Good Evening, James,
I appreciate your candor. I was wrong, you're not obdurate, just employed, by Monsanto/NutraSweet as are the authorities you cite to defend aspartame [APM] The difference between us: my only interest in APM is humanitarian, an expression of my ministry. Your interest cannot be divorced from your livelihood. I'll demonstrate "humanitarian:"
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
I am a diabetic and have been using insulin for 18 years. My doctor advised me to use sugar substitutes in my diet. he also said I could drink as much diet soft drinks as I wanted. This I did. I used Equal in my coffee. I used a lot of diet soft drinks and used NutraSweet in many other foods I ate.
I started having headaches all the time, as they got worse I started having seizures. I would get a severe pain in my left eye, and then I would have seizures that would make the left side of my body shake. In time I was no longer able to tell when these were going to start. They would just come on all of a sudden and I would have up to eight seizures one right after another. I couldn't sleep, my mouth was dry all the time. I had sores on my tongue. I started having trouble with my memory. My eating habits changed, foods that I liked no longer tasted good to me. My stomach bothered me a lot. I had muscle spasms in my legs almost every night and my, back was sore from seizures.
I was so sick that I thought I was dying, and so depressed that I was losing the will to live. My doctor requested a cat scan and other tests which were inconclusive. I was scared, I didn't know what to do. Fortunately a relative informed me my problems may be due to NutraSweet. I thought anything is worth a try, so I quit using NutraSweet Sunday, and by Tuesday the seizures stopped. I haven't had any seizures since, and all the other symptoms have stopped except the change in my eating habits.
I feel very strongly that I may have died if I had continued to use NutraSweet. This poison should be taken off the market. How many others are suffering because of it?
William Reed, Pullman, MI 1995
Mr Reed is alive & better 4 years later. Betty Martini saved him from Monsanto's diabolical poison. These experiences are on dorway.com
All references below appear in full on this site which Monsanto accessed 300+ times so far in '99. We have thousands like this, James! Let's look at some of your references:
MEDLINE: In 1996 famed JOHn Olney, M.D. discussed the APM/brain-tumor issue on 60 Minutes accompanied by Ralph Walton, M.D. who searched Medline and found 83 out of 90 independent studies showed problems with APM Of the 7 favorable to APM six were FDA and one a review APM industry literature.
Walton said "As the role of the FDA in the question of APM safety has been controversial, and allegations were made of a conflict of interest on the part of the FDA Commissioner at the time of aspartame's approval, one could argue that the FDA studies should not be considered truly "independent." Exclude the 7 compromised studies and ALL independent research showed adverse reactions ... 100%!
Dr. Walton studied the APM/depression relationship in a double-blind challenge involving patients with prior unipolar depression and a control group. The frequency and severity of psychiatric, neurologic, eye and other side effects in the depression group caused the Institutional Review Board to terminate the project prematurely. One subject was bleeding from the eyes, and another had a retinal detachment! [common APM reaction] Dr. Walton is Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.
On 60 Minutes Walton said of the industry-sponsored studies [G D Searle/Monsanto/NutraSweet] 74 of 74 attested to APM safety. The original studies were the target of Justice Dept prosecution for fraud which when two U.S. Prosecutors hired on with defense lawyers and the statute of limitations expired.
One "pivotal study" submitted for APM approval was a 52 week oral toxicity infant monkey study, SC 18862. "All animals in the medium and high dosage groups exhibited seizures. the seizures were of the Grand Mal type. One monkey, M38 died after 30 days. ... The convulsions in the monkeys are correlated with and can be attributed to high serum phenylalanine levels" proving APM triggers seizures in monkeys. The seizures stopped when APM did. they took the "No Aspartame test" and got well!
In 1993 The American Dietetics Assn. Courier said Monsanto writes their material and featured a photo of world-class Jello makers taking a $75,000 bribe from NutraSweet. Likewise the American Diabetes Assn. told my wife Monsanto supplies their material. Participants in their walk-a-thons wear EQUAL shirts. Mission Possible gives medical documentation that APM can precipitate diabetes, keep blood sugar out of control, destroy the optic nerve and cause convulsions.
Dr. H R Roberts, 35 year member of the ADA, submitted an aspartame reactor abstract which the ADA refused to publish. It was later published in Clinical Research. When my wife & activists gave this and other documentation to walkers ADA called the police, who said Chastain Park is public property, knock it off, ADA!
You cite MIT & turncoat Dr. Wurtman, M.D. In 1987 Greg Gordon did an investigation of NutraSweet, writing: "Wurtman, who quit his job as a Searle consultant and became a vocal NutraSweet opponent, said he had been contacted by more than 200 persons who suspect they suffered seizures as a result of NutraSweet use. He said Dr. Gerald Gaull, a Searle Vice President, visited his laboratory in l985 and threatened to veto funding by ILSI, a Washington-based foundation, for his planned study into whether NutraSweet changes brain chemistry, lowering some humans' seizure thresholds. ... Gaull did not deny making the threat."
The report continued: "Studies at New York's Mt. Sinai Hospital - have drawn criticism because human volunteers were given aspartame only once or twice." The 1-Coke test; No seizure? That settles it, APM's safe! Imagine a one-pak test for tobacco toxicity!
Wurtman is a NutraSweet turncoat. We have his brilliant papers on phenylalanine toxicity in APM before his conversion. Another MIT study was by Dr. Paul Spiers, affiliated with Beth Israel Hospital, He works for Wurtman, Monsanto funded the study. The Daily Record, Northwest, NJ 6/1/87 quoted Dr Paul Spiers, Neuropsychologist: "We are wondering whether in fact this substance may be capable of having a subtle effect on cognitive functioning ... This kind of neuropsychological cognitive examination has never been used to investigate the effects of new drugs of any kind. Now, we have food additives that are more like drugs than foods that are introduced into the dietary chain but have direct effects on the brain neurotransmitter system. But because the chemical industry is 20 years ahead of the regulators, thus far no one has attempted to apply more sophisticated methods of testing brain functions to these problems." The entire report is against NutraSweet.
Wurtman & Spiers opposed NutraSweet in l987 but sing a different tune when Monsanto buys the music! Read Cynthia Crossen's book The Tainted Truth which says the road to hell is paved with corporate research funds.
Greg Gordon's report: "NutraSweet ... could heighten risks of brain damage in fetuses and small children ... some independent scientists have become unusually outspoken, Drs. Louis Elsas of Emory University and William Pardridge of the UCLA Medical School charged that the diet food and drink industry has engaged in a whitewash by rejecting health concerns, manipulating research studies and wining and dining scientific critics. These and other researchers describe a world of subtle, high-stakes strategy in which the availability of corporate funds and the design of research protocols may have influenced the course of a multibillion-dollar industry and potentially affected the safety of millions of people."
Monsanto funded a study for Dr. Diana Dow-Edwards on birth defects. It was disastrous. Monsanto withdrew their funding and then Dr. Dow-Edwards had to pay for it herself. Afterwards neither Monsanto nor FDA would accept it. Yet Monsanto advertises APM for pregnant women.
GENOCIDE!
My wife is angered by case histories from women unwarned in pregnancy and gave birth to babies with horrible defects, brain tumors, no eyes, mentally impaired, etc. She weeps for each and every one just as she does with the young people who die with the same brain tumors the rats developed in the original studies.
Toxicologist Dr. George Schwartz wrote Team NutraSweet/Monsanto 2/2/99:
"In your response to the email article regarding the dangers of aspartame you have presented a one-sided self-serving polemic defending your potentially dangerous product. By ignoring the scientific studies which disagree with your position, you are doing a great disservice to consumers. Further, you may have created a base for litigation against your company by denying the existing science. As one example, your comment that "formate is quickly eliminated by the body" is demonstrably false. Your response states that "the body converts the methanol to formaldehyde which is instantly converted to a metabolite called formate." The study done by Trocho et al., Formaldehyde derived from dietary aspartame binds to tissue components in vivo. Life Sciences 63:5:p.337-49,l998 clearly demonstrates cellular persistence and accumulation, or in layman's terms, that formaldehyde can remain and accumulate in the body.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that NutraSweet can pose a serious health danger. I applaud the Internet's remarkable capacity to transmit the truth beyond the reach of your corporate advertising dollars." Signed: George R. Schwartz, M.D., Board-certified physician
Russell Blaylock, M.D. paper: NOT JUST ANOTHER SCARE; TOXIN ADDITIVES IN YOUR FOOD AND DRINK:
"A recent study has demonstrated that aspartame feeding to animals results in an accumulation of formaldehyde within the cells, with evidence of significant damage to cellular proteins and DNA. In fact, the formaldehyde accumulated with prolonged use of aspartame. with this damning evidence, one would have to be suicidal to continue the use of aspartame sweetened foods, drinks and medicines. The use of foods containing excitotoxin additives is especially harmful to the unborn and small children. By age 4 the brain is only 80% formed. By age 8, 90% and by age 16 it is fully formed, but still undergoing changes and rewiring (plasticity). We know that the excitotoxins have a devastating effect on formation of the brain (wiring of the brain) and that such exposure can cause the brain to be "miswired." this may explain the significant, almost explosive increase in ADD and ADHD. Glutamate feeding to pregnant animals produces a syndrome almost identical to ADD. It has also been shown that a single feeding of MSG after birth can increase free radicals in the offspring's brain that last until adolescence..."
There has never been a shortage of men to accept any employment regardless of humanity's price. Our capacity for rationalization is equal to any atrocity. They burned innocents at the stake and called it an Auto de Fey ... an Act of Faith. Far greater is the toll of Monsanto's killer chemicals in which you place Faith!
Don Martini |
