More To Betty Martini

[Betty Martini]

Dear Jody:  I'm delighted to forward to you instructions to the 
auto-responder.  You can read the history of aspartame and even read case 
histories.  For instance, you'll see that people diagnosed with multiple 
sclerosis who are on NutraSweet usually reverse because in actuality it 
is methanol toxicity.  These are classic cases we see day in and day out.

The double=blind study by Dr. Walton is, indeed, a study.  However, the 
frequency and severity of psychiatric, neurologic, eye and other side 
effects caused the institutional Review Board to terminate the project 
prematurely.  With this revelation, Dr. H. J. Roberts, suggested 
corporate neutral examiners should analyze the nature of the aspartame 
furnished by previous double-blind studies.

Jody, if you read about these flawed studies in one book or read about 
them in one paper you might wonder.  There are so many books written on 
the original aspartame studies and, in fact, if you access our warning 
flyer you'll see some of them listed on the reverse of our warning flyer.
Also, these flawed studies are written about in the Congressional Record, 
in newspaper articles, in magazine articles and previously in the U.S. 
Attorney's office!!!! 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, USC 331(e), and the False Reports to the Government 
Acts 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. 335(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.

Jody, Sam Skinner instead went to work for Searle's law firm, Sidley & 
Austin defending the case, as did the U.S. Attorney that came after him 
(Conlon) - until the statue of limitations gave out!

The studies never became safe, Searle just wasn't indicted.  So why did 
they approve it.  Well, the FDA convened a Board of Inquiry there was so 
much opposition because of constant flawed studies, as I told you.  The 
Board said not to approve it because of the brain tumors and seizures.  
Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes who was head of the FDA at the time over-ruled his 
own Board of Inquiry that "they convened" and approved it.  Then he went 
to work for Searle's public relations firm and refused to speak to the 
press for 10 years!  

No Jody, the tests were never proven safe - they were proven unsafe.  
They use these "flawed" tests on Medline and in papers but if you read 
the history you know very well what really happened.  Further, what 
happened to the lab animals is now happening to the public!

In my case I've been reading and researching for almost 3 years on 
NutraSweet, but I'm also involved in getting people off of aspartame and 
recording the case histories.  Some of these people have horrible 
neurological symptoms and disease.  Many times the symptoms will reverse 
within about 6 weeks, and you'll see these case histories on the 
auto-responder.  Some diseases reverse like MS but like in the case of 
systemic lupus and it appears that aspartame is causing an epidemic of 
it, it doesn't reverse but the patient who usually is still using the 
product becomes asymptomatic.  

As to my background I spent about 22 years in allopathic medicine and 
created the first health delivery system - had many physicians working 
for me.  When you see these MedFirst Clinics they came behind me - I was 
the first.  Plus I did much research, administration, etc.  But basically 
I worked in Emergency Medicine.  I started the health delivery system 
because I was trying to raise money to build a trauma center in my 
mother's name.  But we gave away more medical care then we made money - I 
never charged people who had no funds.  

First of all, Jody, aspartame is not a diet product.  The Congressional 
Record says: S 5511 (May 7, 1985) "Aspartame has been demonstrated in 
inhibit the carbohydrate induced synthesis of the neurotransmitter 
serotonin (Wurtman affidavit).  Serotonin blunts the sensation of craving 
carbohydrates and thus is part of the body's feedback system that helps 
limit consumption to appropriate levels.  Its inhibition by aspartame 
could lead to the anomalous result of a diet product causing increased 
consumption of carbohydrates."

Translation:  Use aspartame and get fat!  Dr. H. J. Roberts, diabetic 
specialist, in getting people off aspartame found that the average weight 
loss was about 15 lbs.

It was discovered when a Searle chemist was testing a peptic ulcer drug.  
It just happened to be sweet.

Jody, the National Soft Drink Assn wrote a 30 page protest against 
putting this stuff in carbonated beverage.  They used the wrong test when 
the right one was available so it wouldn't detect aspartic acid.  Here it 
is in the Congressional Record:

5/7/85  S5507

"Only in the cases of aspartame and DKP did Searle use high pressure 
liquid chromotograph (HPLC).  For the other four known principal 
breakdown products, Searle used thin layer chromatograph (TLC).

HPLC is a far superior analytical method relative to TLC (cites) and 
numerous HPLC methods exist for the detection and quantification of amino 
acids (cites). Searle's choice of TLC over HPLC adversely affected the 
quality and type of analytical data generated on aspartame and its 
decomposition products in soft drinks.  The unfortunate and inexplicable 
choice of an inferior analytical technique, when superior and recognized 
methods are available, has resulted in inadequate characterization of 
APM's decomposition products."

"S 5508  HPLC is a practical, well accepted analytical method which is 
commonly employed by FDA.  When the safety and suitability for use of a 
food additive such as aspartame with an acknowledged degradation problem 
(and anticipated high consumption) is under evaluation HPLC is clearly 
the analytical method of choice."

"The inappropriateness of using TLC as a principal analytical method is 
compounded by the fact that the values of APM degradation products being 
measured are close to the limits of detection of the method (cite).  
Thus, the values, purportedly obtained by the TLC method cannot be 
considered to be very precise.  Finally, an important decomposition 
product of aspartame, aspartic acid (AA) cannot be detected at all using 
TLC."

Then Jody, the used the wrong solution:  "S 5508 The standards for use of 
HPLC to detect APM and DKP were prepared in buffered aqueous solutions.  
A far better technique would have been to prepare the standards using 
beverage matrices.  The use of beverage matrices would have reduced the 
danger of interfering compounds coeluting with the compound of interest."

And it keeps getting worse, they didn't test for breakdown products (a 
witches brew of formaldehyde and formic acid, and DKP (brain tumor agent)
and they didn't test for temperature elevation.  At 86 degrees aspartame 
liberates methanol in the can!  Think of all these diet soda pop cans 
stacked in front of an Arizona gas station, and what they are drinking.

Better still consider what happened in the Persian Gulf when the pop 
companies sent over diet pop that one soldier said sat in the 120 degree 
Arabian sun for as long as 8 weeks while they drank them all day!  Do you 
wonder why Desert Storm Syndrome symptoms are identical to aspartame 
disease - chronic fatigue syndrome (methanol breaks down the immune 
system), headaches, depression (phenylalanine breaks down the seizure 
threshold and depletes serotonin production), memory loss, confusion, 
joint pain, vision problems, etc.  The CFIDS Network (Chronic Fatigue and 
Immunologic Disease Syndrome) said 6000 perished!

Dr. Roberts was in Atlanta July 29 giving a seminar on Alzheimers 
Disease, a 20th century disease and told how the two amino acids in 
aspartame (aspartic acid and phenylalanine, both neurotoxic) without the 
other amino acids in protein, go past the blood brain barrier and 
deteriorate the neurons of the brain!  It is escalating Alzheimers which 
is now the 4th leading cause of death, 4 million have it, 250,000 get it 
each year and 100,000 die.  50% of all nursing home patients are 
Alzheimer victims including baby boomers!

I'm telling you, Jody, aspartame is a chemical poison and if you really 
research it - you have to read the history and what went on, you'll 
understand.  The tests never changed but the National Soft Drink Assn did 
- they turned around and lobbied for NutraSweet.  Doesn't that tell you 
something!  The politics of aspartame are costing a lot of lives and 
we're even getting pleas of help from other countries!

 Betty Martini
Domain:  betty at pd.org
UUCP:  ...!emory!pd.org!betty

On 10 Aug 1995, Jody K. Hirsh wrote:

> Dear Betty,
> 
> I would be glad to see the info you mentioned. However, the study that you 
> mentioned sounded like it was an abstract from a conference.  To 
> scientists, this is still not acceptable. One needs to have an article 
> published in a refereed journal.  I suppose you could then claim that there 
> was some sort of political conspiracy keeping it from getting published.  I 
> just don't see or hear much about this until your posts here.  (However I 
> have not looked).  Scientists are naturally very skeptical and need a lot of 
> convincing. I want to see the data before I jump to conclusions. 
> 
> I sincerely doubt the story about doing the "brain surgery" on the rats. They 
> would have been sacrificed instead before something like that was done. 
> 
> As an aside, my own suspicion is that there are many people who have 
> some sort of serious problems, related to depression, and are looking 
> instead for external causes to blame them on.  I think nutrasweet and the 
> like may be convenient scapegoats.  
> 
> I Remain Unconvinced,
> Jody
> 
> P.S. Why don't you also tell me more about your background.
> 
> 
>