Member of Parliament Calls for Ban on Aspartame

[Guest guest]

..... But the final nail in the coffin for the sweetener, he

said, was a new, " monumental " peer-reviewed study, that

should have " set alarm bells ringing in health departments

around the world " . This vast study, conducted by the

Italian-based European Ramazzini Foundation, demonstrated

that aspartame caused a significant increase in lymphomas

and leukaemias, malignant tumours of the kidneys in female

rats and malignant tumours of peripheral and cranial nerves

in male rats. These tumours occurred at doses that were well

below the acceptable daily intake recommended by the

regulatory authorities in the EU and US....

---------------------------------------------------------

Aspartame's time to be banned is long overdue. It should

never have been approved in the first place. Even the FDA

revoked the petition for approval. In the aspartame

documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World,

www.docworkers.com Attorney explains how Don

Rumsfeld called in his markers to get it approved. See the

clip: http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/Rumsfeld2.html

Rumsfeld was on Reagan's transition team and the day after

he took office he appointed Arthur Hull as FDA

Commissioner to get it approved. So concerned it would take

30 days to get there President Reagan actually wrote

an executive order making the current FDA Commissioner

powerless to do anything about aspartame until

arrived. What political clout. Somebody needs to ask

Rumsfeld to go into more detail about those markers he held.

After arrived at FDA a scientific Board of Inquiry

was convened and the petition for approval of this deadly

neurotoxin was revoked because it triggered brain tumors,

and never proven safe. over-ruled the Board and went

to work for the PR Agency of the manufacturer and has

refused to talk to the press ever since.

H. J. , M.D., who testified before Congress warned at

his first press conference if something wasn't done then

we would have a global plague on our hands in five or ten

years. And indeed it was Dr. who declared

Aspartame Disease to be a global plague and published a 1038

page medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic,

www.sunsentpress.com

Having poisoned the world more and more consumers call the

plague - Rumsfeld Disease. Obviously had he not called in

those bloody markers the revoked petition for approval

would have prevented the marketing of this chemical poison

for human consumption and the disability and death it

causes. Cori Brackett and J. T. Walden, co-owners of

Sound and Fury Productions who produced Sweet Misery will

soon have a new documentary to release titled Sweet Remedy.

A remedy is needed to save aspartame victims. Cori

Brackett is an aspartame victim who was diagnosed with MS.

Off aspartame she walked out of her wheelchair to make this

film. Eight months off aspartame her large lesion all but

disappeared.

Obviously the first step is a ban and efforts continue

around the world. Fox has petitioned the

Environmental Improvement Board and Board of Pharmacy to

ban it from New Mexico.

http://www.wnho.net/viva_new_mexico.htm Robin Goodwin has

asked for a ban in the Falkland Islands and Lane Shore has

asked it be removed from schools in Illinois. Attorneys

are taking aspartame brain tumor cases in New York, New

Jersey, Madison County Illinois and Mississippi. See form on

www.wnho.net

Aspartame is marketed as NutraSweet, Equal, E951, Canderel,

Benevia, etc. For those who have used the toxin

neurosurgeon Blaylock, M.D., wrote " What To Do If

You Have Used Aspartame " :

http://www.wnho.net/wtdaspartame.htm

For the whole story and time line read the Ecologist's cover

story, " The Shocking Story of the World's Best Selling

Sweetener:

http://www.wnho.net/the_ecologist_aspartame_report.htm

Read on for the breaking news. I leave the aspartame

manufacturers who with full knowledge knew they were

marketing a neurotoxic drug, the words of Mohammed Ali:

" You can run but you can't hide! " And especially today we

add the immortal admonition of another great athlete,

baseball's Satchel Paige: " Never look back, something might

be gaining on you! " It's the victims you poisoned.

http://www.wnho.net/recipe_for_death.htm

Dr. Betty i,D.Hum., Founder, Mission Possible Intl,

9270 River Club Parkway, Duluth, Georgia 30097 770 242-2599

http://www.wnho.net and http://www.dorway.com Aspartame

Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame

Two Articles in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1667734,00.html

MP calls for ban on 'unsafe' sweetener

Felicity Lawrence, consumer affairs correspondent Thursday

December 15, 2005 The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>

A member of the parliamentary select committee on food and

the environment yesterday called for emergency action to ban

the artificial sweetener aspartame, used in 6,000 food,

drink and medicinal products. The Liberal Democrat MP

said in an adjournment debate in the Commons that

there was " compelling and reliable evidence for this

carcinogenic substance to be banned from the UK food and

drinks market altogether " . In licensing aspartame for use,

regulators around the world had failed in their main task of

protecting the public, he told MPs. Mr highlighted

new concerns about the additive's safety, raised by a recent

Italian study that linked it to cancer in rats. He said the

history of aspartame's licensing put " regulators and

politicians to shame " , with the likes of Rumsfeld,

the US defence secretary and former head of Searle, the

company that discovered the sweetener, " calling in his

markers " to get it approved. Responding for the government,

the public health minister, Caroline Flint, said a thorough

independent review of safety data had been conducted as

recently as 2001 and the Food Standards Agency advice

remained the same: aspartame is safe for use in food. She

said the government took food safety very seriously. The

European Food Safety Authority would be reviewing the

Italian study as soon as it had full data on it, but an

initial review by the UK's expert committee on toxicity had

not been convinced by its authors' interpretation of their

data. " I am advised that aspartame does not cause cancer, "

she said, adding that artificial sweeteners also help to

control obesity. Aspartame is now consumed on average every

day by one in 15 people worldwide, most of whom are

children, according to the MP. It is used to sweeten no

fewer than 6,000 products, from crisps, confectionery,

chewing gums, diet and sports drinks to vitamin pills and

medicines, including those for children. Yet the science

that supported its approval was " biased, inconclusive and

incompetent " . Mr said he was using the immunity he

was afforded under parliamentary privilege to initiate a

debate about aspartame's safety which had been largely

repressed since the early 1980s, with the help of the

sweetener industry's lawyers. Independent research published

last month by the European Ramazzini Foundation showed

moderate regular consumption of aspartame led to a repeated

incidence of malignant tumours in rats and " should have set

alarm bells ringing in health departments around the world " ,

he said. " The World Health Organisation recognises such

findings in rats as being highly predictive of a

carcinogenic risk for humans. The contrast between the

quality of the science in the Ramazzini study and the

industry studies could not be more clear and more damaging

to the industry. " Mr , the MP for Brecon and

Radnorshire and a Cambridge science graduate, said he had

been looking into the safety of aspartame for more than a

year. At first he had been unconvinced by the " internet

conspiracy theories " but he said what he had found had

" truly horrified " him. Sound science and proper regulatory

and political independence had been notable by their absence

from the approval of aspartame, he said. In addition to Mr

Rumsfeld being instrumental in securing aspartame's

approval, with the support of the then newly elected

president Reagan, there had been numerous examples of

decision makers who were worried about aspartame's safety

being discredited or being removed from their positions.

Industry sympathisers had been appointed to replace them and

were in turn recompensed with lucrative jobs working for the

sweetener industry. The European Food Safety Authority said

last night that it planned to review the safety of aspartame

as " a matter of high priority " in the light of the Ramazzini

Foundation study. The foundation's director, Dr Morando

Soffritti, said he expected to send the authority a

1,000-page dossier by the end of the month. The industry's

Aspartame Information Service said Mr ' material

brought no new information to the public. " The minister's

response was accurate and on point, " a statement said.

=======

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,2763,1667771,00.html

Safety of artificial sweetener called into question by MP

Examples cited in the Commons of the 6,000 products with

aspartame

Felicity Lawrence, consumer affairs correspondent Thursday

December 15, 2005 The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>

In 1977 Rumsfeld, now Bush's defence secretary

but then chief executive of the pharmaceutical company GD

Searle, publicly stated that he would " call in his markers "

to win a licence for aspartame, the sweetener that had been

discovered by chance in Searle's laboratories, according to

in the Commons yesterday. Mr , MP for

Brecon and Radnorshire, said in an adjournment debate that

there was much controversy about aspartame's safety at the

time but " Rumsfeld appears to have honoured his pledge " . In

fact, " the history of the approval of aspartame puts public

health regulators and politicians to shame " . The sweetener

is now used in 6,000 products, from crisps such as s

prawn cocktail, to soft drinks including Diet Coke and

's fruit squash, chewing gums such as Orbit, and

vitamins pills and medicines. Yet the science on which it

was given approval was " biased, inconclusive, and

incompetent " . " There is compelling and reliable evidence for

this carcinogenic substance to be banned from the UK food

and drinks market. " On the day of his inauguration as

president in 1981, with Mr Rumsfeld on his transition team,

Reagan personally wrote an executive order suspending

the head of the US Food and Drug Administration's powers on

aspartame, Mr further claimed. One month later Mr

Reagan appointed a new head of the regulatory authority,

Arthur , who granted a licence for the sweetener. " The

history of aspartame's approval is littered with examples

showing that if key decision makers found against

aspartame's safety, they were discredited or replaced by

industry sympathisers, who were recompensed with lucrative

jobs. " The MP said he was using his parliamentary privilege

to highlight " the strong scientific evidence " that the

components of aspartame and their metabolites can cause very

serious toxic effects on humans, and that long-term

aspartame use can cause cancer. Searle had originally

submitted a host of studies to the FDA in 1970s in the hope

of getting aspartame approved. But when flaws were revealed

in the science behind another Searle product, Flagyl, the

FDA set up a taskforce to investigate 15 of the key studies

submitted by Searle on aspartame. Dr Jerome Bressler was

commissioned by the FDA to investigate three of these

studies. He had found 52 major discrepancies in Searle's

clinical conduct of the studies, Mr told the

Commons. Tumours contracted by rats were removed before

dissection but not reported; one record shows an animal in

the experiment was alive, then dead, then alive again, then

dead again. MPs were told that because it lacked funds, the

FDA submitted 12 other studies to be analysed by a research

body that was under contract to Searle at the time. It

declared all 12 studies authentic. Doubts about aspartame

among FDA scientists were overruled by the FDA's

administration and it was given approval. Many other

countries soon followed suit and approved aspartame on the

basis of the same flawed studies, Mr said. In 1996

a review of aspartame research found that every single

industry-funded study found aspartame safe. But 92% of

independent studies identified one or more problems with its

safety. Mr outlined to MPs the evidence that the

breakdown products of aspartame include suspected

carcinogens and toxic molecules that damage nerve cells. But

the final nail in the coffin for the sweetener, he said, was

a new, " monumental " peer-reviewed study, that should have

" set alarm bells ringing in health departments around the

world " . This vast study, conducted by the Italian-based

European Ramazzini Foundation, demonstrated that aspartame

caused a significant increase in lymphomas and leukaemias,

malignant tumours of the kidneys in female rats and

malignant tumours of peripheral and cranial nerves in male

rats. These tumours occurred at doses that were well below

the acceptable daily intake recommended by the regulatory

authorities in the EU and US. The public health minister,

Caroline Flint, responding for the government, said it took

the issue very seriously and would look at any new evidence.

But she added that the use of food additives was very

strictly controlled at EU level. The safety of aspartame had

been very extensively reviewed many times and the current

advice remained that it does not cause cancer and is safe.

Artificial sweeteners help in the control of obesity, she

said. Acceptable daily intakes were set at a very

conservative level. Moreover, the UK's expert committee on

toxicity had reviewed the initial data from the Ramazzini

Foundation and had not been convinced by its

interpretations, but the European Food Safety Authority

would conduct a review when it had the full data. The trade

associations for confectionery, snack, soft drink and pill

manufacturers and the sweetener industry's Aspartame

Information Service said aspartame had been used safely for

many years and evidence for its safety had been reviewed and

approved many times by regulators around the world,

including by the WHO, the FDA, the UN expert committee on

food additives and the EU scientific committee for food.

They pointed out that the European Food Safety Authority has

said that " based on current evidence, it does not recommend

that consumers who wish to choose foods containing aspartame

make any changes to their dietary habits " .

The compounds Aspartame breaks down into three components -

a methyl ester and two amino acids: phenylalanine and

aspartic acid, according to during the

parliamentary debate. The sweetener industry repeatedly

pointed out that these compounds occur naturally in food and

drink, yet that statement hid the complex science that makes

each one harmful to humans when found in aspartame, he

added. In food, phenylalanine and aspartic acid are bound to

other amino acids in long, complex chains of proteins so

that they are not absorbed in a way that could cause damage.

But in aspartame they are not, and enzymes in the gut can

easily split them apart. Once phenylalanine is released in

its free form, it is metabolised into diketopiperazine, a

suspected carcinogen. Aspartic acid in its free form becomes

an excitotoxin, a toxic molecule that stimulates nerve cells

to the point of damage or death. The third component of

aspartame, methyl ester, was the most harmful, Mr

said. It is metabolised by the body into methanol, a

well-known poison. In the US, the environmental protection

agency defines safe consumption of methanol as no more than

7.8mg a day. Anyone drinking three cans of a drink sweetened

with aspartame a day was consuming about 56mg of methanol,

the MP said. The public health minister, Caroline Flint,

responded by saying that studies had shown methanol levels

were not increased by the ingestion of aspartame.