OPEN LETTER TO DOCTORS AGUS AND HIRSCH ON PAPER: FIRST GRADERS' BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS LINKED TO CAFFEINATED COLA ASPARTAME TRIGGERS THESE PROBLEMS. INCLUDES INTEGRITY AND DARWIN AWARDS

By Dr. Betty Martini
Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
Telephone: 770-242-2599
E-Mail: BettyM19@mindspring.com
Web Site: http://www.dorway.com



Posted: 27 May 2005


Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 17:54:39 -0400
To: agus@mail.med.upenn.edu, dr.hirsch@core.com
From: "Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum." Bettym19@mindspring.com
CC: dj.greenblatt@tufts.edu


This letter is in response to the article entitled "APA: First Graders' Behavior Problems Linked to Caffeinated Cola" which may be found at: http://www.medpagetoday.com/tbindex.cfm?tbid=1091


Dear Doctors Agus and Hirsch:

I'm writing about the article below having to do with children having behavior problems in school when they consume caffeinated beverages. It's not the caffeine, its the aspartame. Go to http://www.dorway.com and read:

Aspartame and Pregnancy and Small Children by H. J. Roberts, M.D. Testimony before Congress by Louis Elsas, M.D. Pediatric Professor, Genetics Genocide, Aspartame Murders Infants, James Bowen, M.D.

Then go to http://www.wnho.net and click on aspartame and read other articles including Dr. Roberts warning for school children and Dr. Blaylock's letter to the Miami Herald about front groups advertising this toxin for pregnancy (Calorie Control Council, one of the worst). Aspartame is an abortifacient and teratogen.

Russell Blaylock, M.D., wrote Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. An Excitotoxin is a product that literally stimulates the neurons of the brain to death, causing brain damage. The 40% aspartic acid in aspartame is an excitotoxin as is glutamate and cysteine. Dr. Blaylock says "It has been proposed that exposure to excitotoxins (such as glutamate and aspartate) during fetal life may cause alterations in brain development that could later result in such serious brain disorders as autism, learning disorders, hyperactive behavior, and possibly schizophrenia. We have seen that excess glutamate can trigger abnormal nervous system development by interfering with the establishment of proper nerve connections, that is, the wiring of the brain. I have stated earlier that the onset of these behavioral and learning disorders may not show up immediately but rather may be delayed for many years following birth because of the timing of the onset of specialized brain functions. Injury to the speech areas of the brain, for example, would not be evident in the newborn baby, but would be evident when the child began to learn to speak. Such injuries could result in delayed speech or stuttering. Likewise, damage to areas of the brain concerned with complex learning skills would not be evident until the child started school and was exposed to math and reading. Until that time, the child would be considered to be normal."

Dr. John Olney, world renowned neuroscientist in a report to the Board of Inquiry told what would happen to the brains of our children if aspartame was approved, especially in combination with glutamate. Unfortunately, the prophecy has been fulfilled. In September l999 Parents Magazine wrote an article: "What's Wrong With Our Children". It said: "At least 12 million American children have a mental disorder." One mother commented: "We're good parents" the first mother lamented. "Why aren't our children normal?" "They are normal," another replied. "Every child has a disorder these days."

The article continues "By the end of high school, one in four teens will have seriously considered suicide."... "The problem is so widespread that it's getting hard to find anyone whose son, niece, godchild, or grand child hasn't been affected. Some observers are calling it an epidemic and demanding that screening programs, just like the ones for tuberculosis and other diseases, be put into place."

Come forward to the year 2005, and read on the front page of the Artificially Sweetened Times published by the Idaho Observer (http://www.idaho-observer.com) almost the same title as Parents Magazine: "What Is Happening To Our Children?" It says: "Half the American population is over the age of 40. That means half of us remember what it was like when most children were healthy, full of energy and had no problems keeping up in class. That also means about half of us have grown up in a world where it is increasingly common for children to suffer chronic health problems, develop learning disabilities and adopt antisocial behavior patterns. For half of us, normal was normal; for the other half, abnormal is normal. One thing is for sure, half of us never received even one microgram of aspartame before the age of 18 while today's infants and children are getting plenty every day." You can get these magazines by the 100's for distribution to save someone from aspartame disease.

Both magazines admit that abnormal is normal, and it was prophesied by Dr. Olney. Dr. Olney insisted that Searle, the original manufacturer of aspartame, do studies in his lab so he could see the results without their shenanigans. The FDA had tried to get Searle indicted for fraud but both U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. Under the watchful eye of Dr. Olney the studies on aspartame showed that it damages the brain. But Searle never gave the results of these studies to the FDA. A few years ago a University in Norway also did studies on aspartame and found it destroyed the brain, especially in the areas of learning. In l983 Searle sacrificed people in poor villages in six countries. The translator's affidavit says it showed aspartame destroys the brain and central nervous system. Some people developed brain tumors, some had seizures and the pregnant woman lost her baby, hemorrhages and disappeared.

The Artificially Sweetened Times identifies aspartame disease as Rumsfeld Disease because as CEO of Searle he said he would call in his markers and get aspartame approved when the FDA said "NO". Click on to http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/Rumsfeld2.html. In the movie Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World you will hear and see James Turner, Attorney, who along side Dr. Olney tried to prevent approval of this neurotoxin. He tells you all about Don Rumsfeld and how aspartame got approved by political clout instead of science.

Some women never have the joy of children because aspartame is an endocrine disrupting drug, it stimulates prolactin, changes the menses and causes infertility. They sit in over-flowing fertility clinics sipping aspartame laced diet soda never realizing they are consuming a neurotoxin that causes infertility. And then if they get off of it and get pregnant and return to the habit they can lose the baby or deliver one with birth defects.

Dr. Baret in the Dominican Republic changed the diet of 360 children and replaced milk with aspartame laced juice. Almost all of the children displayed such things as hyperactivity, confusion, restlessness and the usual problems we see in children. After he contacted me he took the children off the aspartame laced juice. In four days the children went back to normal. This study is listed in Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic by H. J. Roberts, M.D. This is a medical text on aspartame disease and has a chapter on these problems. http://www.sunsentpress.com or 1-800-827-7991.

On the Safe Harbor Web site you will see the story, Miracle in Wisconsin. The ADD people, Feingold, took the worst school in Wisconsin where there were the most learning and behavioral problems and removed the pop machines and vending machines. In this program the children received only nutritional food. At the end of the program this school was the best in Wisconsin and became a precedent for others to follows. In September Feingold banned aspartame.

Dr. John Olney's paper to the Aspartame Board of Inquiry in an attempt to prevent approval is brilliant but being 35 pages long I will only use a few quotes which will help you to understand the significance of this neurotoxin on the brains of our children. Dr. Olney founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity when he did studies in l970 on aspartic acid and found that it caused lesions in the brains of mice.

"It warrants special emphasis that excitotoxins act by an acute but silent mechanism such that it requires only a single exposure to toxic concentrations for CVO neurons to be quietly destroyed."

Under Margin Of Safety Evaluation, Dr. Olney says: "This margin of safety calculation means that there is only a 3-fold difference between the mg/kg oral load of excitotoxin that will be ingested by children and that which destroys neurons in animal brain. In other words, if the human child is physiologically identical to the young animal, he is protected by a 3-fold safety factor. But, since all available evidence suggests that humans are physiologically disadvantaged such that they develop much higher plasma Glu levels from a given load of Glu, it is erroneous to think in terms of the human child being "protected" by even a slim safety margin - it is entirely possible that he is ingesting toxic levels of these compounds under present conditions of use and may be quietly sustaining loss of hypothalamic neurons."

"Only the Newborn: When FDA approved aspartame in l974 they acknowledged that aspartame had been shown to induce brain damage in neonatal animals but dismissed aspartame neurotoxicity as irrelevant on grounds that the approved uses of aspartame do not include feeding it to newborn humans. Their argument can be reduced to the following syllogism: (a) only neonates are susceptible to Glu/Asp neurotoxicity: (b) Aspartame will not be fed to neonates; (C) Glu/Asp neurotoxicity is irrelevant to the safety of aspartame. Syllogisms that begin with false premises lead to false conclusions."

"I conclude that despite Searle's persistent tendency to avoid performing experiments of appropriate design to clarify the safety of the aspartame moiety of aspartame under "use" conditions, the few items of relevant evidence they have generated since l974 serve to reinforce my position that aspartame, together with Glu, does pose significant risk of destroying neurons in children's' brains and exerting adverse influence on neuroendocrine systems. Certainly the studies performed, thus far, do not even begin to refute, disprove or rule out the brain damage and neuroendocrine risks I have defined and documented with extensive evidence, nor do they demonstrate that there is an adequate safety margin for the use of aspartame (plus Glu) in children's' foods. Searle has failed, therefore, to establish the safety of their product for use in children's' foods."

Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock in a paper titled Not Just Another Scare: Toxin Additives in Your Food and Drink (http://www.dorway.com) said: "A recent study (Trocho l998) has demonstrated that aspartame feeding to animals results in an accumulation of formaldehyde within the cells, with evidence of significant damage to cellular proteins and DNA. In fact, the formaldehyde accumulated with prolonged use of aspartame. With this damning evidence, one would have to be suicidal to continue the use of aspartame sweetened foods, drinks and medicines. The use of foods containing excitotoxin additives is especially harmful to the unborn and small children. By age 4 the brain is only 80% formed. By age 8, 0% and by age 16 it is fully formed, but still undergoing changes and rewiring (plasticity). We know that the excitotoxins have a devastating effect on formation of the brain (wiring of the brain) and that such exposure can cause the brain to be "miswired." This may explain the significant almost explosive increase in ADD and ADHD. Glutamate feeding to pregnant animals produces a syndrome almost identical to ADD. It has also been shown that a single feeding of MSG after birth can increase free radicals in the offspring's brain that last until adolescence. Experimentally, we known that infants are 4X more sensitive to the toxicity of excitotoxins than are adults. And, of all the species studied, cats, dogs, primates, chickens, guinea pigs, and rats, humans are by far the most sensitive to glutamate toxicity. In fact, they are 5X more sensitive than rats and 20X more sensitive than non-human primates.

"I have been impressed with the dramatic improvement in children with ADD and ADHD following abstention from excitotoxin use. It requires care monitoring of these children. Each time they are exposed to these substances, they literally go bonkers. It is ludicrous, with all we know about the destructive effects of excitotoxins, to continue to allow ourselves and our children to continue on this destructive path."

I have been taking the cases on aspartame disease for 14 years and they never stop day and night. I'm the founder of Mission Possible International, a global volunteer force warning all consumers off this deadly neurotoxic drug that interacts with all drugs and vaccines. Dr. H. J. Roberts, a world expert on Aspartame Disease and who treated these patients in the trenches of medical practice for two decades quoted his testimony at a press conference in his first book on aspartame in l989. He said that unless something was done then, that in 5 or 10 years we would have a global plague on our hands. And, indeed, we do. His medical text is 1038 pages of symptoms, diseases and drug interactions. So why didn't you Doctors Agus and Hirsch know about the information in this document? Because you are lied to by the manufacturer, the FDA and the professional organizations funded by the manufacturer. And don't forget the front groups. Thanks to Dr. Roberts there is now this medical text so physicians can diagnose the patients and correlate the problems to the culprit.

INTEGRITY AND DARWIN AWARDS:

As I write this, my fax runneth over. Dr. Roberts just sent me a note from David J. Greenblatt, M.D., Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

He says: "...Our conclusion, of course, is the same as the scientific community and the regulatory agencies -- "Aspartame Disease" does not exist." I suspect that he is speaking about the paid prostitutes. Ed Horton, Editor of the Lancet, said in May, 2001 "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, guarding the health of 274 million Americans, is compromised by funding from the drug industry and pressure from Congress." Mr. Horton also said: "The FDA is not only compromised because it receives so much funding from industry, but because it comes under incredible Congressional pressure to be favorable to industry. That has led to deaths."

Please stand gentleman while Mission Possible International presents to Ed Horton the award for Integrity in Science, and Dr. Greenblatt the Darwin Award for the most outlandish statement ever made about aspartame, other than the propaganda statements of safety.

I had to put on my glasses to make sure I was reading the rest of his note correctly. He also said: "You repeatedly dismiss randomized controlled, and blinded clinical studies for various reasons including industry sponsorship. In fact, those are the only trials that matter. They consistently show that aspartame cannot be distinguished from placebo, save for a transient increase in plasma phenylalanine concentrations. I note that you do not even cite the LaPierre study which, of course, again shows that aspartame does nothing."

I'm almost speechless with shock as I read more nonsensical statements actually coming out of the mouth of a physician. The LaPierre study was a NutraSweet sponsored study involving 10 persons given a single dose of aspartame in capsules. And get this it was a one day study.

At this point I would like to share with you how the manufacturer gets away with manipulating the studies. To be kind we label them "flawed studies". The manufacturer knows aspartame is a seizure triggering drug. See the RAO study on http://www.dorway.com, a 52 week oral toxicity study where 7 infant monkeys were fed aspartame. Five had grand mal seizures and one died. This study was actually pivotal in the approval of aspartame. Also note the FDA report on that web site of 92 documented symptoms from four types of seizures to coma and death.

The manufacturer, Monsanto at the time, decided to do some studies so they could show aspartame does not cause seizures. I'll comment on the Rowen Study in l995. Monsanto was so concerned someone might have a seizure that 16 of the 18 subjects were taking anti-seizure medication during the study.

The aspartame was given in capsules so instead of spiking the plasma phenylalanine level and significantly changing the phenylalanine/LNAA ratio the phenylalanine was absorbed very slowly - more like what happens when ingesting food (Stegink l987). These researchers discussed in detail the issue of plasma phenylalanine and LNAA levels. It was particularly absurd that they gave the aspartame in capsules even though they cited industry research (Burns 1990) which proves capsule administration of aspartame eliminates the spike in plasma phenylalanine levels! Simply stated, the researchers were pretending to test the hypothesis that phenylalanine/LNAA ratio changes would cause seizures, but they knowingly administered aspartame in a way that eliminated the possibility of a large change in plasma phenylalanine levels and phenylalanine/LNAA ratios.

Capsule administration of aspartame slows the absorption of methanol and may reduce its toxicity somewhat similar to the way ingestion of food with methanol may slightly reduce its toxicity (Posner l975). Capsule administration of aspartame also eliminates the quick absorption of the excitotoxin, aspartic acid (Stegink l987). When aspartic acid is absorbed quickly, it can be excitotoxic (Blaylock l994, Olney l980) especially in conjunction with formaldehyde derived from methanol.

THIS STUDY CONSISTED OF ONLY A SINGLE DOSE OF ASPARTAME INGESTION!

The results of this study only apply to people who ingest a single dose of encapsulated aspartame while taking anti-seizure medication. Not only is this study worthless, but key information was not put in the abstract, namely, the fact that the subjects were on anti-seizure medication and that the aspartame was given in capsules.

Now lets go to an independent and unbiased researcher, Dr. Ralph Walton. In l993 he did a study, Adverse Reactions to Aspartame: Double-Blind Challenge in Patients from a Vulnerable Population, Society of Biological Psychiatry. Monsanto said they would provide the aspartame but changed their mind because they couldn't control the study. You can read the entire study on www.wnho.net click on aspartame. One person had a retinal detachment (the free methyl alcohol in aspartame converts to formaldehyde and formic acid in the retina of the eye and destroys the optic nerve). Another suffered conjunctival bleeding. Some said they felt they were being poisoned. The institution stopped the study.

In l996 Dr. Ralph Walton, Chairman of The Center for Behavioral Medicine and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, was on 60 Minutes with Neuroscientist Dr. John Olney when he made world news on the aspartame/brain tumor link. He provided research on scientific peer reviewed studies and funding, on http://www.dorway.com It showed that 92 per cent of independent peer reviewed studies show the problems with aspartame. And, if you eliminate one pro-industry summary and 6 studies the FDA had something to do with because of their reputation of being handmaiden to the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, 100% of independent and unbiased peer reviewed studies show the aspartame problems. Now what does that say for industry funded studies that show safety? What it says to me is that it is virtually impossible to take a chemical poison and show it to be safe. So naturally, it requires manipulating the studies as were done by Searle. Read the FDA audit, Bressler Report, and you will see that when rats developed brain tumors Searle excised the tumors and put the rats back in the study, and when they died they resurrected them on paper. I thanked Jerome Bressler for giving the true facts. At that time he told me as well as Doctors Roberts and Blaylock the worst 20% was removed by the FDA when it was retyped. Dr. Roberts asked his congressman to get the messing data but the FDA wrote back and said it was confidential.

Dr. Ralph Walton said on this issue of behavioral and psychiatric problems: "We have known for years that when aspartame is ingested with a carbohydrate rich meal the usual physiologic increase in tryptophan is blocked, while brain phenylalanine and tyrosine concentrations are increased. These changes in amino acid neurotransmitter precursors could, I believe, alter indolamine/catecholamine balance and thus have a profound effect on mood and cognition...depressed mood, anxiety, dizziness, panic attacks, nausea, irritability, impairment of memory and concentration."

The FDA allows industry to get away with fraud. Here is an example:

Glutamate researchers used aspartame as a placebo in studies so they could say MSG wouldn't react anymore than the placebo. In l993 Jack Samuels, President of the Truth in Labeling Campaign, was reviewing FDA docket files relating to an FDA study on the safety of amino acids in supplements. In the files, he found a letter dated March 22, l991, from Andrew G. Ebert, PhD, Chairman, International Glutamate Technical Committee-a glutamate industry organization-in which Ebert admitted that aspartame had been used since at least l978 in test and placebo materials that his organization provided to scientists who study the safety of MSG...

A review of studies conducted with the above-referenced test material clearly indicates some subjects reacted to both MSG test material and placebo material. Scientists conducting such studies concluded that since subjects reacted to both MSG and placebos, their reactions were not from MSG. Even though such logic is highly questionable, we now know that subjects reacted to placebos because of the presence of aspartame, an additive that causes MSG-type responses in MSG-sensitive people. Because of the disclosure of the use of aspartame in placebo material by Jack Samuels, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, in its July l995 report on the safety of MSG in food, concluded that the use of aspartame in placebo materials was inappropriate...

Obviously, placebos are suppose to be inert or non-reactive by law but this was a way the glutamate people could say that MSG didn't react anymore than the placebo by using two excitotoxins. Because they started this practice before aspartame was allowed on the market in l981 it shows you they knew the gun was loaded long before it was approved. This is just one more way industry gets away with manipulating studies to show unsafe products are safe. And the FDA allowed them to do this for a quarter of a century.

Dr. Greenblatt, I hope you are now educated on the difference between industry funded studies and those accomplished by independent and unbiased researchers. Many more studies would be accomplished on the deadly effects of aspartame if researchers were not threatened. I hold a letter from one of those scientists threatened who said:

"Our study was scientifically unchallenged, and stands by itself, but it spurred a rebuttal paper in the same Journal we published, some time later tarnishing our study without an iota of experimental data. Only the brute force of lawyering and constant references to FDA authority. Under these circumstances I am sure you will understand why I will not give other information about this dangerous product that I have already published. I truly cannot understand how it was authorized in the first time and how it can continue being authorized when there is so much evidence against it. This case demonstrates that a given laboratory needs to have friends in high places and aggressive lawyers instead of thorough scientists to get high money."

And Dr. Greenblatt, if you're angry with me, the messenger, you had best check the message. The agenda to simply dismiss a quarter of a century of proof that aspartame is a deadly neurotoxin is a betrayal of public trust. You only reap contempt from those trying to save the lives of the sick and dying aspartame victims. Is this the legacy you wish to leave to your grandchildren?

Indeed, many have suggested that Aspartame Disease be renamed Roberts Disease for this brave humanitarian who has been an outspoken critic of poisoning the public with this deadly neurotoxin and saved the lives of thousands or even millions. In the l980's he was selected as the Best Doctor in the United States.

Dr. Greenblatt if you can read a mountain of evidence and respond with a flawed industry funded study, you need to change professions or have it resent in Braille. Perhaps you could work for the NutraSweet Company. I believe they would gladly meet you at the Revolving Door!

Doctors Agus and Hirsch, I commented on Dr. Greenblatt's correspondence in this letter to give you yet another example of why damning research is kept from physicians who need it to diagnose patients. As Dr. Roberts has said in his books, patients go from doctor to doctor and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars for needless diagnostic studies and surgery, when their only help is eliminating aspartame.

I hope you will research the subject further and help us remove aspartame from the market place by exposing the problem. Be sure to see the movie, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, and these doctors mentioned in this letter who expose aspartame will come to life. They are the heroes of the anti-aspartame movement.

In closing, I gave you the words of James Bowen, M.D., who told the FDA: "The only responsible action would be to immediately take aspartame off the market, fully disclose its toxicities, offer full compensation to the injured, public and criminally prosecute anyone who participated in the fraudulent placement of aspartame on the marketplace. That includes those who work so diligently to keep it on the market as well."


Dr. Betty Martini
Founder, Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770-242-2599
http://www.dorway.com
http://www.whno.net
Aspartame Toxicity Center: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame