(Court TV) — The Sugar Association received a not-so-sweet surprise this week when it was notified it was being sued for claiming that the popular sugar substitute Splenda is unhealthy and unsafe.
McNeil Nutritionals, a Fort Washington, Pa., company that markets the Johnson & Johnson sugar substitute, charged the Sugar Association with false advertising and deceptive trade practices.
"We are trying to stop this group, their members, and their false and misleading claims that are designed to ruin the reputation of [Splenda]," said McNeil's spokeswoman Monica Neufang.
However, the Sugar Association, which advocates the health benefits of sugar, claims it launched an ad campaign against Splenda because it falsely bills itself as a natural product.
"Splenda claims that because it is made from sugar, it tastes like sugar," said Adam Fox, an attorney with the Sugar Association. "Their publicity confuses consumers under a false impression that it's natural. It's not grown in a sugar cane field. They say it's sugar without the guilt, which is not true."
McNeil Nutritionals has faced an array of lawsuits over its Splenda advertising, including nine consumer class-action suits in several states and three federal commission complaints. The Sugar Association launched its campaign against the sweetener earlier this year.
McNeil Nutritionals, however, alleges the anti-Splenda ads include false information about the country's best-selling no-calorie sweetener.
The Sugar Association argues that many of Splenda's claims are false, including: Splenda is safe to eat, even for children; Splenda has been thoroughly tested; and consumers have every reason to believe what they see and hear in Splenda's advertisements.
In response, the McNeil lawsuit claims "the sugar industry's baseless and bad-faith smear campaign is calculated to destroy the reputation and goodwill of the Splenda brand."
Fox contends the Sugar Association only wants to educate consumers about the sweetener.
"Most Splenda products, like the packets used to put in coffee, are actually made in a chemical plant in Alabama and contain sucrose," he said. "They are misleading their consumers."
Neufang, however, said Splenda is actually made from sugar.
"It tastes like sugar and even performs like sugar," she said. "There are sugar trucks outside our plant in Alabama that make the refined table sugar sucrose."
Whether it is accurately advertised or not, Splenda is indeed safe to consume, according to George Pauli of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Office of Food Additive Safety.
"We have concluded with reasonable certainty that the product is safe for its intended use," Pauli said. "It was tested in 1998, was safe then, and is safe now."
McNeil Nutritionals said the Sugar Association's legal team has not yet responded to the lawsuit.
