How does the FDA rationalize its ongoing defense of monosodium glutamate (MSG)? Easy, create a “controversy,” or more specifically, a controversy FDA style.
A controversy FDA style over the safety of MSG was fabricated (produced / manufactured / concocted) when:
1) Lots of people got sick after eating MSG (1), neuroscientists working outside of industry showed there was brain damage after feeding large doses of MSG to laboratory animals (2a,2b), and researchers studying glutamic acid (glutamate) in various corners of the globe warned that ingestion of free glutamate (such as that found in MSG) should be limited because it had been shown to be hazardous to human health (3); and
2) The manufacturer of MSG produced research that guaranteed negative results (no harm done by the product) using placebos that would cause reactions identical to those caused by MSG, for example (4), suppressed information about the hazards of MSG (5), and, with the active support of the FDA (6) claimed that MSG is a harmless food additive.
Resources
1. Consumers tell us that ….
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/letters.html
2a. Review of animal studies done in the 1970s that have demonstrated the toxicity of MSG and MfG (including review of animal data offered inappropriately as evidence that MSG is harmless).
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/review_studies.pdf
2b. Evidence of excitotoxicity of ingested MfG demonstrated in animal studies done in the 1970s
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/Data_from_the_1960s_and_1970s_demonstrate.pdf
3. Warnings
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/review_of_alerts_2.pdf
4. The fail-safe way to ensure that their studies would conclude MSG is harmless
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/designed_for_deception_short.pdf
5. The Toxicity/Safety of Processed Free Glutamic Acid (MSG): A Study in Suppression of Information
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/manuscript2.pdf
6. Industry’s FDA
https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/industrys_fda_final.pdf
If you have questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. If you have hints for others on how to avoid exposure to MfG, send them along, too, and we’ll put them up on Facebook. Or you can reach us at questionsaboutmsg@gmail.com and follow us on Twitter @truthlabeling.