Splenda has long been a mainstay on this blog for its humorous lawsuits and creepy medical effects. But what about Spenda, the Puppy Killer?
A number of sources have published undercover findings on the infamous ‘Huntingdon Life Sciences’ product testing company. If your’re an enviro-type, you might recognize the name from older allegations that staff there were incompetent, unnecessarily cruel, and drunk. Anyway, current rumors are that early testing of Splenda killed 12,800 animals including a whole lot of adorable puppies and monkeys, who apparently weren’t so adorable by the time they’d been force-fed Splenda and then… well, you know.
If you really want some of the gory details, here are a couple hippie sites trafficking in moral outrage. I warn, this really isn’t for anyone who’s just eaten. Or is about to eat. Or ever wants to eat again:
World Vegan News
An anti-Huntingdon page
Inside HLS. They don’t dig it, apparently
So all you people claiming that Splenda should not be used by the public until its effects were fully known, this is all your fault.
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07Mar
5 Responses
I gotta say…the World Vegan News is not precisely what I would call a “Reliable Source of Medical (or animal testing) Information.”
The only good looking study I can find on the stuff is this one, which suggests some not negligible renal complications in rats. This does not mean anything about humans, and does not suggest maiming puppies (or even rats, really – the study is in a respected journal which means that it was accepted by a reputable IRB and IUCAC).
Unscientifically speaking, I am sure that the stuff isn’t good for you, and I also think it tastes nasty, but I don’t think that there is any more evidence that Splenda has been inhumanely tested on puppies than anything else has been.
True. Although the Sunday Mirror did an article on it
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4161/is_20010805/ai_n14534372
and quoted the Journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology:
It read: “Dogs were killed after 52 weeks of treatment by exsanguination (draining of blood) while under anaesthesia and examined.”
Thousands of monkeys, rabbits, mice and rats were killed during tests in the UK.
Yeah, I did notice that after a full 5 minutes of research I was able to come up with only one ‘real’ article, from a newspaper in england. But whether or not the stuff is safe is beyond the point: it’s really odd that of all the testing companies they could have used they chose the sketchiest.
Greusome as it sounds, exsanguination is a very common and ethically accepted way of sacrificing research animals. They are completely anaesthetised, and don’t feel a thing.
Greusome as it sounds, exsanguination is a very common and ethically accepted way of sacrificing research animals. They are completely anaesthetised, and don’t feel a thing.
Right. Just repeat that to yourself over and over.
I’ve never tried Splenda. Isn’t that the stuff that says “Tastes like sugar because it’s made from sugar” on the packet? Brilliant.