Written Answers - Health: Aspartame (10 May 2011)

[Guest guest]

Some of us are that sad that I subscribe to HoC minutes and the following has just been made;

Written Answers - Health: Aspartame (10 May 2011) Mr Brine: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether his Department plans to commission research to investigate a potential relationship between levels of aspartame consumption and adverse health reactions in children.

Anne Milton: We are advised by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that aspartame has been extensively tested and reviewed for safety by independent experts at national, European and international level and found to be safe at current levels of use. Despite this, some people consider they react badly to consuming the sweetener. The FSA has therefore commissioned a pilot study focusing on people who have self-reported bad reactions to the sweetener in order to understand why this is the case. Participants in the study will be at least 18 but the results should be applicable to people of any age.

But the Secretary of State for Health needs to be asked why just children?

Address the adults, of working age, and they'd be free to come of off benefits, thus lowering the health budget deficit. Cynicism also tells me that that is why they've increased the retirement age. If the nation is exhausted at 60 many aren't going to reach 68 and the exchequer will have reaped 50+ years of NI contributions and then not required to spend any of it.

Some of us may be cabbage looking, but we're not green.