Artificial sweetener: "Diet" products, soft drinks
(especially fountain drinks at restaurants), packets.
Saccharin (Sweet 'N Low) is 350 times sweeter than sugar and
is used in dietetic foods or as a tabletop sugar substitute.
Many studies on animals have shown that saccharin can cause
cancer of the urinary bladder. In other rodent studies,
saccharin has caused cancer of the uterus, ovaries, skin,
blood vessels, and other organs. Other studies have shown
that saccharin increases the potency of other cancer-causing
chemicals. And the best epidemiology study (done by the
National Cancer Institute) found that the use of artificial
sweeteners (saccharin and cyclamate) was associated with a
higher incidence of bladder cancer. In 1977, the FDA
proposed that saccharin be banned, because of studies that
it causes cancer in animals. However, Congress intervened
and permitted it to be used, provided that foods bear a
warning notice. It has been replaced in many products by
aspartame (NutraSweet). In 1997, the diet-food industry
began pressuring the U.S. and Canadian governments and the
World Health Organization to take saccharin off their lists
of cancer-causing chemicals. The industry acknowledges that
saccharin causes bladder cancer in male rats, but argues
that those tumors are caused by a mechanism that would not
occur in humans. Many public health experts respond by
stating that, even if that still-unproved mechanism were
correct in male rats, saccharin could cause cancer by
additional mechanisms and that, in some studies, saccharin
has caused bladder cancer in mice and in female rats and
other cancers in both rats and mice.
In May 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services removed saccharin from its list of cancer-causing
chemicals. Later that year, Congress passed a law removing
the warning notice that likely will result in increased use
in soft drinks and other foods and in a slightly greater
incidence of cancer.