Sweet Misery: What You Don't Know About Aspartame Can Destroy Your Health

[Guest guest]

http://www.mercola.com/2004/nov/10/sweet_misery_interview.htm

 

What You Don't Know About Aspartame Can Destroy Your Health

 

 

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

 

Most anyone interested in natural health will understand that

artificial sweeteners are not healthy for you. But nearly everyone of

us leads busy lives that limits us from reading all we would like to,

especially about things that may not be that much of a problem anyway.

 

After all, millions of people drink diet sodas every day and they

aren't dropping dead like flies, and the government did approve this

sweetener as safe so it can't be too bad.

 

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

 

If you believe the above you are in for a sorry surprise. The

beautiful aspect of this video is that in a short 90 minutes you will

easily in the relaxed comfort of your own home finally understand why

aspartame is a toxic poison and needs to be avoided at all costs.

 

Personally I own Dr. Robert's $75 phone book size reference on

aspartame and a number of other books on the topic. However, I have

never had the time to read them and understand at a foundational level

why aspartame was so toxic. I just knew it was not natural and should

be avoided and there were many that had problems with it. This movie

allowed me to easily and passively learn the specific reasons and

details on why aspartame is best avoided by all humans who are

interested in staying healthy.

 

If you, or someone you know and love, drinks diet soda or consumes

aspartame in any form, then this video is an absolute must see for

you. I could not recommend more strongly that you view this video. You

can purchase it on our site with the 100 percent assurance that if you

are not as convinced as I am that this is one of the most helpful life

changing health movies you have seen you can return it to our site for

a full no-questions-asked refund.

 

If you are a health care professional I am pleading with you to view

this video. Once you view the information on this video you will

finally know why an aggressive avoidance of this toxic substance is

necessary to maintain health. I promise you this is one of the best

investments of your time to help your patients or clients improve

their health.

 

Interview:

 

 

Finding out the trigger point for your disease -- multiple sclerosis

-- was aspartame exposure must have been a revelation for you. How did

you discover aspartame was the cause of your problems?

 

First off, by putting two and two together. I had been a very heavy

aspartame consumer for 20 years, and there was so much research

available on the harmful effects of that substance.

 

When I started to have problems, I had just quit cold turkey. It

really felt like withdrawal. Then, when I was starting to get better,

a relative gave me some breath mint tabs for under the tongue. Unknown

to me, they had aspartame. Almost immediately, I started to have

problems again. That clinched it for me.

 

Sweet Misery is as much a documentary, as it is detective story. You

let the facts help you tell your story. How did you formulate the

narrative flow of your story?

 

It was really a journey of discovery, and a very collaborative effort

with my husband and partner, J.T. Waldron. Without him, I think I

would have been too close to the subject to be able to pull a story

out of the massive amount of documentation and video footage we had

compiled. He studied the research we had close to a year and allowed

it to be fully absorbed before he edited a minute of footage.

 

Your documentary makes a very compelling case for the FDA to take

aspartame off the market? Based on your research and your

conversations with various experts, in your opinion, why hasn't this

happened at some point over the past 20 years?

 

Unfortunately, I think it comes down to marketing, money and power.

We've become a society that is more interested in the bottom line and

investment returns on the stock market and less concerned with helping

each other and honestly working to find truly helpful products to

market. We've also reached the point where we're always trying to find

a " quick fix, " a panacea to immediately cure (or at least cover up)

all ills.

 

The best answers aren't always the easy ones. Instead of coming up

with a way to market an item and finding a way for to make people

think they need it, we should find a real need in our society and try

to fill it.

 

Part of Sweet Misery's power is its use of archival footage from the

60s, 70s and 80s to make its case about the dangers of aspartame. How

did you find this obviously hard-to-find footage?

 

Luckily, Betty Martini of Mission Possible and www.dorway.com is a

vast resource, almost a museum. Her collection of news items and

interviews helped us to discover some long forgotten footage.

 

One of the themes that kept coming up in your conversations with

doctors was that physicians oftentimes weren't paying any attention to

their patients which had much to do with aspartame slipping past their

medical radar. Did this mirror your own experience?

 

Absolutely. I was told specifically (I asked) that there was nothing,

nutritionally speaking, that I could do for myself. The only thing

that my neurologist thought that I could do, was take a real

" powerhouse " drug, one that has many side effects, including liver

problems and suicide. As soon as I got off that medication, which I

haven't taken for almost a year now, I started to feel better than I

have in years.

 

Incidentally, that neurologist won't touch aspartame herself, but

won't specifically recommend to her patients to stay away from it either.

 

The most emotionally, compelling part of your film was the closing

segment with Diane Fleming, who's serving 50 years in a Virginia

prison for poisoning her husband, although all the signs lead to

aspartame. Has anything happened with her case since you interviewed her?

 

There is a petition for her release on www.nwho.org. Also, there are

several people who are trying to get a copy of the film to the

Virginia state legislature, so hopefully that will help. And I think

that her friend, Betty Rickmond, who is also in the documentary, is

getting a copy to the state attorney general. Really, more people need

to be aware of this issue in order for a difference to take place.

 

(By the way, if anyone would like to write to Diane Fleming they can

do so at this address: Diane Fleming, #311655, FCCW 3D 207A, Box 1000,

Troy, Va. 22974.)

 

Before shooting this documentary, did you realize the lengths

pharmaceutical companies would take to bring a flawed product to market?

 

We had no idea that this was only the tip of the iceberg, that there

was so much going on and that it had been going on for so long. I

would watch how the pharmaceuticals would market these drugs in

doctors' offices, in literature and on television, never realizing

that I may have to make a decision to buy into these drugs. It's a

frightening step to decide against what conventional medicine

recommends and refuse a prescription, especially when your life is at

stake.

 

I don't recommend an arbitrary dismissal of allopathic medicine, but a

look at alternatives in combination to a traditional doctor might be

essential.

 

On another note, a big surprise in an early interview was learning

that Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of the company that originally

marketed aspartame when it was brought to market. In early revolving

door activity, he was also serving as part of [late President Ronald]

Reagan's transition team.

 

Will we see Sweet Misery in theatres one day soon?

 

We will submit it to film festivals this year. A direct video release

seems like the most effective way to get the documentary out there.

Although we will try, we don't expect it to broadcast on any

commercial station soon, especially if they are advertising soft drinks!

 

Are you through dealing with the mega-billion medical industry yet?

 

Not yet. We expect to do a follow-up to Sweet Misery to cover

continued aspartame battles. We also would like to provide more for

the issues of avoidance and detox. We're looking at several more

documentaries that have similar elements, specifically on fluoride,

AIDS and eugenics. I'm particularly proud of a script that I wrote

once off of my medication. It's a dark comedy called " The Iguana. "

 

How is your health today?

 

I feel better than I have in years. I spent all of my 20s in a mental

fog, unable to do anything. Now, my head feels clear, I've lost the

weight I was always unsuccessfully trying to shed, and I'm medication

and symptom free.

 

Related Articles:

 

Sweet Misery: The Horrors of Aspartame Revealed in Documentary

 

Why Nutrasweet was so Successful and Will Likely Never be Replaced

by Splenda

 

12 Questions You Need to Have Answered Before You Eat Splenda

 

Aspartame Disease: An FDA-Approved Epidemic

 

Aspartame: What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

 

Aspartame - Avoid It

 

FDA Pivotal Safety Study: Aspartame Caused Brain Seizures