The following is from Dr. Mercola's web site and is for all you sweet folks in the UK who are not allowed to hear any disparaging words about Splenda. Apparently its maker has blocked access to his site from anyone in the UK. So lets see if this is a way around that.
Splenda Strikes Back Against Sugar Industry
McNeil Nutritionals, the makers of Splenda, filed a lawsuit against the Sugar Association in 2005 to silence their attempts at raising consumer awareness that Splenda is not natural, as it is made out to be.
Part of the Association's efforts included establishing a Web site,
www.truthaboutsplenda.com, which publishes information about Splenda, including comments from consumers who feel deceived by Splenda's advertising.
According to the Sugar Association, Splenda's claim that the artificial sweetener is "made from sugar so it tastes like sugar" is false and deceptive advertising, as Splenda contains no sugar and is not natural.
In March 2006, a Delaware District Court dismissed the lawsuit, which claimed the Sugar Association engaged in false advertising. Now, McNeil Nutritionals has filed a counter-suit against the Sugar Association in a further attempt to silence the group and have their anti-Splenda Web site shut down.
Lawsuit Alleges Splenda Plant Lowered Property Value and Quality of Life
Meanwhile, 29 residents who live near Tate & Lyle's sucralose (the main ingredient in Splenda) manufacturing plant in McIntosh, Alabama -- the only sucralose plant in North America -- have filed a lawsuit against the company.
The suit alleges that the plant has hurt their property value and lowered their quality of life because of excessive noise, noxious odor and trespassing by the company.
The residents are also reportedly experiencing medical problems including respiratory problems, watering eyes and others that may be associated with exposure to phosgene gas, a poisonous gas used extensively during World War I as a choking agent, which is thought to be used in the artificial sweetener's production process.
U.S. Newswire June 28, 2006
Mobile Press-Register June 21, 2006
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
After I finish writing this comment I have the pleasure of reviewing the final edits for Sweet Deception. The lawyers have given me 14 pages of recommendations to revise the book so it will be bulletproofed from Tate and Lyle, who have all but assured me that they will file suits against me for publishing this book.The book will be published by Nelson in November and can be pre-purchased at Amazon. The book has taken over two long and hard years to write but it has been an amazing journey.Tate and Lyle loves to exercise their legal muscle. Because England has such ridiculous libel laws they have forced me to block any Splenda articles from the UK, so if you are reading this on my site on the Web right now, there is one thing I can tell you for certain: you are not in the UK.
But the truth must be told. There is a MAJOR story here that we will break when the book is published, but we have covered some amazing information in our comprehensive and thorough investigations. One of the areas that has really angered me is the incredible deception that is involved in their marketing, and their suit against the sugar industry is another example of this.They claim that there are over 100 studies proving that Splenda is safe, which is a bunch of deceptive nonsense.
If you go to the National Library of Medicine and type in sucralose you will find 83 studies. The other studies they claim were done by them and are not available to view. With lots of effort you can view some of them by going to Washington DC and getting the documents they submitted to the FDA for approval. We have done that and have reviewed every study they have made available. But let's get back to the 83 studies in the National Library of Medicine. Sure sounds impressive doesn't it? Well it does until you start reading them.
I broke them down into a number of categories (see the table at the bottom of the page). Over one-third of the studies, or 28 of them, only looked at the use of sucralose as a test marker or a way to test for sucralose. Had absolutely nothing to do with its safety. Another 17 studies were on dental decay, which is also not in any way related to safety. Ten of the studies related to the way sucralose tasted, again not related to safety. Eleven were review articles and did not evaluate sucralose independently but only looked at other studies. That leaves us with 16 studies that studied sucralose in a clinical setting that had anything to do with safety -- 10 of these were in animals and six were in humans.
Here is where it gets interesting, as all of the animal studies were funded by the company and only three human studies were independently done. So from over 100 studies done to document its safety, we are down to a mere three independent studies that examined sucralose. One of the studies was a case report actually showing it causes migraines. The other two are only related to diabetes. The diabetes issue is nearly a book in itself and is a central part of the deception that is going on here. It is amazing they are getting away with this. But the point I want to make here is that there is absolutely NO INDEPENDENT evidence for the safety of sucralose. Every study demonstrating safety was done by the manufacturer. It's important to understand that the source of funds for a study strongly influences the conclusion and findings. This becomes crystal clear when you examine the results of aspartame research. In an analysis of 166 articles published in medical journals from 1980 to 1985, Dr. Ralph G. Walton, a professor of psychiatry at Northeastern Ohio University's College of Medicine, found that 100 percent of the 74 studies financed by the industry attested to the sweetener's safety. However, of the 92 independently funded articles, 92 percent identified adverse health effects.
Published Studies Index Medicus # of Studies
Direct assay (measurements) of sucralose or sucralose used as an assay measurement 28
Dental decay 17
Artificial sweetener taste preferences in animals 10
Reviews of sucralose studies 12
Safety studies in animals (10 published in one issue of one journal) 10
Safety studies in humans 6
Total (As of July 1, 2006) 83
To the UK with love
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