Just a comment to all our bloggers (but mostly 495K!!!)...you are posting to a site that can be read by anybody, so it's our responsibility to make sure that we are putting accurate information out there (so that we are not like some of the lay articles we read!!)
JessicaR put up an interesting (but WAY too long) article which has been shown over and over to be a HOAX
http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoaxDetails.asp?HName=ASPARTAME+HOAX
We need to be better at: 1) paraphrasing our articles-they should be snippets, educational but brief
2) referenced! (7630 is really good at this, we're not as good)
3) checked for accuracy
Thanks!!!
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By David Emery
From urbanlegends.about.com
This specimen of email scarelore, in wide circulation since mid-December 1998, warns that the artificial sweetener aspartame (a.k.a. "NutraSweet" and "Equal") is toxic to humans in a hundred different ways. It even coins a new medical term for these effects: "aspartame disease."
Most of the allegations contradict the bulk of medical evidence ...but its author offers a convenient explanation: collusion between aspartame's manufacturers, the medical establishment, and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
Far be it from me to insist that the FDA is infallible and incorruptible, but I would point out that the agency has common sense and years of accumulated research on its side when it maintains that the sweetener is safe for most people. As to aspartame's critics, it doesn't help their cause that the information presented in the email is disorganized, hysterical and poorly substantiated.
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