CSPI Warns of Aspartame - Advocates Sucralose
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has warned that aspartame, the artificial sugar substitute in most diet drinks, may cause cancer as reported in a three-year Italian study that found links to lymphomas and leukemias . But the CSPI communication goes on to advocate use of another doubtful sweetener - sucralose - to get off aspartame. Sucralose, also sold under the Splenda brand name, has its own problems of toxicity and is by no means an innocuous replacement for aspartame.
Although the CSPI has - with a delay of several years - come out now with a warning against the use of aspartame, Betty Martini charges that its executive director, Michael Jacobson, should have had the courage to do so long ago. She says the information was available since the time of the aspartame approval through political pressure called in by Donald Rumsfeld, former CEO of aspartame manufacturer Searle and now defense secretary.
Diet soda, which generally is sweetened with aspartame, has been shown to be linked to an increased incidence of obesity by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio in a recent study. While Fowler is quick to point out that the link does not prove causation, the facts showed that the more diet drinks a person consumed, the higher was the likelihood of being obese.
Why can't we encourage people to just overcome their sweet tooth?
Perhaps it would help, but of course there is no money in that. We have the sugar industry, the chemical sweetener manufacturers and the processed foods and drinks industry making sure that does not happen. But people do pay the bill - some with their lives, others with suffering and illness, others simply with obesity, and all of them with their weekly grocery bills, not to talk about hospital costs that hit every one of us. Great system and real great advice by CSPI, which says it is defending consumers...
Read the CSPI announcement and Betty Martini's comments to CSPI's Michael Jacobson here:
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Center for Science in the Public Interest
July 27, 2005
Aspartame: New Study Renews Cancer Concern, Says CSPI
Consumers & Manufacturers Should Switch to Sucralose Pending Thorough Government Safety Tests
The Food and Drug Administration should immediately review the safety of the artificial sweetener aspartame, and possibly ban it, in light of a new study published in the European Journal of Oncology. The study, conducted in Italy, found statistically significant increases in lymphomas and leukemias among female rats given aspartame. The smallest amount of aspartame (20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight) that caused a significant increase in cancer incidence is in the ballpark of what many people consume. The study also found equivocal results regarding brain tumors.
At a minimum, the government should conduct new animal studies of aspartame and encourage consumers and manufacturers that use artificial sweeteners to switch to sucralose, which CSPI considers to be the safest of the several artificial sweeteners on the market.
Aspartame, also sold as Equal and NutraSweet, is used in Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, and thousands of other foods and is consumed by 200 million people in the United States and around the world, according to the industry's Calorie Control Council.
"The FDA immediately should ask the government's National Toxicology Program to conduct new animal studies to assess the cancer risk from aspartame. As a precautionary measure, in the several years it would take to design and conduct such studies, the FDA should consider ordering aspartame off the market," said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. "Despite several shortcomings in the new study, one notable plus is that it was designed and conducted independently. Virtually all of the previous research was sponsored by the makers of aspartame."
(In 1996, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the FDA repeatedly stopped the National Toxicology Program from conducting lifetime animal tests of aspartame.)
The authors of the Italian study call for "urgent re-examination of permissible exposure levels of [aspartame] in both food and beverages, especially to protect children."
CSPI has long urged that aspartame be better tested, but has not maintained that the artificial sweetener is harmful, except to some people in whom it causes headaches. The California Environmental Protection Agency has also called for further studies on aspartame.
For more information, contact:
Center for Science in the Public Interest
1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone 202.332.9110
fax 202.265.4954
From: "Dr. Betty Martini,D.Hum."
Subject: Confession is good for the Soul: Michael Jacobson, CSPI, finally calls for possible Ban on Aspartame, but encourages the use of a chlorocarbon poison, Splenda.
Dear Michael,
Yes, indeed, confession is good for the soul. I have personally written you for years about the dangers of aspartame, and still have the letters. I've sent you indisputable evidence including the knowledge there is a 1038 page medical text on the toxin, completely documented, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com by Dr. H. J. Roberts. I've told you about Dr. Ralph Walton's research he showed on 60 Minutes with Dr. Olney, on scientific peer reviewed studies and funding. 92% of independent, unbiased studies show the problems aspartame causes. Still just like you admitted in this press release you've never said anything except it needs more testing. And right again where you say "But has not maintained that the artificial sweetener is harmful, except for some people in whom it causes headaches." Why, Michael, you had all the evidence years ago and in 1985 wrote your own damning report? You knew the gun was loaded. You've received volumes of information over the years not only from me but other Mission Possible activists and the public at large. And you've been on our web sites and read the material.
Yet, on Fox News you advocated the public use diet drinks even though a study by Sharon Fowler of the University of Texas proved once for all that obesity is linked to diet drinks. http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/dietsoda.html She used 8 years of data and what was in Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi all these years - aspartame! And you knew it and you knew about the Italian study showing aspartame conclusively to be a carcinogen causing leukemia, lymphoma and malignant brain tumors.
In fact, you say in the press release below: "Aspartame, also sold as Equal and NutraSweet, is used in Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, and thousands of other foods and is consumed by 200 million people in the United States and around the world" -- So I'll ask you again why you pushed diet drinks on Fox News. I hope they never interview you again. And as far as the diabetic epidemic, you know aspartame can precipitate diabetes, simulates and aggravates diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, and interacts with insulin. You've been told for years and told what physician's books contained the information. And the reports are on the web sites you've been on.
Mission Possible International has been asking for a ban on aspartame for 14 years, and the physicians who are experts like Dr. Roberts long before that. Aren't you a little late? If you had spoken out when you knew about it over 20 years ago maybe it would not have murdered hundreds of thousands of people or even millions. But now that the Italian study is global news you can't protect aspartame any longer.
Now you encourage the use of a chlorocarbon poison, Splenda. And with all the publicity about its harmful effects don't tell me you didn't know. You couldn't research the toxin without finding out. And would you encourage it without researching it? Merisant has sued them, even though its the kettle calling the pot black. Both companies mislead the public. I like the fact, you say "industry's Calorie Control Council". Yes, the Calorie Control Council is a NutraSweet front group pushing the poison. You're really fessing up today!
Go to http://www.wnho.net and read the Lethal Science of Splenda and some of Dr. Mercola's articles on sucralose/Splenda. As it says in the first report: "Splenda/sucralose is simply chlorinated sugar; a chlorocarbon. Common chlorocarbon include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene and methylene chloride, all deadly. Chlorine is nature's Doberman attack dog, a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WW1 poison gas and hydrochloric acid."
The report continues: "Sucralose is a molecule of sugar chemically manipulated to surrender three hydroxyl groups (hydrogen + oxygen) and replace them with three chlorine atoms. Natural sugar is a hydrocarbon built around 12 carbon atoms. When turned into Splenda it becomes a chlorocarbon, in the family of Chlorodane, Lindane and DDT."
Why not just say drink up on DDT-Lite!? The report tells us that when chlorine is chemically reacted into carbon-structured organic compounds to make chlorocarbons, the carbon and chlorine atoms bind to each other by mutually sharing electrons in their outer shells. This arrangement adversely affects human metabolism because our mitochondrial and cellular enzyme systems are designed to completely utilize organic molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other compatible nutrition elements.
"By this process chlorocarbons such as sucralose deliver chlorine directly into our cells through normal metabolization. This makes them effective insecticides and preservatives. Preservatives must kill anything alive to prevent bacterial decomposition."
"In test animals Splenda produced swollen livers, as do all chlorocarbon poisons, and also calcified the kidneys of test animals in toxicity studies. The brain and nervous system are highly subject to metabolic toxicities and solvency damages by these chemicals. Their high solvency attacks the human nervous system and many other body systems including genetics and the immune function. Thus, chlorocarbon poisoning an cause cancer, birth defects, and immune system destruction. These are well known effects of Dioxin and PCBs which are known deadly chlorocarbons."
Remember that aspartame is a chemical hypersensitization agent so when people get off aspartame and on to Splenda they can react. And now we are getting those reports from seizures to tachycardia to horrible rashes. One of Dr. Mercola's reports on www.wnho.net shows a picture of a Splenda reaction.
We're glad you're finally calling for a ban on aspartame but while you're fessing up be sure to tell people you've known aspartame was deadly for two decades and refused to speak out.
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