URGENT: NutraSweet/MENTHANOL/TRUTH

[John M. Vogel]

Betty Martini (betty at noel.pd.org) wrote:
: Dear CMB:

: The original story is my post at the beginning of 
: URGENT;NutraSweet:METHANOL/TRUTH which if not on your screen I will be 
: happy to forward. I mentioned that menthanol is a narcotic.  John Vogel 
: made this comment that it wasn't.  I then came back and gave the reference
: which is:

: Louis, R.J.  Sax's Dangerous Properties of Industrial Materials, Eighth 
: Edition, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold (1992) pp.2251-2252.

  You still haven't made any effort to back up your single reference.  As
I said, narcotic can have different meanings in different disciplines -
from my dictionary, I said that narcotic can mean anything that produces a
soothing or numbing effect.  As Isopropyl Alcohol feels cool and soothing
to the skin, I would imagine that Methyl alcohol would have the same
effect, although that wouldn't be wise to put into practice. 

  Also, in another post you mentioned that formic acid was a bad thing - 
check the ol' dictionary again.  Yes, you are correct, but you forgot to 
mention that it is also used as a food preservative.

: This is especially serious in diabetics because sometimes physicians 
: think its just diabetic retinopathy when their patients are going blind.
: There are so many diabetics going blind because of aspartame and its just 
: criminal.  As a man told me just this last Saturday: "My mother was doing 
: so well as a diabetic.  She had been using saccharin but decided to 
: switch to NutraSweet.  She went completely blind."  I hear that so much 
: its like a broken record.  And this is just one of the reasons we are 
: trying so desperately to get this poison off the market.  

**Gotcha**, hehe.  Betty, I've been working with diabetics for 5 years. 
Most of them drink Diet Coke/Diet Pepsi, as it does not screw up their
blood sugars like regular soda can.  I'd estimate that 90% of them were
not going blind.  The ones who could not/would not control their *blood
sugar* were the ones going blind, having kidney problems, etc. 


John
jvogel at crl.com