Regulators

Back to Saccharin Safety

“The National Cancer Institute states in its "Cancer Facts" documents that ‘epidemiological studies do not provide clear evidence’ of a link to human cancer. Regina Ziegler, Ph.D., an NCI epidemiologist, says, ‘Typical intakes of saccharin at normal levels for adults show no evidence of a public health problem."

• John Henkel, staff writer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Consumer, in the article “Sugar Substitutes: Americans Opt for Sweetness and Lite”

“Concerns over saccharin’s safety were first raised twenty years ago after a flawed study that administered huge quantities of the sweetener to laboratory rats produced bladder tumors in rats. New and better scientific research has decisively shown that the earlier rat studies are not at all applicable to humans."

• Rep. Joe Knollenberg, who sponsored a bill (signed by President Clinton on December 21, 2000) to remove the saccharin warning label

"The Committee accepted that on the basis of data reviewed to date, it would be inappropriate to consider the bladder tumors induced in male rats by sodium saccharin
" to be relevant to the assessment of toxicological hazards to humans."

• World Health Organization's Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, 1993

"Based on the results of numerous epidemiological studies, the conclusions of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and over eight decades of consumption without evidence related to human disease, it can be concluded that the evidence is inadequate to suggest that saccharin consumption may significantly increase the risk of bladder cancer in humans. Therefore, the majority view of toxicologists is that saccharin at low doses does not pose a health risk for humans."

• Health and Welfare Canada, Health Protection Branch, December 5, 1991

"Epidemiological studies have also not established any evidence that bladder cancer in man is associated with saccharin intake."

• European Economic Communities, "Report of the Scientific Committee for Food on Sweeteners," December 11, 1987

"Saccharin remains a vitally important substance for many Americans who depend on it as a sugar substitute. Though we have developed other sweeteners, none duplicates all of its particular virtues, and none is a complete substitute for it."

• Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, April 1985

"The actual risk, if any, of saccharin to humans still appears to be slight."

• Frank Young, Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, April 2, 1985