Diet Sodas

Aspartame Warning

Of course, the FDA approved it so "it must be safe", neglecting to mention that the FDA denied aspartame approval for over 8 years until the newly appointed FDA commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes overruled the final scientic review panel, approved aspartame, and then went to work for G.D. Searle's (initial owner of aspartame) public relations firm at $1,000 a day. Hayes has refused all interviews to discuss his actions.

The FDA also urged Congress to prosecute G.D. Searle for "specific false statements or concealed facts" stemming from Searle's testing of aspartame. However, the 2 government lawyers assigned to the case decided against prosecuting G.D. Searle and then joined G.D. Searle's law firm!

Even the National Soft Drink Assn. filed a strong protest letter in 1983 against the approval of aspartame for use in beverages, saying "aspartame is inherently, markedly and uniquely unstable in aqueous media."

Also, the FDA still allows hydrogenated oils to be used, does that make them safe?

Aspartame™
The Condoned Lethal Sweetener

Compiled from information provided by Betty Martini, founder of "Mission Possible International", of Duluth, Georgia and information found on the internet at http://www.dorway.com. The following article appeared in the March 15th issue of The Latest Magazine of southern California; phone 1 800-652-8378

Aspartame, AKA; NutraSweet™, Equal™, Spoonful™, L-Aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester, or molecular formula C14H18N2O5; is used in 9000 products and climbing. It is sold in over 100 countries of the world.

Aspartame is very sweet. However roaches won’t eat it, cats and dogs won’t eat it, ants won’t eat it and flies won’t eat it — but the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) serves it to you with their approval and the approval of the Monsanto Chemical Company.

Warnings

Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) surveyed 80 people who suffered brain seizures after eating or drinking products with aspartame. The report stated "These 80 cases meet the FDA’s own definition of an imminent hazard to the public health, which requires the FDA to expeditiously remove a product from the market." On July 28, 1983 the National Soft Drink Association drafted a 30-page protest questioning the safety of aspartame in soft drinks.

The American Diabetic Association, which receives megafunds from The NutraSweet Company, ignored a 1987 abstract submitted by Dr. H.J. Roberts (world expert on diabetes) summarizing 58 diabetic aspartame reactions. He says: "I now advise all patients with diabetes and hypoglycemia to avoid aspartame products."

The FDA and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) have received nearly 7,000 complaints, including five deaths, attributed to the use of aspartame in food products since the FDA first permitted limited use in 1981. A number of researchers and doctors around the country object not only to the product itself, but to the questionable preliminary research that led the FDA to approve it’s use.

Why hasn’t aspartame been banned? The answer could be that there are thousands of companies using aspartame in diet sodas, powdered drinks, gelatin, tea, cocoa, juices, frozen desserts, even vitamins and medications. This translates to billions of dollars worldwide. Far more profits than needed to provide agency officials with gratuities and/or very favorable future employment, politicians with campaign funds, non-profit foundations with endowments, scientists with research grants, and the media with lots of advertising dollars.

History

Aspartame was the accidental discovery of chemist Jim Schlatter, who was working for the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle on an anti-ulcer drug. It was December 1965; Schlatter licked his finger and tasted the substance that had spilled on his flask. It’s sweetness stunned him, and he realized that tiny amounts of the chemicals he’d been mixing were powerfully sweet. Searle began testing the chemical mixture, aspartame, and it eventually gained FDA approval.

Toxic Properties

Aspartame is a drug that breaks down into a witch’s brew of toxins. It is a molecule composed of three components: aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol.

Free methanol begins to form in liquid aspartame-containing products at temperatures above 86F. The human body runs around 98.6F. Once ingested the free methanol is released into the small intestine and encounters the enzyme chymotrypsin produced by the liver which breaks it down into formaldehyde.

Formaldehyde, also known as formalin, embalming fluid, or formol, is a colorless gas with a pungent odor. Symptoms of formaldehyde exposure include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, or diarrhea. When the reaction is allergi™, symptoms may include minor respiratory irritation and watery eyes. It is a known carcinogen.

The body has difficulty eliminating formaldehyde so it combines some of it with water and stores it in the fat. What is not stored in the fat is further converted to formic acid (AKA ant sting poison—also used as an activator to strip epoxy and urethane coatings).

Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, 90% of aspartame, are amino acids normally used in synthesis of protoplasm when supplied by the foods we eat. But when unaccompanied by other amino acids they are neurotoxic. They can go past the blood brain barrier and deteriorate the neurons of the brain. The phenylalanine which is genetically engineered breaks down into diketopiperazine, a known brain tumor agent and it is the reason for the FDA mandated warning label that states "Phenylketonurics: Contains phenylalanine".

In other words: aspartame converts to dangerous byproducts that have no natural countermeasures. A dieter’s empty stomach accelerates these conversions and amplifies the damage.

How bad is it?

There are 90 documented symptoms including: Headaches, Muscle spasms, Irritability, Heart palpatations, Loss of taste, Joint pain, Dizziness, Weight gain, Tachycardia (heart racing), Breathing difficulty, Tinnitus (ringing in the ears), Blurred vision, Seizures, Rashes, Insomnia, Anxiety attacks, Vertigo, Hearing loss, Nausea, Depression, Blindness, Slurred Speech, Memory Loss, Fatigue, Numbness.

In l993, Swiss scientist S. E. Shephard exposed aspartame to nitrite in a test tube, causing it to undergo nitration as it might do when it encounters nitrite in the stomach. Shephard then demonstrated that the nitrated aspartame molecule was able to cause mutations in cultured bacteria. This test is commonly used to assess the cancer causing potential of chemicals.

Unethical Conduct

The FDA is charged by Congress to protect the public health by prohibiting the manufacture and distribution of unapproved drugs. The Department of Justice has the responsibility for prosecution of criminal and civil cases arising under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, Title 21, United States Code Section 331. Cases are referred to the Department generally through the FDA’s Chief counsel after the FDA has conducted an investigation.

The FDA approved aspartame under very suspect circumstances. By their own admission it is the most complained about substance in their history, with over 10,000 "official" complaints. The FDA, CDC and many others have proof that aspartame does in fact cause tumors, and they have more than ample proof that the toxic substances methanol, formaldehyde, and formic acid, along with the action of aspartic acid cause a wide range of problems in those who ingest aspartame-laced products.

Dr. Jacqueline Verrett, a former FDA toxicologist, and member of a FDA task force that investigated the authenticity of research done by Searle to establish the safety of aspartame, says she believes the original aspartame studies were "built on a foundation of sand." She testified in front of an U.S. Senate hearing in 1987 that flawed tests conducted by Searle, used as the basis for FDA approval, were a "disaster" and should have been "thrown out." She said she believed the studies left many unanswered questions about possible birth defects and the safety of aspartame. Verrett said the team was instructed not to be concerned with, or comment upon, the overall validity of the study. She said a subsequent review discarded or ignored the problems and deficiencies outlined by her team’s original report. She said, "serious departures from acceptable toxicological protocols that her investigative team noted… were also discounted."

On Jan 10, 1977; FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill recommended to U.S. Attorney Sam Skinner, "We request that your office convene a Grand Jury investigation into apparent violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C. 331(e), and the False Reports to the Government Act, 18 U.S.C. 1001, by G.D. Searle and Company and three of its responsible officers for their willful and knowing failure to make reports to the Food and Drug Administration required by the Act, 21 U.S.C. 355(i), and for concealing material facts and making false statements in reports of animal studies conducted to establish the safety of the drug Aldactone and the food additive Aspartame."

Why was Searle not indicted? Searle’s law firm met with Attorney Skinner on January 26. A week later they offered him a job. On April 17 the Justice Department advised Skinner to proceed immediately because of a looming statute of limitations deadline. On July 1 Skinner switched sides to work for Sidney and Austin, Searle’s law firm. His successor Atty. William Conlon after convening a grand jury let the Statute of Limitations run out on the aspartame charges. Fifteen months later he too went to work for Sidney and Austin. All in all ten ranking FDA or federal officials involved with the investigation and regulation of aspartame had left government service for employment by the sweetener industry.

No FDA Commissioner would approve aspartame and so it was kept off the market for 16 years. In April 1981, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr. was appointed FDA Commissioner. On July 18, 1981 aspartame was approved for use in dry foods. Arthur Hayes overruled a Public Board of Inquiry and ignored the law, Section 409(c)(3) of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 348), which says that a food additive should not be approved if tests are inconclusive. The FDA did apply an "acceptable daily intake" or ADI to aspartame. This was raised so that in 1983 Dr. Hayes could approve aspartame for use in beverages... against the consensus of the National Soft Drink Association that aspartame was too unstable for such use. Shortly after the FDA approval for aspartame in carbonated beverages, Arthur Hayes left the FDA under charges of improprieties, took a position as the Dean of New York Medical Collage and was hired as a consultant ($1,000 per day) with G.D. Searle’s public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller.

Burson-Marsteller (B-M) is the world’s largest PR firm, with 63 offices in 32 countries. On the human rights front, B-M has represented some of the worst violators of our age. These include:

The Nigerian government during the Biafran war, to discredit reports of genocide; The fascist junta that ruled Argentina during the 70’s and early 80’s, to attract foreign investment; The totalitarian regime of South Korea, to whitewash the human rights situation there during the 1988 Olympics; and the Indonesian government, which got into power through a CIA-sponsored bloodbath.

So it’s a possibility that B-M did a great job keeping aspartame on the world market despite "red-handed" evidence of it’s toxic capabilities. What may have been another "aspartame" biased act by the FDA was its effort to prevent the use of stevia. Stevia, a natural sweetener, is not a synthetic chemical, nor has it been implicated in health problems, as has aspartame. Stevia is 200 times sweeter than sugar, and in Japan it claims 41% of the sweetener market. In the entire history of stevia use as a sweetener in Japan, even in Diet Coke™, there has never been any complaints or concerns about its safety. Celestial Seasonings™, one of the largest herbal tea companies in the world, used stevia as a flavoring and sweetener in many teas. In 1986, without warning, FDA agents entered their warehouse, seized their entire stock of stevia, and told them they could not use it in their teas. In 1991, the FDA banned stevia, claiming that in spite of its use worldwide as a sweetener additive with no reported side effects, it was an "unsafe food additive." (Today stevia is finally approved and on the open U.S. market.)

Dr. H.J. Roberts has declared aspartame disease to be a world epidemic. Currently Monsanto reaps $1 billion/year from the aspartame toxic bonanza. They have asked for a more potent version called NeotameE to be approved by the FDA.

Those wishing detailed scientific documentation may choose to order a an excellent book by Dr. Blaylock (http://www.dorway.com/amazon.html) or something from Dr. H. J. Roberts (http://www.dorway.com/sunshine.html). On the internet go to http://www.dorway.com

Aspartame™, NutraSweet™, Equal™ are trademarks owned by the Nutrasweet Company, a subsidiary of the Monsanto Corp.

Diet Coke™ and Celestial Seasonings™ are trademarks which are the properties of their respective owners.