[kazinator]

I know that it's available if you want it; but then, so are alcohol and cigarettes.

If a study could link popular, widely-deployed sweeteners found in processed foods and drinks, that would point to a big public health issue.

A problem with saccharin doesn't point to a wide-spread public health issue. Sacharrin has been vilified on and off over its entire lifetime. My parents' and grandparents' generation believed that it was a harmful poison, for instance; I remember hearing that as a kid. Only in the year 2000, in the US, were requirements for warning labels lifted, which had been in the effect since the 1970's, when saccharin was linked to cancer in rodents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharin#Warning_label_additio...

In spite of the lift, it doesn't seem that saccharin has made a comeback. Part of the reason could be taste. Particular mixtures of sweeteners are used in diet foods sweeteners in order to better simulate the taste of sugar.

[randallsquared]

People who use saccharine probably are unaware that that's what "sweet n low" or even "the pink packet" is.

[kazinator]

Sweet'n'low packets are very common, and so are an easy way for anyone to get saccharin just by reaching into a jar.

Interestingly though, here in Canada, Sweet'n'Low is sodium cyclamate. Saccharin continues to be banned here as a food additive because of that (now long believed to be flawed) 1970's research which linked it to cancer.

I had no idea that Sweet'n'Low is saccharin south of the border!

[randallsquared]

Further, when Equal introduced saccharin and sucralose packets a few years back, it produced them in exactly the same color as Sweet n Low and Splenda, meaning that consumers can continue to just reach for the pink packet or yellow packet to get what they expect. There was some question about trademark infringement, I recall from somewhere. So, yeah, in the US, "pink" means saccharin.

[userbinator]

From the Wiki article linked above:

The current status of saccharin is that it is allowed in most countries, and countries like Canada have lifted their previous ban of it as a food additive