But it is not the only scare. Today, Internet chat rooms still show people asking if they should toss their shampoo. In fact, the ingredient might irritate your eyes or your skin, but cancer experts agree there is no sign it is carcinogenic. The Internet is full of important, even lifesaving, medical information, Wykoff stressed. Take aspartame, which long has been controversial.
Some people do say they are sensitive to it.
But the FDA insists that 20 years of research has not found evidence of serious side effects - except in some people with the rare genetic disease PKU or phenylketonuria, who cannot properly process an aspartame component called phenylalinine. The new scare, however, argues that aspartame causes MS and lupus symptoms by breaking down into toxic methanol. Attempts to find the e-mail's author have failed. Very high doses of methanol can be toxic, but aspartame causes only the same tiny amounts you would get from fruits or vegetables such as tomatoes and tomato juice, which also produce methanol during digestion, said FDA food safety expert Dr. David Hattan. Both MS and lupus are diseases that wax and wane, so if a person felt better or worse in connection with how much diet cola she drank, it is pure coincidence, Wykoff added.