- When many of my constituents hear that I plan to introduce
a bill to ban the artificial sweetener aspartame in the upcoming legislative
session, I get a lot of very strange looks. Or worse.
-
- The American Diabetes Foundation, for example, considers
aspartame almost sacramental for persons with the disease they battle,
one that makes consumption of sugar very dangerous. To hear their lobbyists
tell it, aspartame is the modern scientific equivalent of Lourdes water
for diabetics: "If you take away my soft drinks with aspartame, what
am I supposed to drink, then, huh? " (On each occasion that sentiment
is expressed to me, I have to bite my tongue not to gently, but sarcastically,
suggest cold water, unsugared ice tea or skim milk all perfectly drinkable
alternatives, but not acceptable solutions for carbonation-crazed Coke
or Pepsi devotees.)
-
- Aspartame is currently used in over 6,000 processed foods
in this country, practically everything that passes itself off as a "lite"
or "nonfat" food or drink. Banning it, I am scolded, will create
a massive economic depression, leading to factory closures, layoffs of
thousands of workers, bank failures and rioting in the streets. Even the
Coca-Cola corporation, which looks at a casual glance like a fairly prosperous
company even an incredibly profitable one, I would think will be, I
am assured, destroyed by such a ban a very heavy burden to lay on my
shoulders.
-
- Meanwhile, dozens of corporate lobbyists (the world's
second-oldest profession) are praying that I introduce the measure again,
as it would occasion a windfall profit of extravagant expenditures for
their services when every soda pop manufacturer in the country rushes
to hire clever mouthpieces to protect their interests from our attack.
It is a veritable full-employment-for-lobbyists initiative.
-
- To be candid, the chances of our efforts succeeding in
the face of the phalanx of three-piece suits and slick leather briefcases
that will be arrayed against our tiny cadre of concerned health advocates
is extremely slim. Still, it is absolutely worth doing, I am convinced,
if it furthers the awareness-expanding process and builds on the excellent
work that is being done by the aspartame whistle-blowers like Santa Feans
Stephen Fox and Dr. Kenneth Stoller, and the remarkable Dr. Betty Martini
from Atlanta whose tireless advocacy is slowly turning the tide of public
opinion against this absolutely worthless and extremely dangerous substance.
It is even worth risking the destruction of the Coca- Cola empire, apparently
much more fragile than any of us ever imagined.
-
- For those wishing to become more familiar with the aspartame
menace, a good starting point would be the two hour-long documentary
films (available as DVDs) produced by Cori Brackett: Sweet Misery and
Sweet Remedy, available through Sound and Fury Productions at www.soundandfury.tv.
What you see in these two films is a frightening case study of how corporate
greed can completely overwhelm the supposed protections of our governmental
watchdogs, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental
Protection Agency, and the state and federal departments of Health.
-
- It is worth taking a moment here to review the history
of how a true poison like this might be passed on to us as "food"
over the protests of the scientists who tried to say "No!" but
who were, and who continue to be, subverted by corporate money spent to
influence politicians. And it may be instructional to consider as well
how this same process of erosion in public protections could actually
be going on with ever-growing sophistication and success in many other
public health areas of concern, such as mad cow disease and E. coli outbreaks
at meatpacking plants.
-
- Coca-Cola has changed 180 degrees from its position on
aspartame in 1980. At that time it testified in opposition to aspartame
's approval at FDA hearings looking into the safety of it. Now they help
finance its defense. Of course, the FDA itself has flipped. Its initial
denial was reversed a few years later in 1983, when Donald Rumsfeld (ring
a bell?) persuaded the Reagan administration that denial was not bad chemistry
but bad politics. At that time Rumsfeld headed Searle, the pharmaceutical
firm that helped develop aspartame.
-
- When concerns over the product's safety seemed likely
to produce lawsuits, Searle sold the manufacturing rights to Monsanto,
which in turn peddled them to its current primary producer, the Japanese
chemical giant Ajinomoto. That outfit has made billions on the production
of this artificial sweetener, a significant percentage of which has gone
into shoring up the political fortunes of the company 's reputation with
American congressional figures.
-
- Brilliantly too, the company has consistently made the
American Diabetes Foundation one of the chief beneficiaries of its charitable
giving largesse that has created vast gratitude and easy acceptance of
whatever "scientific" rationales the company chooses to feed
the diabetes advocacy community.
-
- Many more studies of the medical effects of aspartame
consumption have been undertaken with financing from the industry than
by independent researchers. Their findings that the formaldehyde-laced
artificial sweetener is perfectly safe are, therefore, of questionable
objectivity.
-
- Last year, however, a truly independent assessment was
published by an Italian academic researcher, Dr. Morando Soffritti. His
findings substantiate the links between aspartame and cancer, calling
it a "neurotoxin" with serious other health consequences and
concluding it has major negative impacts on those who ingest it. Soffitti
's study has been repeatedly attacked by industry spokespeople and their
paid researchers, but its conclusions stand substantially intact. In Europe
and in India, its impact is already producing governmental action to restrict
or remove aspartame.
-
- Efforts to act similarly in this country have been solely
at state levels so far, though the recent congressional changes may open
the door to much more active oversight by the Feds than was possible
under the previous leadership. Nevertheless, I would like to proceed with
our state initiative. It will, win or lose, further the effort to draw
attention to the serious medical dangers that aspartame represents. It
would serve as a precaution and could save lives.
-
- New Mexico Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino
-
- ___________________
-
- Let Your voice be heard
-
- All members of the New Mexico Legislature are listed
with their contact information on the Legislature website: legis.state.nm.us/.
The telephone number for the Legislature is 986-4300.
-
- If you, a friend or a family member is the victim of
aspartame or Splenda poisoning, your phoning and writing to the Attorney
General 's Office to encourage punitive and exemplary damage suits will
be helpful, particularly:
- · Attorney General Gary King, 505 - 827-6000,
in the Paul Bardacke Attorney General Complex
- · Deputy Attorney General Stuart Bluestone, 505
- 827-6004
-
- Readers can also make their views known directly to Dr.
Andrew C. Von Eschenbach, Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug
Administration: commissioner@FDA.gov.
-
- In order to obtain United States Senate hearings in the
Health and Judiciary committees on the forced approval for aspartame in
1981 (see September 2005 Sun Monthly article "Rumsfeld's Disease:
A Politically Induced Biochemical Disaster of Global Proportions "),
please write a letter via regular mail to:
- · Senator Edward Kennedy, Chairman, U.S. Senate
Health Committee
- · Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, U.S. Senate
Judiciary Committee, United States Senate, Washington, D.C. 20510. Or
e-mail them at http://kennedy.senate.gov/senator/contact.cfm and senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov.
-
- All members of the U.S. Senate Health and Judiciary committees
should learn of your concerns as well. Their e-mail addresses are listed
at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm.
-
- Note From Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Mission Possible
International:
-
- With regard to Senator Ortiz y Pino's remarks about aspartame
and diabetes, in another article he mentions it seems aspartame makes
it worse. He is right. According to H. J. Roberts, M.D., diabetic and
aspartame expert, aspartame can not only precipitate diabetes, but also
aggravates and simulates diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, destroys
the optic nerve, causes diabetics to go into convulsions and even interacts
with insulin. ASPARTAME DISEASE; AN IGNORED EPIDEMIC, H. J. Roberts,
M.D., 1038 pages, www.sunsentpress.com
-
- Also on www.dorway.com scroll down to experts:
- Dr. H. J. Roberts: Aspartame and diabetes and hypoglycemia
- Dr. Jayshree Barua: Diabetic Journal of India
-
- There are safe alternatives for diabetics, stevia, which
you can get in any health food store, and Just Like Sugar made of chicory
and orange peel, which you can get in Whole Foods and Wild Oats, etc.
There is a large study now on Just Like Sugar and the American Diabetes
Assn has asked to add their seal. Splenda should be avoided as its a chlorocarbon
poison, and James Turner, Atty, and Citizens for Health have petitioned
for recall.
-
- Below my signature is a Canadian Study showing aspartame
produces the same effect as sugar.
-
- Let's set a precedent in New Mexico and get it banned.
We can if everyone will help. All members of the legislature should
get a copy of the post FDA COMMISSIONER LIED TO NEW MEXICO LEGISLATURE:
http://www.thenhf.com/articles_417.htm The lobbyists will be preventing
some of this same propaganda and more. Dr. H. J. Roberts spoke with Governor
Bill Richardson when he was in West Palm Beach and the Governor admitted
that aspartame should be banned. Please be sure to write him above
- all....http://www.governor.state.nm.us/email.php?mm=6&type=opinion
-
- Also, Dr. Morando Soffritti has done a new study showing
Coca Cola causes cancer, and remember they knew about the dangers of
aspartame before it was approved and put profit before safety:
- http://www.ramazzini.it/fondazione/docs/NYAS_Coca-Cola_Ramazzini.pdf
-
- Aspartame is a GM product as written by the Independent
in the UK. The amino acids are grown on E.coli bacteria, a toxic sludge
according to the words of Dr. Bill Deagle. The free methyl alcohol converts
to formaldehyde and embalms living tissue as proven by the Trocho Study
in Barcelona in 1998. This study also showed it damages DNA, and this
means it can destroy humanity.
-
- Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., author of Excitotoxins:
The Taste That Kills now has a lecture: The Truth About Aspartame:
- www.atavistik.com
-
- Let's get it out of New Mexico and then off the planet.
It takes everyone helping. Remember teamwork is the fuel that allows
common people to produce uncommon results.
-
- Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
- Mission Possible International
- 9270 River Club Parkway
- Duluth, Georgia 30097
- 770 242-2599
-
- www.wnho.net and www.dorway.com
- Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
- www.aspartamekills.com
- Aspartame Information List, www.mpwhi.com
-
-
- CANADIAN STUDY - ASPARTAME PRODUCES THE SAME EFFECT AS
SUGAR
-
- The aspartame produces the same effect as sugar in the
diabetics who devote themselves to a physical activity
-
- By Jean Hamann
- fil@scom.ulaval.ca
-
- Even if it is not a sugar, the aspartame does not put
the people diabetics who practise a physical activity with the shelter
of the variations of the rate of blood glucose which can lead to hypoglycemia.
In fact, this product imitates so much well the sugar of table which it
arrives to berner not only the taste buds, but also the system which controls
the rate of blood glucose (glycemia). It is what work shows that coed-enquiring
Annie Ferland realized with Paul Poirier, Simone Lemieux, Jean Bergeron,
Ginette Turbide, Lison Fournier and Josée Bergeron. The study undertaken
by this team on the aspartame was the presentation on May 13 object at
the time of the Scientific workshop of the Research center of the Laval
Hospital.
-
- The researchers have known for several years that, in
the diabetics of the type 2, the practice of a physical activity after
an induced meal of stronger variations of the glycemia than a meeting
of exercises carried out with jeun. In the first two hours which follow
a meal, the glycemia of the diabetics rises - especially if the consumed
food is rich in sugars - and it goes down again quickly if there is physical
activity. "More the glycemia reaches a raised level, plus the subsequent
risks of hypoglycemia induced by the exercise increase", explains
Annie Ferland.
-
- Does the food which contains substitutes of sugar as
the aspartame cause them also these glycemic Russian mountains? To have
the cur Net of it, the researchers invited ten subjects diabetics with
a training session 60 minutes on ergocycle. This meeting proceeded at
jeun or two hours after a meal sweetened with sucrose (sugar of table)
or aspartame. Even if the calorific contents of the dish containing of
the aspartame were 20% weaker than that sweetened with the sucrose, the
two meals caused a similar rise of the glycemia, followed by a fast fall
coinciding with the beginning of the meeting of exercises. On their side,
the subjects with jeun did not undergo significant variations of glycemia.
"We were surprised by our own results, admits Annie Ferland. As the
aspartame is not a sugar and like the dish containing of the aspartame
had an index glycemic less raised, we did not think of causing a reaction
similar to the sucrose at our subjects."
-
- The brain reacts to a meal containing of the aspartame
as if it were about sugar, coed-enquiring Faculty of pharmacy notes.
However, the aspartame is a small protein made up of two amino acids.
One needs from 160 to 220 times less aspartame that of sugar to produce
a taste sweetened equivalent, so that the contribution of this sweetening
substance to the calories contained in drinks and food is about null.
One of the nutritional recommendations made to the diabetics precisely
consists in replacing sugar by a substitute like the aspartame; approximately
65% of the diabetics respect this instruction besides.
-
- Which lessons is necessary to draw from this study? "Our
results reaffirm the effectiveness of the regular practice of the physical
activity like method of control of the glycemia, notes initially Annie
Ferland. They also show that the practice of the physical activity with
jeun does not pose a problem for the control of the glycemia. As regards
the exercise after a meal, the people diabetics must know that their glycemia
is likely to drop quickly, especially if it is high at the beginning,
if the exercise is vigorous and if the diabetes is severe. The important
thing is to anticipate what can occur and not to believe that the aspartame
can secure important variations of glycemia." The researchers are
unaware of for the moment if the other substitutes of sugar produce the
same effect as the aspartame at the subjects active diabetics.
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