EU requests new checks on aspartame sweetener

(ROME) - The European Commission has requested a complete review of the safety of aspartame in response to concerns over the widely used sweetener, the European Food Safety Authority said Wednesday.

"We have received an official request for a complete re-evaluation of the safety of aspartame," Lucia De Luca, a spokeswoman for the Italy-based organisation, told AFP, adding that the request was still being examined.

"The re-evaluation is scheduled for 2020 but the commission asked us to do this re-evaluation now in the light of recent events," she said.

Aspartame is the most widely used artificial sweetener in the world.

EFSA in February dismissed two recent studies linking aspartame with increased cancer rates and pre-term births but De Luca said the European Commission had not carried out its own review for several years.

"EFSA was created in 2002 and dealt with aspartame several times between 2006 and 2009 and has never had any indication that aspartame presents a risk in terms of genotoxicity or carcinogenesis," she said.

"EFSA has therefore found no reason to revise its previously established daily admissible dose of aspartame of 40 milligrammes per kilogramme of body weight."