Business Notes

For anyone afflicted with a craving for saccharin in a cup of coffee or on a bowl of breakfast cereal, there is good news. The Senate last week moved to permit its continued use by a vote of 94 to 1. Easy approval is expected in the House.

The controversy over saccharin, which is produced by Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams, began in 1977, when the Food and Drug Administration linked extremely large doses of the artificial sweetener to bladder cancer in laboratory animals. As a result, the FDA proposed that the use of saccharin be outlawed. Congress thwarted the agency's move by giving the product an exemption from a federal law that prohibits the sale of any substance found to cause cancer in animals or humans. That reprieve ran out last month.

Despite the congressional action, saccharin is expected to continue losing sales to aspartame, an artificial sweetener manufactured by G.D. Searle and sold under the trade names NutraSweet and Equal. Although more expensive than saccharin, aspartame is preferred by many people because it tastes more like sugar. Aspartame sales reached $585 million last year, while saccharin's were estimated at less than $100 million.