UPI Investigative Report: Maverick scientist at center of NutraSweet (Dr. Richard Wurtman).

[Guest guest]

UPI Investigative Report: Maverick scientist at center of

NutraSweet (Dr. Richard Wurtman)

 

 

This article while dated 1987 is very valuable on the anti-aspartame

issue. Dr. Richard Wurtman is a brilliant MIT scientist. He has not

only written many reports on the dangers of aspartame but also has a

book he edited, " Dietary Phenylalanine and Brain Function. " He

testified before Congress and here is just one of his

comments:

<http://www.wnho.net/congressionalrecord.htm>http://www.wnho.net/congressionalre\

cord.htm

If you want a copy of this book you have to get a used copy as I

understand Dr. Wurtman has had it taken off the market.

 

Dr. Wurtman being threatened is in the original UPI

Investigation:

<http://www.mpwhi.com/upi_1987_aspartame_report.pdf>http://www.mpwhi.com/upi_198\

7_aspartame_report.pdf

His research funds were rejected as Searle VP Dr. Gerald Gaull told

him they would be if he did studies on aspartame and seizures. If

aspartame were safe there would have been no reason to be afraid

studies would show seizures. Researchers at MIT surveyed 80 people

who suffered brain seizures after eating or drinking products with

aspartame. Said the Community Nutrition Institute: " These 80 cases

meets 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. " I wrote an amendment to a Citizens Petition to ban on

October 27, 2007, because of this imminent

hazard:

<http://www.mpwhi.com/amendment_to_citizens_petition.htm>http://www.mpwhi.com/am\

endment_to_citizens_petition.htm

The law requires the FDA answer in 7 to 10 days. They ignored it as

they did the original citizens petition to ban written 7 years

ago. The law states they must answer in 180 days. This shows you

the FDA serves above the law. They know aspartame is poison and I've

used their own words, so they ignore answering because they have no

defense. The FDA Report itself listing 92 documented symptoms

including death admits to 4 different types of seizures triggered by

aspartame. However, Dr. Wurtman has left a paper trail, which reports

his knowledge of aspartame being a seizure triggering drug.

 

I remember when Dr. H. J. Roberts and myself attended the American

College of Physicians conference here in Atlanta, the first thing the

neurology professor said was: " Can anyone tell me why people all

over this country are having seizures for no good reason, even if its

off the wall. " I explained and after I spoke a physician who is also

a pilot said, " I'm afraid she's right. I have a friend who flies

commercially, uses aspartame and has seizures, and he will have to be

reported. "

 

Someone in the UK told me the story of when an employee of the

bottling company there had a seizure he called the aspartame

manufacturer. They sent out an agent who told the man that he was

the only one who had ever complained of a seizure. He happened to

leave his folder there, which was flooded with letters to consumers

saying the same thing, no other seizures reported. To make matters

worse on this issue, aspartame interacts with anti-seizure medication

as discussed in the medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored

Epidemic, <http://www.sunsentpress.com/>www.sunsentpress.com by H.

J. Roberts, M.D. It keeps getting worse as aspartame has actually

been added to anti-seizure medication.

 

William Reid, someone on my husband's side of the family was having 6

or 8 seizures a day and his family was told he wouldn't live through

the day. We got him off NutraSweet and immediately his seizures

ceased. That was over 12 years ago and he is still alive.

 

You could write day and night on the aspartame seizure victims they

are so common. Barbara Metzler's (Mission Possible New

Jersey) daughter, Julia is another victim. Barbara wrote to Dr.

Wurtman in 1999: " This truly bright girl -- (whose college tuition

was entirely funded by scholarships) -- realized that she was

experiencing periods of confusion. She would go to a grocery store

and couldn't remember why she was there. She would be driving her car

and couldn't remember how to get home. Among other disturbances, she

had severe headaches. I spoke to her many friends, and they all

watched her carefully and reported individually that these episodes

occurred shortly after they saw her drink diet soda. She began to

lose her vision. She eventually had a drastic personality change and

intellectual deterioration.

 

" After four months, her friends and her family convinced her to go to

Boston to Brigham and Women's hospital for special studies on her

brain. Although I wrote directly to you several times, Julia never

had the opportunity to see you, Dr. Wurtman, but she was there with

her father for three days and was seen by Dr. Frank Drislane and Dr.

Paul Spiers. She was told that she had been misdiagnosed by the

local neurologist and that she did not have temporal lobe

epilepsy. She was advised to stop her medication and to stop

drinking diet soda. She listened, and little by little, all of her

bizarre symptoms disappeared. To see her recover was an incredible

experience! "

 

Another case was that of Mary Reiff. She had an aspartame seizure

while driving and ended up in the hospital. She was then declared

legally blind. Mary was on the Debra Duncan show with me in Texas and

at that time her seizures had ceased off aspartame and her vision had

returned to normal. You can understand why it's so necessary to

alert the public. Some people remain in darkness simply because they

haven't been told that the free methyl alcohol in aspartame destroys

vision. Consider the aviation

issue: http://www.mpwhi.com/pilot_aspartame_alert.htm.

 

Today, MIT gets research funds but Dr. Wurtman no longer speaks out

against aspartame. This article below explains when he was an

outspoken critic and what took place.

 

Also, very importantly notice that ILSI, industry's research front

group, is a spin off of the National Soft Drink Assn (now called

American Beverage). They provide research funds for those who defend

their products. Their consultants you can find on government boards

trying to influence them aspartame is a safe product. You can be

sure no consultant with ILSI is independent. Their position is to influence.

 

We thank Lane Shore, Mission Possible Chicago, for his continued

research and finding many of the old articles that explain what went

on and how aspartame was approved through political chicanery and not

science..<http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/rumsfeld.html>http://www.soundandfury\

..tv/pages/rumsfeld.html

Read on for the article below.

 

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder

Mission Possible International

9270 River Club Parkway

Duluth, Georgia 30097

770 242-2599

<http://www.mpwhi.com/>www.mpwhi.com, www.dorway.com,

<http://www.wnho.net/>www.wnho.net

Aspartame Toxicity Center,

<http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame>www.holisticmed.com/aspartame

 

October 13, 1987, Tuesday,

UPI investigative report: Maverick scientist at center of NutraSweet

controversy

BYLINE: By GREGORY GORDON

SECTION: Washington News

LENGTH: 1188 words

 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

Dr. Richard Wurtman was an ardent defender of NutraSweet's safety at

public hearings six years ago. Now he is one of the artificial

sweetener's harshest critics.

 

''I think the likelihood is very strong that NutraSweet does produce

serious and potentially damaging brain effects in a number of

people,'' the nationally known neuroscientist from the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology said in a recent series of interviews.

 

Wurtman's seemingly enigmatic flip-flop from a position as a G.D.

Searle Co. consultant to a role as a foe urging restrictions on

marketing of the firm's best-selling product appears to be much at

the center of the controversy over NutraSweet's safety.

 

Wurtman says his views simply changed with the evolution of his

scientific studies and his growing skepticism of industry's attitude

toward research.

 

His sometimes-stormy relationships with the company and an

industry-funded foundation, the International LifeSciences Institute,

provide a glimpse of the maneuvering surrounding research into a

major food additive. Wurtman, a brash-talking, hard-driving head of a

major research laboratory, said he unilaterally severed his

consulting relationship with Searle in 1985 after he grew concerned

about NutraSweet's effects and the company's inaction. He said he

rejected several approaches by the firm -- called The NutraSweet Co.

since its sale that year to the Monsanto Corp. -- to rekindle the arrangement.

 

Wurtman accuses NutraSweet Co. officials of " misrepresenting " the

nature of company-financed studies into links between the sweetener,

generically known as aspartame, and epileptic seizures, of

sidestepping key safety issues and of threatening to veto his grant

application to ILSI's aspartame committee.

 

A spokesman for the company described Wurtman's public attacks as a

''political issue,'' but declined to elaborate. Wurtman's

relationship with Searle, The NutraSweet Co. and many of the

companies that sell NutraSweet-flavored products dates to 1978.

Beginning that year, according to public records, ILSI provided more

than $200,000 to finance his research on caffeine, a common beverage

ingredient that was under FDA scrutiny.

 

Wurtman said he found no ill health effects during his caffeine

research, and his relationship was ''excellent'' with ILSI -- a

spinoff of the National Soft Drink Association. During the same

period in 1978, he said, he rejected a Searle offer of financial

support for research on amino acids.

 

Phenylalanine and aspartic acid, two such amino acids, are the main

components of NutraSweet. He said Dr. Sanford Miller, chief of the

FDA's bureau of foods, later sought his testimony before a 1980

Public Board of Inquiry because he had openly stated his belief that

neither glutamate nor aspartic acid, a similar compound to that in

NutraSweet, would not cause brain damage. Wurtman strongly defended

aspartame at the hearing. He said he did not focus on phenylalanine

until about 1983 when he learned the FDA was considering expanding

use of the low-calorie sweetener -- approved two years earlier for

dry foods -- to include carbonated soft drinks.

 

From his caffeine research, Wurtman said, he was aware of the

exploding soft drink market and concluded ''that the use of aspartame

was going to go up considerably.''

 

''I was genuinely concerned that there might be an increase in brain

phenylalanine levels.'' Wurtman said that, while phenylalanine is

vital to the brain, it can serve as a barrier to 20 other amino acids that

provide protein.

 

At a meeting in July, 1983, Wurtman said he told National Soft Drink

Association officials that ''if you put large amounts of aspartame in

soft drinks and people drink as much as I think they will, there are

going to be problems.'' Wurtman said that after the industry accepted

his idea for combining NutraSweet with saccharin to cut the danger

level, he accepted a Searle offer to serve as a consultant and

relations were ''all very friendly and chummy.'' He said he became

convinced that ''these people really want to know the extent to which

their product may be a real problem.''

 

Shortly after he took the consulting job, he began getting letters

from seizure victims who believed their problems stemmed from NutraSweet.

 

Wurtman said when he advised Dr. Gerald Gaull, Searle vice president

for nutrition and medical affairs, in the spring of 1985 that he

thought there was a link, ''there was a very rapid souring of the

relationship.''

 

During a visit to his MIT laboratory, Wurtman said, Gaull asked to

review a proposal for a seizure study by him and his collaborator,

Harvard University neurologist Donald Schomer. He charged that when

he advised Gaull the pair would seek funding from ILSI, Gaull ''got

very angry and said, 'We, meaning Searle, are active members of ILSI

and we will veto your study.'''

 

''It was incredulous that he would say it to me, and I was

dumbfounded that he would say it in front of witnesses,'' Wurtman said.

 

Schomer said he did not recall the comment. Gaull said, ''There is no

way that I can veto anything at ILSI,'' becauseSearle has only one of

12 votes on the ILSI aspartame committee. He did not deny making the threat.

 

Wurtman charged that Gaull later advised ILSI that two company-funded

seizure studies already were under way, and the foundation declined

to approve the grant.

 

In July of 1985, Wurtman said, he and three other scientists who had

expressed concerns about NutraSweet were among a group invited to

Gaull's home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, for a two-day conference.

 

Page 2

UPI investigative report: Maverick scientist at center of NutraSweet

controversy United Press International October 13,

1987, Tuesday,

 

''I left there with the conclusion there was no way these people were

going to do an honest job in assessing the possibility that aspartame

contributed to seizures,'' Wurtman said.

 

He said he also was skeptical because, as a company consultant,

Searle had asked him to chair its scientific advisory committee -- a

role in which the company could use his name to defend the integrity

of its own research. But, he said, Searle refused to let him see

protocols and data from its studies. ''They wanted the name, but not

the reality,'' he said. Frustrated by these developments, Wurtman

said he wrote a letter to Robert Shapiro, president of Searle and

later of The NutraSweet Co.

 

''Dear Bob,'' the letter said, ''I know you'll agree that my value to

Searle ... derives in part from my telling the company some things

that it would rather not hear ... and then from helping the company

to deal with those things.

 

''One such thing is that some consumers may develop significant

medical symptoms after consuming very large amounts of aspartame,

particularly if they happen concurrently to be on low-calorie,

low-protein weight-reducing diets... If Searle-supported studies are

going to contribute to our understanding of these people and their

symptoms, then the studies have to include them -- and not be

restricted to people who have a can or two of soda per day.'' He said

Shapiro never answered the letter. Wurtman said he resigned his

consulting role a short time later and rejected company efforts in

the ensuing months to reinstate the arrangement.

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH