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The following article appeared in the 'health and healing' section of the March 2005 issue of Living Now magazine.
We are the laboratory rats!
- a special report on aspartame, additive 951
by - Chris Wheeler
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There is a huge amount of evidence on how a popular artificial sweetener in all diet drinks, 'sugarless' gum and ice-cream, and a host of 'sugar-free' diet, fitness and drug products, is probably creating health problems for a large number of people. Yet the dangers of aspartame have been consistently ignored or denied by authorities. |
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CHRIS WHEELER
I am a Paediatrician, a Professor of Paediatrics at Emory, and have spent 25 years in the biomedical sciences, 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 hydrolysed by the intestinal tract to produce L-phenylalanine which in excess is a known neuro-toxin. Normal humans do not metabolise 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?" |
We, in possession of a bit more elementary common-sense, may choose to differ on the point of whether we are all being treated as the real laboratory rats by the time the sad tale of aspartame is finally spelt out here.
Rats are, of course, the basis of food safety 'science'. We can't 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. Alarming new diseases and disorders are 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 unknown to our forefathers. But so familiar are we with the sea of synthetic chemicals washing around us that 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 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 hyperactivity 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 witch's cauldron of chemical preservatives and additives. We have been convinced by TV advertising and our faith in a vague common social mythology, that neither our politicians and our health regulatory bureaucrats, nor our complaisant food and beverage industries, would deliberately poison us.
Worst of all, many people 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, 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 23 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 parents' 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 neuro-surgeon 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 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 dietary artificial 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'.
Since I first became aware of problems being caused by aspartame back in 1990, I've been alarmed and astounded at the manner in which ordinary people can put up with huge physical and mental damage from addiction to aspartame products such as diet drinks without ever questioning the most obvious item(s) in their diet that could be causing the problem. It's a clear indication of a 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 don't appear to have.
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 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. They left the puzzled 'scientists' and 'experts' with neat little piles of the poison in the corner of their cages. Rats apparently don't need experts to tell them what is safe. They rely on commonsense.
We are the 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. Probably the most virulent and disabling of these is the scientifically established neuro-toxin aspartame(2), officially known as Additive E951 or 951, 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.
Don't 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 Australian doctor to stick her head over the parapets and condemn aspartame is Sandra Cabot, in her Liver Diet book series. While Sue Dengate's 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. So you could be first in your neighbourhood to know anything about aspartame and its dangers.
The media, watchful for their industry advertisers, completely ignore the toxin and it's 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 it's '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 wilfully 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. Indeed, '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 Australian media has so far been completely silent. It's a can of worms no one wants to open in this country where aspartame is in thousands of products and approved by government edict.
You CAN make some excuses for the reluctance and the ignorance. The whole issue of aspartame toxicity involves some very technical issues, some of which are still being debated in fields like organic chemistry and toxicology. This is the very reason why such a controversial and potentially dangerous synthetic chemical should never have been released into the food chain in the first place. 'Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!' is a standard science research rule. Just because there is a debate over certain technical points in the toxicity of aspartame doesn't mean 'no problem'. It merely means we still remain ignorant over aspects of the problem.
In the normal, commonsense world where we, the ordinary public live, we should be able to say "Well, if there's a problem over aspartame's 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 Australia 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.
'Sensible' is certainly not a word you can use when you get in the way of a billion-dollar US corporate juggernaut intent on having its own way. The US chemical corporate, G.D. Searle, was that juggernaut. A familiar figure in present-day US White House policy, Donald Rumsfeld, was the boss of Searle, with a pet project that by the end of the 1970s was giving him a lot of problems - how to get Searle's patented super-sweet (200 times more than sugar) new product, aspartame, past FDA scientists who were not only deeply concerned about its toxicity and the way it disabled and killed laboratory rats, but were also pressing legal charges against Searle for deliberately falsifying its aspartame test data.
How Rumsfeld, with President Reagan's support, forced aspartame through the FDA approval process in 1981 is a story for a later issue of Living Now. More to the point, if only a fraction of what we have said so far is true, what have our own Australian regulators been doing about it?
FSANZ denies toxicity
Aspartame is fully approved as part of our food chain by the Australian regulatory agency, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and its various regulatory off-shoots at a State level. FSANZ was formerly known under the rubric of ANZFA (Australia New Zealand Food Authority), but changed its name.
There are many criticisms one might make about Additive 951 / aspartame, technically defined as L-Aspartyl-L- phenylalanine methyl ester, 98%, aspartame CAS #22839-47-0, C14H18N2O5, or more popularly defined since 1981 under various brand names - Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, Benevia, Equal Measure, etc, etc. The synthetic sweetener rapidly breaks down in the human body into three chemicals hazardous to human health - (i) Aspartic acid, (around 40%); (ii) Phenylalanine, (around 50%); and (iii) 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 drink exposed in those bins outside a service station on a hot day - a common sight anywhere in Australia - will already be laced with a cocktail of dangerous toxins as will any diabetic bakery product containing aspartame which has been heated in its processing. Any analytic laboratory in Australia can prove this point for you for a cost of less than $100.
The science behind methanol or 'wood alcohol' toxicity is beyond debate. It's something you learn about early in chemistry training because it is 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 - it's quickly absorbed through the stomach and small intestine mucosa and converted into formaldehyde, a severe poison and carcinogen. Then, via an enzyme 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 - which they do, often.
Anyone who consumes a litre or more of any aspartame-containing beverage per day is probably already near the limit for chronic methanol poisoning (4) 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 Parkinson's Disease. All received free supplies of the sponsoring diet product. Parkinson's is a well-diagnosed outcome from excess aspartame consumption, as is Alzheimer's. Fox denies a connection to his Pepsi consumption, but aspartame and Parkinson's - and Pepsi sales - flourish on such denials.
Both US presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton insist(ed) on a can of Diet Coke and a glass being next to them while speaking in public. Both could be said to display the classic symptoms of aspartame addiction - a scary thought when one considers they have control of the US nuclear button. Monica Lewinsky probably did us all a favour by keeping Bill Clinton's thoughts elsewhere.
At the present time, in North America, there has been a rash of court cases and coroner's 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 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.
Chuck Fleming's 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 to find out why he died and passed a lie detector test with flying colours.
Says methanol expert Dr Woodrow Monte: "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". (4)
Dr. James Bowen, an authority on aspartame toxicity, explains that the heart muscle is very sensitive to alcohol poisoning from methanol, 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". (5)
FSANZ, secure in their ivory tower, simply say, "this can't happen".
Methanol's 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 to 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. (6)
Regarding the serious issue of who is in control of your airline flight to Sydney, the pilot or his diet drink, Dr Russell Blaylock warns: "Some of the more common complaints (from pilots using aspartame products) 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 neuro-transmitters in the brain and elevated levels in the brain have been associated with seizures. These catecholamines are in turn metabolised 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 neuro-transmitter 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 hypoglycaemic conditions. This would occur if a diet drink is substituted for a meal, or if one is on a stringent diet". (7)
FSANZ misunderstands science
The confusion that FSANZ suffers 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 such as a diet drink, will eventually weaken and sicken with any combination of over a thousand symptoms.
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 car's efficiently working engine and setting the whole engine compartment on fire! Of course, petrol drives a car's 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 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 says that methanol appears in many items of normal diet, such as fruit, without causing damage. But natural items of diet with a methanol content invariably contain ethanol, which is a natural buffer against methanol poisoning. (4, 8) Aspartame products contain no such buffer - ethanol is not present in aspartame! FSANZ appear ignorant of this elementary fact.
FSANZ denies 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. (9)
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 clinic's doors. As he himself points out, there are by now, in 2005, more than sufficient studies to convince even the slowest expert or intellectually-challenged FSANZ regulator, all through the scientific literature, indicating in detail how aspartame toxins pass the blood/brain barrier and enter the nervous system.(2) An internet search will quickly confirm my point. However, the very fact that all aspartame products must - in theory - carry the 'PHENYLKETONURICS: Contains phenylalanine' warning gives the lie to this FSANZ claim.
Under detailed cross-examination, FSANZ representatives invariably fudge these issues and display denial symptoms and ignorance of the most basic facts about this toxin.
And it's not just FSANZ 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 can't get enough of aspartame.
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. Yet, food regulators and medical professionals worldwide consider it safe enough for us, and dutifully out here in the Lucky Country, many of us are consuming it in such large quantities that diet drinks and 'sugarless' chewing gum are among top-selling supermarket items. The food industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
We are the laboratory rats! Part two - a special report on aspartame, Additive 951
- How a popular artificial sweetener in all diet drinks, "sugarless" gum & ice cream & a host of 'sugar-free' diet, fitness and drug products, is probably creating health problems for a good number of Australians.
"Aspartame is sold as NutraSweet and Equal and is in thousands of foods and diet drinks. At every point in the fertility process aspartame destroys, beginning with the gleam in Mom and Pop's eyes, it ruins female sexual response and induces male sexual dysfunction. Beyond this, aspartame disrupts foetal development by aborting it or inducing defects. And if a live child is born, aspartame may have heinously damaged the DNA of the baby, cursing future generations".
Dr James Bowen, M.D. in "Aspartame Murders Infants in violation of Title 18, Chapter 50A, Sec 1091-3 of the Domestic Genocide Code" - (see www.dorway.com).
Death is sudden and strikes by surprise in the case of heavy aspartame consumption. Chuck Fleming down in Virginia, USA, 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. Aspartame was the real guilty party but his wife Diane is now in jail serving a 50-year sentence, accused of murdering the man she loved. The case is presently under appeal.
Says methanol expert Dr Woodrow Monte "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." (1) Contained in beverages like Diet Coke, Pepsi Light and the long list of aspartame-containing diet drinks now available in your local supermarket, and supplemented by the idea constantly plugged on popular TV programmes that drinking Diet Coke, etc, is "cool" and fashionable, a chilled diet drink is included as an essential in many fitness gym exercise programmes. It's also added to an enormous number of "fitness" products aimed at bulking up muscle and athletes intent on building healthy bodies chug it down with gay abandon and then wonder why their performance falls off and the headaches and migraines run out of control.
Janet Starr Hull, a formerly fit aerobics instructor, was one of those who ended up paralysed in a hospital bed, her body totally out of control, her mind racing with the question "What is causing these problems?" But it took months of medical tests for the penny to finally drop, during which not a single medical expert ever asked her about what she, in typical American fashion, ate and drank every day - an endless variety of aspartame-containing products. Her momentous - but terribly obvious - discovery of the source of her problem eventuated from simply examining her daily diet and listing all the products containing aspartame.
She wrote a book back in 2000 telling the story of her near-death experience with aspartame products - "Sweet Poison - How the World's Most Popular Artificial Sweetener is Harming Us" (Vision Paperbacks, London, 2000). Testament to its popularity in Australia, I bought a copy from a book "remainders" bin for 50 cents! Given greater popularity and a few favourable reviews in the media, it could have saved a lot of misery for a lot of Australians.
In the scientific and medical press this toxin has undergone more serious investigation of its potential harm to human physiology than September 9/11 or the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, yet 24 years after its approval for use in the USA we still dutifully toddle through supermarket turnstiles with kilos of the stuff and then wonder why we always feel so run-down with a host of - well, to be frank, 92 different US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and Food standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)-classifiable medical symptoms - including headaches, numbness, fatigue, blurred vision and blindness, heart palpitations, brain lesions and tumours, memory loss, dizziness, muscle 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.
Of course nearly all these symptoms can be associated with some other classifiable disease so your local GPs, unless they have been doing their homework (and most of them haven't) and unless they take a full history concentrating on the patient's daily diet (and most of them don't!), won't pick aspartame as the causative factor and will probably diagnose the symptom as "caused by a virus", their usual catch-all diagnosis. Unfortunately for the aspartame-poisoning victim, a prescription of antibiotics or painkillers will cure nothing. Fixing symptoms doesn't cure the disease - you must stop the cause.
There is growing evidence in the expert literature to suggest that aspartame may be a causative factor in the growing incidence of irrational and anti-social behaviour - road and air travel rage, hospital and ambulance officer assaults, school playground incidents, teenage and adult suicides and the almost endemic depression now being widely discussed in the media.
We're talking, after all, about a widely consumed toxin, which is a key ingredient in thousands of products potentially part of our daily diet, not about more expensive recreational drugs, legal or illegal. Human & media denial
What is there about us human beings that makes us such gullible Patsies for any specious piece of nonsense passing in front of our noses, clearly romoted with an eye not on our health, but on the almighty dollar?
The last time I wrote up this story for a popular Australian publication (not LIVING NOW, of course!) it got mangled beyond recognition by the frightened editor and re-written to include an invitation to visit websites that specifically support aspartame use, as part of that "balance in journalism" fiction that is always used by those in the media who somehow dislike voyaging into the real world where facts are simply facts and the truth can be hard to bear and bare.
The popular media are very selective in the use of Establishment sources and the Internet can be hardly much better. A lot of us regular Internet users go to sources like David Emery's sometimes reliable Urban Legends website
The oldest trick in the propaganda book is to denigrate an information source and the supporters of aspartame use universally condemn the Internet for the way it displays ALL the known information on aspartame toxicity. It's a bit like criticising your local library because it carries Mills & Boon romance novels! Because of the huge number of people now actively agitating against aspartame use in the United States there are a large number of Internet websites and organisations opposing the product based in that country and a huge number of recorded aspartame-poisoning case histories with supporting medical data. From just two anti-aspartame websites in 1996, Google.com was listing over 80,000 "hits" by October 2001.
Activism in Australia over aspartame has been negligible, however, although popular Australian medical writer, Dr Sandra Cabot, has dealt with the subject and how to de-tox from aspartame in her Liver Diet series of books and Sue Dengate's Australian food allergy activist group, the Food Intolerance Network (Website: www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info) lists aspartame among the huge list of other problem-causing chemical additives available in our supermarkets.
DORway.com is one of the most comprehensive and reliable sites, as will be apparent from this story. Founded by the late David Rietz, who was himself an aspartame victim, it is the official information arm of the indefatigable Betty Martini's Mission Possible, which has been battling aspartame and its supporters and suppliers for two decades. Monsanto, who bought aspartame patent owners Searle in 1985, have been trying to find ways of closing the website down since 1996 and their law and PR firms have visited the site thousands of times in the search of evidence for a product defamation court case similar to the notorious one mounted by McDonald's against the McLibel Two in London in the late 90s.
That the case against aspartame is bulletproof is evident from the fact that neither Monsanto, the NutraSweet Corporation (the Monsanto subsidiary now manufacturing aspartame) nor companies like Coca Cola and Wrigley's have ever dared prosecute any of their critics. The fate of McDonald's in the McLibel suit, where all the contentions of health damage were proven, has acted as a warning to the international corporates against raising a hornet's nest. The fact is, of course, that the most damning items of evidence against aspartame are in the thousands of pages of evidence arguing against its approval written by a long list of reputable medical doctors and scientists, some of which has been sworn testimony before the US Senate and a large body of which is out in the public arena and open for all to inspect (see www.dorway.com). A significant volume of this evidence comes from the FDA itself, until it was bought out by the White House Reagan administration under chemical industry pressure from the present US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, from his position as CEO of manufacturer, G.D. Searle.
As will be apparent later in this piece, the current of litigation is now heading in quite the opposite direction - against the long list of companies headed by Monsanto and its NutraSweet Corporation, who have been poisoning the planet's population since aspartame's approval in 1981. Donald Rumsfeld's name, normally associated with his role in the war in Iraq, figures prominently in court papers.
Science warnings ignored
I'm not inventing new alarmist science on aspartame in this tale of corruption and mismanagement to prove some odd geeky theory about aspartame, either, although FSANZ and the substantial pro-aspartame faction in Australia who all gain from steady aspartame sales, love to demonise any adverse criticism of aspartame - as they will with this one - as the work of an eccentric minority. The elementary chemistry involved in aspartame's breakdown into the highly toxic poisons, aspartic acid (around 40%), Phenylalanine, (around 50%), and Methanol (10%) in the human body is part of ordinary science being taught in universities and medical schools all round the world and the critics haven't been able to write their Flat Earth theories into the chemistry text books yet.
Look in the pages of a standard modern reference work like respected neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock's "Excitotoxins - The Taste that Kills" (Health Press, Santa Fe, 1997) and the clinical details of what happens to the brain and the body's nervous system under an assault from aspartame is spelt out in detail.
"As a neurosurgeon," writes Dr Blaylock, "I see the devastating effects a brain tumour has, not only on its victim, but on the victim's family as well. To think that there is even a reasonable doubt that aspartame can induce brain tumours in the American population is frightening. And to think that the FDA has lulled them into a false sense of security is a monumental crime." (2)
Critics occasionally try to demonise Dr . Blaylock's criticisms of aspartame, attempting to imply that he has some odd, out-of-the- mainstream theories, but Dr. Blaylock has a reputation as an internationally-recognised neurosurgeon and cites the peer-reviewed papers of 493 scientific studies in support of his contention that neuro-poisons like aspartame and monosodium glutamate (vegetable protein/hydrolysed vegetable protein, etc) are causing profound, long- term damage to human health. His critics carefully avoid tackling his extensive review of the actual test data that preceded aspartame's approval by the FDA, where Dr. Ballcock analyses in detail precisely how G. D. Searle falsified data and tried to hide the fact that rats fed aspartame suffered grand mal seizures, died and suffered from cancer in unprecedented numbers.
Food safety regulatory agencies like our own FSANZ (3) refuse to analyse this crucial original research data, dismissing it in favour of the favourable reports on aspartame safety fabricated by the huge team of scientists and consultants who owe their living to the aspartame industry. (4)
Dr Blaylock is particularly concerned that two categories of citizen - the very young with their developing brains and the very old, with deteriorating brains and nervous systems - are both particularly vulnerable to damage from any chemical like aspartame, which specifically targets the nervous system.
Reporting to a medical discussion group of the prestigious British medical journal, the Lancet, Dr Blaylock noted that the US "National Collaborative Study for Maternal PKU has recommended that during pregnancy blood Phe (phenylalanine) should not exceed 6mg/dl. This means that 14% of the general public could exceed this level when consuming high intakes of aspartame and that 5% of normal people could exceed 10mg/dl. One in fifty persons carries a heterozygous gene for PKU (hypersensitivity to phenylalanine - ED). Up to 35% of such unfortunate individuals, and their babies, would be at risk without knowing it. Especially, since the babies brain levels would even exceed that of the mother. With the complexity of the central nervous system it would be irresponsible for the FDA to allow the widespread selling of aspartame without further independent study of the neurophysiological, neurobehavioral and neurochemical effects of high intakes of this drug at all ages using chronic studies. I think it is foolish to ignore the complaints of millions of individuals reporting difficulties with this substance. Russell L. Blaylock Neurosurgeon." (5)
The implications behind his statement are that tens of thousands of children are being born suffering brain damage in varying degrees and their growth and development is being stunted all in defence of corporate profiteering. Under these circumstances it is hard to understand how FSANZ regulators can sleep in their beds at night. Dr. Blaylock's concerns are shared by a long list of other medical authorities whose specific criticisms are listed on www.dorway.com.
We really have no excuses when it comes to the obvious dangers of this product. It was reviewed as a possible biochemical warfare agent by the Pentagon in a list submitted to Congress prior to the accidental discovery of its sweetener action. In 1969, Dr. Harry Waisman studied the effects of aspartame on primates, and seven infant monkeys were fed the chemical in milk. One died, five others had Grand Mal seizures. These findings were deleted from Searle's report to the FDA.
MIT researchers surveyed 80 people who suffered brain seizures after eating or drinking products with aspartame, and the US Community Nutrition Institute states: "These 80 cases meets the FDA's own definition of an imminent hazard to the public health, which requires the FDA to expeditiously remove a product from the market."
This sad litany is repeated again and again in scientific reports and medical case histories, but despite all this, by 1985 G. D. Searle and Monsanto's NutraSweet Corporation (Yes, Monsanto was in there!) had cranked out over 400,000 tonnes of aspartame, NutraSweet was in over 9,000 foods by 1997 and on nearly every restaurant table even in Australia. The irony is that the two things aspartame is most often marketed for, diabetes and weight loss, are actually made significantly worse by ingesting the substance.
According to Dr. H. J. Roberts (a leading US critic of the product and author of the recently released medical text, ASPARTAME DISEASE - AN IGNORED EPIDEMIC) after summarising 58 diabetic aspartame reactors, "I now advise ALL patients with diabetes and hypoglycaemia to avoid aspartame products." The Dr. Mercola website (www.mercola.com), another reliable source of holistic healing information, carries regular updates on the dangers of aspartame consumption, plus hints on how to de-toxify from the product.
Dieters, a specific target group for aspartame use, need to know that aspartame triggers a craving for carbohydrates, hardly the reaction desired by those trying to lose kilos. In fact if you want to INCREASE weight and endanger your health aspartame is the ideal route to take. The FDA has received more than 10,000 consumer complaints over aspartame, approximately 80% of all complaints about food additives since being introduced to the market. But FSANZ states on its website that aspartame has "an established history of safe use", which is a bit like saying "Osama bin Laden is well-intentioned".
Politics of aspartame
Of course the main reason aspartame is approved in Australia 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 Australian adult should know by now, we usually bend over backwards to please Uncle Sam. It's 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 the Australian regulatory process virtually automatically providing they have the FDA stamp of approval.
FSANZ deny this, of course, but then, they also deny that aspartame carries any health risks. Arguing the issue with them is a bit like trying to promote the Earth as a sphere to the Flat Earth Society.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, however. Aspartame is, in fact, a prime case for direct consumer action. But first you need to know exactly what you're dealing with. The FDA approval process for aspartame is a key issue in understanding why aspartame got approved for use in Australia and the story is every bit as tortuous as trying to figure out who really killed US President J. F. Kennedy.
The current 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 I'll try to keep it brief.
It's January 21, 1981, the day after Ronald Reagan, a former B-grade Hollywood actor takes office as U.S. President. He's 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, former Ford White House Chief of Staff, is G.D. Searle's president and a firm Reagan favourite. Rumsfeld has been greasing Republican palms all round Washington 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." (6)
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 on grounds of aspartame's proven toxicity. 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 FDA's own board of inquiry who have refused to approve aspartame and gives the product the FDA's stamp of approval.
It's 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 "Let's 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, who's been assigned to prosecute Searle for fraudulent tests in their original aspartame application, gets "an offer he can't 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 FSANZ is concerned this whole shoddy exercise just never happened. But it did, and it's recorded in US Senate records. (6)
That's the thing about aspartame: it's a bit like the key to Pandora's Box of stored evils - once we start opening the box all hell breaks loose!
Recently, good old FSANZ has finalised approval of several knock-offs from aspartame, including neotame, an aspartame look-alike which Monsanto/NutraSweet say is safer for phenylketonurics. Actually this is PR drivel. Dr Roberts and others in the long list of medical critics say the clinical effects from neotame will be the same as aspartame and the only reason Monsanto/NutraSweet are changing the formulation is because aspartame's patent rights have run out and the neotame formulation gives them patent control again and thus monopoly and price control. FSANZ in this case have done one better than the FDA by giving their rubber stamp ahead of the FDA to yet one more Monsanto industrial poison (Monsanto have also given the world the popular herbicide Roundup/glyphosate, recently linked to birth defects, cancer and hormone disruption).
In my own regular dealings with the food regulators it always seems we're singing from different hymnbooks when it comes down to the actual science indicating hazard or safety for aspartame. However, when you can get to check what the regulators are actually reading you invariably discover they are sticking to the data produced by the aspartame industry or its paid minions in the science community.
Substantive evidence of this trend was produced by Professor Ralph Walton of Northeastern Ohio University's College of Medicine, who pointed out on the popular US TV programme "60 Minutes" (Dec 29, l996) that he had done peer reviewed research showing that of 90 INDEPENDENT studies on aspartame 83 out of 90 or 92% identified a problem. Of the seven non-industry studies attesting to aspartame's safety, six were studies from the FDA and one was from a literature review almost exclusively dealing with industry-sponsored research. Dr. Walton noted at the time that "As the role of the FDA in the question of aspartame safety, has been controversial and allegations were made of a conflict of interest on the part of the FDA Commissioner at the time of aspartame's approval, one could argue that the FDA studies should not be considered truly 'independent'. If these studies are excluded, along with the literature review focusing only on NutraSweet industry funded research, then 100% of the truly independently funded research demonstrated some type of adverse reaction to NutraSweet (aspartame)." (4)
His warning words on the aspartame disaster, now well into its third decade on our food chain, are echoed by a long list of eminent scientists whose peer-reviewed papers and interviews on the subject of aspartame toxicity are listed in detail on the www.dorway.com website. FSANZ naturally places its confidence in aspartame safety on pro- industry research and the shonky reports from the EU and UN Codex coming from committees loaded with food industry representatives. When it is challenged on its aspartame safety data it always quotes the European Union's special whitewash report on aspartame instigated by Tony Blair's UK Government -" Opinion of the European Commission, Scientific Committee on Food: Update on the Safety of Aspartame / E951" (SCF 2002) (7), which reads like something out of the notoriously shonky Blair brief on the Iraq "weapons of mass destruction" scam - another piece of work with the stamp of Donald Rumsfeld all over it.
The EU Opinion naturally reported that aspartame was safe because two-thirds of the science committee's members earn a significant part of their living as scientific consultants to the aspartame-using food industry. The United Nations body concerned with international food safety, the Codex Alimentarius - is similarly dominated by aspartame- user industry groups and their concerns due to an in-built bias in its constitution that dictates it deal solely with industry groups, politicians and national regulators. In these circumstances genuine scientific and consumer concerns get short shrift and aspartame carries on its path of destruction. What we all need to keep focused on, of course, is that our bureaucrats and politicians have a long, long history of support for blue asbestos, DDT, lead, and Agent Orange poisoning, as the historic record demonstrates. It took Australian governments and their regulatory officials and experts decades to accept that these toxins actually damaged human health. Little wonder, then, at their staunch defence of aspartame and a long list of other harmful synthetic food additives in the food chain. (8)
Why is aspartame protected?
Why all this carefully organised concern aimed at keeping a dangerous nerve poison part of the world food chain? Are the people we trust - politicians, food regulators, even the Establishment medical profession - suffering from a collective blind spot, or, perhaps, temporary insanity over aspartame? Is it a plot from the New World Order or even Osama Bin Laden?
Well, actually, nothing like that. It's really just a familiar case of the old Washington/White House/Canberra run-around described earlier. They are all just protecting their jobs and their backs. For a start, the potential litigation over aspartame -already in train - is billed to be among the biggest class actions ever to hit the planet, far out-ranking tobacco, blue asbestos, Agent Orange and lead and they just hope the brown stuff doesn't hit the fan until they have retired or moved to another job.
Normal human life isn't logical. Intellect doesn't rule. Third-rate intellects will always defend stupidity because to do anything else exposes their own inaction and ignorance. Remember, blue asbestos cost Australian insurers mega-bucks and nearly destroyed Lloyds of London and its famous "names", who were committing suicide and dying of heart attacks in unprecedented numbers a few years back. But we have known for over 100 years that blue asbestos kills. Aspartame science has less than 50 years of active history. But aspartame litigation could destroy the credibility of whole governments and the very international processes we rely on to regulate food safety. FSANZ will, before too long, be dancing before investigating political committees in Canberra and Wellington answering the important question "Why did you ignore all the warning data about aspartame for over 20 years?"
But don't expect logic. Everyone "in authority" is ducking for cover at the moment hoping that aspartame will simply go away. This story will be ignored or denied following the usual pattern. But unfortunately for all concerned, including the untold millions of aspartame consumers out there, it will not be going away this time. Things have already gone too far.
Litigation has started
Early last year class action lawsuits were filed in three separate California courts against twelve companies who either produce or use aspartame as a sugar substitute in their products. The suits were filed in Shasta, Sonoma and Butte County, California.
The suits 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, Wal-Mart, ConAgra Foods, Wyeth, Inc., The NutraSweet Company, and Altria Corp. (parent company of Kraft Foods and Philip Morris). That's just for a start!
As I was revising this story last December the news came in from anti- aspartame action organiser Betty Martini that New York's leading class action attorney, Keith Silverstein, is about to start a separate and probably larger class action case against all the key players in the aspartame industry. Silverstein is presently taking on confirmed cases of medical disability caused by consumption of aspartame-containing products, but is limiting the medical field to brain tumours, seizures and blindness or other eye deterioration. All medical records and updates can be sent direct to the law firm's email Ksilverstein@SHSLawpro.com, but check first with Betty Martini (Bettym19@mindspring.com) to make sure Australians can be joined to the legal action. Silverstein and partners are also taking on Vioxx and Celebrex cases, two recent drug medication disasters which also involve Australians.
Compensation paid out by the aspartame industry including major corporations such as Coca Cola and Pepsi is expected to surpass the payouts in the case of blue asbestos and tobacco, the current record holders in class action litigation, by billions of dollars. Wall Street, London City and insurers from Zurich to Tokyo are beginning to tremble and look for avenues of escape and you can bet FSANZ and state health regulators throughout Australia will be checking their insurance policies and calling in their lawyers for some serious back- room chats.
Be sure to send copies of this issue of LIVING NOW to any friends or relatives who may be suffering from aspartame poisoning. Remember, all diet preparations are suspect, many sweetened medications and confectionery and many "fitness" and "health" drinks. Watch this space for news of litigation in this part of the world, but in the meantime scan everything you buy for Additive 951, the term "contains artificial sweeteners" and the phenylketonurics warning.
If you feel you've been poisoned by aspartame, the first thing to do is STOP USING THE STUFF! If you've been a daily user it could take at least three months for the headaches, muscle pains, migraines, etc, etc, to fade away, but immediate relief can be noticed by most aspartame addicts within 24 hours of stopping. Australian doctor Sandra Cabot's Liver Diet books give a good programme of detoxification from aspartame addiction. Advice on de-tox procedures is also posted on the anti-aspartame website www.dorway.com as is a long list of case histories from people who used the stuff, were made sick by it, and recovered. Reading this list should be compulsory for FSANZ.
You should also keep a regular watch on the public notices sections of the major city newspapers if you have been poisoned by aspartame products. Class actions against the major players in the Australian food industry using aspartame will undoubtedly be a feature of Australian law courts over the next decade following the pattern for tobacco and blue asbestos litigation. You could get your money back for all those diet products you consumed that took your health away!
And while you're at it, why not raise the topic of aspartame regulation with our politicians? Don't they represent us? An interesting question in the circumstances!
References:
- Dr. Woodrow C. Monte, "Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health," Journal of Applied Nutrition, Volume 36, 1984, No. 1, page 42- 54.
- Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., "Excitotoxins; The Taste That Kills", Health Press, Santa Fe, N.M. 87504, 1994, page 213.
- 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"! Hence my preference for FSANZ/UNSAFE. Let's put the responsibility for this poison where it belongs.
- Walton, RG., Northeastern Ohio University's College of Medicine, "Survey of Aspartame Studies: Correlation of Outcome and Funding Sources," outlined on the popular US TV programme "60 Minutes" (Dec 29, l996) and provided to Ed Metcalfe for the purposes of his story "Sweet Talking," published in The Ecologist, Vol 30, No 4 June 2000.
- British medical journal, the Lancet, July 29, 1999, see website http://www.thelancet.com/cgi-bin/newlancet/sub/pg_discuss.cgi).
- Gordon, Gregory, 1987. "NutraSweet: Questions Swirl," UPI Investigative Report, 10/12/87. Reprinted in US Senate report (1987, page 483-510).
- See http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/ for the full report.
- See Bill Statham's Australian guide to food additives, "The Chemical Maze", listing nearly 1,000 potentially harmful chemicals in our food chain. Available from Possibility.Com, P O Box 789, Ringwood, Victoria 3134.
Web Site - www.dorway.com and www.wnho.net, the Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame. A new video exposing the aspartame industry is Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, available from cori@soundandfuryproductions.com, Tel (USA) - 520 - 624 -9710. Also 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. 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.
Chris Wheeler is former president of the Soil and Health Association, Australasia's oldest organic agriculture lobby group, and is currently working with Queensland cancer therapist Walter Last on an updated edition of their "Self Help Cancer Cure Book".
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