march 2005

ToxicAspartame Interacts With
ALL Drugs Vaccines And Toxins

FDA Put On Notice
From Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum.
Bettym19@mindspring.com
2-23-5

Sudden cardiac Death : The Role of Aspartame. MSG and Other Excitotoxins


By Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.

Over 460,000 people per year are now dying of a disorder called of sudden cardiac death according to CDC statistics. This is a condition striking otherwise healthy people, who have experienced no obvious symptoms of heart disease prior to their deaths. An alarming number of these deaths are occurring in young athletes, both in high schools, colleges, as well as among professional athletes.

> While cardiologists have found coronary disease and suspect previous scars from silent heart attacks in a number of these individuals, one mechanism is getting no attention at all, and that is excitotoxic damage caused by food additives and the artificial sweetener aspartame. This is despite growing evidence that the excitotoxic mechanism plays a major role in cardiac disease.

> Previously, it was thought that excitotoxin food additives, such as monosodium glutamate and aspartic acid in aspartame, cause their damage in the cardiovascular centers in the brain stem and/or by over stimulating sympathetic centers in the hypothalamus of the brain. Both of these mechanisms have been shown to result in sudden cardiac death in experimental animals.

> A particular deadly combination occurs in young athletes, which includes low magnesium intake, high calcium intake, low intake of omgea-3 fatty acids and excitotoxin food additives. Strenuous exercise- especially in extreme heat is known to deplete the body's magnesium stores, as is consumption of carbonated drinks and taking calcium supplements. In addition, adrenalin secretion, increased during exercise, increases heart muscle irritability and magnesium loss as well.

> Finally, recent research has shown that the brain is not the only tissue having glutamate receptors. Numerous glutamate receptors have been found within the heart's electrical conductions system, as well as heart muscle. When an excess of food-borne excitotoxins, such as MSG, hydrolyzed protein, soy protein isolate and concentrate, natural flavoring, sodium caseinate and aspartate from aspartame, are consumed, these glutamate receptors are over stimulated, producing cardiac arrhythmias. When magnesium stores are low, as we see in athletes, the glutamate receptors are so sensitive that even low levels of these excitotoxins can result in cardiac arrhythmias and death. This is especially so when combined with the other factors mentioned. Under such condition, free radicals and lipid peroxidation products build up within the muscle cells, leading to the same outcome.
>
> High consumption of aspartame adds an additional cardiac muscle toxin, methanol. A number of studies have shown that consuming aspartame and MSG (and similar excitotoxins) together greatly magnifies the toxicity. Young people live on junk foods, most of which contain a number of excitotoxin additives. Several studies have shown that the levels beings consumed by our youth equal those causing the damage in experimental animals. Humans are 5X more sensitive to these toxins than any animal. These same factors operate in older individuals as well. Most over age 50 years are depleted of magnesium, have low omega-3 fat intakes, are under stress and take a number of medications that worsen nutrition, especially magnesium levels. Because they are more likely to also have coronary artery disease and other medical conditions, their risk of sudden cardiac death is even higher. Both athletes and those over age 45 years should take magnesium supplements, antioxidants, omega-3 oils, eat more vegetables and avoid foods and artificial sweeteners containing excitotoxins such as aspartame and MSG. This will do a lot more than trying to rescue a person with an external defibrillator after the fact.

  Dr. Blaylock's web site is www.russellblaylockmd.com  He is author of
Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills and Health & Nutrition Secrets to Save
Your Life.  He  can be seen in the movie, Sweet Misery:  A Poisoned World
on aspartame.  You can get a copy from cori@soundandfuryproductions.com

Dr. Betty Martini, Founder, Mission Possible Intl, 9270 River Club Parkway,
Duluth, Georgia 30097 770 242-2599  www.dorway.com

--

Who knows more about the toxicity of aspartame than the FDA. Their toxicologists, Doctors Adrian Gross and Jacqueline Verrett strenuously objected to aspartame approval for 16 years. It wasn't just that aspartame is not safe and in original studies triggered brain tumors, seizures and all sorts of other tumors, it was that the manufacturer filtered out what they didn't want FDA to see.   (January 10, l977 in a 33 page letter, FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill recommended to U.S. Attorney Sam Skinner that a grand jury investigate Searle for "apparent violations of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, 21 U.S.C.331(e), Act 18 USC 1001, for "their willful and knowing failure to make reports to the Food and Drug Administration required by the Act 21, U.S.C. 355 (i) and for concealing material facts and making false statements in reports of animal studies conducted to establish the safety of (aspartame)," The FDA called special attention to studies investigating the effect of NutraSweet on monkeys and hamsters. )   FDA's Jerome Bressler wrote the brilliant FDA audit, the Bressler Report on http://www.dorway.com in regard to Searle's testing. In speaking with Bressler he told me personally the studies were so bad the worst 20% was removed by FDA when retyped. He also told this to Doctors H. J. Roberts and Dr. Russell Blaylock. Dr. Roberts asked his congressman to get the rest of the report from the FDA who promptly refused.   In the incredible aspartame documentary, Sweet Misery, A Poisoned World, from the very mouth of Attorney James Turner, who assisted the famed Dr. John Olney in trying to prevent approval ,came facts! Don Rumsfeld, currently Secretary of Defense, was CEO of Searle and said he would call in his markers and get aspartame approved. To Rumsfeld the fact the FDA said "no" meant only he would have to use politics instead of science to get this neurotoxin approved, knowing full well it would poison the public, causing in humans the injuries seen in lab animals, brain tumors and seizures. He was on Reagan's transition team and the day after Reagan took office Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed to approve this toxin, since no former FDA Commissioner had been willing to do so.   ASPARTAME WAS APPROVED BY PRESIDENTIAL ORDER   President Reagan knew it would take 30 days to get Hayes to FDA so he wrote an executive order making the outgoing FDA Commissioner powerless to oppose aspartame. From the congressional record, Senate, page S5497, May 7, l985:   "Two FDA officials have told Common Cause Magazine that Hayes was determined to push aspartame forward, in part as a signal that the Reagan administration was ushering in a new regulatory era. One official privy to some of the deliberations made at Hayes' level says the "people at the top" were not receptive to important concerns raised about the quality and validity of some of the key tests submitted in support of aspartame."  "There were real questions" about the reliability and interpretation of the data "that were glossed over" at the commissioner's level, this official says, adding that Hayes and his close associates wanted FDA scientists to concentrate on providing rationales for overturning the l980 Public Board of Inquiry instead of focusing on the fact that there were unresolved issues about a number of key tests."   John Hoey, M.D. in reviewing Marcia Angell's book, "The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It" (10/7/2004) says:   "By Angell's account, the current slide toward the commercialization and corruption of clinical research coincided with the election of President Ronald Reagan in l980 and the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act, a new set of laws that permitted and encouraged universities and small businesses to patent discoveries from research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Research paid for by the public to serve the public instantly became a private, and salable, good, one that is producing drug sales of more than $200 billion a year."   Further, Dr. Hoey in discussing research commercialization said: "The broader effects are felt in the commercialization of universities, medical faculties, and our profession. In 2000, in a letter written in response to Angell's Journal editorial, Is Academic Medicine for Sale?" a reader supplied the answer: The increasing intrusion of industry into medical education and the almost complete domination of continuing medical education (especially regarding drugs) by the marketing departments of large pharmaceutical companies are a scandal."   When Arthur Hull Hayes got to the FDA a Board of Inquiry was set up with the finest scientists FDA had. They declared: " ..the Board concludes that approval of aspartame for use in foods should be withheld at least until the question concerning its possible oncogenic potential has been resolved by further experiments. The Board has not been presented with proof of a reasonable certainty that aspartame is safe for use as a food additive under its intended conditions of use. "   "ORDER: The foregoing constitutes the Board's findings of fact and conclusions of law. Therefore, it is ORDERED that: (1) Approval of the food additive petition for aspartame (FAP 3A2885) be and it is hereby withdrawn. (2) The stay of the effectiveness of the regulation for aspartame, 21 CFR 172.804, is hereby vacated and the regulation revoked." --- This PBOI report on 9/3/80 was signed by Walle J. H. Nauta, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman, Peter W. Lampert, M.D., and Vernon R. Young, Ph.D., Member   Dr. Hayes wouldn't take "no" because he was there to get aspartame approved. As the Congressional Record continues, Senate, S5497, May 7, l985: "Hayes decisions to approve aspartame for use in dry foods such as cereals in l981 and soft drinks in l983 does not square with the role of the FDA is supposed to play. The FDA is the government agency that reviews and approves all tests submitted by companies before allowing food additives on the market. The law requires a manufacturer - in this case Searle - to prove to the satisfaction of the FDA that there is a "reasonable certainty" that a food additive is safe. The government does not have to prove that it is harmful - an important distinction. If tests are inconclusive, an additive is not suppose to be approved by the FDA."   When Hayes finished his job to get a neurotoxic drug on the market he hired on with the public relations firm, Burston Marsteller, who represented NutraSweet, for $1000.00 per day as a consultant. Hayes refused to talk to the press since. He had no excuse for approving a toxic drug whose petition was revoked by FDA scientists. Hayes had full knowledge that its a carcinogen in violation of the Delaney Amendment which forbid adding carcinogens to food and drugs.   WHEN FDA WAS PUSHED OFF ITS PEDESTAL: Imagine an intact FDA which tried to do its job of protecting the public, having to proclaim that a horrendous neurotoxic drug is safe. Would, could, FDA say when asked if aspartame was safe? "we approved it but its poison"? Probably the only thing they could say was "Ask us no questions and we will tell you no lies." Even today when journalists ask the FDA to comment on aspartame they say: "No comment. See our web site." The web site is just lying industry propaganda. Beginning with Reagan and Hayes the pharmaceutical cartel had the power to get approved the worst drugs. FDA seemed to care not. Their bulletin, the FDA Consumer continued to tout the safety of aspartame and letters to victims whose lives were destroyed said aspartame was the most tested additive in history. Even letters to congressmen lied and lied.   Dr. John Olney knew what aspartame would do to the brains of our children. and discussed it in his report to the Board of Inquiry. In l999 Parents Magazine asked "What's Happening to our Children", announcing that families all over America were experiencing so much depression it was estimated that 1 out of 4 had contemplated suicide. The 50% phenylalanine in aspartame lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin,and can trigger bipolar or manic depression, mood swings, paranoia, hallucination and suicidal tendencies. So our children are medicated instead of educated. Seventy per cent of consumers use aspartame and 40% of the children. Dr. Olney's prophecy is fulfilled.   To get a copy of the congressional record, Board of Inquiry Report and Dr. Olney's Report to the Board of Inquiry on CD you can contact Bob Flint at bobflint@greatfallspro.com. The web site would be www.greatfallspro.com   Three congressional hearings were held by Senator Howard Metzenbaum who wrote a bill to have independent studies done on the problems from aspartame, effect on the fetus, behavioral problems in children, seizures and drug interactions. The producers saw to it that the bill never got out of committee. The last of the heros of FDA toxicologists Adrian Gross and Jacqueline Verrett testified to no avail. Dr. Adrian Gross said without a shadow of a doubt aspartame causes brain tumors and brain cancer, and violates the Delaney Amendment. His last words were : "And if the FDA violates its own laws who is left to protect the public?"   We are now taking case histories on brain tumors and seizures starting in New York and New Jersey. Dr. Verrett said: "All studies were built on a foundation of sand and should be thrown out." Today's FDA is the handmaiden of the pharmaceutical/chemical cartel. The revolving door is so busy they need a bridge for the traffic. I told all this to Acting Commissioner Dr. Michael Friedman. He defended Monsanto on 60 Minutes when Dr. Olney made world news about the aspartame brain tumor association. Then Friedman hired as Vice President of Searle for big bucks - crime pays well.   Aspartame is sold as an additive but it's a neurotoxic drug. FDA law requires an additive be inert or non-reactive. The medical text on aspartame disease lists countless diseases and symptoms and drug interactions by the toxin.   ASPARTAME DISEASE RAGES, INTERACTS WITH ALL DRUGS, VACCINES AND TOXINS.   When aspartame was news, Dr. H. J. Roberts in a press conference foretold that in 5 or 10 years we would have a global plague. And it was Dr. Roberts who declared Aspartame Disease to be a global plague and published the medical text in 2001, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 827 7991. His chapter on drug interaction goes into Coumadin, Dilantin, antidepressants and other psychotropic agents, Inderal, Aldomet, hormones and insulin. He says aspartame interacts with all cardiac medication and even discusses drug reactions after the cessation of aspartame.   In his general considerations he discusses that aspartame may either reduce or potentiate drug action by various mechanisms. He lists a few of the possibilities.   * Alteration of the blood proteins to which drugs attach. * Alteration of drug receptors on cell membranes. * Changes in the sites at which impulses are transmitted along nerves and to muscle. * Metabolic abnormalities in the elderly that are known to enhance their vulnerability to drug reactions (Weber l986). This problem increases in the case of persons taking multiple drugs ("polypharmacy") prescribed by several physicians. * Interference with drug action by amino acids and protein. An example is the erratic therapeutic effects when patients with Parkinsonism who were controlled on levodopa began to use aspartame products. The antagonism of levodopa by dietary protein presumably reflects impaired transport from serum across the blood brain barrier by neutral amino acids (Pincus l986).   Dr. Roberts also discusses Lidocaine (Xylocaine) which he says is an important drug used for local anesthesia and the treatment of ventricular arrhythmias in intensive care units. Alterations of its pharmacology by aspartame require study. He says: "Kim et al (l987) reported that the intraperitoneal administration of aspartame significantly reduced the 50% convulsion dose of lidocaine. They indicated that PKU patients and asymptomatic PKU heterozygotes may be more sensitive to the toxic effects of this and related local anesthetics."   Today Dr. Roberts explained: "An interaction should be suspect with virtually every drug if the patient is using aspartame."   This goes along with conversations with Dr. James Bowen who says because aspartame damages the mitocondria of the cell(the energy giving factor in cell)it will interact with all drugs and as a chemical hypersensitization agent will interact with vaccines, unsafe sweeteners like Splenda or sucralose ( chlorinated hydrocarbon) and toxins.   Dr. Bowen wrote about the biochemical interactions between aspartame and other poisons including many pharmaceuticals illustrated in Dr. Roberts medical text and said Dr. Mercola's web site has them as well. Further he wrote: "Because aspartame in the processes of digestion and metabolism, forms about ten other known severe poisonings, and intermediate metabolites, it's potential for drug related interactions is immeasurable. To top that off, the aspartame molecule is so heinously poisonous in different ways that it never passed a single FDA standard toxicity test! So Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of aspartame manufacturer Searle employed political power to get it approved, after the FDA for 16 years refused to allow it on the market because of aspartame toxicity. Then Reagan took direct executive measures to paralyze FDA from further action against aspartame.   Our FDA has never been the same since. Deadly chemicals now being blessed by FDA are marketed as wholesome pharmaceuticals, are just the tip of the iceberg, and result of Rumsfeld's damage to FDA. If any concern whatsoever for human welfare still existed, aspartame would be immediately pulled from the market! The reasonable FDA lawful standard is that a chemical must pass all toxicity tests at one hundred times the "maximum human dose," in order to pass as a food additive. What the original tests showed is that at a dose of three cans of pop per day, scaled to the weight of the animal, aspartame releases DKP, a recognized virulent brain carcinogen. No other chemical causes the brain cancer rate to jump as much."   Dr. Bowen continues, "Aspartame is a known destroyer of DNA. The mitocondrial DNA (MtDNA) is especially damaged, yielding the present epidemic of diseases aspartame consuming mothers pass on to all future generations. Aspartame also directly damages the mitochondria, thus having a "double whammy" effect on mitochondrial function! The summation of these many known severe toxicities and its immune, genetic, mitochondrial, and metabolic damages, make clear that aspartame will not only cause many diseases, which the FDA and CDC have already noted but it has pathways of approach to interact adversely with every conceivable pharmaceutical. My forth coming book: "Sweet Mystery in The Present Darkness: Whatever Happened to We Scientists Who First Spoke Out Against Aspartame?" will delve into all of this in greater detail and more specificity."   The Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste wrote in the spring of l996 the article: "The Rising Rates of Health Problems - Is There A Toxic Connection? Stephen Lester. It might as well have been written about aspartame because the diseases it lists are all ones that have been written about as triggered by aspartame, from birth defects to chemical sensitives. Under the title Cancer Lester says:   "When has gone wrong with our way of thinking when it is considered "normal" that 1 in 3 people get cancer? IT IS NOT NORMAL.. Cancer is not a natural disease and even if it were, it wouldn't be "normal" for cancer to claim the lives of 25% of the population. " Again, one can only think of aspartame when in original studies it triggered brain, mammary, uterine, ovarian, testicular, thyroid and pancreatic tumors and violated the Delaney Amendment. The Pharmaceutical and Chemical cartel know aspartame violates the law, so one would ask is that why the Delaney Amendment was repealed? When a law for the safety of the public gets in their way of marking poison they simply do away with the law.   In June it will be 3 years since I petitioned the FDA to ban aspartame because I have the FDA records and they lie to the public. The law states they have 180 days to answer. Their letter to me states they have more important things to do. So the FDA continues to recall drugs that interact and leave the poison aspartame on the market. Aspartame triggers an irregular heart rhythm and interacts with all cardiac Rx. It damages the cardiac conduction system and causes sudden death. With people dropping dead so fast that defibrillators are now sold over the counter, they took the opportunity to pull ephedra (Chinese MaHaung )off the market when an athlete died who was using Diet coke. Dr. John Olney reviewed the FDA records on ephedra and found it to be safe. One attorney said, "it wasn't Chinese Mahaung at all, but the drug that caused some problems." So what does the FDA do, leave the drug on the market causing the problems and snatches a safe supplement in their continuing loyalty to the pharmaceutical cartel.   MSG has an additive and synergistic effect with aspartame. Is that why the glutamate industry used aspartame as their placebo, so they could show that one excitotoxin does not react more than the placebo when, in fact, the aspartic acid in aspartame is also an excitotoxin. They started doing this before aspartame was approved, so it was well known in the industry that aspartame would react. The records found in the FDA files by Jack Samuels (www.truthinlabeling.org) who filed suit against the FDA on labeling of MSG, showed the FDA had known all along and the industry had been doing this for 25 years against the law. While the FDA had to admit it was wrong they did nothing, again giving their loyalty the glutamate industry.   One can only remember the words of Dr. James Bowen to the FDA over 18 years ago: "Aspartame is mass poisoning of the American public and over 70+ countries of the world". What does it take to save the people from this poison when government lies?   The overall effect has been a corruption not only of science but also of the dissemination of Science." No wonder new books keep being published like Dr. Carolyn Dean's "Death of Medicine".   Dr. Betty Martini Founder, Mission Possible Intl 9270 River Club Parkway Duluth, Georgia 30097 770 242-2599   http://www.wnho.net and http://www.dorway.com   New Aspartame Information List - click on banner on www.wnho.net   Books on aspartame, including medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 827 7991 by H. J. Roberts, M.D.   Books on aspartame by Dr. Russell Blaylock, M.D., www.russellblaylockmd.com   Movie on aspartame - contact cori@soundandfuryproductions.com Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World