Aspartame

[Guest guest]

NM State Senator Tells

Bush - Pull The Plug

On Aspartame

9-27-6

 

 

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.

 

There is a excellent precedent for this: the fact that Richard Nixon in 1969

ordered that the FDA rescind the approval for another proven carcinogenic

artificial sweetener, Cyclamates. The incidence of neurodegenerative diseases in

the USA like Multiple Sclerosis and Lou Gehrigs Disease have increased

substantially since 1981. We think that given the evidence that has accrued thus

far concerning Aspartame's harm, its effects as a teratogen, causing birth

defects and chromosomal damage; its being the most complained about chemical on

the market, according to FDA statistics (FDA stopped taking complaints on

Aspartame in 1995); and because of our concern for protecting the health of

Americans, as well as the health of the many nations which subsequently approved

it for general use as a result of the US FDA approval, we ask that you order

Aspartame rescinded by the FDA Commissioner nominee as soon as possible.

 

As you know, the Institute of Medicine has completed a recent report sharply

critical of the FDA regarding the FDA's inability to ensure the safe and

effective use of prescription drugs. Our concerns in this letter are not with

drugs, but with the obvious need to overhaul the entire process of the FDA

granting approval for food additives in general, which are often forced through

the approval process based only on the strength of industry paid for studies.

The USA needs independent objective source of truth in these processes.

 

You have a chance to do this as President, which is preferable to the United

States Senate having to later make rescinding FDA approval for Aspartame and

other deleterious and poisonous substances a condition upon which Dr. Von

Eschenbach's nomination approval is contingent. Your concerns should not be with

corporate objections and continued allegations that their products are safe.

Many heads of state internationally will be grateful for your taking the correct

action in this regard.

 

Respectfully,

 

Gerald Ortiz y Pino

 

Members of the New Mexico Legislative Health and Human Services Committee

 

Senator Ortiz y Pino's earlier article 2/19/2006:

http://www.rense.com/general69/nmm2.htm

 

Aspartame Buys Time

By Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino

2-19-6

 

Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to the corrosive influence of money

on our public policy. I'm not just talking about the shenanigans inside the

beltway of our nation's capitol-that Congress is for sale to the highest bidder

has unfortunately become a practically accepted tenet of the American belief

system.

 

So accepted is it that the astounding arrogance and venality being revealed by

the current Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff scandals in the District of Columbia

scarcely produce raised eyebrows, let alone outrage.

 

But I'm not just talking about that.

 

Nor am I talking only about the way that moneyed interests are able to sway

local government toward policies that benefit those interests; hey, we

apparently prefer a system in which local elections go to the highest bidder and

business-as-usual involves twisting contractors' arms to secure campaign

contributions.

 

Instead, today I'd like to zero-in on the pressure applied to our third level of

representative government, the carryings-on that occur in the halls of State

Government ... in all its branches.

 

And from among at least a dozen recent, painful examples of how big business

manages to protect itself from such wet-blanket considerations as the good of

the public, I'd like to select one as a representative: the continued approval

of the reliance by processed food and beverage manufacturers on the chemical

aspartame.

 

As an artificial sweetener, one now being added to some 6,000 products, it is

difficult for most Americans to not consume aspartame daily. Its safety (and

clearing up any doubts about that safety) would seem to be of critical

importance to millions of us. But any discussion of this topic has been

postponed in New Mexico indefinitely-through influence exerted by

representatives hired by the Japanese manufacturer of aspartame, the Ajinomoto

Corporation.

 

Those well-connected hired hands managed, in December, to frighten the State

Environmental Improvement Board (EIB) into backing off of the public hearings

into aspartame's safety that they had originally agreed to conduct this coming

summer. They managed this delay by challenging the authority of the State of New

Mexico to review anything already approved by the Federal Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) and by threatening to sue the state if we tried to do so.

 

Then those same hired hands resurfaced (augmented by the addition to their team

roster of Butch Maki, a close confidant of Gov. Bill Richardson) in time to

quash all attempts to discuss the matter during the just-concluded State

Legislature.

 

There was one hearing on the subject and it drew significant numbers of the

industry lobbyists, all of whom asserted the same party line: The substance is

perfectly safe; the Federal Government has looked at it carefully and who the

heck is New Mexico, anyway, to raise any questions about it?

 

The committee succumbed, and turned down the measure to ban aspartame 7-2.

 

That half-hour hearing was the total discussion of the matter this year in the

public arena in New Mexico, unless the EIB board changes its mind and decides to

call Ajinomoto's bluff by going ahead and holding a hearing.

 

The incredible spectacle of corporate hirelings exerting this kind of influence

is, to our great shame, all too common in our state. The Legislature has

resisted reforming campaign finance laws to inject some real muscle, which

leaves the door wide open to the corporate powers to throw money around

strategically, buying whatever access they need or blocking their opposition's

access to the policymakers.

 

But no one should be surprised that Ajinomoto would rely on muscle to protect

its profits from aspartame. The entire history of this product's approval by the

FDA is rife with muscle flexing ... and very little in the way of science.

Originally, it was a patent of the Searle Pharmaceutical Company. And beginning

in the late '60s, the FDA repeatedly turned down Searle's submissions for

approval, the results of its testings leaving serious doubts in the minds of FDA

scientists.

 

All of that changed in 1981 when Ronald Reagan took the presidency. He listened

to the then head of Searle, Donald Rumsfeld, (yes, that Donald Rumsfeld) who

bypassed the scientists and went straight to the new Reagan appointee at FDA.

Within weeks, the scientists were overruled and aspartame was approved. Several

FDA scientists resigned in protest. They even alleged that Searle had fabricated

results in the testing submitted.

 

Twenty-five years later, the evidence is mounting that our growing incidence of

brain tumors, organ cancers and neurological diseases has followed the

introduction of so many artificially created additives and chemicals in our

food. It's only a matter of time until even Ajinomoto's money won't be able to

block the unavoidable link between these unnecessary products and our decline in

health.

 

When that happens, as it finally did to tobacco and lead and other heavy metals

found in gasoline, we will act. The sad thing is that thousands of deaths and

ruined lives will occur between now and then.

 

One of the cruel ironies to aspartame is that it was supposed to create

sugar-free soft drinks for the benefit of diabetics. Since its introduction, the

incidence of diabetes has soared. Some critics link the two. What is clear is

that it ain't helping.

 

With all that money and muscle behind it, aspartame has evaded its comeuppance

for another year. But the final reckoning can only be postponed, not avoided.

 

 

Contacts:

Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino - jortizyp

Stephen Fox - 505 983 2002 (petitioned EIB and Board of Pharmacy for ban)

Dr. Kenneth Stoller - 505 955 - 8560 or

<hbotnmhbotnm (petitioned Board of Pharmacy

& shy; New Mexico Aspartame Detox Center)

 

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder

Mission Possible International

9270 River Club Parkway

Duluth, Georgia 30097

770 242-2599

www.wnho.net and

www.dorway.com

Aspartame Toxicity Center,

www.holisticmed.com/aspartame

Aspartame Documentary: Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, www.amazon.com or Barnes

& Noble

 

" Get off your ass and take your government back. " ~Rocky Ward

 

 

 

 

 

Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Small Business.