Aspartame is a sweetener used in food and drinks items like Diet Coke, some Snapple drinks and even Mars' Extra chewing gum. Sources from Reuters have said that the World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer research body could potentially dub the sweetener as a carcinogen - a substance that is capable of causing cancer. Finalised earlier in June, the ruling from the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) intends to find whether something is a potential hazard to humans based on all the evidence currently published. The JECFA committee said that they "conduct a risk assessment, which determines the probability of a specific type of harm (e.g. Frances Hunt-Wood, ISA's secretary general, said: "IARC is not a food safety body.

Source: The Star June 29, 2023 11:51 UTC