has been around for a long time, and been extensively studied. If it were dangerous in any normal usage scenario, we'd know by now.
There's no way that drinking a can of soda with aspartame is as dangerous to your health as drinking a can of soda with syrupy sugar. And that's the real world choice, not some imaginary hypothetical choice between the sugary soda and a can of kale juice or something.
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"And that's the real world choice, not some imaginary hypothetical choice between the sugary soda and a can of kale juice or something."
Right, and conspicuously absent in these alleged "studies" is the making of real world choices, yet they all make claims on the consequences of such choices.
Drinking a case of Diet Coke a day is probably not a good long term health choice, but it would be better than a case of sugared Coke a day and better than dying of dehydration. Then there's interactions with other asp
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I disagree. It took us this long to figure out refined sugar in large amounts is quite bad for us and we've been eating refined sugar for a couple centuries now meanwhile we are only very recently starting to have people who lived their whole lives consuming fake sweeteners and even then consumption of them really didn't start to ramp up until the 80's. This is then complicated even more by the fact that people who consume fake sweeteners often consume a variety of them which makes trends for individual one
So... (Score:4, Insightful)
It worked for Coke for quite a while, and there are no negative consequences for intentionally deceiving the public (on matters of health, even).
Nothing will change - the behaviour has been rewarded and thus reinforced.
While this is certainly not a good look (Score:2)
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I know a couple of people who come pretty close to that.
You're assuming animal data extrapolates linearly to humans. It probably doesn't, either in dose or in time. Also, something causing cancer is almost certainly not binary. If it increases the rate enough in a group of ten mice to be detected over a couple weeks, it might increase the rate more than you'd like in a couple billion people over seventy years of exposure.
Or it might not. Which is why the WHO classified aspartame as a *possible* carcinogen a
This just in... (Score:2)
Manufacturing of consent through press reports and marketing propaganda pinched out by "journalists" that X are "bad for you".
Eggs yesterday, aspartame today, and root beer tomorrow.
In the US, there's a sugar cartel operated by the US government [cato.org] that keeps prices artificially high (no pun^2 intended) over the market price while subsidizing cow corn to turn into HFCS. The US taxpayer gives corporate welfare to farmers to make people overweight while also putting its greasy, corrupt thumb on the scale (n
The same WHO that...? (Score:2)
Only Fair (Score:1)
Aspartame has to be the most thoroughly studied compound there is. If there was a big enough problem to be significant on an individual level then it would be unambiguous by now.
FDA disputes the link between aspartame & canc (Score:2)
The FDA came out with an even stronger statement saying that
The FDA disagrees with IARC’s conclusion that these studies support classifying aspartame as a possible carcinogen to humans.
https://www.fda.gov/food/food-... [fda.gov].
Le Parisien (Score:2)