The FDA,
it seems, has found a new ally in its industry-inspired campaign to suppress
stevia’s use in the United States -- none other than the “food police”
themselves.
That's right.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest has recently shined its negative
spotlight on the sweet herb that has never been known to harm anyone, and
pronounced it a menace to society. This supposed consumer-watchdog
group best known for finding and fighting fat in every corner of the American
diet, has in the past attacked and slandered coconut oil, a very beneficial
plant fat especially prized for its anti-fungal and anti-viral properties.
(Coconut oil is highly recommended as part of the Body Ecology Diet).
The problem with
CSPI's anti-stevia campaign is that the organization doesn’t appear to
have even read the stevia-related material to which it refers the public.
If it did, it might have noticed its points being contradicted by its own
“outside experts” -- along with the fact that the petitions it cites were
not seeking “food-additive” status for stevia, as CSPI claims, but rather
affirmation by the FDA for generally recognized as safe, or GRAS status.
(which is based on common and safe use in food prior to 1958).
In a press release
headlined “Stevia: Not Ready for Prime Time” (1) and in the group's monthly
newsletter, a CSPI nutritionist, David Schardt, while acknowledging no
evidence of harm to humans, on stevia’s part, claims “laboratory studies”
have found “potential cancer and reproductive-health problems.” He goes
on to say that “if stevia were marketed widely and used in diet sodas,
it would be consumed by millions of people -- and that might pose a public
health threat.” What Schardt doesn’t tell us, however, is that both
of the outside experts he quotes in the Nutrition Action article have gone
on record with the FDA as endorsing stevia.
One, Douglas Kinghorn,
a professor of pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
stated in a safety review of stevia (2) that accompanied the American Herbal
Products Association 1992 GRAS affirmation petition: “It may be concluded
that the vast majority of the scientific safety evaluation studies which
have been performed to date endorse the use of stevia rebaudiana leaf and
stevioside as sucrose substitutes. This is substantiated by the extensive
use in Japan of these products without a single adverse report to date.”
The other expert
quoted by Schardt, Ryan Huxtable, a University of Arizona toxicologist,
found Kinghorn’s 1992 safety review to be extremely competent and said
in a letter to the Herb Research Foundation that based on it, “there seems
little scientific reason for the FDA not to approve the use of stevia extracts
in the U.S. (3) ” (See
entire letter)
Whatever it was
that caused Huxtable to contradict himself in the CSPI article, he wasn’t
about to disclose. When contacted about this apparent inconsistency
and asked if anything had since happened to change his mind, Huxtable
replied that his previous statement was one he had “forgot all about.”
And while he would not dwell on specifics, he went on to say that “one’s
viewpoint evolves with time and information, and the major point I would
make is that we don’t have enough information,” adding that he has never
recommended that the FDA not approve stevia. “There are no studies
on humans that show it presents a hazard,” he said. When asked again
which quote he was standing by currently; the CSPI one to be “very careful
indeed” or “no scientific reason not to approve the use of stevia” from
1992, he replied that we “don’t live in a world of black and white,” and
should “underline it (his statements) in gray.”
Kinghorn is quoted
by Schardt as saying "But the Japanese don't consume large amounts of stevia,"
(a statement Schardt also made on the Canadian television show Marketplace).
This too, is inconsistent with Kinghorn's safety review, in which he makes
several references to stevia's "extensive use" in Japan.
The evidence Schardt
uses to back up the rational behind the article is fuzzy, misleading
and contradictory. For instance, he refers to “a derivative of stevia”
being converted into a mutagen in a test tube. He’s talking about steviol.
(See box below) In a 1996 interview Kinghorn said
about steviol: “It hasn’t been resolved whether steviol is produced in
animals, let alone in humans,” and said he found the steviol issue to be
“very conjectural” (4). According to an Herb Research Foundation document
(which CSPI links to on its Web site), “Kinghorn points out that there
is no evidence that steviol is ether a human metabolite or a metabolite
of human microflora.”
While CSPI uses
such dubious data as a basis for recommending that stevia be kept out of
products for the foreseeable future, however, it continues to fail to give
anything more than a mild rebuke to aspartame on its Web site. Aspartame,
the chemical sweetener now added to countless products from yogurt to children’s
vitamins and medicines has been the subject of many thousands of consumer
complaints about side effects ranging from migraines to seizures, and was
considered a possible brain-tumor risk by the FDA’s own scientists. Nowhere,
however, do the food police seek to ‘arrest’ the use of aspartame, whose
manufacturer, Nutrasweet is believed by many to be the original complainant
that launched the FDA’s crackdown on stevia.
Coincidence?
For more information on stevia's safety
look here: SAFETY STUDIES
1. These can be found at the
CSPI Web site at: www.cspinet.org
2. Food Ingredient Safety
Review, Stevia rebaudiana leaves, prepared for the Herb Research Foundation
by A. Douglas Kinghorn, Ph.D., 1992
3. Letter to Margaret Blank,
Herb Research Foundation from Ryan J. Huxtable, Ph.D., January 30, 1992
4. Interview with Linda Bonvie,
March, 1996
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