Aspartame Lawsuits Accuse Many
Companies of Poisoning the Public

Defendants in the lawsuits include Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Bayer Corp., the Dannon Company, William Wrigley Jr. Company, ConAgra Foods, Wyeth, Inc., The NutraSweet Company, and Altria Corp. (parent company of Kraft Foods and Philip Morris) and WalMart, among others.

SACRAMENTO-- April 6th, Lawsuits were filed in three separate California courts against twelve companies who either produce or use the artificial sweetener aspartame as a sugar substitute in their products. The suits were filed in Shasta, Sonoma and Butte County, California.

The suits allege that the food companies committed fraud and breach of warranty by marketing products to the public such as Det Coke, Diet Pepsi, sugar free gum, Flintstone's vitamins, yogurt and children's aspirin with the full knowledge that aspartame, the sweetener in them, is neurotoxic.

Aspartame is a drug masquerading as an additive. It interacts with other drugs, has a synergistic and additive effect with MSG, and is a chemical hyper-sensitization agent. As far back as 1970, Dr. John Olney founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity when he did studies on aspartic acid, which makes up 40% of aspartame, and found it caused lesions in the brains of mice. He made world news on the aspartame/brain tumor connection in 1996. Dr. Ralph Walton, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, has written of the behavioural and psychiatric problems triggered by aspartame-caused depletion of serotonin.

Aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue and depression.

Aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction. Methanol, or wood alcohol, constitutes one-third of the aspartame molecule and is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic.

Recent news is full of reports of world-class athletes and other healthy consumers of aspartame suddenly dropping dead. Sudden death can occur from aspartame use because it damages the cardiac conduction system.

Dr. Woodrow Monte in the peer reviewed journal, Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health, wrote: "When diet sodas and soft drinks, sweetened with aspartame, are used to replace fluid loss during exercise and physical exertion in hot climates, the intake of methanol can exceed 250 mg/day or 32 times the Environmental Protection Agency's recommended limit of consumption for this cumulative poison."

The effects of aspartame are documented by the FDA's own data. In 1995 the agency was forced, under the Freedom of Information Act, to release a list of ninety-two aspartame symptoms reported by thousands of victims. This is only the tip of the iceberg. H. J. Roberts, MD, published the medical text 'Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic' -- 1,000 pages of symptoms and diseases triggered by this neurotoxin including the sordid history of its approval.

Since its discovery in 1965, controversy has raged over the health risks associated with the sugar substitute. From laboratory testing of the chemical on rats, researchers have discovered that the drug induces brain tumors. On 30th September 1980, the Board of Inquiry of the FDA concurred and denied the petition for approval. In 1981, the newly appointed FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, ignored the negative ruling and approved aspartame for dry goods. As recorded in the Congressional Record of 1985, then CEO of Searle Laboratories, Donald Rumsfeld, said that he would call in his markers to get aspartame approved. Rumsfeld was on President Reagan's transition team and a day after taking office appointed Hayes. No FDA Commissioner in the previous sixteen years had allowed aspartame on the market.

In 1983, aspartame was approved for use in carbonated beverages. Today it is found in over 5000 foods, drinks and medicines.

Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, MD, author of 'Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills' (http://www.russellblaylockmd.com) wrote about the relationship between aspartame and macular degeneration, diabetic blindness and glaucoma (all known to result from excitotoxin accumulation in the retina).

All of these neurodegenerative diseases are worsened by aspartame. In addition, we now have evidence that excitotoxins play a major role in exacerbation of MS and other demyelinating disorders, including trigeminal neuralgia. Blaylock says that new studies show excitotoxins trigger significant elevation of free radicals in the lining (endothelial cells) of arteries, which means that aspartame will increase the incidence of heart attacks and strokes (atherosclerosis).

In original studies, aspartame has triggered brain, mammary, uterine, ovarian, testicular, thyroid and pancreatic tumours.

Plaintiffs have asked for an injunction to stop companies from producing, manufacturing, processing, selling or using aspartame. Plaintiffs in all three cases are seeking a jury trial.
World Natural Health Organization
National Justice League

Aspartame Profile
Today, the sweeteners sucrose and saccharin remain as controversial as ever, and the debate over whether or not they represent a cancer hazard to the public continues to rage. And yet, people who have turned to another alternative to saccharin and sugar over the past 20 years have become equally dismayed at a parallel fur-fight over aspartame, decked out in the garb of a light blue sachet, which began adorning restaurants and diners the world over under the brand names Nutrasweet, Canderel, Equal, Spoonful and Equal-Measure.

Aspartame was discovered by accident in 1965 by James Schlatter, a chemist working for G D Serle Company, who was testing anti-ulcer compounds for his employers. Aspartame's original approval as a sweetener for public consumption was blocked by neuroscientist Dr John W Olney and consumer attorney James Turner in August 1974 over concerns about both aspartame's safety and G D Serle's research practices. However, aspartame duly received its approval for dry goods in 1981 and its go-ahead as a sweetener for carbonated beverages was granted in 1983, despite growing concerns over its neurological effects. In 1985, G D Serle was purchased by pharmaceutical giant Monsanto, and Serle Pharmaceuticals and The NutraSweet Company were created as separate corporate identities.

According to researcher Alex Constantine in his essay entitled "Sweet Poison", aspartame may account for up to 75% of the adverse food reactions reported to the US FDA, due primarily to its reported ability to affect neurological processes in humans. Dr Olney found that an excess of aspartate and glutamate, two chemicals used by the body as neurotransmitters to transmit information between brain neurons, could kill neurons in the brain by allowing too much calcium to collect in the neuron cells to neutralise acid. This neurological damage led Olney to label aspartate and glutamate 'excitotoxins', in that they, according to Olney, 'excite' or stimulate the neural cells to death.

Symptoms
Side-effects laid at the door of aspartame poisoning include fits, convulsions, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, ALS, memory loss, hormonal problems, hearing loss, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, AIDS dementia, brain lesions and neuro-endocrine disorders. Risks to infants, children and pregnant women from aspartame were also underscored by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, a research body that traditionally follows FDA policy and adopts a softly-softly approach to chemical problems. The Federation declared: "It is prudent to avoid the use of dietary supplements of L-glutamic acid by pregnant women, infants and children. The existence of evidence for potential endocrine responses… would also suggest a neuroendocrine link and that… L-glutamic acid should be avoided by women of childbearing age and individuals with affective disorders."

Commentary
Aspartame comprises two chief trouble-makers:
Phenylalanine: The amino acid L-phenylalanine, used by the brain, comprises 50% of aspartame. People suffering from the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolise phenylalanine and so an excess of this amino acid builds up in parts of the brain, leading to a decrease of serotonin levels, bringing on emotional disorders and depression.

Methanol: Also known as wood alcohol, the poison methanol is a 10% ingredient of aspartame, which is created when aspartame is heated above 86oF (30oC) in, for example, the preparation of processed foods. Methanol oxidises in the body to produce formic acid and the deadly neurotoxin, formaldehyde, also used as a prime ingredient in many vaccinations. Methanol is considered by America's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as "…a cumulative poison, due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidised to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic."

A one-litre carbonated beverage, sweetened with aspartame, contains around 56 mg of methanol. Heavy consumers of soft drinks sweetened with aspartame can ingest up to 250 mg of methanol daily, especially in the summer, amounting to 32 times the EPA warning limit.

Dr Woodrow C Monte, Director of the Food Science and Nutritional Laboratory at Arizona State University, was concerned that human response to methanol was probably much higher than with animals, due to humans lacking key enzymes that assist in the detoxification of methanol in other creatures. Monte stated: "There are no human or mammalian studies to evaluate the possible mutagenic, teratogenic, or carcinogenic effects of chronic administration of methyl alcohol."

Monte's concern about aspartame was so great that he petitioned the FDA through the courts to address these issues. Monte requested that the FDA "…slow down on this soft drink issue long enough to answer some of the important questions. It's not fair that you are leaving the full burden of proof on the few of us who are concerned and have such limited resources. You must remember that you are the American public's last defense. Once you allow usage [of aspartame], there is literally nothing I or my colleagues can do to reverse the course. Aspartame will then join saccharin, the sulfiting agents, and God knows how many other questionable compounds enjoined to insult the human constitution with government approval."

Ironically, shortly after Dr Monte's impassioned plea, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., the Commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages. Shortly after, he left the FDA to take up a position with G D Serle's public relations company. In 1993, the FDA further approved aspartame as a food ingredient in numerous process foods that would always be heated above 86 degrees F as part of their preparation.

Dr Joseph Mercola is no lover of aspartame. The well-known nutrition and health researcher itemises another catalogue of woes that have come to punctuate aspartame's hopeless legacy as a food additive:

"In 1991, the National Institutes of Health listed 167 symptoms and reasons to avoid the use of aspartame, but today it is a multi-million dollar business that contributes to the degeneration of the human population, as well as the deliberate suppression of overall intelligence, short-term memory and the added contribution as a carcinogenic environmental co-factor.

The FDA and Centers for Disease Control continue to receive a stream of complaints from the population about aspartame. It is the only chemical warfare weapon available in mass quantities on the grocery shelf and promoted in the media. It has also been indicated that women with an intolerance for phenylalanine, one of the components of aspartame, may give birth to infants with as much as a 15% drop in intelligence level if they habitually consume products containing this dangerous substance."
Copyright © 2004 Phillip Day
Extracted from The ABC's of Disease

Further Resources
The ABC's of Disease by Phillip Day
Health Wars by Phillip Day
Food for Thought by Phillip Day

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