Tom Sanders

Prof Tom Sanders is Head of the Nutritional Sciences Research Division, King's College London.

Views

Sanders has made a name for himself defending the safety of the controversial artifical sweetener aspartame (sold as Nutrasweet) in the media. He said:

The key point is that we can help people to live healthier lives if they can reduce their calorie intake. Sweeteners (aspartame) have a valuable role to play in the fight against obesity.

In response to the view of the American Association of Neuropathologists that there was a link between aspartame and brain cancer, Sanders said:

There is simply no evidence to show aspartame causes cancer. It is probably the most stiffly tested substance we consume.

Sanders was the chief "top scientist" quoted in a press release from Nutrasweet dismissing a research paper by Dr John Olney of the Department of Psychiatry, Washington University Medical School, that suggested a link between brain tumours and aspartame. Sanders said Olney's peer-reviewed paper was "preposterous", "seriously flawed" and "without merit". However, Sanders did not provide any arguments to back up these claims. Olney's paper, in contrast, did.

In an article titled "The myths of fruit", Sanders was quoted as saying that drinking liquidised fresh fruit compared unfavourably to drinking Coke:

If you liquidise it into goo it's just like drinking ordinary Coke. Or worse, actually. It's still a sugary drink. A lot of people on diets don't realise that if they're drinking loads of apple juice or orange juice, it's got a lot of calories in. If you drink a litre of apple juice a day, it'll be 400 calories.

However, this claim only takes into consideration the one factor of calories - not vitamins and minerals, which are arguably a more important factor in choosing a drink.

Affiliations and consultancies

An article in The Independent in 1996 described Sanders as "Nutrasweet's professional consultant". At this time, Nutrasweet was owned by Monsanto, which acquired G. D. Searle & Company, the company that owned the patent on aspartame, in 1985. Investment firm J.W. Childs Associates purchased Nutrasweet from Monsanto in 2000.

Food writer Felicity Lawrence, in a 2010 article that was scathing about the nutritional value of manufactured breakfast cereals, reported that the cereals manufacturing industry had

recruited Professor Tom Sanders, head of the nutrition department at King's College London, to defend 'breakfast cereals served with semi-skimmed milk' as 'low energy meals that provide about one fifth of the micronutrients of children'.

Criticism of study on GM maize

In September 2012 a study was published showing that the commercialised GM maize NK603 caused massive tumours, organ damage, and premature death in rats fed the maize over a lifetime. Similar effects were seen in rats fed tiny amounts of the herbicide Roundup, which NK603 is engineered to tolerate, below levels permitted in food, feed and drinking water.

On the same day the study was released, the Science Media Centre in the UK rushed out a series of spoiler quotes from "experts" refuting the study.

Sanders provided one quote, which was cited in a Reuters report on the study.

Sanders said:

Most toxicology studies are terminated at normal lifespan i.e. 2 years. Immortality is not an alternative. No food intake data is provided or growth data. This strain of rat is very prone to mammary tumours particularly when food intake is not restricted.

There is a lack of information on the composition of the diet. One concern is whether there were mycotoxins in the maize meal because of improper storage. Zearalanone is a well know phytoestrogen produced by filamentous fungi that grow on maize.

The statistical methods are unconventional, there is no clearly defined data analysis plan and probabilities are not adjusted for multiple comparisons.

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