Epilepsy Study Incriminates Aspartame in Medications

Dr. Allen Stein, Neurosurgeon, President of the Epilepsy Foundation of Hawaii (a separate organization from the above) is sympathetic to the makers of ASPARTAME and routinely prescribes these drugs. I believe this contributes to the increase of epilepsy in these areas.

Glenn Mabson, PhD., CEO
Epileptic Foundation of Maui (dba Pacific Epilepsy Society)
808 879 8999

INTERVIEW WITH DR. MABSON: by Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum

MARTINI: How did you get started in this investigation, and why, Dr. Mabson?

MABSON From 1999 to 2007 The Epileptic Foundation of Maui conducted a survey on the number of people in Maui suffering from the three most prevalent types of epileptic seizures:(1) Absence (2) Complex-partial (3) Grand Mal Seizures.

4,975 victims from a Maui Population of 130,000 suffered from one of these types of seizures. Seniors over 65 and children 12 or less had increased epileptic seizures. The count for the entire state of Hawaii is over 28,000 seizure victims.

In an effort to determine the most effective medication it was discovered that well over 50% of the victims consumed medications containing aspartame. We inquired as to what anti-seizure medications were mostly prescribed to control their seizures. Dilantin, Tegratol and Depacote contained most aspartame amount among the 22 most utilized anti-seizure medications.

In 2007 the Dilantin changed the 100 mg white capsule with red stripe to a much larger white capsule, orange on one end, which contains 100 mg of the drug, plus aspartame. 150 people who took the new Dilantin capsule found the seizure rate increased in every case.

Impaired vision and thinking, and it is suspected glaucoma in fifty patients who never had visual problems prior to taking the new Dilantin capsule. We suspected this was an experiment out of control. A manufacturer of Dilantin then confirmed aspartame is in the drug.

MARTINI: Were there any deaths having to do with aspartame?

MABSON: Dr. Allen Stein, Neurosurgeon, has been prescribing aspartame to patients in large quantities with negative results, in some cases as many as 150 highly suspected deaths. He is president of the Epilepsy Foundation of Hawaii.

MARTINI: What is the difference between your organization and Stein's?

MABSON: A big and important difference: The Epileptic Foundation of Maui (EFM) provides first aid to epilepsy victims, hands on help, with a 24/7 Help Line 1 888-919-9444 We have trained more than 5000 parents, Maui Police, Department of Public Safety, IRS, Hawaii Business and Public Schools at no cost! We provide immediate, practical lifesaving care to seizure victims.

This is very personal to me. I have traumatic epilepsy from torture during 18 months as a civilian prisoner of war in Viet Nam. Over 50 dedicated volunteers carry out this public service. We take no money from aspartame makers.

MARTINI: So what does Stein's organization do?

MABSON: It sells books and some outdated documents, but provides no personal service.

MARTINI: In what journals have you published?

MABSON: Among many others, the following: Neurology 48:621.

Hamburg University News 2003, Strouseburg on Epilepsy Vol 2 pp 5, 6, 7 & 8 Savic, International. Athurer lnternational Epilepsy Research 26:245 2002: Long Term Follow-up After Temporal Lobe Resection for Lesions Associated With Choric Seizures

[Note by Betty Martini, D.Hum: It has been known that aspartame is a seizure triggering drug for three decades. In a 52 week aspartame oral toxicity study on 7 infant monkeys, 5 had grand mal seizures and 1 died. http://www.aspartaam.nl/artikelen_eng/raorapport.txt

The FDAs 1995 list of 92 documented symptoms from 10,000 citizen complaints named 4 types of seizures, death, blindness, sexual disfunction and a long list of neurological injuries. www.mpwhi.com/92_aspartame_symptoms.pdf

Dr. Richard Wurtman testified against aspartame to Congress. He told UPI investigator Gregory Gordon that he was threatened by the VP of G D Searle Co, aspartame producer , that his funding would be killed if he studied aspartame seizures. So Wurtman speaks no more against aspartame but he left quite a paper trail. http://www.wnho.net/upi_1987_aspartame1.htm

Mrs. Barbara Metzler, Mission Possible New Jersey, tells about her daughter Julia:In April 1986 Julia was completing her graduate studies, was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. A neurologist in Pennsylvania was treating her with medication he deemed appropriate, but without success. I learned Dr. Richard Wurtman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was doing research into a possible link between epileptic seizures and aspartame. (NutraSweet). It occurred to me that aspartame may have triggered her problems, since I experienced that beverages sweetened with aspartame gave me classic migraines. I spoke to my daughters many friends, and they watched her carefully and reported individually that she had peculiar episodes shortly after they saw her drink diet soda. So I wrote to Dr. Wurtman and he replied:

Thank you for writing to us about your daughters condition that may very well be associated with NutraSweet. He requested that I send him specific information about Julie's neurological problems, then arranged for her to be evaluated at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Her evaluation included 3 days of monitoring with EEG telemetry as well as neuropsychological testing.

When the testing was completed, my daughter was told that she had been misdiagnosed by her Pennsylvania neurologist and that she did not have temporal lobe epilepsy at all. She was advised to stop her medication and to stop drinking diet soda. She listened, and little by little, her bizarre problem disappeared. To watch her recover was an incredible experience! Twelve years later, she tried diet soda again and she had the same severe reaction. She quit the diet soda sweetened with aspartame and never had a problem again.

I also contacted Dr. H.J. Roberts in Florida and he immediately suggested that my daughter was suffering from a reaction to the artificial sweetener aspartame in her diet soda. And, he realized that the aspartame also had a definite effect on her cognitive functioning and her vision. This case is presented in two of Dr. Roberts books exposing aspartame.

How do aspartame makers get research to show their poison is harmless? The golden rule applies: He who supplies the Gold makes the Rules. Researchers-for-hire are vassals of the corporations paying them. If they come back with the honest analysis: Your junk is a killer! they get blacklisted, so naturally their report reads: Your glorious scientific breakthrough is marvelous, safe, effective and wonderful and everybody in the World should take it twice a day! [If we don't lie about it somebody else will!]

And should you publish a medical magazine, all it takes to get ridiculous fake research published is a fat advertising contract. Dr. Ralph Walton correlated scientific studies with their funding and determined that 92% of independent studies unfunded by corporations, show aspartame problems, but 100% of corporate controlled research declare it safe. http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html

G. D. Searle Cos reports to the FDA were so bad that the Justice Department initiated prosecution for fraud. The easy to fix for Searle: was to hire the prosecutors, who stalled until the statute of limitations was about to run out, then left the Government.

You just cant make a poison safe. Here is the famous FDA audit, the Bressler Report: http://www.dorway.com/bressler.txt

Dr. Ralph Walton did his own study on aspartame which was then owned by Monsanto who refused to sell him the aspartame because they couldnt control his research. But the study was shut down after one man had a retinal detachment and never regained the sight in one eye. Another volunteer had conjunctival bleeding and others complained of being poisoned. In speaking to Dr.Walton about this study, he replied: We have known for many years that aspartame lowers the seizure threshold. To combine an anticonvulsive with aspartame to make seizures more likely is outrageous. Read his report on aspartame seizures and psychiatric disorders. http://www.mpwhi.com/aspartame_and_psychiatric_disorders.htm

Here is research by Mark Gold of the Aspartame Toxicity Center, showing scientific abuse in seizure research and aspartame by industry. http://www.dorway.com/wurtman2.html

Washington Consumer Attorney James Turner, who fought with Dr. Olney to prevent aspartame approval commented on the Epileptic Foundation of Mauis study:

This study has confirmed that aspartame triggers both seizures and epilepsy, but this isnt news to me. In 1986 I was the attorney for the Community Nutrition Institute who petitioned FDA to ban aspartame for that exact reason. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology surveyed 80 people who experienced seizures after consuming aspartame. The petition of Community Nutrition Institutes petition said:

These 80 cases meet the FDA's definition of an imminent hazard to the public health, which requires FDA to expeditiously remove a product from the market." His case went all the way to the Supreme Court and was turned down, which shows the power of the manufacturers, because how could any Supreme Court Justice who examined proof that aspartame triggers seizures let it stay on the market.

Our Supreme Court is overwhelmed by Big Pharma's influence as shown by the Court's February decision, Riegel v. Medtronic Inc., barring lawsuits in state courts that challenge and contest the safety/effectiveness of medical devices that are FDA approved. Recently lawmakers have unveiled plans to introduce legislation in the House and Senate to overturn that decision which restricts states authority and deprives afflicted patients of any recourse for damages.

Next Big Pharma will attempt to become free of any liability from dangerous drugs that inflict disability and death on consumers. Of course this is unconstitutional. Had the FDA banned aspartame in l986 thousands of aspartame victims would still be alive. Subsequently FDA listed 92 aspartame symptoms including four types of seizures, and death, which were tabulated from over 10,000 volunteered consumer complaints.

On Maui, a Pacific paradise, over 100 aspartame seizures victims have died. Multiply that in over 100 countries where aspartame is consumed in thousands of foods and soft drinks. It should be banned by Codex to prevent a rampaging scourge as it would multiply in even more countries.

FDA list of reactions to aspartame named grand mal seizures, seizures and convulsions, petit mal seizures, now called absence seizures, simple partial seizures & complex partial seizures. An imminent health hazard amendment in October to a 6 year old Citizens

Petition to ban aspartame by Dr. Betty Martini, Founder of Mission Possible International, has been ignored by the FDA. The FDA is corrupted by the avalanche of cash paid by the companies it regulates, over half of FDA funding. Face it, FDA works for Big Pharma, not citizens. It should immediately ban aspartame, as it should have done 22 years ago instead of continuing in the hire of aspartame producers.

The Epileptic Foundation of Mauis research shows anti-seizure drugs contain seizure triggering aspartame which they give to epileptics to stop seizures. When will this obscene insanity cease.

H. J. Roberts, M.D., FACP, FCCP authored the encyclopedic1,000 page text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic , and has reported on aspartame seizures for years, as well as drug interaction with anti-seizure medication. He said:

Considering the large body of data pointing to aspartame-induced or aggravated epilepsy, I regard the virtual total lack of interest therein as disgraceful. For any who doubt the reality of this association, I have detailed the clinical and experimental information in many articles and four texts over the past quarter century. This issue has been compounded by the addition of aspartame to a number of drugs used to treat seizures. (www.sunsentpress.com)

Dr. Kenneth P. Stoller explains:
When large amounts of unopposed phenylalanine (1/3rd of the aspartame molecule) hits the brain it causes serotonin levels to crash which lowers seizure threshold, and in many cases causes frank seizures. This information has been known since the 1970s when the original research was done on monkeys but kept from the FDA by the then owner of the patent G. D. Searle. This is why the FDA called the US attorney to convene a grand jury against Searle. The lawyers representing Searle then bought the US Attorney who left the case to his assistant. The Grand Jury was allowed to expire and the assistant was then hired by the same law firm as his reward for killing the Grand Jury.

President, International Hyperbaric Medical Assoc www.hbotnm.com Medical Director, Hyperbaric Medical Center of New Mexico++++

By law a food additive must be inert, non-reactive. Aspartame is a chemical poison, an excitoneurotoxic drug that interacts with virtually all drugs and vaccines. Because it rapidly degrades it quickly becomes adulterated. Its illegal to ship adulterated products according to interstate commerce laws. Only by the political clout of Don Rumsfeld, who was hired as CEO of the Searle Co to get it on the market, is it now poisoning the world. http://www.soundandfury.tv/pages/rumsfeld2.html

Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., www.russellblaylockmd.com wrote in Health & Nutrition to save Your Life: "So in the case of diet drinks in aluminum cans, the very toxic brain aluminum fluoride compound co-exists with multiple toxins found in aspartame, thus creating the most powerful government-approved toxic soup imaginable." ....He says that drinking even one diet cola a day can cause formaldehyde buildup in cells, so that the amount of the toxin increases daily. "

He also wrote that "phenylalanine is a precursor of the catecholamine neurotransmitters in the brain and elevated levels in the brain have been associated with seizures. These catecholamines are metabolized to form other excitotoxins and peroxide products that can lead to elevated free radical formation and lipid peroxidation within neurons.

"Likewise aspartic acid, an excitotoxin, acts as an excitatory neurotransmitter and can lower the seizure threshold making a seizure more likely. The additive effect of aspartic acid and phenylalanine would significantly increase the likelihood of a seizure, especially under hypoglycemic conditions. This would occur if a diet drink is substituted for a meal, or if one is on a stringent diet. It is well known that hypoglycemia greatly magnifies the excitotoxic effects of these ingredients,"

Now aspartame even in drugs, the very drugs that are used to treat the problems aspartame triggers in the first place, like seizures.

Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder

Mission Possible International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770 242-2599
www.mpwhi.com, www.dorway.com, www.wnho.net
Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
Aspartame Information List, www.mpwhi.com scroll down to banners

(PS) Now in the news: FDA Told to Skip Black Box on Epilepsy Drugs and Suicide: Wall Street Journal

Posted by Jacob Goldstein

Until yesterday, the FDA had been rolling steadily toward slapping a black-box warning on epilepsy drugs because they may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

But a committee of outside experts convened by the FDA thinks thats a bad idea. The panel voted 14-4 against the black-box warning yesterday, with three abstentions, the WSJ reports.

The committee members did agree that some risk may be associated with the drugs. But the panel didn't seem to think that the risk, which the FDA found by pooling data from many studies, is high enough to merit a black-box - the most serious warning commonly used for prescription drugs. Among the medicines reviewed were Pfizers Lyrica, Abbott Laboratories Depakote and Johnson & Johnsons Topamax.

One panel member said the risk appears to be modest. And some worried that the black-box warning might prevent some patients from taking the drugs in cases where the benefits of reducing seizures would outweigh the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors.

The panel did support a more moderate step: Sending a medication guide to doctors detailing the risks.

Suicide risk has been a big issue for the agency with other drugs, so yesterdays vote puts the agency in a bit of an awkward spot on a very sensitive subject. The FDA isn't required to follow the advisory committees suggestions, but it usually does so.

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Note the FDA wanted to add a warning label on epileptic drugs because of suicidal thoughts and behavior.A panel of experts were convened and told the FDA to skip the black box warning. Who were the experts, Big Pharma? Is there any question regarding who is running the FDA? Recently the drug Singulair was in question because of suicidal tendencies. Even a 7 year old was suicidal. http://www.mpwhi.com/fda_probes_suicide_in_singulair.htm

Singulair has aspartame in it. The phenylalanine in aspartame lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin. Lowered serotonin triggers bipolar, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, anxiety, mood swings, etc. The FDA is probably still in the "probing" stage, and never gets any further because they are Big Pharma's Washington Branch Office.