Talk:Aspartame

Working subpage

I have created a working subpage at User:TickleMeister/Aspartame per the allowed policies at wp:WORP and wp:SP.

In it I have stored the version of the page as I last left it. I am happy to go on editing it there for a while to get my act in order and so some of the suspicious editors here, who seem to be wary of my motives, can understand the sort of balance and NPOV I am striving for.

Tip: it can be useful to load the live article into one tab of your browser, and the temp article into another tab, then press Ctrl+Tab to flip back and forth between the two, to see the changes.

Please do not edit war the temp page. In fact, let it be my version, if you like, and make comments on it here. Thanks. TickleMeister (talk) 13:37, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

It's time to close that subpage. There is some useful material on it, mostly the content on stability and a few good sources. There were too many insinuations, innuendos, syntheses, and other POV edits. For example, this edit takes a phrase preceded by "although" and uses it in numerous misleading aspects:

it describes the survey as being conducted by the FDA, suggesting the agency went against majority opinion, when the survey was conducted by the GAO;

it does not specify anything about the time frame of the survey, which was taken a decade after the FDA report mentioned in the previous sentence;

it ignores the remainder of the paragraph from which it was extracted and which the phase was qualifying—future research should provide answers (again, written in 1987);

the conclusion of the study cited was deleted along with large amounts of sourced material; and

it was needlessly placed in the lead.

One edit summary was merely innuendo. Here we see a description of E. coli, that while factual, is not informative and carries negative connotations with regards to food products. Describing something by where it is found is not as informative as how it is used. Describing it as "a bacterium widely used in biotechnology" is more useful than "a bacterium commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms".Novangelis (talk) 05:05, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Please don't demand a subpage be closed; rather discuss the edits, as you go on to, and thank you for that (feedback is most welcome). Let me answer each one of your points:

1. I took the inserted text from page 74 of the report, from a paragraph that reads: "Although over half of the researchers we surveyed expressed some concerns over aspartame’s safety, we believe the research underway or planned by FDA and the scientists surveyed and FDA'S monitoring of adverse reactions should help provide answers on aspartame’s effects on certain subpopulations and neurological behavior. We believe such efforts should give FDA a basis for determining what future actions, if any, are needed on aspartame." I do not think the text I extracted (highlighted) is misleading, or makes out the survey was conducted by some other body, or is a "synthesis", or is deliberately misleading or POV in any way. If you'd like it more fully described, or additional wording to be added, that's fine. I didn't think the part of the sentence starting with the nebulous "we believe..." was encyclopedic, and so I simply extracted the one fact in the paragraph. (Your complete unwillingness to AGF needs attention.)
2. "Needlessly placed in lead" -- I disagree. If scientists expressed concerns then, how do we know they are not concerned now? And if they are concerned now, it's extremely lead-worthy, I would have thought. And it appears, looking at the numerous studies that raise questions about aspartame published since the GAO report, that there are concerned scientists. (No, it's not all a hoax by Ms Martini).
3. The big deletion you point out was explained in the summary, namely that this material is duplicated from the other page. Why do we need it on 2 pages?
4. E.coli is a bacterium from the colon. That's what they use to produce aspartame. Why would you want to suppress this simple statement of fact, unless you had some pro-aspartame POV? The average reader may not know where E.coli comes from. I have no objection to adding your phrase "a bacterium widely used in biotechnology"(do you have a source?)
5. "Innuendo in edit summary" -- now you're critiquing the edit summaries as if they are article content? My meaning in that summary is that the GAO report is an eye opener as to the awful quality of the Searle studies. I'd ask you to look at the article content, and stop critiquing edit summaries to a temporary talk page. Thanks. TickleMeister (talk) 06:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The subpage is unlikely to gain support. You should propose and discuss the changes you wish to make here, and get consensus for them first (as you've been asked from the start). Verbal chat 07:05, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

There are over 50 changes, and a lot of new material. It would take more than this talk page could handle, to enumerate them all. Novangelis made a specific comment, why don't you? TickleMeister (talk) 07:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The subpage may be useful for you to work through changes, but I doubt anyone would consent to changes that aren't individually considered. I highly doubt anyone would endorse so many changes en masse.Yobol (talk) 21:12, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Please do not ignore the discussion and act on your own. That is not within the scope of WP:Be bold.Novangelis (talk) 00:17, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposed changes, in brief

Very well, here are the changes in brief:

1. Remove from lead the industry funded study (alternatively, call it such)
2. Add some details about Ajinomoto, including court case over aspartame
3. Add descriptive phrase about what e. coli is (gut bacteria)
4. Add detail on aspartame's shelf life
5. Restore the Rumsfeld-->Searle-->Hayes nexus (documented in many RSes, BTW)
6. Remove tag on formaldehyde by inserting requested details
7. Remove paragraph in safety section that is repeated on the controversy page. TickleMeister (talk) 00:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Safety controversy

Sorry if I've stumbled in a bit of a hornet's nest here in this article. I wrote a paragraph that included some highly relevant information regarding a relationship between consumption of diet soft drinks and a serious degradation of kidney function. The paragraph was deleted because the data pertained to diet soft drinks in general, not exclusively diet soft drinks containing aspartame. The study was based on data from the Nurses' Health Study. The study uses questionnaires to gather data on participants' beverage consumption, among many other things. Obviously participants are not required or able to list every ingredient in every product they consume. But it is well-known that the artificial sweetener used in most, if not all, diet soft drinks in the United States is aspartame. (I checked Sprite Zero and Diet 7-Up that I have at hand, and they both include aspartame. I have never seen a diet soft drink ingredient list in the United States which does not include aspartame. There might be some, but they are not likely to be the market leaders such as Diet Coke.) While the study did not specifically name aspartame, it is, for all intents and purposes, synonymous with "artificial sweetener" in the U.S. soft drink market. (According to the Diet Soda article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_soda#Aspartame "Today, at least in the United States, "diet" is nearly synonymous with the use of aspartame in beverages.") The heading of the section is "Safety Controversy" so, for completeness, current scientific studies which may still be regarded as controversial by some, should be included in the section. If we wait until a causal relationship is fully verified, then it will no longer be controversial, will it? If we wait ten years until several studies confirm that hundreds of thousands of people have suffered kidney damage, we do our readers a disservice. Wikipedia exists to provide useful, accurate, relevant information. If it exists only to provide a historical after-the-fact of record of accumulated knowledge, ten years after it initially became known, then it serves no purpose.

I also don't think it is the best approach for one member to immediately delete a new contribution, unless it is factually wrong. It would be better to begin a discussion and see what the consensus is among informed participants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tetsuo (talk • contribs) 22:59, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

You will be referred to wp:CRYSTAL in short order, so I may as well do it first. TickleMeister (talk) 23:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

My point is that there is a section about Safety Controversy. Verifiability, as I read it, means that the source of the information can be verified, and the source is reliable. The relationship between heavy consumption of diet soft drinks and kidney function is a statistical fact uncovered by a Harvard researcher. This is not some crackpot's wild speculation. However, at this stage, it may be controversial, because a study has not been conducted to prove a causal relationship. Therefore, this information belongs in the section, "Safety Controversy". Perhaps we should just delete the entire section, "Safety Controversy" if we think the public needs to be shielded from information that has not been proven beyond any possible doubt.Tetsuo (talk) 23:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Beyond the WP:CRYSTAL policy sited above, there are other problems with your analysis. The first is that it is an analysis which violates the principle of no original research. I'm sure that one other artificial sweetner appeared in your two labels: acesulfame. There could also be problems related to the other components of the formulation, or it could be a characteristic of the people who drink diet soda. Also,Wikipedia is not a source for itself. I am quite comfortable pulling text when the dots aren't connected. If I thought it could have been saved, I would have made an effort. I almost suggested moving it to diet sodas, myself, but although potentially relevant, the reports are also highly preliminary. I am quite familiar with the Nurses' Health Study, and I am also familiar with the pitfalls of epidemiological research. Correlation does not equate to causation. The connection to aspartame is too tenuous. Your connection is not verifiable. That is why it was pulled.

As for the "hornet's nest", this isn't one if you don't make it one. If you follow the guidelines regarding civility, express your case by the facts, avoid taking and making things personal, and listen to the reasoning of experienced editors, you may be frustrated because Wikipedia is not what you want it to be, but you will be satisfied when you need Wikipedia for what it is. You made a bold edit. It was reverted. Now it is being discussed. That is one of the ways Wikipedia works.Novangelis (talk) 00:05, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-NPOV synthesis

Metabolism and phenylketonuria

Including non-metabolic chemistry studies as metabolic is an improper synthesis. Describing a rat study that shows weight loss and describing it as elevating a hormone that causes weight gain without mentioning rats, other hormones, or weight loss is a selective interpretation of the literature. Describing an in vitro effect without evidence of clinical effect does not belong in a section called metabolism, especially when unqualified.Novangelis (talk) 14:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

But we know ASP does break down into DKP. Now the article has lost that fact. TickleMeister (talk) 15:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I've added it to another section. It's interesting that at cooking temperatures, ASP converts to DKP, which is called a carcinogen in some studies, eg PMID 17684524 TickleMeister (talk) 15:24, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It also stops being sweet. No one cooks with aspartame. --King Öomie 15:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

A temperature of 180°C might be an oven setting, but it is not a cooking temperature. Sugar stops being sweet at that temperature; it has burned.Novangelis (talk) 15:55, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

180°C is only 356°F, normal fare for baking cookies. Aspartame products, though, are generally marked as non-baking products. --King Öomie 18:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Re proposed link

Ticklemeister, I don't see any way that we can include that link at the moment, as you have shown sourcewatch is a wiki. The page constitutes writings by an entity that is not demonstrably a notable commentator nor expert in the field. What you can do, is add a Aspartame/Sources page and list sources which you might feel could be valuable to future editors. This would also allow more tempered discussions on their relative utility - kept for future reference. Unomi (talk) 02:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

For editors looking for information that has been removed from the article or refused entry on thin grounds:

1. look up aspartame at the SourceWatch site,
2. use my workpage on Aspartame
3. use my workpage on Aspartame controversy
4. use my workpage on Aspartame sources TickleMeister (talk) 03:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but I don't think that this is what Unomi had in mind.
You can do whatever you want at SourceWatch (or rather whatever the community there lets you do); what you do here has to be in accordance with our policies and guidelines (regarding "workpages" you might want to read WP:POVFORK). To mention the SourceWatch article here once is OK in my eyes, but you shouldn't think you can add it over and over again once this discussion has been archived, or permanently keep those "workpages" - Wikipedia is neither a SourceWatch mirror nor is it webspace provider. --Six words (talk) 17:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

POVFORK is about 2 related articles in article space, not a record of deleted or refused, but well-cited material kept in a work area in user space. I have no wish to "add [the link] over and over", but BTW I cannot see why it can't be linked in the external links section, since the SourceWatch article gives a completely different view of the problems with aspartame to what the WP article does. I can keep the workpages for an indeterminate time. For instance, there may soon be a finding made against aspartame by the British food authorities, and if that happens the material on my workpages has renewed relevance. The drive to expunge my work on aspartame from any corner of wikipedia denotes a very strong and highly questionable POV push by some of the editors here. I notice that these editors are also putting "collapse" templates around text they want hidden, just before it gets archived. This is very worrying stuff. This is not the behaviour of uninvolved citizens of the world, intent on building an informative encyclopedia. This is the sort of thing you'd expect from an agent with commercial motives. TickleMeister (talk) 23:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)