- " ... I am a Pediatrician, a Professor of Pediatrics
at Emory, and have spent 25 years in the biomedical science, trying to
prevent mental retardation and birth defects caused by excess phenylalanine..
. . . . .I have considerable concern for the increased dissemination and
consumption of the sweetener, aspartame, (1-methyl N-L-a-aspartyl-L- phenylalanine)
in our world food supply. This artificial dipeptide is hydrolyzed by the
intestinal tract to produce L-phenylalanine which in excess is a known
neurotoxin. Normal humans do not metabolize phenylalanine as efficiently
as do lower species such as rodents and thus most of the previous studies
in Aspartame effects on rats are irrelevant to the question, 'Does phenylalanine
excess occur with Aspartame ingestion?'"
-
- Statement by Louis J. Elsas, II, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics,
before the USA Senate Committee of Labor and Human Resources on the subject
"Nutrasweet: Health and safety concerns", November 3, 1987.
-
- Professor Elsas blew the warning whistle on that popular
diet sweetener, aspartame or Additive 951, some 20 years ago now. As he
stressed at the time, the rat studies which were used to prove aspartames
safety are inappropriate because human beings are not rats, a point which
New Zealand and Australian food safety regulators, toxicologists, doctors
and politicians still refuse to recognise. We, in possession of a bit more
elementary commonsense, may choose to differ on the point of whether we
are all being treated as the real laboratory rats by the time the sad but
also absurd - tale of aspartame is finally spelled out in these pages.
-
- Rats are, of course, the basis of food safety science.
We cant afford to kill human beings in the course of supporting food industry
profiteering. We use the poor rats and dogs, cats, rabbits and monkeys
as part of our sad experiments that have seen some 80,000 toxic chemicals
introduced for our convenience over the past 60 years by industry with
often the barest attention paid to long- term health outcomes for actual
human beings. Rats are in a sense - our surrogate consumer advocates: they
die on the Cross of science for our sins and bad science makes sinners
of us all.
-
- In the meantime it has often become difficult to find
anyone in our immediate circle of friends who is really well, while a familiar
pattern has developed of alarming new diseases and disorders developing
at earlier and earlier ages alongside endemic infertility, an increased
rate of birth defects and children and even babies falling sick with cancer
something previously unknown to our forefathers. But so familiar are we
with the sea of synthetic chemicals washing around us we never attribute
blame to them, in fact we even add them to our food to enhance flavour,
mouth feel, smell, colour and, of course, sweetness the thing we use aspartame
for instead of ordinary old sugar or honey.
-
- But what about our children?
-
- Consider for a moment how many cities around New Zealand
and Australia are opening new hospitals and setting up increased facilities
especially for treating children who in ever-increasing numbers are going
down with what used to be relatively rare adult diseases like diabetes,
leukaemia, brain tumours and weird new diseases like autism and hyper-activity
that turn tiny kids into monsters. Generations who had children before
the 1950s would wonder why we so nonchalantly accept the huge toll of chronic
disease in children that now exists, with so little comment and such apparent
acceptance of the inevitable.
-
- Meanwhile we carry on feeding ourselves and our children
with the thousands of new convenience foods laden with a witchs cauldron
of chemical preservatives and additives, convinced by TV advertising and
our faith in a vague common social mythology that neither our politicians,
our health regulatory bureaucrats nor our complaisant food and beverage
industries would deliberately poison us.
-
- Worst of all, many of us are now feeding a new generation
of human beings - our babies, our children and our pregnant selves - with
a popular synthetic sweetener poison, aspartame/Additive 951 (also known
as Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, Benevia, Equal Measure, Canderel, etc),
which has been reported in a long series of scientific, peer-reviewed studies
as carrying the ability to maim, distort and disable intellectual and physical
development from the foetal stage to adolescence. In fact over the 26 years
that have passed since aspartame's introduction into the world food chain
we are now moving into generations of human beings whose parents and parent's
parents have been continuously exposed from breakfast to dinner-time to
aspartame, monosodium glutamate and a baneful assemblage of human nervous
system toxins that American neurosurgeon Dr Russell Blaylock has termed
excitotoxins, chemical poisons that can over-excite the neural pathways
to the point of nerve death. (1)
-
- What is more, while we have finally accepted in our law
courts and at a Government level that substances like Agent Orange, lead,
and blue asbestos can medically disable particularly where long-term exposures
are involved, we seem quite unable to extend that logic to the artificial
dietary chemicals that we consume every day, year after year.
-
- Little wonder then, that ill health and classrooms full
of medicated children are part of normal, daily life and lunatic murders,
road-rage, air-rage, depression and a steady media reportage of odd and
irrational behaviour in people of all ages is just put down to modern living.
-
- Unknown to most of us, and apparently ignored by the
authorities we trust, aspartame use has been associated in the scientific
literature with a huge list of medical and psychological disorders including
irrational rage, headaches, numbness, fatigue, blurred vision and blindness,
heart palpitations, brain lesions and tumours, memory loss, dizziness,
muscle spasms, choking spasms, miscarriages, sexual dysfunction, irritability,
anxiety attacks, vertigo, epileptic seizures, rashes, tachycardia, tinnitus,
joint pain, nausea, mood alterations and depression, hearing loss, slurred
speech, loss of taste, and insomnia, as well as eroding intelligence and
short-term memory. It also helps trigger multiple sclerosis, epilepsy,
chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein Barr, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes,
mental retardation, lymphoma, and birth defects.
-
- [INSERT PANEL ON PROF WALTONS RESEARCH FINDINGS:
-
- Warning to schools
-
- Since current Labour Party policy is recommending the
use of diet products containing aspartame in our schools in order to counteract
the growing obesity problem in our increasingly sedentary child population,
we should pay attention to this recent warning from Professor Ralph G.
Walton, M.D., Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, at the USAs Northeastern
Ohio Universities College of Medicine:
-
- To whom it may concern:
-
- Although undoubtedly well intentioned, any attempt to
replace sugared beverages with aspartame containing diet products will,
in my opinion, have a devastating impact on the health of our children
and adolescents. The alarming increase in obesity, type II diabetes, and
a wide variety of behavioural difficulties in our children is obviously
attributable to multiple factors, but I am convinced that one powerful
force in accentuating these problems is the ever increasing use of aspartame.
-
- Aspartame is a multipotential toxin and carcinogen. The
dipeptide component of the molecule can alter brain chemistry, significantly
changing the ratio of catecholamines to indolamines, with resultant lowering
of seizure threshold, production of carbohydrate craving and in vulnerable
individuals leading to panic, depressive and cognitive symptoms.
-
- The methyl ester component of aspartame is metabolized
to methanol, which in turn is broken down into formic acid and formaldehyde.
- Methanol can lead to serious eye problems, formic acid
and formaldehyde are potent carcinogens.
-
- The diet food industry and the F.D.A. (plus, also, our
own NZFSA and FSANZ - ED) are fond of saying that aspartame is "the
most studied product in history" with an outstanding safety record.
In fact however virtually all of the studies in the medical literature
attesting to its safety were funded by the industry, whereas independently
funded studies, now numbering close to 100, identify one or more problems.
-
- It would be especially tragic if an attempt to improve
the health of our children led to even greater exposure to this highly
toxic product.
-
- Thank you for your attention to this urgent public health
issue.
-
- Ralph G. Walton, M.D.
-
- Medical Director, Safe Harbor Behavioral Health
-
- Professor of Clinical Psychiatry,
-
- Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
-
- Adjunct Professor Of Psychiatry
-
- Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
-
- NOTE: Dr. Walton's study on aspartame: "Adverse
Reactions to Aspartame: Double-Blind Challenge in Patients from a Vulnerable
Population, is viewable on the website <http://www.mindfully.org/ Health/Aspartame-Adverse-
Reactions-1993.htm> and in the folder <http://www.dorway.com/doctors.html#walton>
-
- [END PANEL INSERT]
-
- Junk food addicts in Rotorua put a baby through a spin
drier. Apart from P, was Diet Coke involved? Aspartame reacts with methamphetamine
to produce totally lunatic behaviour. The 2002 Lundy murders down in Palmerston
North were committed by a husband and father, Mark Lundy, who slugged back
over a litre of aspartame- containing beverages every day before finally
murdering his wife and daughter. How many of the truckies and car drivers
who regularly lose control of their vehicles on straight New Zealand roads
or drive onto level crossings in front of approaching trains were consuming
one or more of the aspartame products readily available on petrol stop
counters? Airline pilots, using aspartame products to keep down their weight
in a sedentary job, report suddenly experiencing dizziness and loss of
spatial perception at critical points in landing planes filled with hundreds
of the trusting public. Henri Paul, Princess Diana's driver in that fatal
Alma Tunnel car smash in Paris, was a heavy Diet Coke consumer and the
medical drugs he was taking not only interact negatively with aspartame,
but were prescribed in the first place to deal with symptoms probably caused
by aspartame use. Tony Blair, George Bush and Bill Clinton all steadily
consume Diet Coke according to the evidence of TV news clips. One could
say Monica Lewinsky and the whole Iraqi bloodbath is the result of the
Clinton/Bush/Blair addiction to aspartame, a chemical closely connected
to irrational behaviour.
-
- Aspartame products like Diet Coke, Wrigleys gum, Lemsip,
and Roches fizzy Vitamin B tabs are so constantly advertised on TV and
present in our brainwashed lives that we take them for granted and never
for a moment examine the hidden implications behind an additive our experts
assure us is completely without blame.
-
- And lets not forget little Abby Cormack down in Wellington
at this point. Her addiction to sugar-less Wrigleys chewing gum with its
direful health consequences occupied our medias fleeting attention span
for a few seconds in recent times. Of course the arrival of American anti-aspartame
activist Betty Martini in support of Abby's growing campaign wasn't something
our newspapers , particularly the NZ Herald, wanted to know about. The
media, of course, cant afford to rile Coca Colas or Wrigleys New Zealand
representatives and their law hacks their aspartame products bring in a
huge advertising dollar. In fact the one distinguishing feature of the
short-lived anti-aspartame campaign last August/July (2007) was just how
the New Zealand media steered clear of giving ANY space to the issue of
what Kiwis could be doing to their health by making logo diet products
containing a junk poison actually extracted from virtual raw sewage (genetically
engineered E. coli bacteria are used to produce aspartame ) part of their
daily life.
-
- The NZ Womans Weekly, which might be considered supportive
of Kiwi women, even thought a story about aspartame hazards directed at
women, who are the largest group consuming aspartame products, was somehow
inappropriate given that their pages are usually devoted to much more serious
issues like Paris Hilton's stint in jail.
-
- One shouldn't expect the New Zealand Food Safety Authority
(NZFSA) to take much interest in the issue. They refused to let Betty Martini
speak (July 19) to their oddly-named Consumer Forum, which is stacked with
people happy to act as a rubber stamp for Authority policy - policy which
could be summed up under the rubric Anything good for industry is good
enough for the NZFSA. Acting CEO Sandra Daly has herself confessed to using
aspartame-containing products in firm belief in their virtue and the NZFSA
vigorously defend the sweetener, convinced by all the shonky science from
food industry junk experts and an American Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) loaded down with ex-chemistry industry flakes that aspartame is the
best thing since sliced bread. Regulatory authorities worldwide even at
the level of United Nations and European Union involvement are hardly any
better and seem to have a revolving door relationship with the chemical
and food industries. Who else, after all, is going to give chemists and
toxicologists the sort of salaries their university educations lead them
to expect? Food is just chemicals and People are just chemicals is the
popular mythology inherent in a science and medical education these days,
so why doubt aspartame, which, when all is said and done, never kills you
straight away and is just another chemical?
-
- Since I first became aware of problems being caused by
aspartame back in 1990, I've been taken aback by the relaxed attitude of
the science and medical community towards the whole chemical food additive
and pesticide chemical residue issue as it relates to the human food chain.
More alarming still is the manner in which ordinary people can put up with
huge physical and mental damage from addiction to aspartame products like
Diet Coke without ever questioning the most obvious item(s) in their diet
that could be causing the problem.
-
- When I finally got to cross-examine Abby Cormack I was
astounded to discover that Wrigleys No Sugar gums were only the tip of
the iceberg. Shed been consuming aspartame products for a total of nine
years and Wrigleys gum was just the last straw to break the camels back
and cause her total collapse into massive depression, muscular dysfunction,
skin problems and other chronic symptoms that half a dozen medical specialists
and numerous hospital visits could provide no answer to. Simply stopping
her daily use of Wrigleys gum produced an immediate initial cure. Now that
she has been more than forty days free of ALL aspartame products practically
all her medical symptoms have disappeared and Abby has become a leading
New Zealand participant in a campaign by the Soil & Health Association,
the Safe Food Campaign and the ADHD Association for a total ban on aspartame.
-
- The whole aspartame issue becomes, in fact, a clear indication
of the huge blind-spot we all collectively have towards the things we do
every day and somehow it exposes a defect in our nature that even rats
and other lower order species dont appear to suffer from.
-
- For unlike us, laboratory rats avoid aspartame wherever
possible. In fact when US corporate additive producer G. D. Searle (later
Monsanto/Nutrasweet) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) food additive
regulators tried to force-feed the stuff to rats as part of the Mickey
Mouse pseudo-science used to validate such additions to our diet worldwide,
the rats - being much cleverer than us - carefully isolated the chemical
grains of aspartame from the food it was mixed with and left the puzzled
"scientists" and "experts" with neat little piles of
the poison in the corner of their cages. Rats apparently dont need experts
to tell them what is safe. They rely on commonsense.
-
- We are the laboratory rats!
-
- Without a question of doubt, we are the real rats in
the laboratory for a large number of food additive poisons in the food
chain, but we are unlikely to be exposed to anything much more virulent
and disabling than the scientifically established neurotoxin aspartame,
(2) officially known as Additive E951 or 951 and technically defined as
L-Aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester, 98%, aspartame CAS #22839-47-0,
C14H18N2O5, which is now present as a sweetener in literally thousands
of supermarket food and beverage products, as well as medicines and popular
supplements. Patrol the shelves of your local supermarket, health shop
and pharmacy and see for yourself. Look at the ingredient lists of your
favourite foods and beverages and establish your own personal damage control.
-
- Dont expect much sympathy for your sudden interest in
what goes into your food, least of all from our doctors, health authorities
and politicians. The only doctor in the whole of Oceania to stick her head
over the parapets and condemn aspartame in public is Australian Sandra
Cabot, in her Liver Diet book series. And while Sue Dengates Australian
food allergy activist group, the Food Intolerance Network (Website: www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info)
covers a huge range of food additives and the problems they cause, aspartame
only gets a mention among the huge list of other problem- causing chemical
additives Sue has to deal with. Jenny Scott of the Attention Deficit and
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Association in Auckland and our long- standing
health and organics campaign association, Soil & Health (publishers
of Organic NZ) are similarly stretched. Voluntary organisations simply
lack the essential resources to carry out a job we actually employ the
NZ Food Safety Authority and Food Standards Australia New Zealand to carry
out using our tax dollars.
-
- In a society with citizens more concerned and knowledgeable
about food safety, NZFSA and FSANZ wouldnt last longer than the time it
took to close down both offices and turn their collective staffs out onto
the street. But we all currently seem to accept a vague social mythology
that says both organisations are doing their job. Truth is, they are not.
They rely solely on suspect data from the food industry and from official
regulatory bodies like the FDA and European Union and United Nations food
safety quangoes, who defer to experts reliant on industry for employment
and funding.
-
- The simple fact is, paid employment defending the publics
interest in genuine, ethical food safety does not exist outside the odd
Green-type political party as in Europe or New Zealand, where isolated
politicians like our own Sue Kedgley are prepared to devote a large slice
of their life to coming up to speed with the essential scientific and political
background knowledge essential to understanding the nature of a chemical
additive like aspartame.
-
- The media, watchful for their industry advertisers, completely
ignore the toxin and treat yours truly and the handful of food safety consumer
activists like Jenny Scott, Meriel Watts, Alison White, Patricia Holborow
and Sue Kedgley (the whole food safety issue is women-led), as obsessives
with too much free time on our hands. Its only the small band of phenylketonurics
among us who pay attention to the only toxicity warning appearing on aspartame
products - "PHENYLKETONURICS: Contains phenylalanine" or simply
the term phenylalanine", which means nothing to the rest of us. Phenylketonurics
suffer from an inherited genetic disease known as phenylketonuria (PKU),
a severe allergy to phenylalanine. They must be particularly careful about
what they eat and normally follow a carefully tailored diet which excludes
high protein foods. Their motivation comes from the fact that they can
suffer permanent brain damage if exposed to the raw synthetic phenylalanine
which comes as part of the complex aspartame molecule. For the rest of
us its just another additive and the Government wouldn't allow that sort
of thing if it was bad for us.
-
- Well, Governments regularly do some pretty stupid things,
and remaining willfully ignorant about something you may be consuming every
day which has a long history of fraud, shonky science, corrupt politics
and health hazard is certainly not bliss aspartame can kill and death is
one of the outcomes underlined in court documents filed as part of major
class action litigation against the aspartame-using food industry currently
in progress in the USA. (3) About this course of events, however, the Australasian
media has so far been completely silent. Its a can of worms no one wants
to open in this country where aspartame is in thousands of products and
approved by Government edict.
-
- The silence is also very much a phenomenon of our south
Pacific isolation. Particularly since release of recent Italian data (4)
on aspartame's firm connection with cancer there has been growing involvement
of Northern Hemisphere media in discussing the issue. In fact ever since
Professor Olney pointed to an increase in brain cancers in November 1996,
drawing attention to a rising curve in brain tumours in the USA starting
within a year of the introduction of aspartame/additive 951 in 1981, there
has been growing concern in the science community over the continued presence
of aspartame in popular diet beverages like Diet Coke and in Wrigleys chewing
gum and a host of Weightwatchers, fitness, health and diet products (read
food and beverage labels for 951, artificial sweetener and/or Phenylalanine
warnings).
-
- This concern reached critical mass recently with the
publication in peer- reviewed medical journals of two intensive studies
by the Italian Ramazzini Foundation, in 2005 and 2007 (4), that demonstrated
a clear connection between aspartame consumption and a variety of cancers
including brain tumours something that the very first research on aspartame
in the 1970s indicated before aspartame approval became a political issue
pushed through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the Ronald Reagan
White House administration in payment for election campaign funding and
support from the chemical industry (G.D.Searle and Monsanto in particular).
-
- Of course in the normal, commonsense world where we,
the ordinary public live, we should be able to say Well, if theres a problem
over aspartames level of toxicity and other issues of potential hazard,
we don't want it in the food chain! This is the sensible response. What
nearly everyone in New Zealand and certainly in NZFSAs ironically-named
Consumer Forum - doesn't know, however, is how heavily politicised the
whole issue of the original approval process for aspartame was under FDA
governance by that intellectual giant, US President Ronnie Reagan.
-
- [INSERT PANEL ON FDA APPROVAL PROCESS:
-
- The politics behind aspartames approval
-
- Of course the main reason aspartame is approved in New
Zealand is because aspartame is approved in the United States. Aspartame
is a heavily politicised issue because it is a major American corporate
profit base worth billions of dollars and, as every New Zealand adult should
know by now, we usually bend over backwards to please Uncle Sam. We may
pretend to be anti-nuclear, but even George Bush knows that's a snow job
kept in circulation to fox the natives. The USA maintains a major US National
Security Agency spy base down at Black Birch Stream near Blenheim and US
Central Intelligence Agency planes involved in renditioning suspected terrorists
to torture chambers in North Africa and Afghanistan have been spotted flying
in and out of the US Deep Freeze programmes Harewood, Christchurch air
base. Sucking up to the USA is good politics. Monsanto and the corporate
chemical industry have helped put every American president in power since
the 2nd World War and good relations with the USA means keeping American
corporates happy and ensuring their products pass through our regulatory
process virtually automatically providing they have the FDA stamp of approval.
In that respect NZFSAs present acting CEO, Sandra Daly is kept completely
in the dark. Shes in business to do what shes told. FSANZ is in the same
position.
-
- The immediate former US Secretary of Defence, Donald
Rumsfeld, is a central player in the aspartame approval drama, funnily
enough, and the full story of what happened is like an episode out of The
Sopranos, but Ill try to keep it brief.
-
- The scene opens on January 10, l977. FDA Chief legal
Counsel Richard Merrill has been considering the huge list of violations
of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, committed by G. D. Searle under
the administration of former Ford White House Chief of Staff, Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld has been trying to get his pet project, the super-sweet chemical
aspartame, through the FDA's approval process for a new food product. Approval
of the product is worth billions of dollars to Searle and a huge bonus
for Rumsfeld. The problem is, the FDA's scientific team consider the sweetener
is a dangerous poison with the potential to kill. Not only this, but they
have amassed a pile of evidence that Searle, with Rumsfeld's obvious approval,
have gone through vital laboratory test reports on aspartame safety, eliminating
evidence that the product maimed, disabled and killed test animals.
-
- All the evidence for Searle malpractice has been assembled
by the FDA's Jerome Bressler into an important document now known as the
Bressler Report - that anyone can read (its on the official Federal record
and available on <www.dorway.com>). As a consequence, a Richard Merrill
writes a 33- page letter, recommending to U.S. Attorney Sam Skinner that
a grand jury investigate Searle for "apparent violations of the Federal
Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C.331(e), Act 18 USC 1001, for "their
willful and knowing failure to make reports to the Food and Drug Administration
required by the Act 21, U.S.C. 355 (i) and for concealing material facts
and making false statements in reports of animal studies conducted to establish
the safety of (aspartame)." The legal machinery creaks into action,
but the whole process is hampered by the fact that the corporate chemical
industry pretty effectively controls Washington.
-
- In the meantime its suddenly January 21, 1981, the day
after Ronald Reagan, a former B-grade Hollywood actor takes office as U.S.
President. Hes sailed into the White House on a huge raft of election funding
from corporate America and G. D. Searle in particular and the word is out
that he will not forget his friends. Donald Rumsfeld is still G.D. Searle's
president and a firm Reagan favourite. Rumsfeld has been greasing Republican
palms all round Washington for the past few years and telling the Searle
sales force "he would call in all his markers and that no matter what,
he would see to it that aspartame would be approved that year." (5)
-
- That same day G.D.Searle reapply to the FDA for the approval
of aspartame despite the fact that up-to-date this approval has been denied
pending the prosecution of the company. No problem. Reagan and Rumsfeld
already have a staunch Republican hack ready for the job as new FDA Commissioner
- Arthur Hayes, who in short order overrules the FDAs own board of inquiry
who have refused to approve aspartame and gives the product the FDAs stamp
of approval.
-
- Its well-known in Washington circles, however, that aspartame
is not just any old political FDA approval, but is, in fact, a general
signal to corporate America that Reagan means business and Big Business
at that. The signal in particular, tells Big Business that from now on
all the brakes are off, tricky regulations about silly things like public
health and safety are gone for good and Lets get together and make money,
boys!
-
- Arthur Hayes is quickly bored by his job at the FDA,
at any rate, and before too long goes off to work for notorious PR flack
firm Burson-Marsteller, who just coincidentally, you understand, happen
to be retained by G.D. Searle! At about the same time, Federal attorney
Sam Skinner remember, hes the one who's been assigned to prosecute Searle
for fraudulent tests in their original aspartame application? - gets an
offer he cant refuse from Guess who! - Searle's lawyers! - and goes off
to work for them for a reputed $US1,000 per day, effectively sabotaging
the whole Federal case and, of course, effectively ending any litigation
threat against Searle for its deliberately falsified aspartame data.
-
- The whole debauched exercise is the start of a long-standing
criticism of US federal authorities and the FDA in particular - that they
have a "revolving door" relationship with G.D. Searle, Monsanto
and the chemical industry in general. And, of course, as far as NZFSA and
FSANZ is concerned this whole shoddy exercise just never happened. But
it did, and its recorded in US Senate records. (5)
-
- [END PANEL STORY]
-
- FSANZ denies toxicity
-
- Aspartame, as we have seen, is fully approved as part
of our food chain by the combined regulatory agency, Food Standards Australia
New Zealand (FSANZ) and our own NZFSA. FSANZ was formerly known under the
rubric of ANZFA (Australia New Zealand Food Authority), but changed its
name, according to popular Internet myth, because when you do a spell-check
the suggested correction for ANZFA is always "unsafe"!
-
- Unsafe is certainly the least of the criticisms one might
make about Additive 951/aspartame. The synthetic sweetener rapidly breaks
down in the human body into three chemicals hazardous to human health:
- (1.) Aspartic acid, (around 40%); (2.) Phenylalanine, (around 50%); and
(3.) Methanol (10%).
-
- This breakdown process takes place spontaneously at a
temperature of 30 degrees Celsius and happens immediately a diet product
enters the human body (we operate normally at a temperature of 37
- degrees). Hence a can of Diet Coke exposed in those bins
outside a service station on a hot day a common sight anywhere in New Zealand
and Australia will already be laced with a cocktail of dangerous toxins
as will any diabetic bakery and Weight Watchers product containing aspartame
which has been heated in its processing. Any analytic laboratory can prove
this point for you for a cost of less than $100.
-
- The science behind methanol or wood alcohol toxicity
is beyond debate. Its something you learn about early in a chemistry training
because its in every laboratory and is similar in some of its effects to
ethanol, the ordinary drinking alcohol in all booze of whatever description.
Easy access to methanol is a standing temptation at medical school and
chemistry class parties, but it can blind you. Too much ethanol will normally
only cause vomiting and loss of consciousness. Methanol is another story
its quickly absorbed through the stomach and small intestine mucosa and
converted into formaldehyde, a severe poison and carcinogen. Then, via
a process called aldehyde hydrogenase, it is converted to formic acid.
These two metabolites of methanol are toxic and cumulative. They can make
you go blind and they can quickly kill you which they do, often.
-
- Anyone who consumes a litre or more of Diet Coke or some
other aspartame- containing beverage per day is probably already near the
limit for chronic methanol poisoning (6) and will be suffering muscle pain,
headaches, migraines, sleep problems, dizziness and/or seizures, amongst
other health problems. This is because aspartame breaks down extremely
rapidly in a liquid form. The well-known Hollywood actor, Michael J. Fox,
and several of his fellow participants in the TV drama Spin City, sponsored
by Diet Pepsi, have all been diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease. All received
free supplies of the sponsoring diet product. Parkinsons is a well- diagnosed
outcome from excess aspartame consumption, as is Alzheimers. Fox denies
a connection to his Pepsi consumption, but aspartame and Parkinsons and
Pepsi sales - flourish on such denials.
-
- At the present time, in North America, there have been
a rash of court cases and coroners court hearings over sudden deaths from
acute methanol poisoning, which we, with our knowledge here, can connect
to the chronic aspartame product consumption of the victims. Similar cases
are probably occurring all over New Zealand and Australia, but may easily
be attributed to other causes such as a heart attack unless a careful autopsy
is carried out and a history of aspartame use discovered.
-
- As this story was going to press (late August 2007) the
ad hoc group of activists publicising Betty Martinis anti-aspartame speaking
tour of New Zealand main centres were collating records on the dozens of
New Zealanders who have been contacting us over the severe medical problems
they have been suffering due to addictive consumption levels of aspartame
products like Diet Coke and Wrigleys gum. In every case they were completely
let down by our conservative medical profession, who appear to be almost
completely oblivious to the medical conditions caused by aspartame and
listed earlier.
-
- Its the same story and even worse in the home of aspartame.
-
- Chuck Flemings wife, Diane, is currently serving a 50
year sentence down in Virginia, USA, for supposedly killing him with a
methanol overdose. Chuck was a fitness fanatic, body builder and basketball
player who drank litres of aspartame-containing diet drinks every day as
part of his fitness routine and suddenly dropped dead hardly surprising
under the circumstances. The autopsy showed chronic methanol poisoning,
enlarged heart, fatty liver, pulmonary oedema, etc - all symptoms of aspartame
abuse. Police indicted Diane for poisoning her husband even though she
helped them try and find out why he died and passed a lie detector test
with flying colours.
-
- Says methanol expert Dr Woodrow Monte (presently in retirement
in bucolic Golden Bay, at the northwestern end of New Zealands South Island
) "When diet sodas and soft drinks, sweetened with aspartame, are
used to replace fluid loss during exercise and physical exertion in hot
climates, the intake of methanol can exceed 250 mg/day or 32 times the
US Environmental Protection Agency's recommended limit of consumption for
this cumulative poison." (6)
-
- Dr. James Bowen, an authority on aspartame toxicity,
explains that the heart muscle is very sensitive to methanol alcohol poisoning
and any stress on the muscle from such a source often results in sudden
death. He says: "The aspartame molecule is an alcohol poison about
20,000 times as toxic a poison as ethanol (regular old sipping, or beverage
alcohol) on a per weight basis. (7)
-
- NZFSA and FSANZ, secure in their ivory towers down in
Wellington, simply say this cant happen.
-
- Methanols hazard is exacerbated by the presence of the
two amino- acids Aspartic acid (aspartate) and phenylalanine, in the break-
down of aspartame in the human body. These two synthetic toxins (in their
aspartame form) have a multiplying or synergistic role in methanol chemistry
inside our bodies, a role which is still being studied and discussed in
the scientific literature. But again, their independent role as toxins
is not subject of debate unless you are an expert under contract to the
aspartame-using food industry or, perhaps, a food safety regulator working
for FSANZ or the FDA.
-
- Phenylalanine in its synthetic form causes the most pernicious
problems among aspartame addicts (Yes! It's highly addictive!). The amino-acid
lowers the epilepsy seizure threshold in the human brain and depletes serotonin,
triggering manic depression, suicidal tendencies, panic attacks, anxiety,
insomnia, mood swings, paranoia, hallucinations and irrational rage. Airline
pilots have a standard direction within their own inner circles and publications
advising them to stay well clear of all diet products containing aspartame,
following some alarming aspartame-induced lapses of control and judgement
at the controls of passenger jet aircraft which have resulted in pilot-
deregistration. (8)
-
- Regarding the serious issue of who is in control of your
airline flight to Sydney, the pilot or Diet Coke, Dr Russell Blaylock warns
Some of the more common complaints (from pilots using aspartame products
ED) include, disorientation, difficulty thinking and concentrating, visual
blurring or even monocular blindness, seizures and heart failure. It is
well known that the ingredients in aspartame, as well as its breakdown
products, have deleterious effects on the nervous system and retina. For
example, phenylalanine is a precursor of the catecholamine neurotransmitters
in the brain and elevated levels in the brain have been associated with
seizures. It should also be pointed out that these catecholamines are metabolized
to form other excitotoxins and peroxide products that can lead to elevated
free radical formation and lipid peroxidation within the neurons. Likewise,
aspartic acid (an excitotoxin) acts as an excitatory neurotransmitter and
can lower the seizure threshold making a seizure more likely. The additive
effect of aspartic acid and phenylalanine would significantly increase
the likelihood of a seizure, especially under hypoglycemic conditions.
This would occur if a diet drink is substituted for a meal, or if one is
on a stringent diet. (9)
-
- NZFSA & FSANZ misunderstand science
-
- The confusion our regulators suffer over aspartame's
potential hazard lies in a very common area of ignorance suffered particularly
by toxicologists, dieticians and, in fact, anyone with an elementary background
in university- level chemistry the sort of people who, in other words,
end up as experts in our national and state regulatory system. Both aspartic
acid/aspartate and phenylalanine are common amino-acids found in Nature
in foods as well as in the human body. They are protein building blocks
and wherever they occur in Nature and in our diet they are always combined
and accompanied by a huge array of associated bio- chemicals and substances
with which our digestive system and physiology is entirely familiar.
-
- They NEVER appear as independent ISOLATED amino-acids
as they do in their aspartame break-down form, and in a healthy human body
their complex action in the functioning of our brains and nervous systems
is carefully monitored by a huge cellular system of biological checks and
balances. This system is quite unable to deal with the flood of free aspartic
acid, phenylalanine and methanol resulting from aspartame consumption.
The human body, being the glorious mechanism that it is, will try to compensate,
but under the steady assault from a poison like Diet Coke, will eventually
weaken and sicken with any combination of over a thousand symptoms.
-
- Dr H.J. Roberts, author of a leading text on the medical
damage caused by aspartame, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, has
become an acknowledged world expert on aspartame poisoning, its diagnosis
and treatment at his Florida clinic. He now lists over 1,400 medical symptoms
and disorders triggered by aspartame, collated from the thousands of patients
who pass through his clinics doors. His book itself is based on the detailed
case histories of 1,200 patients whose symptoms of disease disappeared
when aspartame was removed from their diet. He estimates: Hundreds of thousands
of consumers, more likely millions, currently suffer major reactions to
products containing aspartame. Today, every physician probably encounters
aspartame disease in everyday practice, especially among patients with
illnesses that are undiagnosed or difficult to treat. (10)
-
- Consumption and particularly HEAVY consumption of aspartame-
containing food and beverage products, is the equivalent in logic of tipping
a can of petrol over your cars efficiently working engine and setting the
whole engine compartment on fire! Of course, petrol drives a cars engine,
but it must be in the right place under the correct controls. In flames,
the car may continue to run for a little while longer, but the fire will
eventually consume it and put it off the road for good.
-
- What our bodies are not familiar with and what our bodies
cannot cope with and remain healthy are the three artificially-created
chemicals that result from the immediate break-down of aspartame as it
passes the 30 degrees C threshold aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol.
But none of this fazes our health regulators.
-
- FSANZ and NZFSA say methanol appears in many items of
normal diet, like fruit, without causing damage. They neglect to add that
this methanol content is minute and buffered by the valuable nutrients
in natural foods. Furthermore, natural items of diet with a methanol content
invariably contain ethanol, which is itself a natural buffer against methanol
poisoning. (6) Aspartame products contain no such buffer. Ethanol is not
present in aspartame. Our regulators appear ignorant of this elementary
fact.
-
- FSANZ and NZFSA deny that aspartame toxins can pass over
the blood/ brain barrier a crucial point in understanding how aspartame
toxins circulating in the blood can cross into brain cells and interfere
in brain chemistry. Their assertion is based on seriously out-of- date
aspartame science held in their standard database and used to answer public
queries. The problem is that this science is based on shonky data proven
some years ago to be the work of paid science hacks working for the aspartame
industry. (11.) However, the very fact that all aspartame products must
in theory carry the "PHENYLKETONURICS: Contains phenylalanine"
warning gives the lie to this claim from our regulators. The synthetic
phenylalanine overdose contained in aspartame easily crosses the blood/brain
barrier just as the ordinary ethanol alcohol in our booze does and just
as the toxins in all the other recreational drugs we consume, like P, Ecstasy,
heroin, cocaine, etc, do. Our drugs of choice, in fact, would lose their
popularity straight away if this mystical blood/brain barrier wasnt so
easily breached in the first place.
-
- Under detailed cross-examination NZFSA and FSANZ representatives
invariably fudge these issues and display denial symptoms and ignorance
of the most basic facts about this toxin.
-
- And its not just our own poorly-educated regulators and
the American FDA who approve the product.
-
- Tens of thousands of tonnes of aspartame are poured into
the world food chain with the full approval of the World Health Organisation,
European Union, and in fact every regulatory agency from here to China
- the country which is presently competing with the USA to become the top
supplier of aspartame on the planet. It seems we all cant get enough of
aspartame.
-
- Aspartame, of course, is highly addictive, just like
our other legal drugs, nicotine and ethanol/alcohol and like the maze of
illegal substances kept in circulation. What better way of ensuring huge
annual profits to the food and additive chemical industries than by inserting
a guaranteed, legally permitted and scientifically approved additive like
aspartame into our supermarket food chain?
-
- But it doesn't get the rat vote! And with that curious
intelligence displayed by "lower" species everywhere, cockroaches
won't eat it, cats and dogs won't eat it, ants won't eat it and flies won't
eat it - but politicians, food regulators and medical professionals worldwide
consider it safe enough for us, and dutifully out here in Gods Own Country
many of us are consuming it in such large quantities that Diet Coke and
"Sugarless" Wrigley's gum are among top- selling supermarket
items and the food industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
-
- [FINAL PANEL INSERT]
-
- Why is the NZSIS interested in Betty Martini?
-
- One thing every New Zealander learns by the age of ten
is that everyone of us four million or so knows everyone else sooner or
later. The long arm of coincidence or Jungian synchronicity obviously aids
in this process, which brought Abby Cormack, dedicated Wrigleys gum addict
and Dorothy Charles, wife of an NZ Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS)
agent, together in of all places Susie Clemens Auckland Pilates studio
at 1 Barrys Point Road in Takapuna. Certainly neither expected to see the
other and, as we all know, a spook - which Dorothy's husband most certainly
is - can never retire.
-
- You see the Charles used to live down the road from the
Cormacks in Wellingtons up-market Khandallah suburb and everyone knew they
were associated with Security Intelligence as gossipy Kiwis always do.
-
- And, you see, Dorothy is not one of Susie's Pilates students
and the meeting was only being held for Susie's teacher and students so
they could pass on the dangers of aspartame to their friends. Dorothy,
a greying woman in her 60s, sitting there carefully taking notes, was very
much the odd person out in an audience that included no one (apart from
Betty Martini, myself and notorious health activist and NZs last remaining
true Communist, 86-year-old Margaret Jones) over the age of 35.
-
- So what was Dorothy Charles taking notes for? Betty Martini's
statements condemning aspartame are all over the Internet like a chronic
rash among the nearly three million hits you get on the word aspartame.
What is more, we aspartame subverters were saturating the news media with
information about Betty's views and activities around New Zealand. We had
not, however, told anyone about Betty's meeting with Susie Clemens Pilates
people. To get that information you'd either have to be moving in youthful
Auckland Pilates circles, tapping someones phone conversations or, perhaps,
doing a key word search through private emails via the USA's National Security
Agency's Echelon eavesdropping electronic surveillance station down at
Black Birch Stream out among Marlboroughs vineyards. Black Birch taps into
all our free nations Internet traffic and phone calls searching for evidence
of treasonous activity among us all.
-
- You cant be too careful down here among the icebergs
of the South Pole. Like those posters they put up during the 2nd World
War, Osama bin Laden is listening for whispers that could lead to New Zealand
becoming an Islamic state. Of course its hard to see how Betty Martini
fits into this scenario. She was still trembling at the thought that she'd
been in contact with a real, flesh and blood Communist (Marg Jones) when
I kissed her goodbye. Betty is a devout Jehovah's Witness from the Deep
South state of Georgia in the US of A. How she ever got on the SIS radar
as an object of surveillance by the matronly Dot is difficult to comprehend
unless you recognise that Coca Cola and Wrigleys are actually virtual arms
of the White House and George Bush's administration as well as nett contributors
to his presidential campaigns.
-
- So of course Betty has to be stopped!
-
- Opposing aspartame when it has been approved by Donald
Rumsfeld is like peeing on the Statue of Liberty and the American Constitution.
Its like joining Al Qaeda and spitting in George Bush's eye! Little Betty
with her rather seductive Deep South drawl and flowing Hollywood Betty
Grable tresses must be stopped!
-
- They stopped her at London's Gatwick airport in 2002
and held her in close confinement for half a day while they tried to extort
a confession from her of criminal or subversive intent. They lost her bags
on her arrival in Auckland and our SIS spooks left all their usual calling
signs (dropped sandwich crumbs, forced locks and a plastic glove!) when
her bags were finally found.
-
- So what signs of subversion was Dorothy Charles able
to detect for her husbands report back to M at spook headquarters down
in Wellington?
-
- Well, little Abby, bless her heart, was able to overlook
Dorothy's note taking and reports that Dot went into overload when Betty
was asked a key question from her Pilates audience: Why is aspartame not
banned?
-
- Profit, addiction and greed was Betty's reply, which
will now be recorded against Betty's name on her ever-growing file held
at FBI and CIA headquarters.
-
- Of course Dorothy, wife of a registered, card-carrying
SIS agent retired in Auckland could just be a deeply concerned citizen
gathering data to prevent the rampant paranoia Diet Coke consumption could
induce in fat-conscious security agents forced by their occupation to spend
hours lurking on street corners or sitting at boring public meetings taking
notes.
-
- [END PANEL INSERT]
-
- References:
-
- 1. Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., Excitotoxins; The Taste
That Kills, Health Press, Santa Fe, N.M. 87504, 1994.
-
- 2. John W. Olney and others, "Increasing Brain Tumor
Rates: Is There a Link to Aspartame?" Journal Of Neuropathology And
Experimental Neurology Vol. 55, No. 11 (November 1996), pgs. 1115-1123.
James Bowen, M.D. Aspartame Murders Infants in violation of Title 18, Chapter
50A, Sec 1091-3 of the Domestic Genocide Code see <www.dorway.com>.
Also Dr. H.J. Roberts, "Does Aspartame Cause Human Brain Cancer?"
Journal Of Advancement In Medicine Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter 1991), pgs. 231-241,
and his book, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, Sunshine Sentinel
Press, Florida, USA, 2001, Website: <www.sunsentpress.com>
-
- 3. The suits were filed in Shasta, Sonoma and Butte County,
California early in 2004. They allege that the food companies committed
fraud and breach of warranty by marketing products to the public such as
diet Coke, diet Pepsi, sugar free gum, Flintstone's vitamins, yoghurt and
children's aspirin with the full knowledge that aspartame, the sweetener
in them, is neurotoxic. Defendants in the lawsuits include Coca-cola, PepsiCo,
Bayer Corp., the Dannon Company, William Wrigley Jr. Company, Walmart,
ConAgra Foods, Wyeth, Inc., The NutraSweet Company, and Altria Corp. (parent
company of Kraft Foods and Philip Morris).
-
- 4. Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Davide Degli
Esposti, Luca Lambertini, Eva Tibaldi, and Anna Rigano, Cesare Maltoni
Cancer Research Center, European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental
Sciences, Bologna, Italy, First Experimental Demonstration of the Multipotential
Carcinogenic Effects of Aspartame Administered in the Feed to Sprague-
Dawley Rats, Environmental Health Perspectives, Volume 114, Number 3, March
2006; Morando Soffritti, Fiorella Belpoggi, Eva Tibaldi, Davide Degli Esposti,
Michela Lauriola, Lifespan Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning
During Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats, Environmental Health
Perspectives, online issue 13 June 2007 (available as doi:10.1289/ehp.10271
at <http://dx.doi.org/>.
-
- 5. Gordon, Gregory, 1987. "NutraSweet: Questions
Swirl," UPI Investigative Report, 10/12/87. Reprinted in US Senate
report (1987, page 483-510).
-
- 6. Dr. Woodrow C. Monte, "Aspartame: Methanol and
the Public Health," Journal of Applied Nutrition, Volume 36, 1984,
No. 1, page 42-54.
-
- 7 See Dr James Bowen on <www.dorway.com> aspartame
website.
-
- 8. Aspartame Not for the Dieting Pilot? Aviation Safety
Digest, Spring 1989; Hicks, M., Nutrasweet too good to be true? General
Aviation News, July 1989; High on High, Plane & Pilot, January 1990.
-
- 9. ASPARTAME AND PILOTS - Position paper by Russell Blaylock,
M.D., neurosurgeon on <www.dorway.com> in section Aviation Dr. Blaylock's
position paper on aspartame and pilots. Also see <http:// www.russellblaylockmd.com>.
-
- 10. Pat Thomas, Aspartame The Shocking Story of the Worlds
Bestselling Sweetener, The Ecologist, Vol. 35, No.7, September 2005, pages
35 46.
-
- 11. Nisperos-Carriedo, Myrna O., Philip E. Shaw, 1990.
"Comparison of Volatile Flavour Components in Fresh and Processed
Orange Juices," Journal of Agriculture & Food Chemistry, Volume
38, page 1048-1052.
-
- CHECK THESE RESOURCES FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
-
- For details of how to get aspartame out of your system
check the Websites - <www.dorway.com>, <www.wnho.net> , and
the Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame. A new video
exposing the aspartame industry is "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World",
available from Email: cori@soundandfuryproductions.com , www.soundandfury.tv
Also see the medical text on aspartame:
- "Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic", available
online from <www.sunsentpress.com> or Tel (USA) 1 800 827 7991 H.
J. Roberts, M.D. (along with other books and tapes). Dr Roberts' book contains
a chapter on trial lawyers and drug interactions since aspartame is a severely
neurotoxic drug and class action litigation has already begun. See also
books on aspartame by neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, MD, "Excitotoxins:
The Taste That Kills", and "Health & Nutrition Secrets To
Save Your Life." See websites above for details. The latter book tells
aspartame victims what they have to avoid and why, and explains how a victim
can re- build their immune system. Dr. Blaylock also has a book on Cancer
Strategies. With aspartame having caused so many tumours in original studies
this is a helpful resource.
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