http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060212-072535-8547r

The above is a link to a UPI story about the Ramazzini Foundation's report on
the link between cancer and aspartame consumption. I have been reading on other
newsgroups that this story is being mentioned on TV and radio news reports. PR
firms will soon be going on the defensive about this, and issuing all sorts of
disclaimers and the like.

Bryant
=========================
Here is the text of the story:

Aspartame study results examined
BOLOGNA, Italy, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Several countries have been examining the study
of an Italian researcher who found aspartame was linked to lymphoma, leukemia
and cancer in rats.

Dr. Morando Soffritti -- scientific director of the European Ramazzini
Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, in Bologna, Italy --
published the study last July.

The $1 million study involved 1,900 rats that had been given daily doses of the
sweetener equivalent to four to five 20-ounce bottles of diet soda for a
150-pound person, the New York Times reported Sunday.

The study has been criticized because rats in U.S. studies are sacrificed after
two years -- the human equivalent of age 53, but Soffritti allowed them to live
until 3 years, the Times said.

"Cancer is a disease of the third part of life," Soffritti said. "You have 75
percent of cancer diagnoses for people who are 55 years old or older. So if you
truncate the experiments at 110 weeks and the rats are supposed to survive until
150 to 160 weeks, it means you avoid the development of cancer at the time when
cancer would be starting to arise."

The study is scheduled to be published in the Untied States later this year.



© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved



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