ASPARTAME SUPRESSES THE LEVELS OF SEROTONIN IN THE BRAIN

[Guest guest]

Aspartame Suppresses the Levels of Serotonin in the Brain. "

 

" According to one recent report, 5 suicides have been linked to

aspartame

ingestion. "

 

 

 

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/38994.html#

 

Text of Stephen Fox's speech to Senate Public Affairs Committee

Stephen Fox

February 3, 2006

 

New Mexico is at the most serious crossroads in its history, as the

strongest pro consumer protection bill ever to be presented to the New

Mexico Senate and House is now before your Committee.

 

 

Senate Bill 654 would ban an incontrovertibly proven neurotoxin and

carcinogen, the artificial sweetener Aspartame, which is metabolized

as

several toxins, particularly methanol which is then assimilated as

formaldehyde. This product should never have been approved by the

FDA, and

to the FDA's credit, approval was turned down from 1966 to 1981, when

the

approval process was usurped by the President of G.D. Searle at that

time,

Donald Rumsfeld. He got his own crony, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes,

appointed by

President Reagan as FDA Commissioner and within a few days, the 16

years of

FDA refusal to approve aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde was

overturned, and

approval was granted.

 

You will hear complaints from corporate lobbyists, some speaking

before you,

some outside in the hall under the assumption that their work has

been done,

particularly Ajinomoto's lobbyists, former House Majority Leader,

Richard

Minzner, and Michael Stratton of Colorado, Ken Salazar's campaign

manager,

currently on the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Presidential

Nomination and Scheduling Commission.

 

 

In order to protect New Mexican's health from further

neurodegenerative

damages done by aspartame and its resultant formaldehyde, the only

way to

correct this egregious manipulation of one of the most vital of

Federal

agencies is through legislative measures at the state level. The

obstructionists say this will create a " balkanization " of 50 mini-

FDA's, yet

that is precisely what is needed, given the increasing subversion of

the FDA

by the industries it is supposed to regulate.

 

This bill has been carefully crafted by the Legislative Council

service,

completely free from corporate manipulation. A Federal judge wrote its

legislative findings about the state having powers to protect its

citizens'

health when Federal authorities did not specifically preempt such

powers, to

thus clarify legislative intent, and thus: this new statute could

never be

successfully challenged down the long legal road on any viable legal

grounds.

 

 

Despite the predictable corporate legal boilerplate you are about to

hear

from the Ajinomoto lawyer used to defend this neurotoxic poison in

every

state, you most certainly have the power under the 10th Amendment to

the US

Constitution to enact such legislation.

Aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde

violates numerous Federal statutes against adulterants in food as

well as

the 1958 Delaney Amendment to the FDCA, the act of Congress that

created the

FDA, so you are on very good grounds to do so in terms of the Federal

law.

Note that it is not the FDA that is here complaining about this bill:

it is

corporate interests that to date, have been able to hide behind the

FDA

approval of their poisonous products!

 

The U.S. Supreme Court and many many U.S. Court of Appeals decisions

have

upheld the right of states to protect their citizen's health, and

remember,

again, that it is not the FDA or the U.S. Attorney standing before you

objecting to this bill: it is corporate lobbyists, just one of whom

is a

lawyer.

 

 

Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Dannon Yogurt, Wrigley's Gum, Merisant, (the

manufacturer of those little blue packs of poison people dump in their

coffee)------and lots of pharmaceutical companies which add

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde to children's vitamins, aspirin, and

pediatric medications----------it is a wonder they are not all

represented

here objecting to this bill, by 50 or 60 Lobbyists.

 

They have done this sort of thing in every state and in every nation,

over

and over, usually successfully, but their thin veneer of credibility

has

disappeared and their toxic mythologies are crumbling badly. We need

to stop

them here, in New Mexico.

 

Thanks to Senator Ortiz y Pino, Pro Tem Senate President Ben

Altamirano, and

a majority of the members of the Senate Committees' Committee, New

Mexico is

ahead of every other state in the medically and legally well-founded

necessity of getting rid of aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde forever,

despite

the overwhelming fact that it is found in 6000 food products and over

600

children's medications.

 

The corporate objectors' comments are quite predictable. With deep

pockets

and so much to lose if their neurotoxic carcinogenic poison is

exposed for

what it truly is, these companies might even be sued for damages.

This bill

doesn't say sue the corporations. It just prohibits

aspartame/methanol/formaldehye from being added to food in New

Mexico, and

it gives $100,000 to the office of the Attorney General to enforce

the ban.

 

What a great investment in improved health for New Mexico, and what a

great

return this allocation will bring in terms of prevention of a host of

entirely preventable illnesses! Their product impugned, and unable to

hide

behind the crumbling FDA approval of aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde,

they

have hired a legion of lobbyists.

 

Have you noticed that the New Mexico Grocer's Association is not

among these

objectors? Grocers don't want unhealthy customers, and they recognize

what a

pleasure it will be to switch to products with healthy sweeteners. For

grocers, a legislative ban of aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde is no

big

deal; in fact, it will rapidly and vastly boost their profits.

 

Esteemed Senators, you could easily listen to these lobbyists and

decide to

vote against this bill. But if you were to do that, God forbid, do

realize

that you are thereby giving a green light and a carte blanche to

every toxic

food manufacturer in the world, especially those cranking out the

poisonous

additives, telling them that they are safe, that all is well, and that

regulatory boards and legislatures all over the world are in their

pocket,

under their control. The growing mountain of evidence about

aspartame's

effects cannot be swept under the rug any longer.

 

Don't wait till the European Union prohibits it or until you watch

that long

overdue speech on the House or Senate floor, to formally ask the FDA

to

immediately rescind its approval of this product, by Tom Udall or Jeff

Bingaman or Chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, Republican

Charles Grassley, the best of the FDA critics in the Senate. 1.8

million New

Mexicans have given you have the power and the holiest of obligations

to do

this today, in this committee, to give a do-pass to the strongest

consumer

protection bill that has ever been before the New Mexico Legislature.

 

If you as a committee do not pass the bill, you have failed the

people of

New Mexico, and have doomed them to yet another year of

neurodegenerative

illnesses, new instances of cancer, and especially for small children,

illnesses they should never have been given, all of which could have

been

easily prevented by your giving this bill a do-pass.

 

I have mailed and emailed the best of the definitive medical articles

to you

already, and have placed more of such articles in your hands about

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde written by the top physicians in the

United

States documenting its effects, Dr. H.J. Roberts, Internist, and Dr.

Russell

Blaylock, Neurosurgeon. The first lives in Florida, and the latter

lives in

Mississippi. They cannot be here today, but they are concerned about

what

how you are about to vote, like millions of Americans who have

suffered from

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning all over our nation are

closely

watching this decision today.

 

Legislatures in every state and parliaments in every nation are

watching

your decision, like Roger Williams, Member of the UK Parliament from

Wales.

He is the MP who on December 14 of last year called for a total ban on

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde for the entire UK! If you vote for a

do-pass, you will have done the supremely right thing. You will be

telling

every citizen in New Mexico, particularly those who voted you into

your seat

in the New Mexico Senate, that you care more about protecting their

health

and that of their children, than you do about capitulating to several

corporations' profit making on their poisonous food additive.

 

Just because they can hire the kind of legal power in the folks you

are

about to hear, doesn't mean you too have to capitulate to their

demands, nor

vote in a partisan block against this bill, just because the present

Republican Secretary of Defense got this horrible stuff approved in

1981,

not by medical or scientific means, but by a sordid political fiat.

 

What a wretched legacy Mr. Rumsfeld leaves, far worse than former

Secretary

of Defense Robert McNamara left with 55,000 dead Americans in

Vietnam, for

which he later asked us a nation to allow him to apologize! McNamara

at

least apologized; Rumsfeld has inflicted much more medical damage on

those

afflicted with aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning, and has yet

apologized for nothing..

Perhaps in due time, Rumsfeld will apologize, but it will be too late

for

those billions of victims of his fiat, his regulatory coup at the FDA

in

1981. Good government is not about the apologies of old men for their

decisions and errors in the past; it is about doing the right thing,

whether

in a Parliament or General Assembly or a Congress or in the New Mexico

Senate Public Affairs Committee.

 

Donald Rumsfeld recently had a whole set of

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde

poisoning symptoms named after him: Rumsfeld's disease.

 

Aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde's approval was generally in 1981.

That was

25 years ago, and billions of people from all states and all nations

have

suffered from that ramrodded FDA approval, but that doesn't mean WE

cannot

correct it. WE must correct it, or it will cause more damage, more

damaged

fetuses, more overmedicated hyperactive children taking Ritalin every

day,

more adult illnesses like Lou Gehrig's disease, Multiple Sclerosis,

seizures, convulsions, and so on----all of the 92 symptoms of

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning listed by the FDA.

 

I am surprised the lobbyists haven't brought out some diabetics whom

they

have somehow convinced to believe that formaldehyde and methanol are

going

to be helpful to their under producing pancreas. What a bad deal the

aspartame manufactures give to diabetics: a drug, not an additive,

that is

metabolized into formaldehyde!

 

Don't forget the Ramazzini report proving

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde's

carcinogenicity, which has been posted at the website for the National

Institute of Health since mid-November of 2005.

 

Senators: for God's sake! Aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde turns into

methanol then formaldehyde. What kind of no-brainer is it for us to

recognize that it is a poisonous and deleterious food additive, and

as such

falls under the statutes in the New Mexico Food Act that prohibit

poisonous

and deleterious food additives.

 

The Environmental Improvement Board would have been the correct

regulatory

board with the power to promulgate rules to ban

aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde, but they too capitulated on January

3, and

postponing the 5- day EIB hearings scheduled in July indefinitely,

until at

least January 2007.

 

Your do-pass recommendation on this bill will lead to a New Mexico

ban on

this poisonous and deleterious food additive, which will take effect

July 1,

2006. This is the Year of the Child for New Mexico, and if you want

to be

real about Healthful Kids legislation and preventing entirely

preventable

illnesses in New Mexico, please give this bill a do-pass

recommendation!

 

Finally, 2006 is the 100th Anniversary of the United States Pure Food

Act.

How far we have tumbled as a nation to 29th in longevity statistics.

Senate

Bill 654 contains a major protective solution for the most egregiously

carcinogenic and neurotoxic of all food additives.

 

Senator Ortiz y Pino, Pediatric Cardiologist Grant La Farge,

Pediatrician

Ken Stoller, and Leland Lehrman, Founder of Mother Media spoke to the

Public

Affairs Committee for a half an hour to counter the half hour of

lobbyists'

comments. What the lobbyists said was mindless drivel and more toxic

corporate trash, not worth repeating in the context of these good

ideas:

Whom they represent is more interesting, just so you can see where the

influences are coming from:

 

Altria Corporate Services, the parent company of Kraft and Philip

Morris

Coca Cola

Pepsi Cola

New Mexico Soft Drink Association

Calorie Control Council

And of course, the biggest food polluter in the entire world:

AJINOMOTO, the

Japan-based world's largest manufacturer of both aspartame and

monosodium

glutamate.

 

One Senator from Las Cruces, Mary Jane Papen, retired car dealer,

expressed

great incredulity when I mentioned that some branches of the military

disallow pilots from drinking diet beverages because so many have had

seizures in flight, become incapacitated, and have crashed their

planes.

Within one hour of leaving the hearing, I sent her an article on that

very

subject!

 

The saddest Senatorial dialogue I felt was that of the Majority Whip,

Mary

Jane Garcia, also from Las Cruces, who worried as a diabetic what she

would

do without her diet sodas. I replied with the baffling fact that

diabetics

and their injured pancreases are the last people in the world who

should

ingest formaldehyde.

 

Ortiz y Pino brought up the fact that plenty of evidence shows that

there

has been a huge upswing in statistics for diabetes since Donald

Rumsfeld

rammed aspartame/formaldehyde's approval through the FDA in 1981.

 

Senator Garcia replied that her mother had diabetes, and that started

before

diet sodas and artificial sweeteners came to be such a deep part of

America

life and diet.

 

 

In his providential wisdom, Senator Steven Neville from Aztec, New

Mexico

(who also drinks Diet Cokes) made a motion to table, and it was

seconded by

Senator Stuart Ingle, the Republican Minority Leader from Portales,

who also

drinks Diet cokes. Senator Gay Kernan from Hobbs, who also drinks Diet

Cokes, and James Taylor from Albuquerque's South Valley, who also

drinks

Diet Cokes, and Senator Garcia, who also drinks Diet Cokes, all voted

to

Table.

 

Only Committee Chair Dede Feldman and Senator Ortiz y Pino voted to

not

table.

 

The only vote to table by someone who DOESN'T drink Diet Cokes was

the only

physician in the Legislature, Steve Komadina, M.D, Republican from

Corrales.

His comments were duplicitous, at best, to me: an obstetrician and

gynecologist who strongly advises his own patients not to drink Diet

Cokes

because of the formaldehyde neurotoxicity and the abortifacient

effects on

the unborn, yet speaks and votes against banning aspartame with

adolescent

nonsense about amending the bill to include alcohol, smoking, and

6000 other

toxic products would then cause him to support it. He said that it

didn't

make sense to pick out just one: that that just wasn't " fair. "

 

[in an earlier conversation with Komadina on the Senate floor, I

reminded

him of the Hippocratic oath, TO DO NO HARM. " Is this not the same as

to

PREVENT HARM? " I asked. He said no, they were two different things.

It seems

that Dr. Komadina has different standards for quality in medicine and

quality in legislation].

 

We are working towards an aspartame ban because it is the most

egregious of

food additives. We won't stop until it is banned in New Mexico, but

other

states may perhaps come first..

 

 

Thus, we cordially invite you to a press conference about Aspartame

in the

Rotunda of the New Mexico Capitol on Monday, February 6, at 2 PM,

convened

by Senator Ortiz y Pino and me. Our special guest will be Cori

Brackett,

Founder of Sound and Fury Productions, a Tucson documentary filmmaker

who

was diagnosed with Advanced Multiple Sclerosis by four physicians.

She then

recognized that the Diet Cokes she was drinking might be the problem;

she

stopped them entirely, and the lesion healed. She made the film, Sweet

Misery, which interviews aspartame poisoning victims, the leading

physicians, and several activists and plaintiff's lawyers.

 

We are giving over 100 copies of her film to the legislators, with the

sincerest and most urgent of hopes that fewer will be so abysmally

ignorant

and almost belligerent in their right to choose to drink Diet Cokes,

whether

they contain formaldehyde or not, which is really quite a matter of

rudimentary chemistry! Maybe next year, there will be less aspartame-

logged

legislator in the legislature.

 

I really hope so, or we will never get rid of this neurotoxic

carcinogen.

 

Stay tuned for more updates from time to time.

 

 

Stephen Fox

New Millennium Fine Art

New Mexico Nutrition Council

 

 

 

Comments

 

By joe sonneman (Submitted: 02/06/2006 9:06 am)

I'm told that pilots are banned from drinking CARBONATED beverages, no

matter what the sweetener. ??? Maybe pilots can chime in and say

more; it's

a retired pilot who told me, though.

 

By Johnny Mata (Submitted: 02/06/2006 7:56 am)

Maybe Diet Coke and aspartame causes mental illness too, and clouds

the

judgement of these Senators who regularly drink it and it is even in

vending

machines in the roundhouse and included in their box lunches!!!. Why

don't

you nuts sue Diet Coke for disabling New Mexico's legislature with

chemical

side effects of this satanic substance and rendering our government

into a

useless condition?

 

By David Lopez (Submitted: 02/06/2006 7:40 am)

I, personally, have seen what Aspartame can do to members of my

family and

to friends. I am not " mistaken " or " over-reacting. "

 

Barbara, please provide details about how aspartame has affected your

family.

 

That is the weakness with this argument. The negative health effects

are too

vague.

 

The comparison of drinking a diet soda to drinking a bottle of

formaldehyde

are too unbelieveable.

 

If you want to convince a receptive, though unbelieving public,

documented,

peer reviewed case studies might do it.

 

 

By Barbara Metzler (Submitted: 02/06/2006 7:07 am)

All Aspartame victims have busy lives. They wouldn't take their own

valuable

time to fight to have Aspartame banned from our food supply if they

didn't

think it was crucial to the health of the American people and to

others all

over the world. Thousands and thousands of victims of Aspartame

(NutraSweet,

Equal, Spoonful, etc,) poisoning have been trying for nearly two

decades to

have this artificial sweetener banned from the market. They have

banded

together in a group, and have tried very diligently to get the FDA to

take a

serious look at the dangerous consequences - for many people - of

Aspartame

use. They have had no luck. All they ever get from the FDA are

packages of

information claiming that Aspartame is " safe " and that the victims are

" mistaken " or " over-reacting. " I, personally, have seen what

Aspartame can

do to members of my family and to friends. I am not " mistaken " or

" over-reacting. " The FDA's approval of NutraSweet was very murky in

the

first place. I think that's why the FDA ignores the issue now.

Apparently,

the manufacturer had enough money and political influence to convince

everyone of the safety of aspartame. In fact, The Golden Rule is

that " He

who has the gold makes the rules. " And, this is evident in the way in

which

the FDA approved aspartame in the first place. What it all boils down

to is

that it's too much of a hassle for anyone in Washington to care. BUT,

THAT

ISN'T RIGHT! What's done should be Undone! It was the United States

that put

the poison on the market, and it should be the United States that

stops it.

I hope that New Mexico is a leader in banning it from sale! It is

idiotic to

speak against the ban. Those who do, don't realize how dangerous it

is.

 

By Donna Voetee (Submitted: 02/05/2006 2:33 pm)

 

It's not so surprising that seven New Mexico state senators voted to

table

Senate Bill 654, which would ban the poisonous chemical aspartame

from all

food and beverages in the state.

 

Six of those senators are imbibers of diet Coke. These senators

should have

recused themselves from voting, as their self-serving interest in

aspartame

most likely kept them from making a reasonable, prudent decision. It

is a

well-known medical fact that methanol is addictive, and that methanol

is

part of the aspartame molecule. One cannot expect addicts to cut off

their

supply with their own hand.

 

The seventh senator, Steve Komadina, a medical doctor who warns his

own

patients against the use of aspartame, perplexingly also voted to

table the

bill. Although Mr. Fox, aspartame foe extraordinaire, had previously

discussed with this senator the Hippocratic Oath, " First do no harm "

that

all doctors purportedly adhere to, the senator disagreed that this

time-revered maxim applied in this case. His reasoning was that it is

not

" fair " to pick on aspartame while not addressing the health pitfalls

of

smoking, alcohol, etc. By this logic, I suppose he would see

the " fairness "

of letting rattlesnakes wander freely amongst us until all stray dogs

have

been locked up.

 

Senator Komadina is in the most pitiable position of all: knowing the

truth,

yet refusing to come to the rescue of those still bound by deadly

lies. He,

too, should recuse himself, as this kind of twisted thinking bears the

imprimatur of a conscience-less, ambitious pharmaceutical complex

that has

been transforming the ancient sage's Golden Rule of Medicine into the

Rule

of Gold for several decades.

 

If there weren't over 25 years of solid scientific evidence against

aspartame, these senators would have had reason to vote as they did.

As it

is, these seven people are without excuse. Their own lusts prevented

them

from having the moral courage necessary to carry out their duty to the

people of New Mexico.

 

Sincerely,

Donna Voetee

Teacher of Supermarket Survival,

Victorville, California

 

 

By christena parisoff (Submitted: 02/04/2006 11:00 pm)

I have gone through drug withdrawal -

 

very exhaustive painful and agonizing tremors

 

All because Schwarz pharma - added a neurotoxin to my Parkinsons

disease

medication -

called - Parcopa

I was not informed by my doctor or pharmacy -

 

if I had PKU - I would not be alive at all.

this is a matter of life or death...

 

aspartame needs to be removed - it is poison.

 

please read - this article...

 

sincerely,

 

christena

 

http://www.newstarget.com/011804.html

 

 

 

 

By Rich Murray (Submitted: 02/04/2006 6:51 am)

letter from Dana K. Day on aspartame harm in kids 11-14 in

Farmington, NM:

Murray 2006.01.23

 

Below, please also find a letter from a Farmington, NM middle school

counselor, disclosing the damage done to schoolchildren by the toxic

effects

of aspartame.

 

Farmington middle school teacher discusses direct experience of

aspartame

damage in students Dana K. Day Please Help Ban

Aspartame from

New Mexico's Foods dave.contarino January 23, 2006

 

Dear Respected Person, I am a 42 year old Middle School Counselor

that works

with youth ages 11-14 here in Farmington, New Mexico. I see an

average of 30

students a week in individual counseling sessions dealing with issues

ranging from peer conflict, effects of family's drug use

(methamphetamines

in particular), all the way to suicidal ideation and clinical

depression.

The last two issues are the ones I would like to emphasize in this

letter,

as they deal directly with the effects of aspartame ingestion.

Aspartame Suppresses the Levels of Serotonin in the Brain.

Serotonin is a naturally produced brain chemical that is necessary for

healthy functioning and emotional well-being. We know that low levels

of

seratonin correlate with depression. When interviewing students on the

circumstances surrounding their depressive symptons, I inquire about

the

ingestion of sugar-free gum and diet sodas, both of which contain

aspartame.

9 times out of 10 the students indicate regular aspartame

ingestion... I

inform them on the effects of aspartame ingestion, and ask for them to

discontinue use of products containing aspartame. During follow-up,

all

complying students report a significant reduction in depressive

symptoms.

According to one recent report, 5 suicides have been linked to

aspartame

ingestion.

Please do all you can to pave the path to ban aspartame from our food,

drinks, candy, and gum. We must look out for the well-being of our

unsuspecting youth (as well as others). It is our moral, ethical and

legal

obligation to do so. As a person of power within our govenmental

structure

of our great state, please do your part to protect our citizens.

Thank you, Dana K. Day Mid-School Counselor Farmington, New Mexico

 

[ http://fc.fms.k12.nm.us/directory/ Dana Day 6229,1104

dday

http://www.fms.k12.nm.us/heights/staff.htm Heights Middle School,

3700 College Blvd., Farmington, NM 87402 (505) 599-8611 Day, Dana

Counselor-SSC 6000 ]

 

" Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to actively find,

quickly share, and act upon the facts about healthy and safe food,

drink,

and environment. "

Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall 505-501-2298 1943

Otowi

Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

aspartameNM/messages group with 151

members,

1,292 posts in a public, searchable archive

http://RmForAll.blogspot.com

http://AspartameNM.blogspot.com