The two cannot be conflated.

Scientists can call for something to be re-considered, safety-wise, long after legislators have put their deals to bed. There are countless examples of this throughout history, where researchers, engineers, scientists have had to struggle very hard to get politicians - who have their own interests - to address the issue.

Too many times, research which runs counter to economic narratives is ignored or, worse, suppressed in order that people can 'continue living their lives as consumers unhindered'.

Suggesting that people bow to the authority of legislators over that of human-health scientists serves only to perpetuate the conditions which endanger us all.

Remember, asbestos was once 'scientifically and legally proven to be safe' at one point. Too many times in history, what the collective thinks is safe is only so, because the collective ("everyone thinks the same") says so ..

Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos-related_diseases#Hist...

Your argument is basically just an appeal to authority.

As far as artificial sweeteners go, you'd have to be an idiot to knowingly consume an unnatural, laboratory made chemical.

Don't worry, I stripped the <natural> XML tags from regular sugar and mixed them up with my aspartame; it cheats reality into thinking that the sweetener is natural, preventing it from hurting me.

> As far as artificial sweeteners go, you'd have to be an idiot to knowingly consume an unnatural, laboratory made chemical.

On the subject of fallacies, this one is called the “appeal to nature”.

Authorities may be "in the pocket of Big Pharma", but by default, I'd still trust them much more than yours or mine non-expert opinion.

Of course, everybody including authorities is capable of making mistakes. It is generally a bigger mistake to think you know better than they do. Not always, but generally.