Fibromyalgia Support Group for Surrey and Sussex

When I was asked to write this article on Aspartame it seemed easy, regurgitate the dangers of free Methol Alcohol, the excitotoxicity of Aspartic Acid and Phenylalanine etc. etc. Over and over again it is stated on the internet by many experts and equally refuted by other 'experts'. We, the ordinary people can line up on either side and in the end it is our symptoms which speak and the whole thing collapses to the anecdotal. We conduct our own experiments and prove to ourselves that this is truth, that is until an 'expert' tells us a different story. People like me who have zeal to spread the word on the dangers of Aspartame are usually as welcome as Jehovah Witness visits are! We clutch our books like Bibles and filled with Messianic fervour are eager to preach the message since our eyes have been open, we believe! This is the central problem with Aspartame, MSG, Fluoride etc. it is an issue of faith, can you believe that I and those like me are correct and our highly paid and trusted regulators and 'experts' are wrong.

Again and again the advocates line up on the side of Aspartame with the 'weight' of scientific evidence as if truths were decided on a majority basis - democratisation of science, but they MUST know - they MUST be right - why would they lie? They emphasize the 'natural' aspects of their products convincing us that the polluting production plants from whence these toxins emanate are idyllic 19th century farms, the captivation of nature's goodness - see the recent Splendatm adverts on the 'wholesomeness' of sucralose - but there is another story!

Of course it would be wrong not to state that the reason we are misled is at root our own fault, our desire to consume without consequence - our century writ large. We have been used to sweetness too much sweetness and not only in the 'sugary' sense. This desire in the natural world is counterbalanced by nausea, try sucking too much sugar cane! Even in the days of refined sugar where our natural regulation mechanisms are fooled we still have the penalty of calorific overload and paralysis of the immune system - visibly we get fat and less healthy. The simple fact is that the moment someone offered us this one sided deal with aspartame we should have been suspicious - 'you don't get owt for nowt'. Unlimited sweetness and no consequence we can have our Cake and eat it and we won't suffer. Of course thousands do suffer and they confront us with their symptoms and urge us to stop and we wake up as if from a nightmare but our doctors and 'experts' tell us everything is OK and we nod back to sleep and dream again that we can have whatever we want forever as long as we can afford it and the nightmare fades and we comfort ourselves, and resume the role of 'consumer' even though it is we that are being consumed! One day we will learn that the nightmare is real and that we have been lied to, deceived and sold into slavery by other dreamers of dreams who want so much they can only afford it through your compliance, the difference between them and you is that they are wide awake - super aware of any opportunity to exploit for money, and their poison spreads while you sleep.

Perhaps this sounds like a fairy tale but if the majority of us behave like frightened children then maybe this is necessary. We have been taught to be children, accept what we are told by 'science' as if most of us knew what that meant and resist those who smack of faith, whose own scientists MUST be on the lunatic fringe. Don't get me wrong I am not criticising science, only political and popular views of science as the definer of truth. Basically it boils down to a decision that we all will have to make sooner or later because I 'believe' if we don't wake up it will be made for us - we'll die and so will our children (and not necessarily in that order!). Consider this; Aspartame is unnecessary, a luxury item that can easily be dispensed with if we have the will, it is an additive adding nothing only pandering to our addictions (and that includes me) - resist the drug pushers! Aspartame is a poison in my opinion and in the opinion of the people you will see if you watch 'Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World'. People like Dr.Blaylock author of 'Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills', Dr. Roberts author of 'Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic', Ralph Walton M.D. Psychiatrist, Jim Bowen MD, Biochemist and Aspartame sufferer and others including those directly involved with the approval process. You will hear the sordid history of that process and the fraud that was perpetrated presumably just for money! If you watch this film be prepared to wake up and find yourself in a nightmare where you doubt everything you've been told. Don't be too afraid and don't nod back to sleep, you are not alone. If your courage should fail you and the truth be too painful think of Diane Fleming in jail for 50 years for murdering her husband who died of Methanol poisoning. You still have your freedom but Diane despite affidavits by Dr.Roberts that her husband died from aspartame poisoning is now two years into her sentence and for her, unless more of you believe, the nightmare will never end. We will go back to our quiet soporific state comforted and deepened by the poisons we are consuming, cosily, dreamily, quietly dying as holes are eaten deeper into our brain too drugged to see our own destruction, too blind to see our children fade, and too deaf to heed the prophets, while Diane faces reality everyday, with her eyes wide open, only 48 years to go!

In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick. She had stomach spasms and she was having a hard time getting around. Walking was a major chore. It took everything she had just to get out of bed; she was in so much pain.

By March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and muscle biopsies and was on 24 various prescription medications. The doctors could not determine what was wrong with her. She was in so much pain, and so sick...she just knew she was dying.

She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance,etc., in her oldest daughter's name, and made sure that her younger children were to be taken care of. She also wanted her last hooray, so she planned a trip to FL (basically in a wheelchair) for March 22nd.

On March 19th I called her to ask how her most recent tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but they believe she had MS.

I recalled an article a friend of mine E-mailed to me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda? She told me that she did. As a matter of fact, she was getting ready to crack one open that moment. I told her not to open it, and to stop drinking the diet soda!!! I E-mailed her the article my friend, a lawyer, had sent.

My sister called me within 32 hours after our phone conversation and told me she had stopped drinking the diet soda AND she could walk!!!! The muscle spasms went away.

She said she didn't feel 100% but she sure felt a lot better. She told me she was going to her doctor with this article and would call me when she got home.

Well, she called me, and said her doctor was amazed! He is going to call all of his MS patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweeteners of any kind...

In a nutshell, she was being poisoned by the Aspartame in the diet soda...and literally dying a slow and miserable death. When she got to FL March 22nd, all she had to take was one pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete recovery... and she is walking!!! No wheelchair!!!

This article saved her life. If it says "SUGAR FREE" on the label, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!!

I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on ASPARTAME," marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,'and 'Spoonful.'

In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant.

I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject. I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus.

Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence - Methanol toxicity is!

Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition. We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas.

In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (when in reality, the disease is methanol toxicity), most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly.

This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia.

During a lecture, I said, "If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss...you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!"

People were jumping up during the lecture saying,"I have some of these symptoms. Is it reversible?" Yes! Yes! Yes! STOP drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels! Many products are fortified with it!!!

This is a serious problem. Dr. Espart (one of my speakers) remarked that so many people seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his recent visit to a hospice; a nurse stated that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence!

Diet soda is NOT a diet product! It is a chemically altered, multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing product that actually makes you crave carbohydrates. It is far more likely to make you GAIN weight!

These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used primarily to preserve "tissue specimens."

Many products we use every day contain this chemical but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our body!!! Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his lectures that once free of the "diet products" and with no significant increase in exercise; his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a trial period.

Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics. We found that some physicians, who believed that they had a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had symptoms caused by Aspartame. The Aspartame drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other amino acids necessary for a good balance. Treating diabetes is all about BALANCE.

Especially with diabetics, the Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it then deteriorates the neurons of the brain, causing various levels of brain damage, seizures, depression, manic depression, panic attacks, uncontrollable anger and rage.

Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics, as well.

Documentation and observation also reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and AHD have had complete turnarounds in their behavior when these chemicals have been removed from their diet. So called "behavior modification prescription drugs" (Ritalin and others) are no longer needed.

Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in the first place!

Most of these children were being "poisoned" on a daily basis with the very foods that were "better for them than sugar."

It is also suspected that the Aspartame in thousands of pallets of diet Coke and diet Pepsi consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf War, may be partially to blame for the well-known Gulf War Syndrome.

Dr. Roberts warns that it can cause birth defects, i.e., mental retardation, if taken at the time of conception and during early pregnancy. Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should NEVER be given artificial sweeteners. There are many different case histories to relate of children suffering grand mal seizures and other neurological disturbances due to the use of NutraSweet.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to convince people that Aspartame is to blame for their child's illness. Stevia, which is a sweet herb, NOT A MANUFACTURED ADDITIVE, helps in the metabolism of sugar, which would be ideal for diabetics. It has now been approved as a dietary supplement by the FDA. It is known that for many years the FDA outlawed this true sweet food," due to their loyalty to MONSANTO Chemical Company.

Books on this subject are available:

EXCITOTOXINS: THE TASTE THAT KILLS written by Dr. Russell Blayblock
(Health Press 1-800-643-2665) AND: DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE-written by DR H. J. Roberts, also a diabetic specialist. These two doctors will soon be posting a position paper with case histories on the deadly effects of Aspartame on the Internet. According to the Conference of the American college of Physicians, "We are talking about a plague of neurological diseases directly caused by the use of this deadly poison."

Herein lies the problem: There were Congressional Hearings when Aspartame was included in 100 different products and strong objection was made concerning its use.. Since this initial hearing, there have been two subsequent hearings and still, nothing has been done. The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets. Sadly, MONSANTO'S patent on Aspartame has EXPIRED!!

There are now over 5,000 products on the market that contain this deadly chemical and there will be thousands more introduced.

Everybody wants a "piece of the Aspartame pie." I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of Aspartame, knows how deadly it is. And isn't it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among others, the American Diabetes Association, and the Conference of the American College of Physicians? This has been recently exposed in the New York Times. These cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to MONSANTO because they take money from the food industry and are required to endorse their products.

Senator Howard Metzenbaum (no longer in the Senate) wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms. The bill was killed.

It is known that the powerful drug and chemical lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public.

Sun, 18 Dec 2005

Fresh fears emerged this week over aspartame, an artificial sweetener found in 6,000 types of food, drink and medicines widely available in every supermarket.

Roger Williams, a member of the parliamentary select committee on food and the environment and Liberal Democrat MP, said any items containing aspartame should be withdrawn from sale as there was 'compelling and reliable' evidence that aspartame can cause cancer.

His comments came after research published by the European Ramazzini Foundation in Italy over the summer linked aspartame to cancer in rats.

"There is strong scientific evidence that the components of aspartame and their metabolites can cause very serious toxic effects on humans," Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams told the House of Commons the additive was potentially 'far more dangerous' than Sudan 1, the banned food dye linked to cancer and found in some products in Britain earlier this year. He claimed aspartame was found in ten times more products.

Leading scientists have joined Mr Williams in calling for products containing it to be taken off the shelves . Erik Millstone, professor of science policy at the University of Sussex, said "There are sufficient grounds for banning aspartame. There are serious problems about how it was approved."

The European Ramazzini Foundation study found the incidence of cancer in female rats rose in direct relation to the dose of the sweetener they were given. The scientists suggested the cancer could be triggered by chemicals created by aspartame as it is broken down in the body.

Regular readers of What Doctors Don't Tell You have known of the potential side effects of aspartame as far back as 1996. Apart from causing headaches, aspartame is also linked to panic attacks, mood changes, visual hallucinations, manic episodes and isolated dizziness, and has been associated with hyperactivity in children.

But what is less well known is the widespread use of aspartame in prescription and over-the-counter medicine. In the What Doctors Don't Tell You special report entitled 'Drug Additives: the not-so-inactive ingredients' we reported . . .

'The concentration of sweeteners in oral solutions and suspensions ranges from 30 to 50 per cent of the formulation. In some antibiotic and cough/cold prep-arations, the sweetener content can be as high as 80 per cent . . . .

Aspartame, an excitotoxin (a central nervous system stimulator), is increasingly being used in chewable tablets and sugar-free formulations of drugs and supplements. Headache is the most common adverse effect linked to aspartame. Up to 11 per cent of patients with chronic migraines report that their headaches are triggered by it . . . '