Recently in Aspartame Category

Yahoo News
Uk&Ireland Breaking News
June 11, 2008

Coke Zero has been banned in Venezuela because of possible health risks.

The government, led by Hugo Chavez, ordered the removal of the soft drink from stores while its ingredients are investigated.

Health minister Jesus Mantilla said: "The product should be withdrawn from circulation to preserve the health of Venezuelans."

He did not specify which ingredients were causing concern or what health risks they posed.

NCI STUDY LINKS ASPARTAME TO LEUKEMIA/LYMPHOMA

EFSA blesses formaldehyde-forming aspartame on April 20

NCI backs study linking formaldehyde to leukemia, lymphoma on May 14

From Mission Possible International

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) announced April 20, 2009: ..."on the basis of all the evidence currently available including the [second] published ERF study there is no indication of any genotoxic or carcinogenic potential of aspartame and that there is no reason to revise the previously established ADI (allowable daily intake) for aspartame of 40mg/kg bw/day." Truth be told: aspartame is an addictive excitoneurotoxic, genetically engineered, carcinogen that interacts with virtually all medications.

EFSA is blinded by allegiance to commercial interests so it invents objections to acclaimed medical research, disregarding the suffering, ruined lives and death their cupidity brings to an entire continent.

In 2005 the renowned Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences reported a rigorous three year study on 1800 rats, concluding: aspartame causes significant increases in lymphomas/leukemias and is a multi-potential carcinogen. EFSA invented "deficiencies" in the study to protect manufacturers pet poison. The second study, ERF 2007, entirely verified the first. Dr Morando Soffritti, who led both projects, noted that so much formaldehyde developed in aspartame-exposed rats that their skin turned yellow.

Ajinomoto Seeks Approval of Sweetener, Advantame, a New and as yet Unknown Biochemical NIghtmare

CHICAGO-- Ajinomoto Company Inc., the leading global supplier of proven neurotoxic and carcinogenic aspartame as well as the equally destructive monosodium glutamate, has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval of another biochemical monstrosity of to-the-public-unknown constitution, called Advantame, what they call "an innovative sweetener for use in foods and beverages."

My educated-but-still-layman's guess is that is is some mixture of aspartame and neotame, yet another deadly concoction and witch's brew. Ajinomoto was dumb enough to sue ASDA/Walmart for merely saying that Aspartame was "nasty" enough for them to get rid of out of their stores.

see also:

http://www.prlog.org/10070694-uk-supermarket-chain-bans-aspartame-from-own-label-products-japanese-manufacturer-ajinomoto-sues.html

Ainomoto says this: "Advantame has a sweet, clean sugar-like taste. Because it is much sweeter than most low and non-calorie sweeteners currently available, it is anticipated to be a top candidate for food and beverage formulations."

OpEdNews
March 30, 2009
By Cathy Alexander

My name is Cathy Alexander, age 52, from Tennessee. Here is my story: MY BATTLE WITH ASPARTAME POISON.

In 2005 I had an operation on my abdomen, and there were 100 days of recovery time.

A week after I got up one morning and my legs folded under me. I could not walk and my mind was so cloudy I could not remember what day it was. I was very frightened because I had never felt this way before, not once in my entire life! I would hold on to whatever was near, holding unto the walls to get down the hall to the bathroom, falling along the way.

I was so scared: I had never felt this way before. I had no insurance. I went to 3 different ER's at three different county hospitals. First, they all thought I was on drugs or drunk and I wasn't. With all kinds of testing they could not find anything.

I had to come up with the money to go to a Neurologist who tested me and did spinal taps. Nothing showed up. So the neurologist and another doctor said it was acute cerebellitis and that I would be better in about 6 months. By that time it was the same or even worse.

I had no balance or any motor skills. It was like my muscles were soft and did not work. I do not take prescriptions for nervous or antidepressants, but I was very shaky and very depressed. I did not care to live.

PRESS RELEASE LEGISLATION NEEDING YOUR ACTION

National Health Federation

February 24, 2009

HAWAII & NEW MEXICO ARE LEADING THE WAY
GET YOUR STATE SENATORS
TO SPONSOR A BILL TO BAN ASPARTAME
  ACT NOW

NHF member, Dr. Betty Martini, Founder of Mission Impossible International, and Stephen Fox, Editor of the New Mexico Sun News, are currently working with people in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Illinois to accomplish just this. The bill is now written and Dr. Martini and Stephen Fox have written the resolution. Stephen Fox wrote the important legislation to ban aspartame for both the Hawaii and New Mexico Senate.

In Stephen's words, this legislation was "overwhelmed by corporate lobbyists (eviscerated, might be the better word....), which led to a Hawaii Senate Concurrent Resolution 191, which genteelly but firmly asked the FDA to rescind the approval for aspartame, and gave about 40 reasons to do so. It can be read at the Hawaiian Legislature's website, as SCR 191. This resolution will be sponsored again in 2009 by Senator Suzanne Chun-Oakland in Hawaii, and by New Mexico Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino. The corporate lobbyists will be out in droves and out for blood, this time . . . ."

NaturalNews
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
December 19, 2008

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted GRAS approval for a natural, zero-calorie sweetener it once sought to wipe out from the U.S. marketplace. Following political pressure from powerful consumer product corporations (Coca-Cola and Pepsi, primarily), the FDA has once again fallen in step with the interests of Big Business and legalized a food and beverage ingredient that it once aggressively oppressed.

In this case, however, the approval of this ingredient happens to be in the best interests of consumers. Why? Because it will largely replace aspartame, an artificial sweetener chemical linked to numerous neurological disorders, including headaches, eye disorders and other problems.

It will also unleash a wave of stevia-sweetened products for consumers, and that's good news for diabetics or anyone seeking healthier products sweetened with an herbal extract rather than a synthetic chemical.

I publicly predicted this FDA decision just two weeks ago an article containing thirty-one predictions for 2009 (http://www.naturalnews.com/024976.html). The FDA's approval of stevia is prediction #8, for those keeping track. (Interestingly, at least two of the top 13 predictions for 2009 have already come true in the last month of 2008!)

Related articles by Zemanta

• Coca-Cola and Cargill Rush To Market Stevia
• Stevia -- a natural, no-cal way to satisfy a sweet tooth. But is it safe?
• Coke Pushes Stevia Without FDA OK

Bloomberg
Matthew Craze and Duane D. Stanford
November 28, 2008

A leaf the Guarani Indians of Paraguay's jungles used to sweeten drinks for centuries may help Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. revive flagging sales in the $320 billion-a-year global soft-drink industry.

The Food and Drug Administration is poised to act on allowing a zero-calorie sweetener derived from the stevia plant grown in Paraguay and China. Approval may allow the world's two largest soda makers to reverse three years of U.S. soft-drink sales declines with beverages containing the natural extract, according to Mariann Montagne, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Thrivent Asset Management.

"They are really desperate for something to pick up colas," said Montagne, whose firm owns Coca-Cola and PepsiCo among the $70 billion it oversees. "There is definitely a need, and people will respond if they have this natural sweetener."

opednews.com
July 31, 2008
by David Gutierrez (Posted by Stephen Fox)

(NaturalNews) New Zealand beverage manufacturer Phoenix Organics has launched an anti-aspartame campaign called "Think Before You Drink," to inform people about what it says are serious health risks from the artificial sweetener.

Aspartame is a common zero-calorie sweetener, marketed under brand names including Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel and Tropicana Slim and used in more than 6,000 products worldwide.

Opednews

July 23, 2008
by Safe Food Campaign, New Zealand
(Posted by Stephen Fox)

The Committee is hearing submissions on aspartame as a result of a petition which calls for the removal of all products containing aspartame and other artificial sweeteners from schools, as well as warning labels on products to alert pregnant women and mothers of young children.

"The artificial sweetener is the most controversial and complained about additive in history. You only have to google it to see that. It is significant that non-industry funded studies have found various adverse health effects from aspartame, whereas industry-funded studies do not find problems. We cannot underestimate the power and sophistication of industry to maintain and expand its profit and market share, regardless of the health consequences of exposure to this substance."

Opednews.com
July 18, 2008

by Dr. GLEN MABSON, Phd. Epileptic Foundation of
Maui dba Pacific Epilepsy Society (Posted by Stephen Fox)

The Pacific Epilepsy Society in affiliation with the Epileptic Foundation of Maui has completed a seven year study on Epilepsy and Seizures, finding that epilepsy is at an all time high in Hawaii and the western states and Pacific Ocean Territories. There has been a 100% increase over the two previous years. See EFM Survey, Freedom of Info Act 2000-2008 & EFM Survey 1999-03

The most profound reason for the spectacular increase in seizures is the inclusion of the drug ASPARTAME in with the new larger sized anti-seizure drugs: DILANTIN, DEPACOAT, TEGRATOL and several others produced by major pharmaceutical corporations. In 2007 the manufacture of Dilantin changed the description of the 100 mg. Dilantin changed the 100 mg white capsule with red stripe to a much larger white capsule, orange on one end, which contains 100 mg of the drug, plus aspartame. 150 people who took the new Dilantin capsule found the seizure rate increased in every case. The Chemical Pharmaceutical Engineer employee, in fear of his job would not reveal his name, but said they were adding aspartame. He said the new larger orange & white Dilantin is also labeled 100 mg,

Sott.net
aspartame.ca
May 30, 2008

Made by Monsanto, the world's largest manufacturer of poisons and pollutants), Aspartame is not only used in food, per se, but is also used in pharmaceutical products. You might be surprised by the number of products that contain aspartame. A sample research project was initiated in April 1994, with requests to companies that produce pharmaceuticals. A number of companies failed to respond to a request for information. Some companies did respond. Pumping aspartame into children appears to be a priority! Frequently it is not listed on the outside of the package but in the small print on the slip of paper inside the package.

Aspartame is banned in all childrens products in the European Common Market. Why not in the U.S. and Canada?

Because Monsanto pays off the FDA, the American Medical Association, The American Dietetic and Diabetic Associations, Congressmen and Senators and virtually anyone who gets in the way, and in other countries too. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation caught them red handed and aired a program where Monsanto was trying to bribe a couple of Canadian Doctors at Health Canada.

Author Peter Sills writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail said, after a three and a half year court case against Monsanto, brought by railroad workers exposed to dioxin following a train derailment had ended and in which the jury awarded a $16 million in punitive damages against Monsanto, "The evidence of Monsanto executives at the trial portrayed a corporate culture where sales and profits were given a higher priority than the safety of products and it's workers. They (Monsanto) just didn't care about the health and safety of their workers. Instead of trying to make things safer, they relied on intimidation and threatened layoffs to keep their employees working.

OpEdNews
May 11, 2008
By Stephen Fox

This is astonishing!

The world's largest Aspartame and MSG manufacturer, Ajinomoto, has decided to sue ASDA, the UK Supermarket chain, for removing the sale of products containing aspartame, the neurotoxic and carcinogenic artificial sweetener, which was done

AT THE REQUEST OF THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS!

Fresh from their many successes, like a Forbes article/puff piece in February, routing the genteel legislative effort in the Hawaii Senate to just ask the FDA Commissioner to rescind the approval for their product in US markets, etc., perhaps Ajinomoto is about to shoot itself in the foot, or more apropos: commit a kind of jurisprudential hari kiri in its efforts to silence ASDA's publicity.

There is a superb article here:

NewsWithViews.com
By Shane Ellison M. Sc.
The People's Chemist
April 13, 2008

If you could make one simple change in your diet to help you melt fat, sleep better, and improve your memory ... wouldn't you do it? What if that same simple dietary change could increase your energy, conquer depression, save your eyesight, restore your mental alertness, get your bedroom energy rockin', and increase your lifespan?

This may sound too good to be true. But it's not. And you don't have to take drugs. Nor do you have to try some newfangled experimental supplements. Or stop eating. Or even give up the foods you love.

It's as simple as reducing the amount of sugar you eat.

This is not a trick. I said you don't have to give up the foods you love. And that includes sweets. You can actually give up sugar and keep your sweet tooth happy. This is the greatest health secret of all time. And I'm gonna teach you how to incorporate it into your life.

Before I tell you how, I want you to know just why you should give up sugar.

It's not just because of all the aforementioned benefits. It's because sugar can have serious health consequences.

OpEdNews
April 9, 2008
By Stephen Fox
Open Letter by Dr. Betty Martini

To Legislators: Corroborating references for Senate Concurrent Resolution 191, Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland

To Honorable Senator David Ige and the Honorable Lorraine Inouye, Co-chairs, Joint Health/Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and Members of the Committee

Dear Senator Ige, Senator Inouye, and Members of the Committee:

It has come to my attention that you want references to the resolution to corroborate all of the "whereases" in the resolution. I'm very happy to give you these, and you will find them in caps below the comments. I will also fax you some of the documents. Had you asked earlier, at any time in the prior 25 days, we would have been able to gladly send you this background information.

Please feel free to ask for any additional information you would like to have. I trust that by this time, you have taken the time to watch Sweet Misery, submitted by Adrian Chang as part of his official testimony on the prior Senate bill by Kalani English, concerning a statutory ban, the bill you decided to defer, which resulted in this vital resolution.

Foodnavigator.com
By staff reporter

Review raises questions over aspartame and brain health

03/04/2008- Excessive intake of aspartame may inhibit the ability of enzymes in the brain to function normally, suggests a new review that could fan the flames of controversy over the sweetener.

The review, by scientists from the University of Pretoria and the University of Limpopo and published recently in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, indicated that high consumption of the sweetener may lead to neurodegeneration.

Aspartame is made up of phenylalanine (50 per cent), aspartic acid (40 per cent) and methanol (10 per cent). It is commonly used in food products for the diet or low calorie market, including soft drinks and chewing gums. It was approved for use in foods in the US and EU member states in the early 1980s.

The sweetener has caused much controversy amid suspicions on whether it is entirely safe, with studies linking the ingredient and cancer in rats.

Hawaii Reporter
Freedom to Report Real News
By Betty Martini
February 26, 2006

HONOLULU, HI - A blazing epidemic ravages the planet. Everywhere are reports of the disabled and dying. There are 92 symptoms, seizures, comas, sexual dysfunction, death are listed by the FDA. Medical texts by eminent doctors define the causation and delineate a preventive to stop the slaughter. Thousands of case histories and dozens of peer reviewed studies by top professionals and research institutions confirm the source of the sickness, a sweet addictive toxin poisoning our foods and beverages: aspartame/NutraSweet/Equal.

But Government intransigently refuses to protect the people since big money is involved. Let people die, the profits of the poisoners must be protected, whatever the cost to citizens. The political influence and bottomless checkbooks of the producers overwhelm reason and evidence.

It's tobacco Redux. Nicotine murders millions, an endless rampage powered by greed, addiction and profit. But nicotine is known as a killer and its adult users are aware of it. Aspartame is in children's vitamins, even vaccines, plus thousands of prepared foods and "diet" products. No "Warning, this product includes a deadly poison" labels tell gum chewers and cola drinkers that they're putting death in their mouth. No warning for pregnant women aspartame causes birth defects.

So it will continue in Hawaii. On Monday the Senate Bill 2506 to ban aspartame was "deferred". Senator David Ige and the committee decided that FDA has this responsibility.

James Turner, renowned consumer attorney fought the approval of aspartame with world famous neuroscientist Dr. John Olney and explained: "The toxicity of this deadly carcinogen is well known. The FDA not only refused to approve aspartame for years, but asked the Department of Justice to indict G.D. Searle, the manufacturer, for submitting fraudulent test reports to get the poison approved.

Scoop
Independent News
December 22, 2007
Press Release: Phoenix Organics

Phoenix Organics Says: 'Think Before You Drink' Aspartame

Phoenix Organics has launched a campaign urging people to find out more about aspartame, the controversial artificial sweetener contained in many 'diet' drinks and foods and beverages marketed as containing zero calories.

The company has turned 20,000 bottles of Phoenix Organic Cola into mini-billboards carrying its 'Think Before You Drink' message, and highlighting the concerns that have been raised about aspartame. The bottles will be given away to consumers over the summer.

Company Directors Stefan Lepionka and Marc Ellis said that the Phoenix team had become aware of the controversy that has swirled around aspartame since it was approved for use in beverages in 1983, when they started doing research for a Phoenix Organics brand campaign.

"Having read the Bressler Report of the FDA and other reports on the effects of aspartame, we had the living daylights scared out of all of us," said the Directors.

Internationally the evidence is overwhelming; There are thousands of people who claim that aspartame made them sick.

Soaring Spirit with Tears
February 13, 2008

Who is Monsanto?

The world's largest supplier of herbicides, bioengineered seeds, and hormones to increase milk production. Its primary product is Roundup and its goal is global dominance of the food supply.

Roundup and its cousins are marketed under about 90 different names. In 1997, Monsanto lost a lawsuit and agreed to stop using the terms "bio-degradable" and "environmentally friendly" in its advertising. Why? Because these products would appear to be direct descendents of Agent Orange, the company's most infamous product. The company has stated that Roundup is safer than table salt but independent analyses show that the product contains 41% glyphosate and the rest is water and any of 2300 other chemicals that are "trade secrets."

The primary byproduct of herbicide manufacture is dioxin, a chemical described by some as the most toxic on the Planet. It has been implicated in any number of issues from Agent Orange to the Love Canal.

A study at Lund University in Sweden suggests that herbicides seriously lower immunity in such a way as to allow viruses such as Epstein-Barr to proliferate. They are also implicated in the epidemic increase of non-Hodgkins lymphomas.

Sott.net the world for people who think
The New York Times
By Nicholas Bakalar
February 10, 2008

Researchers have found a correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome - the collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes that include abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels, and elevated blood pressure.

The scientists gathered dietary information on more than 9,500 men and women ages 45 to 64 and tracked their health for nine years.

Over all, a Western dietary pattern - high intakes of refined grains, fried foods and red meat - was associated with an 18 percent increased risk for metabolic syndrome, while a "prudent" diet dominated by fruits, vegetables, fish and poultry correlated with neither an increased nor a decreased risk.

But the one-third who ate the most fried food increased their risk by 25 percent compared with the one-third who ate the least, and surprisingly, the risk of developing metabolic syndrome was 34 percent higher among those who drank one can of diet soda a day compared with those who drank none.

"This is interesting," said Lyn M. Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota and a co-author of the paper, which was posted online in the journal Circulation on Jan. 22. "Why is it happening? Is it some kind of chemical in the diet soda, or something about the behavior of diet soda drinkers?"

Comment: He can't be serious, or his level of ignorance is shocking for an associate professor. Here's a hint for him: The name of the chemical begins with "A". It is a deadly poison and was banned as a food additive for many years before Rumsfeld forced its approval in 1981.

Mission Possible International
January 24, 2008Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder

Senate Bill 2506 introduced by Senator Kalani English, and also signed by Senator Suzanne Chun-Oakland, as well as House Bill 2580 sponsored by Representative Millie Carroll will move to ban aspartame from the State of Hawaii.

Efforts continue to ban this deadly excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that is addicting the public and triggering so many symptoms and diseases from MS and lupus and seizures to Parkinson's, diabetes and obesity and even blindness and death. An aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, explains how Don Rumsfeld got this marketed when the FDA said no. Masquerading as an additive it's a deadly drug that interacts with other drugs and vaccines.
No one can forget the gallant efforts of Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino who sponsored the Senate bill to ban aspartame in New Mexico. One picture that remains in my mind is addressing the Senate with Senators sipping Diet Coke. Dr. Ken Stoller said "It's hard to believe we are going to get anywhere with you drinking this but consider the children." Aspartame is a teratogen triggering birth defects and mental retardation, reducing IQ, and triggering all types of behavioral and psychiatric problems.

Mercola.com

January 14, 2008

Do you want to be healthy? Drinking soda is bad for your health in so many ways; science can’t even state all the consequences. Here’s what happens in your body when you assault it with a Coke:

Within the first 10 minutes, 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. This is 100 percent of your recommended daily intake, and the only reason you don’t vomit as a result of the overwhelming sweetness is because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor.

Within 20 minutes, your blood sugar spikes, and your liver responds to the resulting insulin burst by turning massive amounts of sugar into fat.

EHP Science Selections highlights 2nd Ramazzini study: "Aspartame Cancer Risks Revisited Prenatal Exposure May Be Greatest Concern"

A second Ramazzini bioassay on aspartame “Lifespan Exposure to Low Doses of Aspartame Beginning During Prenatal Life Increases Cancer Effects in Rats” was published in the September 2007 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives [EHP 115:1293–1297; Soffritti et al]. The issue also includes a Science Selections feature story on the Ramazzini project [EHP 115:A460] .

The Ramazzini study is a follow-up to a 2006 publication entitled “First Experimental Demonstration of the Multipotential Carcinogenic Effects of Aspartame Administered in the Feed to Sprague-Dawley Rats” [EHP 14:379–385; Soffritti et al] .

The results of this second long-term carcinogenicity bioassay not only confirm but also reinforce our first experimental demonstration of APM’s multipotential carcinogenicity at a dose level close to the human ADI. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that when life-span exposure to APM begins during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects are increased.
Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) is the peer-reviewed journal of the United States' National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. With an impact factor of 5.86, EHP ranks first among 132 environmental sciences journals and first among 90 public, environmental, and occupational health journals. EHP is read in over 190 countries.

Ramazzini press contact
Kathryn Knowles
development@ramazzini.it

Cnn.com

June 25, 2007

• Investigation of aspartame urged after new study links it to cancer in rats
• FDA says no need for review; new findings not consistent with other studies
• CSPI: acceptable intake equals 7.5 cans of diet soda daily for 150-pound adult
• Researchers found cancer risk at double the U.S. acceptable daily intake

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A U.S. consumer group called for an urgent Food and Drug Administration review of the safety of aspartame on Monday, but the FDA said there was no immediate need to do so despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.

Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame -- widely used in soft drinks -- might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.

"This is the second study by the same lab showing that aspartame causes cancer in rats," Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson said in a telephone interview.

stuff.co.nz
June 21, 2007

Abigail Cormack thought she was dying from a mystery illness. She never realised her daily chewing gum habit was probably poisoning her.

The sugar-free gum contained aspartame, a food additive widely used in thousands of products, including gum, diet soft-drinks and tea and coffee.

The additive is prompting debate in the international medical world about its safety.

When Ms Cormack, 25, of Wellington, began suffering crippling muscle cramps and tingling in her hands and feet about five months ago, she feared she was having a heart attack.

She started suffering heart palpitations, anxiety attacks, depression and skin rashes, was unable to sleep and had to take sick leave.

But, despite a battery of tests, doctors could not pinpoint the cause.

"They thought it might be a salt imbalance, maybe I was over-training at the gym.

Mission Possible International
www.wnho.net and www.dorway.com
June 21, 2007

The history of the regulatory process surrounding the approval of the artificial sweetener aspartame is marked by more outright lying, falsification of data and political interference than any other single food additive chemical on the market, says New Zealand food safety critic Chris Wheeler.

For Thursdays TV One six o'clock news report to state that there is no scientific evidence of aspartame's danger to health demonstrates the manner in which the news media cosies up to the food industry for the sake of the advertising revenue they get from promoting diet products containing aspartame.

NewsWithViews.com
Shane Ellison M. Sc.
The People's Chemist
June 20, 2007

My wife recently consumed her body weight in beef jerky. What was supposed to be light, healthy snacking turned into an all-out eating binge. Her ravenous consumption of the stuff made me think it must be an especially good brand. I was in a hurry when I bought it at my local health food store - and that’s where I messed up big time. Ignoring the label, I was caught by the number one grocery store fat trap - which was the cause of my wife’s abnormal appetite.

According to Guadalupe Garcia Alcacer, a researcher at the University of Queretaro, Mexico, chemicals contained in foods and drinks characterized as 'light' may cause spontaneous abortions.

QUERETARO, Mexico - Women who are regularly exposed to additives in foods, hormones, and environmental contaminants such as heavy metals, have an increased probability to experience spontaneous abortions.

According to Guadalupe Garcia Alcacer, a researcher at the University of Queretaro, Mexico, chemicals contained in foods and drinks characterized as 'light' may cause spontaneous abortions.

"The information coming out of our study is interesting for all those in reproductive age, as they can avoid consuming additives like phenilalanine (used in 'light' products) clenbuterol (a bronchodilator), as well as aspartame and serotonin, among other substances." Studies with rats and chickens reveal that they cause alterations in the offspring, that is: "alteration or resorption of brain vesicles, where the latter may lead to spontaneous abortion."

Source: Juan José Arreola El Universal Mexico

May 31, 2007
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International

Rumsfeld and former FDA Commissioner Arthur Hayes are responsible for putting aspartame on the market and millions have died. The FDA has had every opportunity to recall aspartame but instead has given its loyalty to Big Pharma. In l986 when the Community Nutrition Institute petitioned FDA to ban aspartame because so many were having seizures and going blind FDA refused. This was like shouting to the world "We don't care how many have seizures, go blind and die, we represent the aspartame industry and we will be loyal no matter how many perish." Since then there have been thousands of cases of vision problems, blindness and seizures. It wasn't even the case of not knowing. The RAO Study pivotal in the approval of aspartame showed it to be a seizure triggering drug because of high serum phenylalanine levels in the blood. Your own FDA report of 92 documented symptoms list 4 types of seizures being experienced by people in the population.

Why don't you care that people are dying?

Betty Martini has written an open letter to the Laura Tarantino of the FDA regarding the press release that negates cancer-causing effects of aspartame, an artificial sweetener also known as nutra sweet, equal, canderal and spoonful. The FDA's release, placed just before news of a second italian study that seems to confirm aspartame toxicity was to be published in New York, reads in part:

"Italian researchers concluded in 2005 that aspartame causes cancer. But Laura Tarantino of the FDA Office of Food Additive Safety concludes after a review of the study data that the low-calorie sweetener is not a carcinogen.

A similar review by the FDA's European counterpart agrees. There is no evidence this substance, used for 25 years to sweeten soda, gum, dairy products, and some medications, causes cancer."

Here is Betty Martini's open letter:

cbsnews.com
NEW YORK, April 24, 2007

(CBS) A new report indicates aspartame, the artificial sweetener that's the main ingredient in Nutrasweet and Equal, heightens the risk of cancer.

But the Food and Drug Administration has said repeatedly, and as recently as last Friday, that aspartame is safe.

On The Early Show Tuesday, medical contributor Dr. Mallika Marshall explained to co-anchor Julie Chen that, "These were researchers in Italy who have believed for some time that aspartame poses an increased risk of cancer."

Marshall said the researchers gave aspartame to pregnant rats, and to the baby rats beginning five weeks after birth.

Morando Soffritti, an Italian researcher with the Ramazzini Foundation in Bologna is known for his publication of a study that found aspartame, the artificial sweetener consisting of two amino acids and a methanol binding agent, caused multiple cancers in rats. Soffritti was in New York on Monday, 23 April, to accept a prestigious academic award and to talk about a second study his institute is conducting with lower doses of aspartame. Although results have not yet been published, the study appears set to confirm the findings of the first study and the researchers are finding negative health effects even at very low dosages of aspartame, comparable to the intakes of people who are regularly using diet drinks.

See New Study by Ramazzini Institute Confirms Aspartame Carcinogenic

Betty Martini with Dr. Morando Soffritti

In a move designed to head off yet more negative publicity for the toxic sweetener, the FDA issued a press release on Friday - just days before Soffritti's talk at the Mount Sinai Medical School - re-stating the FDA's earlier contention that there is "No evidence the sweetener causes cancer".

"The Food and Drug Administration says Italian researchers reached the wrong conclusion when they said the sugar substitute aspartame causes cancer. The director of the F-D-A's Office of Food Additive Safety, Laura Tarantino, says a review of the data from the 2005 study found "no evidence" that the low-calorie sweetener is a carcinogen. A similar review by the F-D-A's European counterpart reached the same conclusion."

In this way, the press was induced to carry the FDA's denial in numerous variations and Soffritti's talk last Monday was no longer considered "newsworthy", although there IS a new study in progress and it certainly adds to emerging knowledge about the effects of the artificial sweetener. It is of interest to see PR at work here and one should should note how well the technologies of public communication are being used by Big Pharma and its supposed "regulator", the FDA. The two, it seems, will soon be joined in an incestuous 'marriage', if a recent bill proposed by Senator Kennedy finds the approval of US lawmakers.

Dr. Morando Soffritti of the European Ramazzini Foundation will present the results of a new study confirming the carcinogenicity of Aspartame on April 23, 2007 at the Mount Sinai Medical School of New York, where he also will receive the prestigious Irving J. Selikoff Award.

Aspartame, the artificial sweetener made by Searle/Monsanto was found to cause cancer in laboratory animals already in the original studies that were submitted to the FDA when approval was asked to put it on the market. The justified doubts of the FDA's scientists were overridden when Donald Rumsfeld called in his political markers.

Another study conducted in Spain by Trocho et al came to similar results, identifying a transformation of parts of the molecule into formaldehyde as a probable cause. Later, a study of the European Ramazzini Foundation confirmed the sweetener's carcinogenicity in laboratory rats and seriously questioned its safety. But industry, through the European Food Safety Authority, succeeded in diverting attention from the damaging findings, calling them an artifact of the study's design. But the Ramazzini Foundation stuck to its guns and announced another long-term study (now concluded) to look into the sweetener's adverse effects.

Now that this new long-term study has been completed with lower dosages but confirming, once again, the carcinogenicity of the sweetener, the jig may be up - how can a cancer-causing additive remain on the market?

Here is the announcement from the Ramazzini Foundation and a comment about the FDA's list of Aspartame's adverse effects from Betty Martini:

New aspartame data to be presented at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC, USA
A second study conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation (ERF) confirms the carcinogenicity of aspartame. The results of this study will be presented April 23, 2007 at the Mount Sinai Medical School of New York, where ERF Scientific Director Morando Soffritti will receive the third Irving J. Selikoff Award. [vedi testo completo per l'italiano]

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener consumed by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. It is used in over 6,000 diet products including soft drinks, chewing gum, candy, desserts, yogurt as well as in pharmaceuticals, in particular, syrups and antibiotics for children. In 2005, the European Ramazzini Foundation published important experimental data demonstrating the carcinogenicity of aspartame. These data demonstrated for the first time that aspartame is a carcinogenic agent, inducing various types of malignant tumors in rats, even at dose levels currently considered acceptable for humans.

As soon as carcinogenic effects were perceived during this first study, the ERF began a second long term experiment, administering aspartame at low doses in feed to rats beginning during fetal life.

In a world exclusive, Italian news station TG2 announced on April 13th that the European Ramazzini Foundation will present the results of this second study at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine at the end of April when Scientific Director Dr. Morando Soffritti will receive the third Irving J. Selikoff Award. The news story may be viewed at: http://www.raiclicktv.it/raiclickpc/secure/list_content_tg.srv?id=1986#

Source: http://www.ramazzini.it

As many may know, aspartame is on the market illegally. It's adulterated as discussed by the National Soft Drink Assn (now American Beverage) and in the congressional record. Because you cannot ship an adulterated product for sale it, therefore, violates Interstate Commerce. Dr. Adrian Gross, FDA toxicologist, told Congress that aspartame violated the Delaney Amendment which forbids putting anything in food that caused cancer in animals. www.wnho.net/whopper.htm It's also a drug, an addictive excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that interacts with all drugs and vaccines, and is masquerading as an additive. Additives by law must be inert or non-reactive. Inert products do not produce a list of 92 documented symptoms from 4 types of seizures to coma and death, nor necessitate a 1038 page medical text. (Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, H. J. Roberts, M.D., www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 827 7991.) Nor would consumers using this product need to be detoxed. "What To Do If You Have Used Aspartame" by neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., www.wnho.net/wtdaspartame.htm

Dr. Von Eschenbach,

Is it FDA policy to lie when the truth will do better? Affirmative!

FDA lied to the New Mexico legislature about aspartame with full knowledge of its toxicity.
http://www.thenhf.com/fda_87.htm http://www.wnho.net/project_recall_aspartame.htm

I filed a formal petition for the banning of aspartame five years ago. The law requires an answer within 180 days. The response I received was a letter stating FDA has more important things to do. A global plague - Aspartame disease – rampages and is ignored, disabling millions. Read Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic by H. J. Roberts, M.D. aspartame petition

Indeed FDA has more important things to do, like approving Vioxx for a body count of 55,000.

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that was approved by an FDA temporary commissioner over the strenuous objections of the FDA's own scientists who had looked at the original studies - or rather those parts of the studies G. D. Searle & Company had supplied in an effort to get the sweetener approved. Their recommendation was to not approve, but Donald Rumsfeld, when he stepped down as Searle's CEO, but stayed on as its president, promised to "call in his markers" and he did. Here is the whole timeline of what happened.

From then on it was all smooth sailing for Monsanto, the company that had acquired Searle and with it aspartame, the sweetener that some say is one of the most poisonous food additives on the market. "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World" is a documentary that exposes the dangers of Aspartame and how it became approved by the FDA.

Betty Martini, who is featured in the video together with victims and experts on the sweetener's toxicity, has formed Mission Possible, a world wide network of volunteers who feel that toxic additives like aspartame have no place in our foods.

Betty describes, in the article that follows, how aspartame was about to be banned in the state of New Mexico. But the sweetener was 'saved' by a well financed industrial lobby and a new front group, thrown together at the spur of the moment, to convince legislators not to pay heed to evidence of how their constituents are being poisoned. Betty's is an instructive tale, one that brings home how politics has really nothing to do with "the will of the people" and how money really talks, regardless of any evidence of harm for our health.

Betty Martini
Mission Possibile International
www.wnho.net
www.dorway.com
March 19, 2007

Dear Dr. Adamson:

Why did NSDA, file a protest against the approval of aspartame for soft drinks, then turn around and lobby for NutraSweet? NSDA's stunning protest is in the Congressional Record S 5507 - 5511, May 7, 1985
http://www.wnho.net/congressional_record1.doc

Now you say that after this protest you interrogated the G. D. Searle Co., and the answers they gave assured you everything is fine. Please send me a copy of the questions and the answers which made you change your mind.

How do you repudiate the detailed and damning objections NSDA wrote against aspartame which fill 6 pages of the Congressional Record? For instance, NSDA said: "An important decomposition product of aspartame, aspartic acid, cannot be detected at all using TLC." Did Searle go back and use the right test, HPLC, high pressure liquid chromatography instead of TLC, thin layer chromatography? Did they not want their testing to detect aspartic acid because as an isolate its an excitotoxin (product that stimulates the neurons of the brain to death causing brain damage)?
http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_brain_damage.htm

6abc action news
A Special HealthCheck Report
by Anita Brikman and Dawn Heefner, HealthCheck Producer

The growing problem of obesity in this country has led some experts to take a closer look at diet soft drinks. It turns out they may not be as helpful to weight loss as some people might think.

Ever since Tab hit the market in the swingin' 60s, diet soda has become an American mainstay.

In the era when thin-became-in thanks to mini-skirts - and the rail-thin model Twiggy - diet soda's appeal was instant...

Save hundreds of calories a day, and stay skinny - right?

By Julia Havey
commonvoice.com
March 7, 2007

Oopsy. I should have said "sparkling beverages"; not soft drinks! My bad!

The case against swigging soda just got stronger. A large systematic review reveals clear associations between consumption of nondiet soft drinks and increased calorie intake and body weight.

Full-calorie soft drinks are also linked with reduced intake of milk and fruit and increased risk of type 2 diabetes. "Recommendations to reduce population soft drink consumption are strongly supported by the available science," concludes the review of 88 studies.

www.thefutureoffood.com
November 1, 2006

Learn all about Monsanto's latest shenanigangs, from patenting whole species of life forms, creating GMO crops that pose hazards to human health, threatening farmers with lawsuits if one of their patented gene sequences makes it into their crops, and much, much more. Monsanto is a truly evil company that has brought us everything from Agent Orange to DDT to Aspartame, and now they want control of all the vegetables on your kitchen table.
googlevideo

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum,
Founder Mission Possible International
January 9, 2007

Around the world there are efforts at banning aspartame: Recall of Aspartame: A Message Congress Cannot Ignore:

Today all eyes are on New Mexico as Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino sponsors a ban aspartame bill.

Dr. Betty Martini
Mission Possible World Health International
January 5, 2007

This article on Aspartame in your diet says that the 1976 Grolier Encyclopedia states cancer cannot live with phenylalanine. Aspartame is 50% phenylalanine.

Are you sick and don't know it?
There are 92 documented symptoms of ASPARTAME, from coma to death. The majority of them are all neurological, because the ASPARTAME destroys the nervous system. ASPARTAME Disease is partially the cause to what is behind some of the mystery of the Dessert Storm health problems some of the soldiers are experiencing. The burning tongue and other problems discussed in over 60 cases can be directly related to the consumption of an ASPARTAME product. Several thousand pallets of diet pop were shipped to the Dessert Storm troops. (Heat can liberate the methanol from the ASPARTAME at 86 degrees F). Diet pop sat in the 120 degree F. Arabian sun for weeks at a time on pallets. The service men and women drank this diet pop all day long. All of their symptoms are identical to ASPARTAME poisoning.

Banning Aspartame:
A Common Sense Precaution

When many of my constituents hear that I plan to introduce a bill to ban the artificial sweetener aspartame in the upcoming legislative session, I get a lot of very strange looks. Or worse.

The American Diabetes Foundation, for example, considers aspartame almost sacramental for persons with the disease they battle, one that makes consumption of sugar very dangerous. To hear their lobbyists tell it, aspartame is the modern scientific equivalent of Lourdes water for diabetics: If you take away my soft drinks with aspartame, what am I supposed to drink, then, huh? (On each occasion that sentiment is expressed to me, I have to bite my tongue not to gently, but sarcastically, suggest cold water, unsugared ice tea or skim milk - all perfectly drinkable alternatives, but not acceptable solutions for carbonation-crazed Coke or Pepsi devotees.)

Shane Ellison M. Sc.
January 4, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

If there were a contest for the best example of total disregard for human life the victor would be McNeil Nutritionals ? makers of Splenda™. Manufacturers of Vioxx™ and Lipitor™ would tie for a very distant second.

McNeil Nutritionals is the undisputed drug-pushing champion for disguising their drug Splenda™ as a sweetener. Regardless of its drug qualities and potential for side-effects, McNeil is dead set on putting it on every kitchen table in America. Apparently, Vioxx™ and Lipitor™ makers can’t stoop so low as to deceptively masquerade their drug as a candy of sort. There is no question that their products are drugs and by definition come with negative side-effects. Rather than sell directly to the consumer, these losers have to go through the painful process of using doctors to prescribe their dangerous goods.

The New Yorker, May 2006
by Burkhard Bilger

Building a better sugar substitute,

The substance in the flask seemed to have all the makings of an excellent insecticide. It was a fine crystalline powder, easy to imagine spraying over a field, and its molecules were full of chlorine atoms, like DDT. To make it, Shashikant Phadnis, a young Indian chemist at Queen Elizabeth College, in London, and his adviser, Leslie Hough, had begun by taking an eyedropper full of sulfuryl chloride -- a highly toxic chemical-- and adding it to a sugar solution, one drop at a time. In the violent reaction that followed, a wholly new compound was born: 1‘, 4, 6, 6‘- tetrachloro - 1‘, 4, 6, 6’ - tetra-deoxygalactosucrose.

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International
from The Douglass Report, December 2006

Dear Friend's I had a dream last night -- a nightmare, really I dreamed I was having lunch with one of the evil geniuses behind the aspartame hoax. I asked him, "Are the American people going to lose weight by substituting sugar with aspartame?"

He looked at me with his bright little piggy eyes and said, "Forget it! They're never going to lose weight?" Then he looked around to make sure no one else could hear and leaned forward so close I could small his foul breath as he said, "And by the way, our product actually causes cancer and increases the appetite. So its' great for the cancer business and the war-on-fat business." He started laughing like a hyena as his head swelled into a hideous chocolate souffle. The tiny sparkling pig eyes disappeared in folds of the expanding brown-baked surface - and then exploded with mighty "whoomph-blam!"

Zoe Williams
November 1, 2006
The Guardian

The British gum market went down 6% last year and 5% the year before. Cadbury blames a lack of competition and believes that breaking into the market with its American brand, Trident, will help sales snap back.

I would dispute this reasoning. When I decide to buy slightly less of something, year on year, it is almost never because I'm thinking, "If only there were more choice! If only I wasn't staring down the barrel of the same old minty flavours!"

Alternative Health and Nutrition

Dr. Janet Starr Hull:
www.janethull.com
October 31, 2006

Can you imagine discovering that your 12-year-old child is using dry, powdered forms of aspartame to get high? I recently received an email from a woman who discovered her daughter had been eating dry aspartame to get "high."

"I learned months ago," she wrote, "that a friend of my 12-year-old daughter had turned her on to ingesting Crystal Lite® (with aspartame) without water to get "hyper." I consulted with our doctors, called Poison Control, and met with school administrators to see if they were aware of this.

"The message I received," she continued, "was 'Crystal Lite is perfectly safe and the problem was most likely in their heads.'"

As a concerned parent, this mother has been researching aspartame ever since. "With the listed symptoms/side affects of aspartame on your website," she continued, "it is apparent to me that the children are getting some type of 'altered' sensation. I know my daughter experiences a rapid heart beat, dizziness, headaches and nausea, to name a few reactions she has described to me."

Alternative Medicine forum
By JoAnn Guest
October 31, 2006

Claim: The artificial sweetener aspartame has been proven responsible for an epidemic of cancer, brain tumors, and multiple sclerosis

Example: [Collected via e-mail]

I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME marketed as 'NutraSweet', 'Equal', and 'Spoonful"'. In the keynote address by the EPA, they announced that there was an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus, and they did not understand what toxin was causing this to be rampant across the United States. I explained that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject.

When the temperature of Aspartame exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol ASPARTAME coverts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. (Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants). The methanol toxicity mimics multiple sclerosis; thus people are being diagnosed with having multiple sclerosis in error. The multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence, where methanol toxicity is.

by Erica Orden
Special to Newsday
May 2, 2006
http://www.thenhf.com/fda_51.htm

To many people these days, simply sweetening a cup of coffee is practically akin to picking a poison. Sugar or honey? Too many calories. Equal or Nutrasweet? Too many health risks, especially given recent reports detailing diet soda's dangerously high levels of the cancer-causing compound benzene.

So to the sweet-toothed consumer, the increasingly popular, all natural, calorie-free substance called stevia sounds too good to be true. And to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it is.

For the past 11 years, while artificial sweeteners like Splenda, Equal, and Nutrasweet have dominated the diet-conscious market, the Stevia industry and the FDA have been at odds over whether the additive poses health risks.

But with sales of the plant-based substance, indigenous to South America, growing rapidly in the past few years, Stevia's sticky situation is creating an increasingly complex marketplace for consumers, manufacturers and retailers.

By Betty Martini
Mission Possible International and Mission Possible Aviation
October 5, 2006

Pilots be alerted to protect your health and occupation. A press release on 10/4/2006 from BEVNET reports Air Force Nutrisoda, sucralose/Splenda laced products are already in 20 airports across the nation. They are also being sold in select retail stores, hotels and cruise lines. http://www.bevnet.com

On learning the news Washington D.C. Attorney, James Turner said: "Splenda is the latest in corporate food America's effort to use people's desire for sweet taste to systemically undermine their health. Once again pilots and their passengers are put at risk by the possibility that Splenda will cause debilitating injuries including possibly seizures which impair the pilots ability to fly."

NewsTarget.com
September 27 2006

Mike: I'm here with Dr. Russell Blaylock, and I'd like to explore some of the more advanced aspects of some of the things you are working on. Dr. Blaylock, I think readers know the basics of both MSG and aspartame, but can you review what you've already written about excitotoxins?

Dr. Russell Blaylock: I have three books. The first one is the excitotoxin book, "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills," and the latest one is "Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life." The third one is "Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients," which is directed at nutritional treatments for cancer. It contains some material about aspartame and MSG.

President George Walker Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C. 20500

Dear President Bush:

We request that you order FDA Commissioner nominee, Andrew Von Eschenbach M.D., to rescind the FDA approval for the artificial sweetener, Aspartame. Its approval was forced through the FDA in 1981, and the USA has had 25 years to observe the incontrovertible medical effects from Aspartame, which derive from its being metabolized as methanol and formaldehyde, and two unessential amino acids, one of which, phenylalanine is neurotoxic lowering the seizure threshold and depleting serotonin and the other aspartic acid, an excitotoxin. The molecule breaks down to a proven brain tumor causing agent, diketopiperazine. Aspartame is now found in 6000 USA food products and more than 500 medications.

WHY ASPARTAME CONSUMPTION PRODUCES CANCERS SLOWLY OVER TIME

Aspartame, the artificial sweetener made of a combination of two amino acids and methanol, has been found by a recent study on rats, to produce cancers over the lifetime of these laboratory animals. The study was conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences.

Although the European Union's Food Safety Authority in Parma has stated that the study results are inconclusive and should not make us stop taking aspartame, the Scientific Director of the Foundation and primary author of the aspartame study, Dr. Morando Soffritti, M.D., stands by the study's results and announces further studies not only on aspartame but on other widely used sweeteners as well.

As for a possible mechanism on how aspartame promotes the appearance of cancers in those who consume the sweetener, here is a recent article by Beldeu Singh, a Malaysian researcher.

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International

Aspartame, AKA NutraSweet, Equal, E951 and under numerous other aliases is an addictive excitoneurotoxic carcinogen masquerading as an additive. The chemical liberates methyl alcohol, (methanol} the deadliest of the alcohols, commonly known as wood alcohol. It's so toxic a single ounce can kill or blind an adult, and it's a cumulative poison that alters the dopamine system of the brain creating addiction. The methanol, CH4O, loses two hydrogens to become CH2O, formaldehyde, which is next metabolized to create CH2O2, formic acid: fire-ant venom. But that's just the beginning.

Half of aspartame is phenylalanine, which floods the brain, a neurotoxin, lowering the seizure threshold. It depletes serotonin triggering psychiatric and behavioral problems and interacts with all drugs and vaccines. http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_interacts.htm Today our children are medicated instead of educated.

An interesting item from the food ingredients press: China is restricting production and sale of Aspartame, the controversial sweetener that has recently been declared to be innocuous by both the FDA and the European Food Safety Administration.

China to Restrict Aspartame Production and Sale

(original here)

12/07/06 - By controlling production and banning the launch of new projects, China will exert more efforts to restrict the production and sale of aspartame, press reports said.

A circular issued by The National Development and Reform Commission (NDR), the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the State Environmental Protection Administration highlighted their further strengthening of China’s work on restricting the sale and production of the widely-used sweetener.

State-designated aspartame producers shall in principle shift production to other products when moving to a new place, according to the circular. In addition, their reconstruction will not exceed the state designated one, if they decide to pursue their aspartame operations.

A clamp-down on aspartame production by the Chinese authorities. What do the Chinese know that the US FDA and the European Agency for the Safety of Foods are completely missing?

Only recently, the European Commission moved its Food Safety Agency to discredit the Italian study by the European Ramazzini Foundation's Cancer Research Institute which had found that in a long time experiment, rats had developed cancers and leukemias when given aspartame at dosages comparable to those that humans could be expected to consume.

No wonder the Chinese economy is the most vibrant economy, together with India, growing by about 10 % a year. They actually take care to eliminate losing business propositions and concentrate on what has a promising future, and there is no override of decisions of the government by industrial giants.

Not so here in the West. Since Donald Rumsfeld called in his markers to override the FDA scientific advisory board's decision to not approve the sweetener, the FDA has been looking the other way every time it got an adverse event report. Now such reports are openly discouraged because ... well, it just can't be that a sweetener that is on the market with regulatory approval is causing your nausea, your headache, your vision going bad, and any of a number of some 92 adverse reactions listed in an early FDA report, then removed from public view.

The situation is similar with the European Union. The scientific data were re-examined several times, and each time aspartame was given a clean bill of health. At its latest aspartame-defense press conference, the EU representative was bold enough to state that "no further research is needed". Translation: Aspartame will stay on the market, whether you like it or not.

Perhaps the only conclusion one can come to by looking at all the data available is: Our health authorities are in bed with an industry that is concentrating on shareholder profit rather than on eliminating problems their products cause for our health.

Townsend Letter
July 2006

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently noted the frequency of prolactin-producing pituitary tumors in patients taking risperidone, a drug widely prescribed for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. 1 Of 64 patients with pituitary tumors receiving anti-psychotics, 48 had been using risperidone.

I have reported (a) the stimulation of prolactin by phenylalanine, of the amino acids in aspartame, 2 and (b) the occurrence of prolactin-secreting pituitary tumors among persons taking aspartame in "diet" products. 3 I also have reviewed the occurrence of brain tumors in persons consuming aspartame products, 4, and I am maintaining a registry thereon.

By Dr. Betty Martini
Mission Possible International
June 17 2006

Dear Denise,

If you're going to write you need to research. To try and discredit the impeccable Ramazzini Study is obscene. You can understand the influence of the aspartame industry with people on government committees with links to manufacturers like Ajinomoto. The FDA whenever the word gets out big time about aspartame dangers has a policy of saying they will do an investigation, just so they can allay the fears of the public, and say everything is fine. So don't expect them to tell the truth. The FDA knows all about the dangers of aspartame. They tried to have the manufacturer indicted for fraud but the defense team hired both US prosecutors and the statute of limitations expired. When that didn't work they revoked the petition for approval: http://www.wnho.net/fda_petition1.doc Read how Don Rumsfeld got it on the market when the FDA said no. See the URL clip from the movie Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World. Notice one of the reasons the FDA revoked the petition for approval is that it caused brain tumors and brain cancer.

I am one of the only few "Nutra Sweet Dissidents" to ever see the first (original) pre-marketing Aspartame toxicity studies. It has to be strongly emphasized! These first studies were done at only 1/1000th the legally required Aspartame dosage levels. (And for
only sixty days!) The law specifies that one hundred times the "greatest possible maximum human consumption" must always be used in pre-marketing testing of animals. This law is entirely conservative, because it only allows for only a ten fold species to
species variation of effect, and only a ten fold variation of individual effect within a given species: In order to protect all humans who may ever ingest a given chemical! Only 3 cans of pop per day (level) scaled down the weight of each given animal species, was ever used, in spite of the thousands of ways Aspartame is presently dosed into us, even being "sneaked" in with yogurts, chewing gums, etc! (The FDA recently got a law enacted that "ASPARTAME" does not now even have to be at all mentioned on the product label itself!)

By Betty Martini
Mission Possibile International
May 5 2006

The European Food Safety Authority, whose officials have outside careers with financial ties to aspartame producers, gave the stuff a clean bill of health. They had to do something, anything, because the 3-year study by an Italian cancer research institute under the direction of Dr. Soffritti condemned aspartame as a "multipotential carcinogen." The impact of that research was to turn millions from it. In the USA Merisant's sales dropped 22% and they have more debt than the outfit is worth. Holland Sweetener, Europe's largest asparshame producer just announced the biz is a loser and they're ditching it this year.

Concerned for the protection of our avian population, and with compassion for defenseless chickens, the International Fox Alliance set up a commission for the establishment of uniform Henhouse Management Practices. (UHMP: the sound of foxes gulping dinner)

05 May 2006
EUROPEAN RAMAZZINI FOUNDATION STANDS BEHIND ASPARTAME STUDY RESULTS, ANNOUNCES ONGOING RESEARCH ON ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
Response to EFSA’s AFC panel decision

The European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences “B. Ramazzini”, the sole sponsor of a long-term carcinogenesis study demonstrating that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogenic agent in rodents, responded today to the opinion announced by the European Food Safety Authority’s Panel on Food Additives, Flavorings, Processing Aids and Materials (AFC).

Scientific Director of the European Ramazzini Foundation and primary author of the aspartame study, Dr. Morando Soffritti, M.D., underlined the importance of EFSA’s interest in the European Ramazzini Foundation’s aspartame study saying, “as the Director of an independent, non-profit institution, I consider it an important recognition to have our data carefully considered by EFSA.” Prior long-term carcinogenesis studies on aspartame (4 total) were conducted over 20 years ago by the producers of the artificial sweetener using a small number of animals per sex per group. The results of these studies provided the basis for the current opinion regarding the non-carcinogenicity of aspartame.

From Dr. Betty Martini, D. Hum
April 3, 2006

Aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal/Spoonful, E951, Benevia, Canderel, etc.) is an excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that interacts with all drugs and vaccines. http://www.wnho.net/aspartame_interacts.htm Because it's an actual chemical poison it causes polychemical sensitivity syndrome or MCS, so even if victims get off this toxin they often think they are allergic to other things, react to genetically engineered products, and synthetic sweeteners which are
toxins themselves like Sucralose (Splenda) a chlorocarbon poison. http://www.wnho.net/splenda_chlorocarbon.htm These are toxic, not allergic reactions.

Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., author of Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills on aspartame and MSG, and Health & Nutrition Secrets To Save Your Life, described the toxic effects of aspartame: "Aspartame, an L aspartyl L-phenylalanine methyl ester, is composed of two amino acids, aspartate and phenylalanine, linked by methanol. Inside the gastrointestinal tract, especially in the stomach, it's broken down into its constituent components. In some instance the dipeptide is lysed within the cells of the gut. As a consequence the methanol is rapidly absorbed and distributed throughout the tissues of the body. Within the tissues, substantial amounts of methanol's two metabolic breakdown products (formaldehyde and formic acid) have been shown to accumulate in many tissues."

From Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum
February 28, 2006

OPEN LETTER TO FDA - VIA CERTIFIED MAIL

DELANEY AMENDMENT: If a product causes cancer in animals it cannot be put in food!

The late FDA Toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, testified to the Senate: "In view of all these indications that the cancer-causing potential of aspartame is a matter that had been established way beyond any reasonable doubt, one can ask: What is the reason for the apparent refusal by the FDA to invoke for this food additive the so-called Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act? Is it not clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that aspartame has caused brain tumors or brain cancer in animals?

17 February, 2006
Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
Mission Possible International

Dear Doctor Katz:

Only two things are wrong with your critique of the 3-year Italian aspartame study:
Your facts are wrong
Your conclusions are wrong.

Not so sweet anymore: Aspartame under fire

By Melanie Warner The New York Times

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2006
(original on IHT)

NEW YORK When Dr. Morando Soffritti, a cancer researcher in Bologna, saw the results of his team's seven-year study on aspartame, he knew he was about to be injected into a bitter controversy over the sweetener, one of the most contentiously debated substances ever added to foods and beverages.
 
Aspartame is sold under the brand names NutraSweet and Equal and is found in popular products like Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet Snapple and Sugar Free Kool-Aid. About 200 million people consume it worldwide, according to the Calorie Control Council, a trade group for makers of artificial sweeteners.
 
Soffritti's study concluded that aspartame may cause cancer.
 

By Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D.
http://www.russellblaylockmd.com
January 24, 2006

The most important starting point of any detoxification program is to stop exposure to the toxin or toxins. This means avoiding even small amounts, since once sensitized to the toxin even minute amounts can produce full-blown toxicity. This is especially so with accumulative toxins, such as aspartame. It has been shown conclusively that the metabolic products of methanol breakdown, formaldehyde in particular, accumulates on the DNA and cellular proteins. Once you have cleansed your diet of the toxin, removal of the toxin and its metabolic products from your system will begin. Central to this process is the body's detoxification system, which exist in all cells of the body, with the bulk of detoxification taking place in the liver. The detoxification system is divided into two components called phase I and phase II, which work in tandem. Toxins pass through phase I and then pass to phase II where they are further detoxified and made water-soluble for eventual disposal. It is now known that you can significantly enhance the body's ability to detoxify these substances through the judicious use of specific supplements. Of the two systems phase II is most important and most often impaired.

The New Mexico legislature is to consider bills intending to ban the controversial artificial sweetener aspartame. House bill 202 was introduced by The Honorable Irvin Harrison while senators Gerald Ortiz y Pino is filing an identical bill in the New Mexico Senate.

This new action may set an important precedent if adopted. Not only are the effects of the artificial sweetener to be examined. The question is whether the FDA can legitimately preempt State authority in health matters even if clearly inactive on a dangerous substance. This looks like it is going to be the real focus of this coming battle.

Lobbyists for the sweetener are apparently swarming the New Mexico legislative halls in an effort to drum up opposition to the measure, but consumer groups and anti-aspartame activists are not idle. Here is the latest information, thanks to Betty Martini.

By: Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum.
Mission Possible Intl.
Dec 15, 2005 07:58:13 -0500

Aspartame's time to be banned is long overdue. It should never have been approved in the first place. Even the FDA revoked the petition for approval. In the aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, www.docworkers.com Attorney James Turner explains how Don Rumsfeld called in his markers to get it approved. See the clip: http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/Rumsfeld2.html Rumsfeld was on Reagan's transition team and the day after he took office he appointed Arthur Hull Hayes as FDA Commissioner to get it approved. So concerned it would take 30 days to get Hayes there President Reagan actually wrote an executive order making the current FDA Commissioner powerless to do anything about aspartame until Hayes arrived. What political clout. Somebody needs to ask Rumsfeld to go into more detail about those markers he held. After Hayes arrived at FDA a scientific Board of Inquiry was convened and the petition for approval of this deadly neurotoxin was revoked because it triggered brain tumors, and never proven safe. Hayes over-ruled the Board and went to work for the PR Agency of the manufacturer and has refused to talk to the press ever since.

Japan-based multinational chemical giant Ajinomoto, manufacturer of the controversial sweetener aspartame, has recently hired lawyers to stop hearings scheduled by the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board into the safety of its sweetener.

Aspartame, based on two amino acids combined with methanol, shows many inconsistencies in its history, such as approval by political pressure rather than by science, but the most mind boggling aspect by far is the knowledge gap that has built up between those paying attention and the health authorities that review the science and can't find anything wrong with it. There is plenty of information out there, which points to aspartame causing leukemia, brain tumors and neurotoxicity, but for some mysterious reason the evidence is completely ignored by health authorities and most academics.

A point in case is a message Christopher Howell of the Florida Atlantic University wrote to Norma Vera, an activist and friend of Betty Martini, the lady who has made it her life's work to fill in the knowledge gap around the artificial sweetener. Howell wrote:

YOU SHOULD CHECK YOUR FACTS!

ASPARTAME IS NOT A NEUROTOXIN!!!

Phenylketonurics (people with a genetic disorder that does not allow them to properly metabolize & eliminate the ESSENTIAL amino acid phenylalanine) are at risk. These people MUST ALSO LIMIT their intake of proteins such as fish, meats and other products rich in the amino acid phenylalanine. By law all babies are screened shortly after birth to determine if they have the defective gene, otherwise metal [sic] retardation can set in if diet is not controlled. Adult phenylketurics [sic] may experience headaches, etc. if they consume foods containing phenylalanine. Normal people are NOT at risk from ASPARATAME.

As with any food or supplement, moderation should be considered and any excesses avoided.

It is quite true that phenylketonurics cannot tolerate the phenilalanine that is part of aspartame, but that is far from the real problem with the sweetener. Betty Martini's reply to Mr Howell gives a good idea of that abysmal gap between the science "on the ground" that actually looks at people's problems and the science of academia which is beholden to the economic interests that profit from the sweetener.

To see how far apart the two realities are, contrast Betty's account of the facts and the documents she refers to with Ajinomoto's insistence that hearings hould not be held and with the following statement on its website:

We, Ajinomoto Group, continually strive to promote a healthy and vibrant society with global corporate citizenship activities focusing on "Nutrition and Health".

Mission Impossibile International
By: Betty Martini
November 14, 2005

As founder of Mission Possible International with operations in most states and over 30 countries of the world warning all consumers off aspartame, I have worked with the world experts to further their information to save lives. We are a volunteer force, take the case histories and forward physician information and support to the victims. Having done this for 14 years, 7 days a week, I can tell you we have a global epidemic beyond anything imaginable.

Consider a generation of children affected by the neurotoxin aspartame. When a mother tells me she used Diet Coke with aspartame through three pregnancies and has three autistic children you know it has destroyed an entire family. Then add to this that aspartame interacts with vaccines.

Source: The Idaho Observer
October 14, 2005
http://www.healthliesexposed.com

SANTA FE, New Mexico -- The Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) voted 4-2 October 4, 2005, to proceed with hearings that could lead to a ban of aspartame in New Mexico. Before the board was the question, "Did the EIB have the authority to hold a hearing to determine whether or not to ban for sale in the state of New Mexico a federally-approved food additive?"

Before making a motion to grant the hearing, EIB vice-Chairman Cliff Stroud commented that the system would be broken if the board did not have the authority to listen when people have concerns about the food supply.

The board's decision came after a meeting in which the attorney for Santa Fe art gallery owner Stephen Fox argued that the board does have the statutory authority to ban aspartame in New Mexico. Fox's arguments were countered by a brief submitted by attorneys for aspartame producer Ajinomoto and the Calorie Control Council (CCC)-a national trade group that promotes the use of aspartame. The five-day hearing on the subject of aspartame is scheduled for next July.

Free speech is not a right where certain corporations and criticism of their products are concerned, comments Robin Good of masternewmedia.org.

"In an alternative health newsletter I read came some interesting and disturbing news about free speech on the Internet. Dr. Joseph Mercola, whose Mercola.com website and newsletter are among the most widely read sources of alternative health-care information, has been coerced into blocking readers in the U.K. from reading his opinions about a controversial sugar alternative called Splenda.

Tate & Lyle, whose researchers developed sucralose (later branded as Splenda), joined forces with multinational firm Johnson & Johnson to market sucralose under the auspices of a new company, McNeil Nutritionals. So you can see why Mercola might feel compelled to respond to a legal threat from an entity with very deep pockets.

I find it sad that a corporation would try to squelch legitimate criticism of its product in this manner. Indeed, I'd suggest that it's counterproductive. These types of situations tend to get lots of publicity, and Splenda's safety as a food likely will become a larger issue. I wonder when corporations will get on the Cluetrain (http://www.cluetrain.com/) and understand that in our digitally networked world, it's better to publicly engage critics in a dialog rather than try to shut them down with brute force.

Silencing Mercola's point of view will only spawn a thousand other Internet critics who won't be cowed."

As we have already seen with Aspartame, the FDA and other countries' health authorities are largely standing by the side of manufacturers, when there are public doubts and complaints of adverse effects regarding artificial sugar substitutes, or any of their 'approved' products including pharmaceutical medicines. Once approved, these things seem to have a strange immunity to critical questions and even to voluminous information about actual adverse effects associated with them. We have seen this with Vioxx, the painkiller withdrawn only after tens of thousands of deaths were linked to it. We are seeing it again with psychiatric drugs that lead to suicide and violence and are still available.

With suppression of information and a public system of "health protection" that does not seem to function, we will just have to arm ourselves with information and make some conscious choices. After all, it's us who are buying or not buying, and there is no way any corporation will continue producing something they can't sell...

Here is the article in The Ecologist:

The Ecologist, September 2005 issue - Volume 35, No.7.
By Pat Thomas
October 21, 2005

Aspartame should never have reached the marketplace. But even if the authorities were to remove it from sale tomorrow, how much faith should consumers place in the other artificial sweeteners on the market?

Life After Aspartame

There is not a single artificial sweetener on the market that can claim, beyond all reasonable doubt, to be safe for humans to consume.
Saccharin, cyclamate and acesulfame-K have all been show to cause cancer in animals. Even the family of relatively benign sweeteners known as polyols, such as sorbitol and mannitol, can cause gastric upset if eaten in quantity.

NutraSweet believes that its new aspartame-based sweetener, Neotame, is 'revolutionary'; but, seemingly, it is only a more stable version of aspartame. This leaves the market wide open for sucralose.

By Christine Lydon, MD
Reprinted from OXYGEN MAGAZINE October 2005 issue
http://www.aspartame.com/lydon.htm

I have used aspartame for years. I've also wholeheartedly recommended products containing NutraSweet to my clients, as well as promoting its use in recipes. So, when I was recently contacted by a sports nutrition company to do some consulting work on the health risks associated with aspartame ingestion, was understandably reluctant to accept the assignment. I questioned their marketing director, What if I don't think there are any significant health risks associated with aspartame?" His response was to send me a couple of scientific publications. "Just read the articles. If, in your medical opinion, aspartame poses no health risks, then we won't pursue it further."

The next day I sat down with a pile of literature two inches thick. After making it through the first 10 pages, I stormed into my kitchen and fed every item of food containing aspartame to the garbage. Since that time, I have not had so much as a stick of aspartame sweetened gum.

Sweet Beginnings

Scientifically known as 1-aspartyl 1-phenylalanine methyl ester, consumers recognize aspartame in the forms of Equal, NutraSweet and Spoonful. Aspartame has three components: phenylalanine (50 percent), aspartic acid (40 percent) and methanol, also termed wood alcohol (10 percent). Those in support of this popular artificial sweetener, state that the two primary amino acids, which comprise 90 percent of aspartame by weight, are a harmless and natural part of our diet. They insist that aspartic acid is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter, which is present in the human central nervous system. This is only a partial truth.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has warned that aspartame, the artificial sugar substitute in most diet drinks, may cause cancer as reported in a three-year Italian study that found links to lymphomas and leukemias . But the CSPI communication goes on to advocate use of another doubtful sweetener - sucralose - to get off aspartame. Sucralose, also sold under the Splenda brand name, has its own problems of toxicity and is by no means an innocuous replacement for aspartame.

Although the CSPI has - with a delay of several years - come out now with a warning against the use of aspartame, Betty Martini charges that its executive director, Michael Jacobson, should have had the courage to do so long ago. She says the information was available since the time of the aspartame approval through political pressure called in by Donald Rumsfeld, former CEO of aspartame manufacturer Searle and now defense secretary.

Diet soda, which generally is sweetened with aspartame, has been shown to be linked to an increased incidence of obesity by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio in a recent study. While Fowler is quick to point out that the link does not prove causation, the facts showed that the more diet drinks a person consumed, the higher was the likelihood of being obese.

Why can't we encourage people to just overcome their sweet tooth?

Perhaps it would help, but of course there is no money in that. We have the sugar industry, the chemical sweetener manufacturers and the processed foods and drinks industry making sure that does not happen. But people do pay the bill - some with their lives, others with suffering and illness, others simply with obesity, and all of them with their weekly grocery bills, not to talk about hospital costs that hit every one of us. Great system and real great advice by CSPI, which says it is defending consumers...

Read the CSPI announcement and Betty Martini's comments to CSPI's Michael Jacobson here:

June 30, 2005 - Representatives Susan Davis, John Dingell and Henry Waxman have introduced H. R. 3156, also called the "Dietary Supplement Access and Awareness Act". The bill requires notification of new supplements put on the market and close monitoring of any untoward effects.

The stricter rules are directed at supplements that contain herbs and herbal extracts as well as any other substances that are not strictly vitamins and minerals. In an apparent attempt to pre-empt a recent court ruling that held ephedra may be sold as long as the dose is lower than 10 mg, the bill authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to require reports of adverse events and to determine the fate of any supplement by assessing the risks against the benefits.

Even a small risk may lead to removal of a supplement from the market, as it would be up to the Secretary to assess whether there is sufficient benefit. In a sane world, this would be acceptable, but the trouble is that the FDA usually acts to remove a whole class of supplements, regardless of dose, source of the ingredient or combination with other ingredients. This happened with ephedra, leading to a de-facto complete ban of any supplement containing the herb. Except, of course, prescription and over-the-counter medicines that contain the extract, and that, in my book, is an unjustifiable double standard. The Secretary is also directed by the bill and given funding to promote the reporting of side effects.

Now if supplements are to be evaluated, controlled and taken off the market at the first hint of trouble, I would like to see the same treatment be reserved to food additives, such as aspartame, the toxic sweetener and to pharmaceutical drugs that have been shown to kill people by the thousands routinely and to any other things we routinely ingest, be they foods, drinks or meds.

While it is quite reasonable to demand supplements be safe, why not demand that food additives and medicines be just as safe? Perhaps the Davis-Dingell-Waxmann bill should be extended to cover not only supplements but all the substances we routinely ingest!

According to the statistics compiled by Ron Law, risk analysis expert and policy analyst from New Zealand, supplements are the absolutely safest category of products in existence. I would certainly welcome all other ingestable products be brought to the same level of safety.

Here is a call for action issued by the Weston A. Price Foundation, forwarded by Chris Gupta of "Share the Wealth":

Sweetener 'linked' to leukaemias

(original on BBC News)

Fresh doubts about the safety of an artificial sweetener have been raised by Italian scientists who have linked its use to leukaemias in rodents.

Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar and is used throughout the world in low-calorie drinks and foods.

Regulators say existing studies show it is safe, but will look at the European Journal of Clinical Oncology study.

But they said it was unlikely that the sweetener was harmful to humans to the same extent as in rats.

Concerns have been raised about the aspartame in the past, but an analysis of 500 papers by UK regulators in 2002 concluded there was no threat to consumers.

The Food Standards Agency said: "The European Food Safety Authority intends to undertake an urgent assessment of this study to establish whether there are any implications for human health.

"We will study EFSA's opinion carefully and consider what, if any, action may be required."

Dr Elaine Vickers, cancer information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "If a risk to humans does exist, it will almost certainly be very small.

"However, we welcome the news that the EFSA will undertake an urgent assessment of this work."

The study

Dr Morando Soffritti and colleagues at the Cancer Research Centre in Bologna fed eight-week-old rats varying concentrations of aspartame.

Compared with control rats given no sweetener, many of the female rats in the experiment developed lymphomas or leukaemias - the risk increasing with the dose of aspartame.

The researchers say their study raises concerns about the levels of aspartame to which humans can be exposed and, therefore, "urgent re-examination" of aspartame's safety is needed, "especially to protect children".

The existing European Food Safety Authority safety assessment for aspartame led to the setting of an Acceptable Daily Intake, or ADI.

This is an estimate of the amount of an additive that could be routinely consumed every day over a lifetime with no appreciable health risk.

'Safe' intake

Aspartame's ADI is set at 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. This is equivalent to 2,800 milligrams for an average British adult.

For an average three-year-old child the amount is of the order of 600 milligrams.

An adult would have to consume 14 cans of a sugar-free drink every day before reaching the ADI, assuming the sweetener was used in the drink at the maximum permitted level.

In practice, most drinks use aspartame in combination with other sweeteners so that the level is considerably lower, says the FSA.

Previous work by the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health showed that aspartame intakes were considerably below the recommended maximum level, even among children and diabetics who consume large quantities of sugar-free drinks.

Aspartame, the chemical sweetener we are told to consume instead of sugar, and which can be found in thousands of products, seems to be less than innocuous. There are some cases - not a clinical study to be sure but nevertheless something worth looking into - where the consumption of diet pops has been connected to clinically diagnosed Multiple Sclerosis. This is from an article kindly forwarded by our Italian medical doctor and La Leva member Claudio Capozza.

Now Multiple Sclerosis is a serious matter, and health authorities would do well to heed the voices - even if they are "only" present in sites on the internet and not in the mainstream press so far.

Ask your health minister or your parliamentary representative what (s)he's going to do about aspartame. Who knows, one day they might wake up!

But first, read the article here:

By Dr. Betty Martini
Mission Possible International

Mission Possible is seeking New York and New Jersey plaintiffs for litigation on aspartame.

ATLANTA (PRWEB) April 12, 2005 -- Consumer rights advocacy group Mission Possible is leading a campaign to fill a product liability lawsuit with New York and New Jersey residents whose brain tumors may be linked to the consumption of the artificial sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal/Spoonful, etc.).

"Neither congressional hearings or repeated petitions calling for a ban have stopped aspartame manufacturers from exposing the public to this sweet poison. In fact, aspartame producers are reporting increased sales and boasting the marketplace addition of 'neotame,' a new aspartame product," explained Mission Possible International Founder Betty Martini.

For 16 years, the FDA resisted pressure to approve aspartame due to safety studies linking the artificial sweetener to numerous adverse reactions, including the development of brain tumors in animal studies. In 1977, FDA investigator Jerome Bressler released a report describing how, in clinical studies submitted to the FDA, Searle removed aspartame-induced brain tumors that developed in lab rats and placed them back into the study. If the rats died, Bressler reported, Searle would resurrect them on paper.

This is why aspartame is so deadly. It is a molecule composed of three components, 40% aspartic acid (an excitotoxin), a methyl ester which immediately becomes methanol (10%), a neurotoxin, and 50% phenylalanine, as an isolate a neurotoxin that goes directly into the brain, lowering the seizure threshold and depleting serotonin. Aspartame breaks down to a witches brew of toxins including diketopiperazine, a brain tumor agent.

Betty Martini goes into detail on aspartame toxicity and how this sweetener is allowed to endanger millions of lives for profit, in a letter to (Australian) ABC television which aired a program saying aspartame toxicity is "a hoax".

Beware of chemical additives
9 August 2004
Source: Gulf Daily News

Some foods are pumping chemicals into our bodies that may do real harm, says lifestyle expert Helen Evans.

When cooking a home made meal for the family, we would generally add herbs and spices, or a pinch of salt or pepper to make it tastier. We would certainly think twice about adding lots of chemical flavouring, colouring, artificial preservatives, or just for good measure, a few pesticide residues.

And yet this is just what is available on the menu from many ready-made meals.

We must be extra vigilant about food additives, especially where children's food is concerned, because we do not know the long-term effects that they may have.

Tasty but still bad for health

by Richard Seah
news@newstoday.com.sg
 
SEVERAL newspaper reports have suggested that MSG, or monosodium glutamate, is safe or even good for health. The latest came from a lecturer in Natural Sciences and Science Education at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in a recent newspaper article titled Tasty facts about MSG.

I feel this warrants closer attention. Have we been blaming MSG unfairly for numbness of the face, neck and shoulders, dizziness, rapid heart beats and other symptoms of "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome"?

The article fails to discuss this at length but merely states: "Scientific evidence has shown no association of MSG with the concerns of hair loss, headache and allergic reactions."

Political Sanity vs. Neurotoxins, by Dr. Betty Martini
2004-07-30
U.S. President being given powerful anti-depressants which interact with aspartame

The first correspondence I had with President George Bush was when he was Governor of Texas. He was about to sign into law the Dietetic's Practice Act. At the time, Monsanto owned NutraSweet and I explained that the dietitians were Monsanto's media hacks and that this law granted them a monopoly which is against most state constitutions. (They passed it anyway). I sent him a packet about aspartame, showing him that it is a deadly chemical poison and that the dietitians push it and defend the manufacturer. He wrote back that he disagreed - and he also got hooked on Diet Coke.

Aspartame Documentary "Sweet Misery" Reveals the Dangers of the Artificial Sweetener and how it was Approved Through the FDA.  

After 7000 miles, and 25 hours of footage, "Sweet Misery" will reveal one of the most pervasive, insidious forms of corporate negligence since tobacco. The toxic long-term effects of aspartame are often dismissed as a "hoax" by the sweetener industry and at least five other internet websites. The real footwork, however, unravels something less comforting than a mere "Hoax."

(PRWEB) July 29, 2004 -- One month ago, Sound and Fury Productions finished post production for "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World." We call this a "Case Study of a Food Supply in Crisis" and it follows the introduction and marketing of aspartame.

Adverse Reactions to Aspartame
From Judy Tidwell,

Aspartame May Be the Cause of Your Health Problems
Commonly known as Nutrasweet or Equal, aspartame, is an artificial sweetener that replaces sugar in many products. It is one of the most controversial products on the market today.

Those who have suffered adverse reactions from aspartame use claim it is a chemical poison, whereas, the United States Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) claim it is a safe product. Whose claim do we believe?

Aspartame is made up of three chemicals. It is a mixture of 40 percent aspartic acid, 50 percent of phenylalanine, and 10 percent of methanol. Does this chemical combination cause health problems?

Pretty Boy Fraud and Diet Coke
July 20, 2004
Source:  WorldNetDaily.com

I thought it was ironic when I heard about John Edwards being hooked on Diet Coke.

The man I've dubbed "Pretty Boy Fraud" made his ill-gotten fortune shaking down doctors and hospitals for causing cerebral palsy in children through delivery-room practices.

There is no scientific link between delivery practices and cerebral palsy.

There is, however, a growing body of scientific evidence linking cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and other kinds of brain damage to diet soft drinks.

Way back in 1987, United Press International produced a stunning three-part investigative report on aspartame, the generic name for the artificial sweetener of choice in most soft drinks and diet foods today.

Disease diagnosis doesn't deter diver
By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY
Posted 6/10/2004 10:03 PM

ST. PETERS, Mo. — Justin Dumais was just so tired. Seven months ago, he hardly could muster the energy for a shower, let alone for the 10-meter dives he had been practicing more than half his life.

Initially, he thought he was overtraining. After two weeks, he went to his doctor, who detected a high white-blood-cell count and sent him to a specialist. The diagnosis: Graves' disease, which causes overproduction of thyroid hormone.

Dumais, headed to the Athens Olympics in August after winning the 3-meter synchronized event at this week's U.S. trials, was perplexed.

The disease most often strikes middle-aged women.

Anandamaya developes Zero Carb Astraya Dried Fruit Infusions with Stevia
Tuesday June 8, 12:36 pm ET
Source: Yahoo News 

Stevia is a herb 200-300 times sweeter than sugar that is not only safe for diabetics but helps regulate glucose levels by strengthening the pancreas.

If there were a delicious tasting, naturally sweetened, Ready-to-Drink Beverage with no carbohydrates, no calories, no artificial sweeteners, no sugar, and no preservatives, it could directly lead to decreased incidences of diabetes, obesity, cancer, and heart disease in North America. This niche is now being filled by Zero Carb Astraya Dried Lime and Zero Carb Astraya Berry with Stevia developed by Anandamaya Inc., a Canadian company.

The Connection Between MS And Aspartame
By Russell L. Blaylock, MD
Neurosurgeon
6-7-4
Source: Rense.com 

[ BREAKING: MS and ASPARTAME CONNECTION Revealed by Aspartame Expert and Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D. - Movie Released Today
Renowned Neurosurgeon reveals MS Treatment and Exposes the ASPARTAME and MS Connection with Research. This explains the epidemic OF Subclinical MS in the population of 100 countries the World]
Press Release June 9, 2004 eMediaWire a PRWEB.com NEWSWIRE

Recently, much controversy has surrounded a claim that aspartame may produce an MS-like syndrome. A current review of recent peer-reviewed scientific studies have disclosed a pathophysiological mechanism to explain this connection. As far back as 1996 it was shown that the lesions produced in the myelin sheath of axons in cases of multiple sclerosis were related to excitatory receptors on the primary cells involved called oligodendroglia. Recent studies have now confirmed what was suspected back then. The loss of myelin sheath on the nerve fibers characteristic of the disease are due to the death of these oligodendroglial cells at the site of the lesions (called plaques). Further, these studies have shown that the death of these important cells is as a result of excessive exposure to excitotoxins at the site of the lesions.
 
Normally, most of these excitotoxins are secreted from microglial immune cells in the central nervous system. This not only destroys these myelin-producing cells it also breaks down the blood-brain barrier (BBB), allowing excitotoxins in the blood stream to enter the site of damage. Aspartame contains the excitotoxin aspartate as 40% of its molecular structure. Numerous studies have shown that consuming aspartame can significantly elevate the excitotoxin level in the blood. There is a common situation during which the excitotoxin exposure is even greater. When aspartate (as aspartame) is combined in the diet with monosodium glutamate (MSG) blood levels are several fold higher than normal. With the BBB damaged, as in MS, these excitotoxins can freely enter the site of injury,greatly magnifying the damage. So, we see that dietary excitotoxins, such as aspartame and MSG, can greatly magnify the damage produced in multiple sclerosis. Likewise, excitotoxins have been shown to breakdown the BBB as well.
 

Is food endangered by additives?
By LIZ KOCH
SPECIAL TO THE SENTINEL
Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

Ever since the Campbell’s soup people convinced America they could make soup "better" than Grandma, some of us actually believed packaged foods were equivalent to our own home-cooked meals. From there we moved into convenience or "fast food," delivered to our cars in seconds.

But as people less and less prepare food from scratch, relying on packaged food and fast foods as their main sources of nutrition, we are seeing the results in our current health-care crisis.

Ed Bauman, director of the Bauman College nutrition and natural chef training programs, will speak on this topic Thursday at Way of Life in Capitola.

Guinn: Artificial sweeteners and risk

By Bob Guinn
Clemson Extension Agent
Source: Lowcountry News

The average American eats the equivalent of 20 teaspoons of sugar a day, according to figures from the most recent federal Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (1994-1996).

Nearly 60 percent of this intake, says the trade group The Sugar Association, is from corn sweeteners, used heavily in sodas and other sweetened drinks. Another 40 percent is from sucrose (table sugar), and a small amount comes from other sweeteners, such as honey and molasses.

PROPOSED 2004 U.N. DRAFT RESOLUTION ABOUT NUTRITION, ESPECIALLY ASPARTAME
by Stephen Fox

Source: The UN Observer

2004-05-15 | Numerous unchecked multinational corporations are churning out millions of metric tons of harmful additives. We have reached epidemic levels in the United States, the 21st Century womb of junk food, neurotoxic additives and carcinogens. The worst of these is Aspartame, the artificial sweetener, which for 16 years, the US Food and Drug Administration objected to, but finally capitulated and granted approval in the first few months of the Reagan presidency, in 1981.

The actual story is rather sordid and is reported in detail on websites like http://www.dorway.com , and the websites of Dr. Russell Blaylock (Neurosurgeon) and Dr. H.J. Roberts, M.D. (Internal Medicine), as well as that of the World Natural Health Organization. (Please see links, below.)

Subject: [Health Supreme] New Comment Posted to 'Aspartame, not Ephedra causing cardiac arrests'

Name: Dr. Betty Martini
Email Address: Bettym19@mindspring.com
URL: http://www.dorway.com and http://www.wnho.net

Comments:

X-Sender: bettym19@pop.mindspring.com
Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 14:26:40 -0400
To: Senator@Biden.Senate.gov
From: "Dr. Betty Martini"
Subject: Senator Biden, More damning information on Rumsfeld you may not know

Dear Senator Biden:

The news talks about you asking Donald Rumsfeld to step down which has to do with the Iraq situation.

I would like to call your attention to when Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, manufacturers of aspartame. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve it, not only because its not safe but because they wanted the company indicted for fraud. Both U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. They were Sam Skinner and William Conlon. Skinner went on to become Secretary of Transportation squelching the cries of the pilots who were now having seizures on this seizure triggering drug, aspartame, and then Chief of Staff under President Bush's father. Some of these people reach high places. Even Supreme Justice Clarence Thomas is a former Monsanto attorney. (Monsanto bought Searle in l985, and sold it a few years ago). When Ashcroft became Attorney General, Thompson from King and Spalding Attorneys (another former Monsanto attorney) became deputy under Ashcroft. (Attorneys for NutraSweet and Coke).