FDA Bans Natural Sweetners to Keep Rumsfeld's Sales Up !
Stevia is natural and Japan in addition to 10 more countries consumes it even with Coca Cola. so what is special about USA?
S1000+
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http://en.wikipedia
JAPAN:
In the early 1970s, Japan began cultivating stevia as an alternative to artificial sweeteners such as cyclamate and saccharin, which are suspected carcinogens.
SE ASIA:
Today, stevia is cultivated and used in food elsewhere in east Asia, including in ChinaKorea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia. It can also be found in Saint Kitts and Nevis, in parts of South America (Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, and Uruguay)
(since 1984),
USA:
In 1991, at the request of an anonymous complaint, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) labeled stevia as an "unsafe food additive" and restricted its import. The FDA's stated reason was "toxicological information on stevia is inadequate to demonstrate its safety."[50] This ruling was controversial, as stevia proponents pointed out that this designation violated the FDA's own guidelines under which any natural substance used prior to 1958 with no reported adverse effects should be generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Stevia occurs naturally, requiring no patent to produce it. As a consequence, since the import ban in 1991, marketers and consumers of stevia have shared a belief that the FDA acted in response to industry pressure. ( 1991: Bush in power)