Sugar tax to remain in place despite sweetener safety warning, Donnelly says

The sugar tax is here to stay despite an imminent health declaration that a common artificial sweetener used to replace it is a possible carcinogen, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said.

Mr Donnelly said he would not be seeking to reverse the tax in response to the expected declaration about aspartame by the World Health Organisation’s cancer division.

Used in many low-calorie products, aspartame will be listed next month as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Reuters reported this week.

Asked in Limerick on Friday it the sugar tax would continue, in spite IARC’s decision, the Minister said: “Yes, yes it is.”

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While acknowledging “measures can have unintended consequences”, he said the sugar tax is “an important measure” against the scourge of “childhood obesity”.

He welcomed the WHO’s position and is to engage with chief medical officer Prof Breda Smyth next week on the issue: “The reality is we have a childhood obesity issue in this country, we are high consumers of processed sugar – that is not a good thing”.

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said assessments show Irish adults and preschool children are “well below” recommended intake levels for aspartame. Average adult intake is under 8 per cent of the acceptable daily intake, while the intake of preschool children average about 10 per cent.

High-intake adults were 20 per cent of the acceptable daily intake, and high-intake preschoolers were at 41 per cent.

The FSAI pointed to a 2013 risk assessment by the European Food Safety Authority which found aspartame and its breakdown products are safe for human consumption at current levels of exposure.

It said EFSA is re-evaluating the safety of two aspartame-containing food additives

The IARC categorisation of a substance as possibly carcinogenic suggests “there is some evidence that it can cause cancer in humans but at present it is far from conclusive”. It does not take into account how much of a product a person can safely consume.

Aspartame, one of the most common artificial sweeteners, is present in a wide variety of food and drink products, including diet drinks, chewing gum, yoghurts and crisps.

Its popularity has grown since the introduction of the sugar-sweetened drinks tax, commonly known as the sugar tax, in 2018.