While I don't know about the World Health Conference on Aspartame, there
ARE some medical studies out there on Medline which present some evidence
of adverse effects from aspartame.  Here's an interesting one for you:
 
National Library of Medicine: IGM Full Record Screen
 
TITLE: Formaldehyde derived from dietary aspartame binds to tissue
components in vivo.
 
AUTHORS: Trocho C; Pardo R; Rafecas I; Virgili J; Remesar X;
Fernandez-Lopez JA; Alemany M
 
AUTHOR AFFILIATION: Departament de Bioquimica i Biologia Molecular,
Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
 
SOURCE: Life Sci 1998;63(5):337-49
 
CITATION IDS: PMID: 9714421 UI: 98378223
 
ABSTRACT: Adult male rats were given an oral dose of 10 mg/kg aspartame
14C- labelled in the methanol carbon.  At timed intervals of up to 6 hours,
the radioactivity in plasma and several organs was investigated.  Most of
the radioactivity found ( >98% in plasma, >75% in liver) was bound to
protein.  Label present in liver, plasma and kidney was in the range of
1-2% of total radioactivity administered per g or mL, changing little with
time.  Other organs (brown and white adipose tissues, muscle, brain, cornea
and retina) contained levels of label in the range of 1/12 to 1/10th of
that of liver.  In all, the rat retained, 6 hours after administration
about 5% of the label, half of it in the liver.  The specific radioactivity
of tissue protein, RNA and DNA was quite uniform.  The protein label was
concentrated in amino acids, different from methionine, and largely
coincident with the result of protein exposure to labelled formaldehyde.
DNA radioactivity was essentially in a single different adduct base,
different from the normal bases present in DNA.  The nature of the tissue
label accumulated was, thus, a direct consequence of formaldehyde binding
to tissue structures.  The administration of labelled aspartame to a group
of cirrhotic rats resulted in comparable label retention by tissue
components, which suggests that liver function (or its defect) has little
effect on formaldehyde formation from aspartame and binding to biological
components.  The chronic treatment of a series of rats with 200 mg/kg of
non-labelled aspartame during 10 days resulted in the accumulation of even
more label when given the radioactive bolus, suggesting that the amount of
formaldehyde adducts coming from aspartame in tissue proteins and nucleic
acids may be cumulative.
 
*CONCLUSION: It is concluded that aspartame consumption may constitute a
hazard because of its contribution to the formation of formaldehyde
adducts.*
 
- Ela
[Posted in FML issue 2616]