Posted: 21 May 2005
This letter is in response to the New York Times article of 21 May 2005 entitled, "F.D.A. Considers Implant Device For Depression."
This article may be viewed by clicking HERE
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 16:10:27 -0400
To: redesign@nytimes.com
From: "Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum." BettyM19@mindspring.com
Subject: Open Letter to Benedict Carey, New York Times, FDA Considers Implant Device for Depression (Aspartame triggers an Epidemic of Depression as well as Obesity and Diabetes)
Dear Mr. Carey,
This email was listed as "feedback" and I'm asking that it be forwarded to you. What the FDA should really consider is banning what is causing the depression, instead of approving something where they have to speculate on safety.
You have 70% of the American population and 40% of the children using aspartame marketed as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. Aspartame contains 50% phenylalanine which is neurotoxic and goes directly into the brain. It lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin. Lowered serotonin triggers manic depression or bipolar, suicidal tendencies, mood swings, paranoia, hallucinations, panic attacks, etc. And it interacts with all antidepressants and psycho drugs. Aspartame is a psycho drug masquerading as an additive.
There is so much evidence its hard to know where to begin. Dr. Ralph Walton, Psychiatrist and Chairman of the Center for Behavioral Medicine said: "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." Dr. Walton actually did a study on aspartame (http://www.wnho.net click on aspartame). Knowing that aspartame triggers depression he wanted to see what aspartame would do to those who already had comprised conditions such as depression. Monsanto agreed to sell him the aspartame but changed their mind because they knew they could not control the study. Indeed one person had a retinal detachment and another suffered conjunctival bleeding. Many of those in the depressed group said they felt like they were being poisoned. The institution stopped the study.
Parents Magazine in l999 had an article titled "What's Happening To Our Children" and said almost every family is affected. They said that by the time a child reaches the 4th level of high school one out of four has contemplated suicide. It was predicted. Dr. John Olney, one of the most renowned neuroscientists in the world today did studies on aspartic acid, 40% of aspartame, and found that it caused lesions in the brains of mice, and that it is an excitotoxin, a product that literally stimulates the neurons of the brain to death causing brain damage. Dr. Olney founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity and neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., wrote the book on it, Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, http://www.russellblaylockmd.com Dr. Olney's report to the Board of Inquiry of the FDA when he tried to prevent approval of this neurotoxin explained would what happen to the brains of our children. Unfortunately his prophecy has been fulfilled.
Today our children are medicated instead of educated. The ADD people, Feingold, took one of the worst schools in Wisconsin where there were lots of learning and behavioral problems, and had the pop and vending machines removed. They gave the children nothing but nutritional food. When the program was over it became known as Miracle in Wisconsin. It became the best school in Wisconsin without learning or behavioral problems, and has become a precedent for others to follow. In September of last year Feingold banned aspartame.
I received a call from a Dr. Baret in the Dominican Republic who took milk out of the diet of 360 school children because they were young and he feared diabetes. He replaced the milk with aspartame laced juice. He said almost all 360 children exhibited restlessness, confusion, hyperactivity and problems like we see in our schools. Because it happened to basically all the children he knew it had to be aspartame, it was the only change in the diet.
Four days after removing aspartame from their diet the children went back to normal. While today we would never do a study of aspartame on children because we know how deadly it is, this serves as a study and is discussed in the medical text on the global plague of aspartame by H. J. Roberts, M.D., Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, http://www.sunsentpress.com or 1-800-827-7991. This medical text goes into aspartame triggered depression and other psychiatric problems. I have heard Dr. Roberts and Dr. Blaylock say that a lot of patients in mental hospitals today are simply aspartame victims.
Today aspartame has caused an epidemic of obesity because it's a neurotoxic drug that makes you crave carbohydrates. See Wurtman affidavit in the protest of the National Soft Drink Association which became part of the congressional record - http://www.dorway.com. Aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol which converts to formaldehyde. In the Trocho Study in l998 in Barcelona it was found that the formaldehyde accumulates in the cells and damages DNA with most toxicity in the liver. But there was substantial amounts in the adipose tissue or fat cells, as well as the brain, retina and kidneys. So when you see someone with big hips and thighs they usually are an aspartame victim.
Aspartame also can precipitate diabetes, simulates and aggravates diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy and even interacts with insulin. Dr. H. J. Roberts who wrote the medical text is a diabetic specialist and found out it was a poison when his diabetic patients began going blind and were confused, and blood sugar was out of control. He testified before Congress.
Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote a bill that would have required the NIH to do independent studies on the problems being seen in the population from aspartame such as behavioral problems in children, what aspartame does to the fetus, seizures and even interaction with drugs. You will find this information labeled Dead Bill on http://www.dorway.com. It never got out of committee because Senators like Orrin Hatch were paid by Monsanto who owned NutraSweet at the time.
Aspartame also damages the hypothalamus of the brain. Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D. says this area of the brain is responsible for controlling some of the most vital neural systems in the body. "The wiring of the hypothalamus is some of the complex in the nervous system, with connections not only to the pituitary, but also to the limbic system (emotional control system), hippocampus, striatum and brain stem. Through these connections it regulates emotions, autonomic control (parasympathetic and sympathetic), hunger and satiety, immunity, memory input, and anger control. Disruptions in this vital piece of brain can result in anything from minor behavioral problems or endocrine malfunctions to major disruptions in sexual functions, obesity, immune suppression and endocrine gland failure. .... Newer findings indicate that the hypothalamus is involved in several endocrine syndromes, neurological diseases and even psychiatric disorders."
Dr. Ralph Walton said: "The neurochemical impact of aspartame on the brain is fairly complicated. Not only does it decrease the availability of the building block for serotonin (L-tryptophan), but one of the two amino acids that comprise aspartame, phenylalanine, is a precursor for another very important neurotransmitter, norepinephrine. Papers which I published in l986 and l993 discuss what I believe is the clinical impact (accentuating depressive illness) of altering the balance between these 2 neurotransmitters (norepinephrine and serotonin).
"There is evidence the therapeutic effect of antidepressants can be blocked by parachlorophenylalanine - a form of phenylalanine - one of the major constituents of aspartame. Administration of this substance has also been associated with aggression and binging.
"Food seeking behavior and satiety are driven by an area of the brain known as the hypothalamus. Stimulation of the medial hypothalamus in a laboratory rat leads to eating. Stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus leads to satiety and cessation of eating. Placing a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus produces an obese rat. The lateral hypothalamus is driven by serotonin. There are many papers in the current literature demonstrating that antidepressants which increase serotonin (but not antidepressants which act on other neurotransmitters) are useful in treating binge eating disorders. I believe that consuming large amounts of aspartame decreases the availability of serotonin and is thus analogous to placing a lesion in the lateral hypothalamus. Although much of this work is recent, clinical suggestions that aspartame can lead to a paradoxical increased appetite date back to Blunder's work of l986. An evolving view in modern psychiatry is that although depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, impulse control disorders and eating disorders have historically been viewed as separate entities, in fact they should be viewed as a continuum of disorders all involving some degree of dysregulation of serotonin. I believe that at this time there is overwhelming evidence that aspartame contributes to this dysregulation."
Dr. Walton is very interested in aspartame triggered bipolar. You may remember when the front page of Time was on Bipolar and explained about the epidemic in children. What is interesting is that children are not suppose to suffer from Bipolar because its an adult disease. Aspartame knows no age limit. That's why when you read articles that say 65% of diabetics suffer from Alzheimers, you immediately think of aspartame (marked as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, E951, Canderel, etc.) as it is escalating the disease. (Defense Against Alzheimers Disease by H. J. Roberts, M.D., http://www.sunsentpress.com). One hospice nurse told me years ago that 30 year olds are being admitted with Alzheimers and it is now epidemic. Memory loss is #9 on the FDA list of 92 documented symptoms triggered by this neurotoxin. You may remember when Michael Fox said: "How could I get Parkinson's at the age of 30, an old man's disease." Michael Fox was a Diet Pepsi spokesman and informants said addicted to it. It not only can precipitate Parkinsons but also interacts with L-dopa and other Parkinson medication.
Perhaps now you can understand why the medical text on this global plague of aspartame disease is 1038 pages of horrors triggered by this toxin. You read articles on how everyone should be tested for mental disease. Don't you find that hard to believe? Even harder to believe is how the FDA could approve a toxin they knew to be deadly. The FDA even tried to have Searle, the original manufacturer indicted for fraud but both U.S. Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. You can read the Bressler Report on the DORway web site which is the FDA audit. I personally spoke to Jerome Bressler who told me when the FDA retyped his report they eliminated the worst 20%. After Doctors Roberts and Blaylock spoke to Bressler as well, Dr. Roberts wrote his congressman to get this omission. The FDA refused to release it.
The FDA did refuse to allow aspartame on the market for 16 years and revoked the petition for approval on the basis of it never been proven safe and triggering brain tumors. In fact, today we are taking case histories on aspartame brain tumors for litigation in New York, New Jersey, Madison County, Illinois and Mississippi. At the time Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle and said he would call in his markers and get it approved documented in the UPI investigation and congressional record. But how did he do it? The story is incredible. See for yourself in the movie, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, http://www.docworkers.com. You will hear Attorney James Turner tell the story, and this paper will be brought to life as you hear from all the doctors mentioned in this paper. This documentary is getting rave reviews around the world and now medical organizations are finding out where these epidemics are coming from. For a review copy you can contact cori@soundandfuryproductions.com
I wrote this as an Open Letter, Mr. Carey, because the world needs this information. But if you want to write a story you can always contact me for the numbers of the experts mentioned. I started off by saying that aspartame should be banned to stop this epidemic of depression. Today the FDA is the handmaiden of the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. I wrote a Citizens Petition for ban three years ago in June. The law requires that they answer in 180 days but they refuse. The reason is its not based on safety because we know with a global epidemic its not safe, its based on the fact I have the FDA records and they are lying to the public. Those lies are in the records and in the public domain. The FDA serves above the law. Their own FDA toxicologist, the late Dr. Adrian Gross told Congress in conclusion, "And if the FDA violates its own law, who is left to protect the public?" Mission Possible International is a global volunteer force warning all consumers off aspartame and FDA Watchdog. Since aspartame interacts with all drugs, vaccines and toxins and other unsafe sweeteners like Splenda, a chlorocarbon poison, the FDA who has full knowledge should be disbanded. When those responsible to solve the problem ARE the problem, it's a betrayal of the public trust.
Currently there is legislation aimed at ending the close relationship between the FDA and drug industry introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Maurice Hinchey of New York. It is called the Food and Drug Administration Improvement Act of 2005. The bill includes several provisions aimed at ending financial conflicts of interest. It would prohibit scientists with financial conflicts of interest from sitting on FDA advisory panels. If passed, the bill would overturn provisions of the Prescription Drug Users Fee Act, first passed in l992, which established a schedule of payments by the drug industry to the FDA. It established a close relationship between the regulatory agency and the industry it's supposed to regulate.
For those wanting to keep up with information on aspartame we have an Aspartame Information List and Support Group on http://www.wnho.net
All my best,
Dr. Betty Martini
Founder, Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770-242-2599
http://www.dorway.com
http://www.wnho.net