Aspartame is bad for you...

[mosc]

Thanks to Robin Miller for forwarding this to us. It's not about electronic music,
but indirectly it is; you have to be alive to enjoy em.

EDIT - July 24, 2005 - As pointed out in the posts that follow, the following article is apparently bogus - a fake. --mosc

WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE and the MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS FOUNDATION
Article written by Nancy Markle

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, they announced that there was an epidemic
of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus, and they did not understand what
toxin was causing this to be rampant across the United States. I explained
that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject.

When the temperature of Aspartame 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 multiple sclerosis; thus people
were being diagnosed with having multiple sclerosis in error. The multiple
sclerosis is not a death sentence, where methanol toxicity is.

In the case of systemic lupus, we are finding it has become almost as
rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi
drinkers. Also, with methanol toxicity, the victims usually drink three to
four 12oz. cans of them per day, some even more. In the cases of systemic
lupus, which is triggered by ASPARTAME, the victim usuallydoes not know that
the aspartame is the culprit. The victim continues its use aggravating the
lupus to such a degree, that sometimes it becomes life threatening. When we
get people off the aspartame, those with systemic lupus usually become
symptomatic. Unfortunately, we cannot reverse this disease.

On the other hand, in the case of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis,
(when in reality, the disease is methanol toxicity), most of the symptoms
disappear. We have seen cases where their vision has returned and even their
hearing has returned. This also applies to cases of tinnitus. 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, depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or
memory loss-you probably have
ASPARTAME DISEASE!" People were jumping up during the lecture saying, "I've
got this, is it reversible?" It is rampant. Some of the speakers at my
lecture even were suffering from these symptoms. In one lecture attended by
the Ambassador
of Uganda, he told us that their sugar industry is adding aspartame! He
continued by saying that one of the industry leader's son could no longer
walk - due in part by product usage!

We have a very serious problem. Even a stranger came up to Dr. Espisto (one
of my speakers) and myself and said, 'Could you tell me why so many people
seem to be coming down with MS? During a visit to a hospice, a nurse said
that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been
diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence.

Here is the problem. There were Congressional Hearings when aspartame was
included in 100 different products. Since this initial hearing, there have
been two subsequent hearings, but to no avail. Nothing has been done.

The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets. Now there are over
5,000 products containing this chemical, and the PATENT HAS EXPIRED!!!!! At
the time of this first hearing, people were going blind. The methanol in the
aspartame converts to formaldehyde in the retina of the eye. Formaldehyde is
grouped in the same class of drugs as cyanide and arsenic - DEADLY
POISONS!!! Unfortunately, it just takes longer to quietly kill, but it is
killing people and causing all kinds of neurological problems.

Aspartame changes the brain's chemistry. It is the reason for severe
seizures. This drug changes the dopamine level in the brain. Imagine what
this drug does to patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease. This drug
also causes Birth Defects.

There is absolutely no reason to take this product. It is NOT A DIET
PRODUCT!!! The Congressional record said, "It makes you crave carbohydrates
and will make you FAT". Dr. Roberts stated that when he got patients off
aspartame, their average weight loss was 19 pounds per person. The
formaldehyde stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs.

Aspartame is especially deadly for diabetics. All physicians know what wood
alcohol will do to a diabetic. We find that physicians believe that they
have patients with retinopathy, when in fact, it is caused by the aspartame.
The aspartame keeps the blood sugar level out of control, causing many
patients to go into a coma. Unfortunately, many have died.

People were telling us at the Conference of the American College of
Physicians, that they had relatives that switched from saccharin to an
aspartame product and how that relative had eventually gone into a coma.
Their physicians could not get the blood sugar levels under control. Thus,
the patients suffered acute memory loss and eventually coma and death.
Memory loss is due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are
neurotoxic without the other amino acids found in protein. Thus it goes past
the blood brain barrier and deteriorates the neurons of the brain.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, neurosurgeon, said, "The ingredients stimulate the
neurons of the brain to death, causing brain damage of varying degrees. Dr.
Blaylock has written a book entitled "EXCITOTOXINS: THE TASTE THAT KILLS"
(Health Press 1-800-643-2665)

Dr. H.J. Roberts, diabetic specialist and world expert on aspartame
poisoning, has also written a book entitled "DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMER'S
DISEASE" (1-800-814-9800). Dr. Roberts tells how aspartame poisoning is
escalating Alzheimer's Disease, and indeed it is. As the hospice nurse told
me, women are being admitted at 30 years of age with Alzheimer's Disease.
Dr. Blaylock and Dr. Roberts will be writing a position paper with some case
histories and will post it on the Internet. According to the Conference of
the American College of Physicians, 'We are talking about a plague of
neurological diseases caused by this deadly poison".

Dr. Roberts realized what was happening when aspartame was first marketed.
He said, "his diabetic patients presented memory loss, confusion, and severe
vision loss". At the Conference of the American College of Physicians,
doctors admitted that they did not know. They had wondered why seizures were
rampant (the phenylalanine in aspartame breaks down the seizure threshold
and depletes serotonin, which causes manic depression, panic attacks, rage
and violence).

Just before the Conference, I received a FAX from Norway, asking for a
possible antidote for this poison because they are experiencing so many
problems in their country. This "poison" is now available in 90 PLUS
countries worldwide. Fortunately, we had speakers and ambassadors at the
Conference from different nations who have pledged their help. We ask that
you help too. Print this article out and warn everyone you know. Take
anything that contains aspartame back to the store.

I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of aspartame, knows how deadly it
is. They fund the American Diabetes Association, American Dietetic
Association, Congress, and the Conference of the American College of
Physicians. The New York Times, on November 15, 1996, ran an article on how
the American Dietetic Association takes money from the food industry to
endorse their products. Therefore, they cannot criticize any additives or
tell about their link to MONSANTO.

How bad is this? We told a mother who had a child on NutraSweet to get off
the product. The child was having grand mal seizures every day. The mother
called her physician, who called the ADA, who told the doctor not to take
the child off the NutraSweet. We are still trying to convince the mother
that the aspartame is causing the seizures. Every time we get someone off of
aspartame, the seizures stop. If the baby dies, you know whose fault it is,
and what we are up against. There are 92 documented symptoms of aspartame,
from coma to death. The majority of them are all neurological, because the
aspartame destroys the nervous system.

Aspartame Disease is partially the cause to what is behind some of the
mystery of the Desert Storm health problems. The burning tongue and other
problems discussed in over 60 cases can be directly related to the
consumption of an aspartame product. Several thousand pallets of diet drinks
were shipped to the Desert Storm troops. (Remember heat can liberate the
methanol from the aspartame at 86 degrees F). Diet drinks sat in the 120
degree F. Arabian sun for weeks at a time on pallets. The service men and
women drank them all day long. All of their symptoms are identical to
aspartame poisoning.

Dr. Roberts says "consuming aspartame at the time of conception can cause
birth defects". The phenylalanine concentrates in the placenta, causing
mental retardation, according to Dr. Louis Elsas, Pediatrician Professor
Genetics, at Emory University in his testimony before Congress.

In the original lab tests, animals developed brain tumors (phenylalanine
breaks down into DXP, a brain tumor agent). When Dr. Espisto was lecturing
on aspartame, one physician in the audience, a neurosurgeon, said, "when
they remove brain tumors, they have found high levels of Aspartame in them".

Stevia, a sweet food, NOT AN ADDITIVE, which helps in the metabolism of
sugar, which would be ideal for diabetics, has now been approved as a
dietary supplement by the F.D.A. For years, the F.D.A. has outlawed this
sweet food because of their loyalty to MONSANTO.

If it says "SUGAR FREE" on the label-DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!!!!!

Senator Howard Hetzenbaum wrote a bill that would have warned all infants,
pregnant mothers and children of the dangers of aspartame. The bill would
have also instituted independent studies on the problems existing in the
population (seizures, changes in brain chemistry, changes in neurological
and behavioral symptoms). It was killed by the powerful drug and chemical
lobbies, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting
public.

Since the Conference of the American College of Physicians, we hope to have
the help of some world leaders. Again, please help us too. There are a lot
of people out there who must be warned, *please* let them know this
information. You might want to print it out and hand it out or fax it to
people who are not online. Young people drink a lot of diet coke.

[zynthetix]

that's freaky! i'm going to make my mom read that!

[sleepless]

rumsfeld was or still is? linked to monsanto and had something to do with it being aproved for human "con"sumption. if someone really wanted to check into it i believe COAST 2 COAST am had links to ASPERTAME a few years back and DAVID ICKE also listed DONALD RUMSFELD as one of the main players in getting this POISON cleared for consumption.

[deknow]

although i treat nutrisweet as poison myself, this particular letter seems to be another internet hoax. nancy markle does not exist, and and there are a number of identical web pages around the net that are identical, and suspect (all talk about distancing themselves from betty martini, the real author of this email warning, all in the same words, and none have removed her email from their site). this has been going around the net as long as the famous npr hoax (since 94 or 95).
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blasp.htm
and snopes also has information on this one.

i'm all in favor of discouraging people from eating artifical things (fake sugar, fake butter, msg, teflon, etc), but if you do so by spreading false information (like this document), then you only serve to dumb down the discussion.

if you want to make a case of a huge coverup, you gotta do better than 10 year old spam (imho).

on another note, i'm bitterly opposed to much of what monsanto does, but i know real farmers (personally) that have learned (what seem to me to be) good crop rotation stratiges that are not standard practice in western nebraska (where they have their farms) from monsanto. monsanto flew them to farms where this was being done, and the practices were adopted. of course it's in monsanto's best intrest (they sell more seeds), but with these practices, more is put back into the soil (and more is harvested)....this is done with (if i remember correctly) crops of alfalfa that are tilled back into the soil between millet crops.

deknow

[sleepless]

i was not trying to say cover up.i thought it had all been brought to light that ASPERTAME IS POISON. Anyway look i am not into preaching if u do think the MONSANTO corp is doing a good thing well cool. maybe u r right rumsfeld and monsanto is no conspiracy.hey no big deal. maybe it was all just another internet hoax.god knows they are starting to multiply like Oaklahoma,9-11,Madrid,and now UK.also i was just looking around the internet 17,111 hit just on the words monsanto and aspertame no big deal but some of the first hits are kinked to HOLISTICMED.COM and a lot of others. now i admit i am no expert so anyone interested could start there and go deeper. I AM.I WILL TRY AND REPORT MUCH LATER. WE SHOULD ALWAYS TRY TO IF AT ALL POSSIBLE LOOK INTO THINGS DEEPER.maybe it is just an urban legend.

[deknow]

aspertame may be poision, but the fda, the uk foodstandards agency, and the multiple sclerosis foundation don't agree.

deknow

[sleepless]

cool then.

[Agnes]

The above article may be an urban legend, but there are new concerns about the safety of Aspartame. The blow article appeared on the BBC new website on Thursday of this week. For those who wish to check out its authenticity, here is the URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4683371.stm

Thursday, 14 July, 2005, 15:26 GMT 16:26 UK

Sweetener 'linked' to leukaemias
Fresh doubts about the safety of an artificial sweetener have been raised by Italian scientists who have linked its use to leukaemias in rodents.
Aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar and is used throughout the world in low-calorie drinks and foods.
Regulators say existing studies show it is safe, but will look at the European Journal of Clinical Oncology study.
But they said it was unlikely that the sweetener was harmful to humans to the same extent as in rats.
Concerns have been raised about the aspartame in the past, but an analysis of 500 papers by UK regulators in 2002 concluded there was no threat to consumers.
The Food Standards Agency said: "The European Food Safety Authority intends to undertake an urgent assessment of this study to establish whether there are any implications for human health.
"We will study EFSA's opinion carefully and consider what, if any, action may be required."
Dr Elaine Vickers, cancer information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "If a risk to humans does exist, it will almost certainly be very small.
"However, we welcome the news that the EFSA will undertake an urgent assessment of this work."
The study
Dr Morando Soffritti and colleagues at the Cancer Research Centre in Bologna fed eight-week-old rats varying concentrations of aspartame.
Compared with control rats given no sweetener, many of the female rats in the experiment developed lymphomas or leukaemias - the risk increasing with the dose of aspartame.
The researchers say their study raises concerns about the levels of aspartame to which humans can be exposed and, therefore, "urgent re-examination" of aspartame's safety is needed, "especially to protect children".
The existing European Food Safety Authority safety assessment for aspartame led to the setting of an Acceptable Daily Intake, or ADI.
This is an estimate of the amount of an additive that could be routinely consumed every day over a lifetime with no appreciable health risk.
'Safe' intake
Aspartame's ADI is set at 40 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. This is equivalent to 2,800 milligrams for an average British adult.
For an average three-year-old child the amount is of the order of 600 milligrams.
An adult would have to consume 14 cans of a sugar-free drink every day before reaching the ADI, assuming the sweetener was used in the drink at the maximum permitted level.
In practice, most drinks use aspartame in combination with other sweeteners so that the level is considerably lower, says the FSA.
Previous work by the former Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Health showed that aspartame intakes were considerably below the recommended maximum level, even among children and diabetics who consume large quantities of sugar-free drinks.

[astroid power-up!]

all i have to drink is 14 cans a day?

sweet. i'll get to work

[sleepless]

hey abwajdyk i checked that one.i was going to put in the forum but i have been busy making music.which i hope all of us are still doing and not spending to much of our time in forums.has anybody read DAVID ICKE or visited www.davidicke.com. he has a reprinted article by a doctor with the title i think? ASPARTAME ADDICTION. so easy on them diet soda waters kids or those sodas could lead you to the hard stuff. almost forgot when you go to david icke.com go to medical archives and you should see aspartame listed in 1 or 2 articles.

[deknow]

1. i have no respect for anyone that thinks that david icke speaks the truth and does not start an armed rebelion against the government...personally, i think he is (in general) full of shit....one of those leaches that thrives on telling paranoid people what they want to hear. it is of course much eaiser to get away with lies if one mixes some truth in (as any cult leader can tell you).

2. the paper you refer to is available here:
http://www.davidicke.net/medicalarchives/badmed/asparaddict.html

note that he is generally talking about people who drink at least 6 liters of diet cola a day . personally, i had a shitty day today...felt depressed, had a headache, and no doubt would have thrown up if i hadn't realized that i had made decaf coffee this morning by mistake. simply skipping my 1/2 french press of caffinated coffee in the morning caused this (yes, i'm a coffee addict...i have "used" more than i do now in the past, but i will get sick without caffine). if going cold turkey from 6 liters of cola a day won't cause caffine withdrael, i don't know what will.

3. the "chemical process" information (both from this article, and the one howard originally posted) is generally true....but misleading. yes, aspertame does break down into methanol and then formaldahyde...but if you look at how the body breaks down other "dangerouse foods" (like vegtables), you will see that the ammonts from aspertame are negligable. all surgery looks horrific (anti aborition and anti circumcision groups know this), and digestion (when described in chemical terms....hydrochloric acid, etc) does as well. every cell in the body creates h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide)...a deadly poison as part of normal cellular respiration, but it is completely normal. see:
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/news/Jan1999/DebunkingInternetHealthAlarms.html for more specific information.

4. more than 1/2 of the referances cited in this "report" are articles or reports are written by the author himself. with the exception (i think 3) of the referances (and by their titles, the exceptions do not deal specifically with aspertame), they are dated in the 1980's....one would expect more data to come out over time, not less. for instance (as an extreme example), one could find all kinds of old referances to masturbation causing blindness (scout handbooks, medical books, etc)...but very little from recent times. yes, there are corperate forces that benefit from the use of aspertame...but there are many (namely lawyers, the sugar industry) that would benefit from it's demonization. based on how the tobacco industry and the drug industry get into trouble, keeping "the grave dangers of aspertame" secret and out of the courts hardly seems plausable.

5. anyone who uses "who's who" inclusions in their bio or resume is either too stupid to realize that they are simply vanity publications, or are looking for an audience so stupid that they are impressed by such things. to prove my point about this, i (over an internet application) had "gwennie Lance" (gwennie is my dachshund, lance is my cat) "nominate" me for inclusion for my outstanding work in the field of therapy (i have no training or experience in therapy). i have about 6 invites for various awards and inclusions that stem from this one submission....all looking for me to buy a copy of the book or medal (some of the books come in a special, several hundred dollar edition that is only available to recipients and heads of state)...in almost all of the cases, i was to write my own reason for getting the award (so the certificate would say what i wanted it to say). the american biographical institute and the international biographical institute are the big players in this market..and it's all shit...vanity publishing for people that want to see their names in a book called "the top 500 intelectuals of the 20th century" or some such.
http://www.sunsentpress.com/ (this is the website for the author of the aspertame document on david icke's site)....notice the "credentials".

all that said, i think real butter is better for you than fake butter, real salt is better for you than fake salt, and real sugar is better for you than fake sugar...but these are my opinions based on how my body feels in response to these substances. perpetuating false science is something anyone should be ashamed of, and something everyone should use their intelect to avoid. anyone who's opinions are swayed by false science is nothing more than a willing tool, and proves how little they are using the resources at their disposal to be informed.

deknow

[mosc]

[paul e.]

9 times out of ten, it would probably be best to avoid any food with any fake sweetner

a. the fake sweetneer is likely very bad for you

b. the food that contains is also likely very bad for you

c. the same product is probably addictive

but i didn;t know vegetables were 'dangerous'..except maye some can cause some embarassing gas, if that counts hehe

[deknow]

howard, i don't disagree that aspertame is bad for you...but so far the "presenters" (not you, the sources of information cited) are:

1. a non existent person (and the specific document is verified false by the multiple scelrosis foundation, and considered by them and every other "hoax" site as false and misleading).

2. a group of italian researchers (unnamed) who found an unnamed link between aspertame and leukemia in rodents....the ammount of aspertame used on the rodetns was described as "varying"...who knows how much they were given (i'm sure you don't)? drinking too much water can be toxic too. without some measure of what was being tested, and what the control is, or at least some credentials of the researchers as being good researchers this article has no meaning. give rodents (or humans for that matter) too much of anything and there are bound to be negative consequences.

3. an article on david icke's site by a quack doctor that uses his vanity publication inclusion (that he paid for) as the top on his list of qualificatins on his own website, using mostly his own publications as sources, and using no control group of people that drink 6 liters of non-diet cola a day.

if you really consider these to be convincing arguments, i'm not sure what to say....except maybe that i have some real estate in florida that you might be interested in (unless you want to buy the brooklyn bridge...i can give you a good deal on that one).

this is all presented as "science"...but it's bunk. it does not mean that aspertame is good for you, but i have confidence that lawyers are hungry enough that they would be all over this if they could find anything worth being concerned about (or sued over).

howard, besides being a musician, you are a scientist...i must admit to being a little shocked that you are so willing to be mislead by such obvious bunk....and really suprised that you thought this was a good thing to spread around without looking into it further yourself. whether or not aspertame is poison is kind of besides the point...what is important is how we evaluate information and judge it's value. i can well imagine information that would make me think aspertame is worse than i think it is, but i haven't seen it, and i don't think it's because the "corprate industrial complex" is supressing it, it's because it doesn't (at this point) exist as far as i can tell. make a convincing argument using believable sources and i'll be right there with you...these sources suck.

as far as david icke goes, i stand by what i said.....if one really belives that the illuminati really staged 9/11 in order to enslave the human race in a war "of" terror, then i don't see how one could stand to live without taking drastic action (and forwarding emails is not drastic action).

deknow

[deknow]

howard, to clarify, i am all in favor of presenting differing opinions....if you post that aspertame makes you feel like shit when you consume it, that is legitimate anacdotal information, and i'd love to hear more of that kind of thing.

what has been presented here (besides the italian study that we know no details about...see below) is science misrepresented (vegtables, which are probably pretty good for humans to eat produce more methanol and formaldahyde durring digesttion than any consumable quantity of aspertame, as does milk....but the methanol and formaldahyde is what is being presented as the "cause" of aspertame related problems....if that were true, vegtables would be worse for you than a packet of equal, and we would be addicted to them...anyone that has seen me eat knows i'm not addicted to veggies), and anacdotal evidence (at best, if you believe that this doctor who brags of his who's who "accomplishments" is trustworthy at all) presented as science...there is no control group of people drinking 6 liters of sugard soda, no mention if caffine is a factor (it is possible that all of these are caffine free cola drinkers, but there is nothing presented to make me or you think that).

if you feel offended by my shooting down a 10 year old internet hoax, i don't really know what to say. i don't think that the original article you posted is substantively differant than if i posted "hey, i just got an email from nigeria, and a lawyer there is going to send me 10million dollars after i send him a check for $1000"....i would hope that you would think i was being mislead, and that you would point out that the source of my information was a hoax.

i do believe that aspertame is bad for you. i don't believe that any of the "evidence" thus far presented is convincing, or even legitimate.

if i started posting "information" how the holocost never happend (and there is a lot of it out there), i believe i would be called to task....this is no differant.

i did some looking up on the italian study (it has not been published yet, and i don't think the final patholgy has been done), and this is the best evidence that it can cause a problem.

http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/news-ng.asp?n=61338-efsa-scientists-to

...note that a quart of diet cola might have 56mg of aspartame. to reach 20mg/kgbody weight (that the scientists claim causes statisticaly significant increase in cancer), a 50 pound human (a child of 22kg) would have to consume about 9 quarts of diet cola a day (someone check my math?) to have an effect (and is 9 quarts of sugar soda going to cause problems...i think so). and some of the doses used in the study were the equivelant of 2000 cans of diet cola a day (5000mg/kg body weight....hardly a real world scenereo).

regular cola has the equivelent of 7tsp sugar in a cup of tea....now (as a 50 pound human) drink 9 quarts of such tea and see how good you feel....and remember that there is (i think) 200mg of caffine/liter of cola (in the us), where as a cup of coffee has about 150mg, so if the above child (22kg) does drink 9 quarts of caffinated cola a day, they are also consuming about 9 cups of coffee (for a 50 pound person)....i don't think aspartame is the big problem here.

it is entirely possible that the allowed intake is set too high, but based on what i can find, it would be hard to consume enough aspartame to reach the 20mg/kg body weight cited in the italian study (if you weigh 100lbs, 4.5 gallons of diet cola a day...come on).

....and i wouldn't touch the stuff in any quantity.

deknow

[ian-s]

[mosc]

I don't endorse this scientifically, I just posted it as a matter of interest, totally uninvestigated. It seemed serious enough to share. It may well be totall bunk. I'm glad you got a chance to provide background.

I posts lots of stuff including product and concert announcements - reviews - emails. I try to give the source. Everyone can take it or leave it.

Urban ledgends are a sort of virus, but they are also a big part of our culture. But there were unfounded stories with defective information about aspartame long before there were urban legends.

http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/news-ng.asp?n=61338-efsa-scientists-to

[deknow]

i must admit i find this puzzling. i see a huge differance between posting product, event, and even personal announcements and passing along internet "warnings" that are not based in fact. i don't really enjoy "defending" aspartane against bogus claims (i think people should eat things that come from nature, not chemical vats), but all of the "my sisters cousin met a guy who thought he had ms" in the world can't make it valuable anacdotal evidence out of this.

if you post something on the net, or write a book, even if i never met you, i could send you an email, google you, and find out a great deal about you. if i was really concerned about something you said (or were alleged to have said), i could ask you questions, find out more...if it were an issue of concern to you, you would probably be happy to talk about it, or have an autoresponder tell me where to find more information (or where to buy your book on the subject). the article you posted is written by someone that doesn't exist. there is no such person as mary markle. if someone did actually give a lecture on this subject at the world environmental conference, who was it? what did they say? there is no way to know, and no reason to even assume it (or any of the stories told within the document) ever happened.....because it's written by a person who doesn't exist. now, betty martini claims to have written the letter, and she is the one who gave the lecture at the "world environmental conference"....but what is the world environmental conference? it took place at emereld city college in elizebeth city, nc in 1995, and expected about 300 people including local highschool and college students to discuss environmental issues (a good thing to do and participate in, but probably not a groundbreaking event)....i don't believe this is the un world environmental coference.

i don't have any more use for press release spin than you do, but if the release here is accurate in facts:
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/050714/250/fnd3n.html
then, the study by the italian scientests is being published by the same foundation that did the study, and is not peer reviewed....and neither is the study. this is in addition to the fact that we are still talking about a 50lb child drinking 2.25 gallons of diet soda to get to the threashold of effect (based on rats) if you assume that this is an accurate study.


on a practical level, this is your board, and you will do what you think is appropriate. i think, however, that setting some standards (as individuals) about what we will consider worth passing along is important. you thought you were "doing good" by posting it here...the person who sent it to you felt so too....it's admirable to want to help educate people of health risks they might not be aware of, but passing this stuff along only spreads ignorance and misinformation, and imho, it hurts any community for lies to be represented as truth. i feel as strongly about this in regards to aspartame as i do with "the holocost never happned", or even "sex with a virgin cures aids". here we are, sitting at our computers talking to one another....if in issues of fact we don't try to approach truth rather than pass on whatever is sensational enough to make us raise our eyebrows, then i think we are wasting our time.

now, on to more serious matters (this is schmooze after all, and it is almost 3am here). this is natural sweetner. i'm not much of a dessert guy, but i can't wait to eat this (sitting on my stove cooling as we speak). a gooseberry pie....we have a gooseberry bush in our garden that is a clipping of the bush that ramonas (my s.o.) grandmother kept starting in 1907. she brought it with her as a homesteader in colorado and nebraska all her life. when an uncle died that had a bush from those clippings about 3 years ago, ramona brought a clipping back from nebraska. this is the first year we have had enough berrys for a pie (and i think we can make at least 3). gooseberrys are rare around here because at one point they were thought to help transmit an elm disease and were erradicated....many people still think they are illegal to grow, and most people have never seen one. i made the crust (the berrys were photosynthesized by god)

deknow

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[Dovdimus Prime]

Howcome noone else has mentioned the fact that David Icke believes purple is holy and that the world is ruled by humanoid lizards?!

David Icke is either a ruthlessly shameless, exploitative cynic or a total lunatic. I would never reference anything from his site and expect to be taken seriously...

[Cyxeris]

[Oskar]

[seraph]

just in case...

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

[deknow]

If you will indulge me a little (and if you are still reading this thread), I’d like to try and tie this in with some other discussions I have been involved in here, as I believe it’s extremely relevant. I’m offline in a coffee shop as I write this, so I can’t look up specifics….please correct me if I misrepresent anyone.

We had a very long discussion of the steve Kurtz issue (CAE). Can we agree that it’s not so cool to release mutant fruit flies near a company in order to scare people about biohazards that do not exist simply because one does not like other things that company does? Can we agree that it’s much better to confront the real issues of disagreement than to make up fake ones in order to hurt those who we don’t agree with? I’m going to assume that the answer to both of these is “yes”….as none of us would want to be judged by others based on lies perpetuated by a 3rd party.

In the aids/africa discussion, I was not terribly offended by being called a racist (and let’s be clear, saying “I’m not going to call you a racist” is really calling someone a racist) because my own words were there plain as day, and people were reacting to what I actually said. If I met someone who isn’t on em, who was told I was a racist, and they called me a racist to my face or via email claiming “I was told you don’t think african people are deserving of medicine because they are black” I would be terribly offended…I said no such thing, and it is far from what I think and what I did say.

Nancy martini has an obvious beef with Monsanto. At the time this first circulated around the net, Monsanto was a major manufacturer of aspartame (they have since sold that division). Previously, I pointed out that not everything Monsanto does is evil…and I still believe that (I know farmers who have participated in programs sponsored by Monsanto that teach better farming practices than is the standard of the industry)….they are also guilty of some really ugly things. Natural bacterial pesticides that are used when needed (not constantly) by organic farmers in generally responsible ways that assure they will still be effective in years to come (not used in ways that promote resistant strains of pests) are now being integrated into the genetic code of crops so that the crops will produce these chemicals themselves constantly by Monsanto. This assures resistant strains of pests will develop, and Monsanto knows this, and only expects it to be effective for (if I remember correctly) 15 years or so. They are already working on the replacement as these engineered crops will not be pest resistant after that time. Unfortunately, this also “fouls the water” for organic farmers that use this stuff sparingly and responsibly…the pests will be resistant, and this tried, true (and safe) alternative to chemical pesticides will be lost, and organic farmers will need to find something else to use (and no doubt Monsanto will work to integrate anything “natural” that is found to be effective). This sucks, and it’s worth protesting, discussing, and boycotting over. There are numerous other evil things Monsanto does and promotes…and I encourage everyone to do some research and discuss it…it is important.

This anti-aspartame campaign (at least the part of it fueled by nancy martini’s letter) is simply an anti Monsanto “fuzzy terrorism” in the form of an email of false facts and claims rather than planted mutant fruit flies. Passing it along unexamined and labeling it as “serious enough to share” even though it’s just a fabrication makes you the person protesting in front of the biotech company trying to get it shut down because you saw a fruit fly with 2 heads buzzing around the local diner and assumed there were mutagens getting out, when in fact steve Kurtz ordered them from a lab and released them from his parked car in front of the diner every day for a month specifically to cause this reaction….you become a pawn in someone elses disinformation campaign all the while you feel like you are doing good for the planet. It’s a damn shame, and a waste of your potential to spread true information and informed opinions about issues that are important and that actually exist.

Personally, I refuse to play this part. If you think it’s justified because of what Monsanto actually is guilty of in other areas, then consider what someone who has a beef with you (an ex girlfriend or wife, an employee, a neighbor who doesn’t like your music, a person that thinks driving foreign cars is treason, or someone that simply doesn’t like jews) could do? Your neighbor doesn’t like jews, so he fliers the entire neighborhood accusing you of conspiring with the 9/11 terrorists. Your ex wife is pissed at you and builds a website claiming you don’t pay child support when you do. A music reviewer has a drink spilled on him at your show so he writes a review claiming that you were lip syncing. None of these are substantively different than writing disinformation to “hurt” Monsanto….you didn’t write it, but you were swayed by it, and became part of spreading it. It’s simply not right and you would probably see that more clearly if there were an email circulating claiming that you promised to pay the performers at em05, but instead used the money for prostitutes and cocaine at the Roosevelt inn.

Lies and misinformation don’t seem so bad until they are directed at you. Imho, it’s the responsibility of all of us to try and separate the truth from the crap, and I’m disappointed that I seem to be about the only one here who is willing to stick my neck out to do so.

deknow

[deknow]

oskar, it's certainly worthwhile to criticize where appropriate (and in the case of bse and the uk foodstandards agency it is certainly appropriate). that said, i doubt you could find a safety buerocracy in history or present with as large a task as the uk foodstandards agency that doesn't make mistakes, and doesn't have some corruption. if the standard for an agency to be generally good that they have a 100% success record, you will not find one that meet those standards. none of the criticism that i have put forth towards nancy martini, the european journal of oncology, or david icke are based on them making mistakes from time to time...they are based on purposefully misleading the public, and doing little else.

deknow

[mosc]

OK, Deknow. You are right, I should never have poisted this letter in the first place. I can see it is a form of virus.

I'll edit the first post. If you think I should do more, let me know and I'll delete the entire thread.