People need to learn not to believe everything they read, even when it's written by a medical professional. Keep in mind how often we talk about just how stupid and ignorant some medical professionals are.
Let me give you a couple of examples that raised red flags about the
authors for me:
While some industry experts claim the molecule is similar to table salt or sugar, other independent researchers say it has more in common with pesticides. That’s because the bonds holding the carbon and chlorine atoms together are more characteristic of a chlorocarbon than a salt — and most pesticides are chlorocarbons.
This is a logical fallacy. The fact that A is similar to B, and that most C are B, does not at all mean that A is a C.
The fallacy, or error in logic, here, is assuming that because most C are B, that also most B are C, which is not a safe assumption at all.
Let me substitute non-medical buzzwords to make it more obvious how flawed this assumption is: It's like saying that sloths are similar to other creatures who also have hair on their body, and most humans have hair on their body. The presumed assumption is therefore that sloths might be humans, which is clearly a poor assumption. Now, if you could say instead that most creatures with hair on their bodies were humans, it might be a little safer to guess that another creature with hair on its body might be a human, but even so, it's a stretch.
The premise offered next is that just because something contains chlorine doesn’t guarantee that it’s toxic. And that is also true, but you and your family may prefer not to serve as test subjects for the latest post-market artificial sweetener experiment — however “unique.”
The very notion that containing chlorine is somehow innately scary is laughable. Half of table salt is chlorine. Its molecule is NaCl, Na being sodium and Cl being chlorine.
Using the phrase, "doesn't guarantee it's toxic" implies that it's nevertheless
nearly guaranteed, but without making a direct assertion that can easily be challenged and dismissed. This is a common tactic in propaganda, and makes me question the authors' agenda.
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If you read it in an
article, folks, you can't trust it. A white paper in a journal, with peer review... eh, maybe you can trust it, but not something like this.
(By the way, I have no idea if Splenda is safe. I just know this article seems pretty dubious.)