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No matter how you look at it... dump diet coke and aspartame!
   
February, 1997
Ms. L'Heureux
Coca-Cola Company
Industry and Consumer Affairs
Dear Ms. L'Heureux:
I am in receipt of your letter about the safety of aspartame. Surely you
know you can get any information you want on Internet the world over, and
if Coca Cola is saying aspartame is safe, they are the only people in the
world who don't have the facts. That would indeed insult my intelligence.
Inasmuch as the National Soft Drink Association wrote a 30 page protest
(listed in the Congressional Record) about putting aspartame in
carbonated beverages, obviously the facts were spread out quite thick.
And they made it quite plain that aspartame is inherently, markedly and
uniquely unstable.
If the Coca Cola Company doesn't know what the breakdown products are I'll
be glad to enlighten. Wood alcohol (the 10% methanol) breaks down into
formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and then formic acid (ant sting poison).
The phenylalanine, a neurotoxin because of its isolation from the other
amino acids in protein, breaks down in DKP, a brain tumor agent. All the
world heard Dr. Olney's report on CNN and other stations about aspartame
and brain tumors. Even the rats developed astrocytomas, a rare brain
tumor, the first stage of the deadly glioblastoma, now rampant in the
population. Should anyone be surprised since even in Congress secret trade
information was read where it was stated that they had to consider
complete conversion to DkP and if the FDA knew they wouldn't approve it.
IT WAS KNOWN BEFORE IT WAS EVER MARKETED AND THE CONGRESSIONAL
RECORD MADE IT PUBLIC TO THE WORLD!!
You say the totality of research does not fall into two distinct classes
of positive from Searle and negative from independent studies. Will you
explain that, Ms. L'Heureux? Only studies from the manufacturer (and
these were the target of an indictment for fraud that was not carried out
when the U.S. Attorney decided to switch sides and work for the law firm
defending the case) are valid????? Yet, according to Dr. Ralph Walton on
60 Minutes 83 of 90 independent, unbiased studies showed a problem with
aspartame. If that's not two classes, black and white, I don't know what is?
It seems to me from the facts that Searle, the original manufacturer,
would only accept studies when the researchers would say it was safe. A
study was financed by the manufacturer to do a study on birth defects by
Dr. Diana Dow-Edwards. When the results were disastrous they withdrew the
funding and Dr. Dow-Edwards had to pay for it herself. Then neither they
nor the FDA would accept the results. Looks like the manufacturer and the
FDA work very closely, I would say!
You say you continue to rely on the FDA to evaluate and approve safe food
and beverage ingredients. They evaluated aspartame with pivotal studies.
One of those pivotal studies, a 52 week oral toxicity infant monkey study
(SC-18862) showed after 200 days ALL THE MONKEYS HAD GRAND MAL SEIZURES.
Dr. Moser of the NutraSweet Company said it doesn't get in the blood. The
study says: "The convulsions in the monkeys are correlated with and can be
attributed to high serum phenylalanine levels." Why that is what Dr.
Moser said couldn't happen. Doesn't the NutraSweet Company look at the
reports either. He said if it did it never would have been approved.
Well, that's the FDA you rely on - approved a seizure triggering drug and
then tells the public it doesn't cause seizures. Yet their report can be
gotten by Freedom of Information showing 92 documented symptoms from
coma to death. And the FDA report lists 4 different types of seizures.
Actually, the FDA did not want to approve aspartame and the Board of
Inquiry said not to do it. Dr. Hayes, Head of the FDA, OVERRULED THE
BOARD OF INQUIRY and did it anyway. Whose side do you think he was on
when he went to work for the manufacturer's PR firm at $1,000 a day, sort
of like a art director going to work for a pig farm. What does a FDA
Director do in a PR firm of the MANUFACTURER - maybe send postcards
home from Bermuda!
So you rely on the FDA - then why don't you rely on what the senior FDA
toxicologist said about these studies you say are safe: Dr. Jacqueline
Verrett testified in 1987 in U.S. Senate that the tests were a disaster,
should have been thrown out, and data in the study was worthless! She
also said: "Aspartame was too unstable to be used in hot preparations, hot
liquids and also diet drinks."
This, Ms. L'Heureux, is the top word of the FDA on these studies. Listen
again to what the FDA said - THROW THEM OUT - THE STUDIES - THROW THEM OUT!!!!
There was another senior FDA toxicologist, the late Dr. Adrian Gross and
he summed up a separate test on rats and listed 14 blunders including:
Unreported tumors. Uncompleted examinations.
Missing batch records. Hiding deaths.
Destroying rats before they could be completely analyzed.
Mixing foods so rats could avoid the aspartame.
Resurrecting dead rats on paper.
And try telling me this isn't black and white.
Dr. Adrian Gross told Congress that aspartame violated the Delaney
Amendment because of the brain tumors. And remember Dr. Gross' last words
to Congress "and if the FDA violates its own laws who is left to protect
the public?"
Now lets talk black and white. A senior FDA toxicologist tells Congress
that the FDA in approving aspartame is violating its own laws. So if
you're going to rely on the FDA are you going to rely on the senior
toxicologists involved who exposed the agency for approving this poison or
are you going to continue to deny the facts and tell us you want to rely
on the studies they said to THROW OUT???
And don't tell me Coca Cola doesn't know. The National Soft Drink
Association switches sides and then lobbies for the manufacturer! Wow, we
know you really have the public at interest now.
In 1985 Senator Metzenbaum wrote a bill that would have put a warning on
aspartame that would have warned pregnant women. Dr. Elsas (pediatric
professor (genetics) told Congress aspartame is a teratogen, triggers
birth defects, and is a neurotoxin). But that same bill would have had the
National Institute of Health do independent studies because of those
worthless original ones. And Monsanto who bought Searle in 1985 couldn't
have that, could they. Their heavy lobbying prevented that bill from ever
getting out of committee. Nobody cared about the little babies. Just
today someone told me about three women who gave birth to babies with no
brains. And one lady told me recently, "I'm a Diet Coke addict, and I've
lost 7 babies."
Actually, the facts are so black and white there is no room for indecision
on what has transpired from the beginning. Aspartame is in over 90
countries of the world, you say? If they all have Internet access they
already know everything I've just told you.
There is a labeling law on aspartame that there must be a warning for PKU.
When you put aspartame in Fresca in a machine I don't see the warning!!!
And how do you feel about the last 10 year study of the National Soft
Drink Association?
Coca Cola at one time maintained the greatest reputation in the world.
Coke has power and money and nobody disputes that. But there is one thing
Coke can't do, and that is rewrite history. Aspartame has poisoned the
world, and day after day the cases come in. The fortunate ones who have
been warned in time, are finding their medical problems have disappeared
with the elimination of NutraSweet. Some like Joyce Wilson, Patricia
Craine, William Randolph, etc., etc. have perished. And people
recovering, who realize they have suffered years from a poison, are not
very happy and they are warning others. They are writing history, Ms.
L'Heureux. They are writing the history of the Coca Cola Company.
I'm sure, your president, Mr. Ivester, will agree with me on this. There
is no power as great as
CONSUMER POWER IN ACTION
How long will Coca Cola allow the sick and dying from aspartame to write
its legend? It's one thing money and power can't stop!
Betty Martini
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