LETTER TO FOOD STANDARDS: FOOD ADDITIVES COULD BE AS DAMAGING AS LEAD IN PETROL - INDEPENDENT

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



Posted: 05 May 2008


From: Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum., Bettym19@mindspring.com
To: Food Standards
Date: Tue, Apr 08, 2008 3:59 am
Subject: To Food Standards: Food Additives Could Be As Damaging as Lead in Petrol - Independent


To Food Standards:

Recently I sent you this letter: http://www.mpwhi.com/reply_to_food_standards_aspartame.htm

No answer. Then there was this letter: http://www.mpwhi.com/investigative_report_on_aspartame_misinformation.htm

What has Food Standards done to remove aspartame from the marketplace? Nothing but stall. For 17 years I have taken the case histories of aspartame victims. I've spoken to them on the phone as they describe their anguish, in the crowds giving out flyers, listening to their anguish, received their emails and faxes and letters. I have lectured twice in the UK and I listened to aspartame victims anguish in town after town. I lectured in New Zealand last summer and I listened to the anguish of aspartame victims everywhere I went. No matter where you go you listen to the tales of horror from victims who have used aspartame. (Canderel, NutraSweet, Equal, E951, etc.) If I had to guess how many cases including the ones I've spoken with, perhaps there are 50,000. We have chapters in 38 nations also collecting case histories. The FDA admitted to 10,000 and then stopped taking them. My computer crashed once when 12,000 came in at one time in 1999. In Congress in l985 it was admitted they were receiving so many complaints on aspartame they were referring them to the AIDS Hotline. Yet, Dr. Kessler, former FDA Commissioner admitted only 1% are reported to them.

Food Standards was created to have an organization that kept their distance from industry. Yet, your information on aspartame as discussed in one of the letters above has no facts, just industry propaganda that we have rebutted with proof for years. Yet it still remains on your web site showing your loyalty is to industry and not the people. You've made no effort to correct it, just push industry lies.

Now Food Standards asks for a study on additives as discussed in the Independent newspaper below, but now with scientific peer reviewed proof Food Standards refuses to ban them. How shocking.

Jacqueline Verrett, Ph.D., FDA toxicologist, who told Congress that all aspartame studies were built on a foundation of sand and should be thrown out, also wrote a book in l974 called "Eating May Be Hazardous To Your Health". At that time she had worked 15 years for the FDA. Ralph Nader wrote about the book, "This is a soberly gripping book by a courageous FDA scientist and a lucid consumer writer. The story they tell about the silent violence in your food - how it got there and the FDA's abysmal lack of courage to make the food companies obey the law - makes you want to do something about it. As "Eating May Be Hazardous To Your Health" points out, you can help do it as a tough and active citizen. The choice is clear: If consumers don't control their government, the food industry will." In the case of Food Standards, the food industry has. If Food Standards was the least concerned now that a study has proven that additives cause behavioral problems in children they would be banned. Did Food Standards ask for a study to disregard the evidence?

Dr. Verrett's book is about additives. She discusses the colors which are simply cosmetic and lets you know there is no reason for them to be on the market. Let's take RED 2 in Chapter 5 titled: The Abortion Pill You May Not Want. "You might have thought the FDA had no forewarning that FD&C Red No. 2, the official name for our most widely used food dye, which gets into practically everything, could possibly be dangerous. That was the official "reaction" when it was learned in 1970 that Russian Scientists had published two new studies incriminating amaranth, another name for the dye. One Russian study showed that the red dye caused cancer in rats; the other was the first to show that the dye caused birth defects, stillbirths, sterility and early fetal deaths in rats given the dye in exceedingly small amounts. In fact, the Russians found a danger to rat fetuses that were fed only 1.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, which is the exact dose established by the World Health organization as the "safe dose" for humans - the acceptable daily intake, or ADI, as it is called. In other words, there was no margin of safety at all." Consider how long this has been known.

Dr. Verrett writes a lot about the food dyes. She says on page 17: "First, the good news: The federal government, mainly the FDA of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare and to a lesser extent the US Department of Agriculture, is empowered to keep your food safe for consumption and free of dangerous chemicals. Now the bad news: They do nothing of the kind. As a result our food supply is permeated with chemicals of dubious safety." While she is talking about our Fatal Drugs Allowed folks also known as the FDA, the same can be said for Food Standards. You have the opportunity this week according to the article below to ban what has been proven unsafe. Are you going to do it, or make more excuses?

Dr. Verrett says MSG is still widely used in all kinds of processed foods, though it has been shown to cause brain damage in infant animals. You have disregarded the study in Liverpool. http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/msg010306.cfm You recall the researchers at the University of Liverpool examined the toxic effects on nerve cells in the laboratory of using a combination of four common food additives - aspartame, MSG and the artificial colourings brilliant blue and quinoline yellow. Findings were published in Toxicological Sciences. This study showed that when mouse nerve cells were exposed to MSG and brilliant blue or aspartame and quinoline yellow the additives stopped the nerve cells growing and interfered with proper signalling systems. So why aren't they all banned? This is how they are consumed in the average diet, in combination.

Dr. Verrett said to imagine how much easier it would be if the government would just out with the truth. It would end all that intrigue, all the time-consuming hard work trying to cover up mistakes, juggling scientific data to make it come out right, always assuming a defensive posture, evading responsibility, playing footsie with the industry, assuring everyone that no matter what a few die-hard scientists say and do, there is no need for concern, that our food is the safest in the world and there's not a shred of evidence that anyone has ever been harmed by eating an additive. Food Standards is just as bad as the FDA.

Verrett said if some food additives were regulated as drugs they would be forbidden - except by prescription, and then forced to carry warnings - especially to pregnant women. So we have aspartame on the market which in reality is a drug masquerading as an additive. It's addictive because of the methanol which is classified as a narcotic and causes chronic methanol poisoning which effects the dopamine system of the brain. This causes the addiction. Because it damages the mitochondria or life of the cell it interacts with virtually all drugs and vaccines. It is literally a chemical poison which causes polychemical sensitivity syndrome. That's why Dr. Russell Blaylock, neurosurgeon, says the reactions to aspartame are not allergic but toxic like arsenic and cyanide.

Do we really need all those additives? Verrett said its surprising that at the turn of the century - a time of little refrigeration, heat sterilization or freezing, and of slow transportation - when you would have thought we needed additives, at least as preservatives, they were soundly rejected by both government and industry. H. W. Wiley, chief of the USDA's Bureau of Chemistry, the predecessor of the present FDA, wrote in his annual report for 1908:

"A large number of prominent manufacturers during the year entirely abandoned the use of any kind of preservatives and openly announced their adhesion to the doctrine that drugs should not be placed in foods. Although there have been no suits brought so far involving the addition of chemical preservatives to food, the practice has been so openly discredited by so many first class manufacturers as to warrant the statement that the cause of pure food, in so far as chemical preservatives are concerned, has been firmly established."

Do you think by outlawing dyes that are harmful the food industry is at a disadvantage? Dr. Verrett says a scientist at the Department of Agriculture has estimated that of the seven hundred chemicals now used for flavoring, about thirty could accomplish the same thing. Think of how many there are today.

She continues that even in preservation, the area where most of us would consider additives useful, there's doubt that all are really necessary. Dr. Jacobson noted in testimony in 1972 that some makes of vegetable oils, potato chips, shortening and peanuts add BHA and BHT (preservatives) to their products, while their competitors do not.

When you have your meeting consider what Dr. Verrett discussed, "For Whose Benefit - Theirs or Ours?" If you are interested in consumer safety remember her words: "Given a choice - which we can exercise only through political power - would we really want all those additives in our food? How much do the chemicals benefit us? And how much do they benefit the foodmakers? If we had to take a dangerous drug, we would want to know its potential benefit compared with the risk. But with food additives we often take risks for little or nothing. The benefit - risk ratio for food chemicals often boils down to a great big health risk to you and a great big economic benefit to industry."

The additives proven to be harmful in the study mentioned below in the Independent article are of no benefit whatsoever to consumers, the only benefit is to industry. This is a way to show whether Food Standards is there for the consumer or for industry. If you refuse to ban them then you are saying to the world: "Food Standards is here for industry and has no interest whatsoever for the consumer because we are allowing additives that have been proven to be harmful to children to continue on the market to help the economics of industry." If you can't even ban what has been proven to be harmful by a study that Food Standards themselves commissioned than you are of no use to the UK, and are admitting your loyalty to industry while betraying the public trust.

When asked when you intend to ban aspartame you say anecdotal cases will be taken. How many do you need to ban aspartame? Dr. Maria Alemany who did the Trocho Study that showed the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol in aspartame embalms living tissue and damages DNA, told me in Barcelona that aspartame can kill 200 million. I told him I believed it already had. Consider there is a medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, by H. J. Roberts, M.D., http://www.sunsentpress.com that is over 1000 pages of neurodegenerative diseases, cancers, diabetes, obesity, birth defects, etc. triggered by aspartame. Aspartame is an abortifacient so millions of babies are murdered in their mother's womb. Cancers and neurodegenerative diseases can be fatal. Aspartame breaks down into a brain tumor agent, diketopiperazine, and we've been getting aspartame brain tumor cases for years, most now deceased.

Of what use is a chemical poison to the human race. It's pushed on diabetics when in fact, it can precipitate diabetes, simulates and aggravates diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, destroys the optic nerve, causes diabetics to go into convulsions and interacts with insulin. It's used in products called "diet" which is product liability since aspartame has caused an epidemic of obesity because it makes you crave carbohydrates so you gain weight. In the Trocho Study most toxicity was in the liver and substantial amounts in the adipose tissue or fat cells.

Moreover, obesity is costly. Annual obesity-attributable U.S. medical expenses were estimated at $75 billion for 2003. Fortunately, healthy eating and a physically active lifestyle can help children and adults achieve and maintain a healthy weight and reduce obesity-related chronic diseases.

The two Ramazzini Studies peer reviewed by 7 world experts have proven that aspartame is a multipotential carcinogen even in small amounts and can be passed on to the offspring. The FDA even admitted aspartame caused cancer.

On August 1, l985 the FDA's own toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, told Congress at least one of Searle's studies "has established beyond ANY REASONABLE DOUBT that aspartame is capable of inducing brain tumors in experimental animals and that this predisposition of it is of extremely high significance. ... In view of these indications that the cancer causing potential of aspartame is a matter that had been established WAY BEYOND ANY REASONABLE DOUBT, one can ask: What is the reason for the apparent refusal by the FDA to invoke for this food additive the so-called Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act?"

The Delaney Amendment makes it illegal to allow any residues of cancer causing chemicals in foods. In his concluding testimony Gross asked, "Given the cancer causing potential of aspartame how would the FDA justify its position that it views a certain amount of aspartame as constituting an allowable daily intake or 'safe' level of it? Is that position in effect not equivalent to setting a 'tolerance' for this food additive and thus a violation of that law? And if the FDA itself elects to violate the law, who is left to protect the health of the public?" Congressional Record SID835:131 (August 1, l985)

Aspartame was illegally approved in the US through the political chicanery of Don Rumsfeld after the FDA revoked the petition for approval and tried to have the manufacturer indicted for fraud. Unfortunately both US Prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statute of limitations expired. Here is James Turner, Atty, explaining in the aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/rumsfeld2.html

Aspartame was also illegally approved in the UK by a business deal with Paul Turner. Parliament found out and had a big blowout and the story was in the Guardian. But the poison was not rescinded. No studies were done in the UK.

The European Food Safety Authority has already been discredited in anything they say. First they went against the prestigious Ramazzini Study saying the rats had respiratory disease. As Dr. Soffritti pointed out, that's the dying process which, of course, they knew. Finally, Dr. Koeter admitted they were pressured by industry to hijack science. A new agency should be set up that has the courage to disregard industry's pressure and tell the truth and protect the people. http://www.mpwhi.com/letter_to_efsa.htm

I'm asking again, after a quarter of a century on the market creating a global plague, when are you going to ban aspartame? How many millions more have to die? Now that Neotame, another aspartame product has been approved the complaints are coming in on it. Why do you consider loyalty to aspartame manufacturers more important than the health of the people of the UK? Remove the propaganda from your web site. It just causes the public to see you as discredited for having such obvious lies when this propaganda has been disproven for decades.

As to additives in general, I would suggest that you get Dr. Russell Blaylock's DVD, Nutrition and Behavior. http://www.russellblaylockmd.com Here you see reported the difference when additives are removed.

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum.
Founder, Mission Possible World Health International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770-242-2599
E-Mail: BettyM19@mindspring.com
http://www.wpwhi.com
http://www.whno.net
http://www.dorway.com

Aspartame Toxicity Center: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news

Food additives 'could be as damaging as lead in petrol'

By Martin Hickman
Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Saturday, 5 April 2008

Artificial food colours are set to be removed from hundreds of products after a team of university researchers warned they were doing as much damage to children's brains as lead in petrol.

Academics at Southampton University, who carried out an official study into seven additives for the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said children's intelligence was being significantly damaged by E-numbers. After receiving the advice last month, officials at the FSA have advised their directors to call for the food industry to remove six additives named in the study by the end of next year.

The advice, which will be put before the FSA board next week, would be voluntary. However, manufacturers would be expected by the regulator to remove the additives, replacing them with natural alternatives if possible. Some sweetmakers have unilaterally agreed to remove the suspect colours following the latest scientific evidence.

Researchers have linked E-numbers to behavioural problems since the 1970s but the debate has intensified after the Southampton study, published last September, found that seven additives such as sunset yellow (E110) and tartrazine (E102) were causing temper tantrums among normal children.

The FSA, which funded the £750,000 study, was criticised by health groups for failing to ban the additives after taking the advice of the Committee on Toxicology, which said they had only a moderate effect on some children.

Instead, the FSA said it would work with manufacturers to see if they would remove the additives and awaited an assessment of its research by the European Food Safety Agency (Efsa).

While conceding there was "limited" evidence that the additives caused the children problems, Efsa decided the study was not a good enough reason to change the safe limits of the E-numbers.

Apparently stung by the failure to act, Professor Jim Stevenson, who led the Southampton study, wrote to the FSA demanding immediate action.

His letter dated 20 March is included in the bundle of documents forwarded to the board, which were published yesterday.

In an 18-page rebuttal of criticism of his study, Professor Stevenson and three colleagues wrote: "The position in relation to AFCs [Artificial Food Colours] is analogous to the state of knowledge about lead and IQ that was being evaluated in the early 1980s ... Needleman [a researcher] found the difference in IQ between high and low lead groups was 5.5 IQ points ... This is very close to the sizes obtained in our study of food additives."

Politicians finally phased out leaded petrol from all petrol stations in 2000, almost two decades after researchers warned that the toxin was stunting the development of young brains.

Professor Stevenson's team warned: "We would argue that the findings from our own study and the previous research overviewed by the Efsa would lead to the same conclusion as was reached by Professor Sir Michael Rutter in relation to lead in 1983. Namely that for food colours there is 'justification for action now'."

They advised that there be more research on a seventh additive they studied, the preservative sodium benzoate, which stops mould growing in fizzy drinks such as Diet Coke.

The FSA's board, which meets on Thursday, will make a recommendation to ministers on what to do about additives.

Officials have warned that some products such as mushy peas, tinned strawberries and Battenberg cake might not be able to be reformulated in time and might have to be withdrawn from the shelves.

* A list of more than 900 products containing the additives is published on the Food Commission's website http://actiononadditives.com