Hold on to your diet soda.

A set of bills before the state Legislature would ban aspartame - known also by brand names NutraSweet and Equal - as soon as Jan. 1.

House Bill 2680 is up for a vote in the Health Committee on Wednesday, giving supporters of the ban more time to prove why Hawai'i should become the first state to ban a federally approved product, a move lawmakers are unlikely to make without strong evidence of a public health risk.

Proponents of the bill were told after a public hearing last week that a ban would be hard to push through.

Those who want aspartame taken out of Hawai'i's food supply call it a neurotoxin, a carcinogen and the source of headaches, heart spasms and a host of other ills.

"We would stop many of the neurological problems that people have today. We'd stop a lot of the cancers that are happening today. We would stop a lot of fatalities that are occurring today," said ban supporter Jade Brujell of Moloka'i.

But the state Department of Health submitted written testimony rebutting that. "Aspartame is one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) has ever approved," according to Health Department Director Chiyome Fukino's testimony.

A 2007 study published in Informa Healthcare's respected commercial journal "Critical Reviews of Toxicology," concluded that aspartame does not cause cancer, has no effect on behavior, cognitive function, neural function or seizures and is safe for diabetics who adhere to a sugar-free diet, she said.

Aspartame, which was introduced in 1981, is found in more than 6,000 products from chewing gum to some medications, and is used by more than 200 million people worldwide, according to state statistics.

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