Posted: 30 Sep 2005
Environmental Improvement Board, EIB, in New Mexico has the right to ban aspartame since it violates state and federal adulteration statutes. Aspartame manufacturer Ajinomoto protests along with Calorie Control Council using different names like Kellen, in Atlanta, aspartame industry's front group.
New Mexico/Atlanta September 27, 2005 -- On October 4 the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board will consider whether it has statutory authority to ban aspartame or if FDA approval of the chemical cancels New Mexico's power to protect its citizens. The EIB's vote in Room 2027, NM State Records & Archives/Library Bldg., 1205 Camino Carlos Rey will be a momentous decision affecting every New Mexican. This had been scheduled to be in the Capital but changed today due to a special session at the Roundhouse that week.
The Petitioner, Stephen Fox, explains: "The corporations which make and use aspartame are trying to ignore the 1941 and l982 New Mexico statutes on poisonous food additives as well as the Environment Act which created the EIB. If they prevail with their totally corporate-serving logic, they subvert the intent of the entire legislature with a transparent intimidation based on the crumbling mythology of preemption by FDA approval, the theory of which is monstrously flawed."
The decision of the seven people on the EIB will determine if there will be a detailed hearing in which victims, physicians, lawyers and others may testify, or whether the hearing will be denied and the voices of New Mexico silenced.
Renowned Attorney James Turner sent the Honorable Gay Dillingham, Chairwoman of the EIB, the following advice, in part: "Your statutory powers to consider these matters are explicitly set forth in New Mexico Food Act (25-2-1 through 25-2-19) poisonous & deleterious food adulteration is the province of the EIB; your powers in that regard are very precise."
Turner further states: "During [1970] I worked closely with the United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, to which I subsequently served as special counsel. Dr. John Olney of Washington University in St. Louis, whose information presented to that committee played a key role in the elimination of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) from baby food, informed me that the aspartic acid component of aspartame created the same kind of lesions (holes) in the brains of mice that MSG did. Dr. Olney's information caused me to investigate aspartame further.
"In 1969, I was the lawyer in charge of a team of 20 law and medical students investigating, under the direction of Ralph Nader, food safety regulation at the US Food and Drug Administration. The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on Food Protection and the FDA, which I authored, reported the results of that investigation.
"Dr. Olney's information about the harm caused to mice brains by a component of aspartame looked to me strikingly like the information on cyclamate.
"These concerns included several animal studies showing a significant number of brain tumors in aspartame-treated animals but not in controls. Breakdown products created by the digestion of aspartame included known cancer-causing substances. In a study of approximately 20 monkeys, all high-dose animals experienced grand mal (epileptic) seizures. Finally, when the scientific documents were made public --the first and only time FDA made trade-secret food additive evidence public --scientists advising me found also that aspartame-fed animals suffered measurable eye damage and women users experienced statistically significant weight gain. Searle had not -- in spite of its legal obligations -- reported the lesions to FDA.
"In the early 1990's National Cancer Institute data showed that there had been a ten percent rise in humans of the same kind of brain tumor that most pathologists found in the aspartame animal studies. Dr. Olney and I, this time accompanied by Mike Wallace of "Sixty Minutes," approached FDA to see if it would support doing the new brain studies we had sought in 1977. The FDA official in charge said no, and two years later became Vice President of Clinical Research for Searle. Over the years, several other key decision makers for the FDA have taken jobs with the soft drink industry or others with an economic interest in NutraSweet.
"During these past 35 years I have met with, spoken to or corresponded with hundreds of aspartame users who feel that the chemical has caused them great harm -- seizures, blindness, migraines and other problems. With over 10,000 consumer complaints filed with FDA, it is the most complained-of food additive." [Read entire letter at http://www.wnho.net/eib_turner.htm]
The aspartame industry's front group, Calorie Control Council, published a letter in the Miami Herald recommending aspartame for pregnant women with full knowledge it triggers birth defects. Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D. wrote: "This is the most serious breach of public trust in the history of this nation....The promoters of aspartame use have been lying from the beginning and continue to use their money and political clout to cover up the real and present dangers of this toxic product."
Dr. Betty Martini, of Mission Possible International encourages: "All eyes should be on New Mexico and this historic decision. Everyone who can help should get involved. New Mexico can behead this snake, and when it does a precedent will be set for every state!
"A war is being waged against our health by the producers, vendors, lobbyists, front groups and shills of this poison who use their vast power, cash, propaganda, advertising and colossal corruption to buy freedom to poison us all.
"Compromised groups like the AMA, the Diabetics and the Dietetics associations, and the Calorie Control Council, fill our hospitals and cemeteries. CCC pushes it on pregnant women, knowing it yields miscarriages and birth defects, as Professor of Pediatrics Dr. Louis Elsas explained to Congress. Consumers eat a poison that converts into methyl alcohol, formaldehyde, formic acid, diketopiperazine and other deadlys, for which reasons The National Soft Drink Association protested against it in the 5/7/85 Congressional Record."
Governor Richardson could courageously use his influence to request the EIB to ban aspartame, putting his constituents' health first in New Mexico. Physicians, lawyers, and victims all over the United States have written and continue to write to Bill Richardson and to the EIB, asking them to lead New Mexico out of the "formaldehyde cocktail" era. Turner's letter proves to the EIB and to Governor Richardson there is at least one solid precedent, besides the fact aspartame violates federal and state statutes on adulteration, and that is Nixon's order to rescind FDA approval for cyclamates in l969.
Media contacts on issue:
The Honorable Bill Richardson Attention, David Contarino, Chief of Staff Governor of New Mexico, The Capitol, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 [(505) 827-3000]
Bill Sparks, Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications 505-476-2214
---------------------------------------------------
The Honorable Jerry Ortiz y Pino, New Mexico State Senator (505) 265-3717
Letter to Miami Herald by neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., on Calorie Control Council: http://www.wnho.net/mh_aspartame_letter.htm
National Soft Drink Assn admitting aspartame violates federal statutes, part of congressional record: http://www.dorway.com/nsda.html
Aspartame Violates State and Federal Adulteration Statutes: http://www.rense.com/general67/aspar.htm
Books from the experts with the facts:
H. J. Roberts, M.D., Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, 1038 page medical text, (and others) http://www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 827 7991
Russell Blaylock, M.D., Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills (and others) , http://www.russellblaylockmd.com
Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, aspartame documentary: http://www.docworkers.com Clip of James Turner explaining how aspartame got approved by politics: http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/rumsfeld2.html
Ajinomoto, Aspartame & Brain Tumors: Recipe for Death: http://www.wnho.net/recipe_for_death.htm Contains open letter to Ajinomoto they refuse to answer. Aspartame Manufacturers Tell A Whopper: http://www.wnho.net/whopper
Ecologist, UK: http://www.wnho.net/the_ecologist_aspartame_report.htm
Dr. Betty Martini, Founder, Mission Possible International, 9270 River Club Parkway, Duluth, Georgia 30097 (770) 242-2599 http://www.wnho.net and http://www.dorway.com
Aspartame Toxicity Center, http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame