http://loaf.ilcnet.com/scripts/oneweb.nl.cla?Page=Article&UID =MVMTLV3AHFOC33GRNQ&333=4484 *********** Newspapers web@creativeloafing.com Creative Loafing Atlanta: phone: (404) 688-5623 | fax: (404) 522-1532 mailing address: P.O. Box 54223, Atlanta, GA 30308 editorial -- Ken Edelstein *********** Creative Loafing Newspaper April, 1999 To drink or not to drink It's poison and it's everywhere By Harriet Hiland The illnesses it has caused have reached epidemic proportions. It's a "world plague," by golly. What is it? It's aspartame, the artificial sweetener better known by the brand names NutraSweet and Equal. At least that's the view of Betty Martini, a retired Duluth resident who has devoted six years to Mission Possible International -- a World Wide Web-based campaign she started to ban the substance that makes Diet Coke seem sweet and keeps weight-watchers' taste buds happy. "We have absolutely yanked people out of the jaws of death," the 58- year-old Duluth retiree boasts. Many in the scientific establishment pooh-pooh Martini's claims that aspartame causes everything from headaches and joint pain to cancer, lupus and multiple sclerosis. But that doesn't stop Martini from declaring that aspartame is generating a "world plague" of a myriad of diseases. And it hasn't stopped aspartame from becoming the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's most-complained-about food additive. "If it wasn't safe, it could never withstand the criticism it receives," argues FDA spokesman Emil Corwin. It's hard to say what motivated Martini to become such a thorn in the rump of the artificial-sweetener industry. She has no particular health or science expertise beyond administering some medically related businesses. She doesn't have a track record as an activist on other causes. And she sites no single experience that led to her adopting the anti-aspartame mission. "I kept running into more and more sick people," Martini simply explains. Her own company, Physicians on Call, a sort of temp agency for doctors, went out of business in 1975. But with her husband's financial support, Martini has taken on a new avocation. A glossy image of her dressed fashionably and decked in pearls graces the Mission Possible website, which also describes her as an "angel" working to save millions of people from "genocide." She has taken her campaign right to the top. From a front-row seat at a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference on toxins in Atlanta, Martini gave her anti-aspartame flyer to Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and current Surgeon General David Satcher. She regularly sets up her booth at health and government seminars, and often appears on radio and television shows. But Martini's most powerful soapbox is the web. At http://dorway.com, Mission Possible displays testimonials from people around the world who say they suffer from the ill effects of the sweetener. "I was only drinking three Diet Cokes a day," writes Alecia Morris of Doraville. "I could hardly believe the horrible nightmare I was living was sold in six-packs at the grocery store, but I would try anything so I stopped. Right away I began to feel better, and today most of my symptoms have completely disappeared." "I abandoned aspartame in any form," says Gloria Collins of Dunwoody. "My vision returned, the cramps disappeared, and I could sleep without nightmares. The depression and vertigo vanished. It was a miracle because I had thought I was dying and had multiple sclerosis." The site is packed with scientific reports, petitions, texts of congressional testimony, letters from physicians, newspaper articles, accusations of corporate malfeasance and government conspiracies, sign- up lists for support groups, and links to a whole network of other sites devoted to the horrors of aspartame. For a really sensational one, take a look at www.aspartamekills. com. It compares Monsanto Corp. CEO Robert Shapiro to Hitler, and poses a question never broached during 1995's trial of the century: "Did O.J. Simpson have a reaction to aspartame that led to the deaths of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman?" The other side in the Web war has responded with its own formidable defenses. Monsanto, the giant chemical concern that produces and markets the additive, compares negative comments on the Internet to "cocktail party conversation." At www.nutrasweet.com, the company points to the endorsements of health organizations -- which Martini notes receive Monsanto funding -- as well as to numerous studies that found aspartame to be safe. "Anyone with a computer can present themselves to be an authoritative expert on just about anything, including aspartame," Monsanto's site says. "We've seen self-styled aspartame experts use the Internet to advance their individual agendas and personal points of view without regard for scientific truth." The furiously fought propaganda campaign is fanned by previous battles over artificial sweeteners. In 1966, the sweetener industry responded to questions raised about the controversy over an earlier generation of products -- cyclamates and saccharin -- by forming the Calorie Control Council right here in the hometown of Coca-Cola. Backed by studies linking cyclamates to bladder tumors in rats and mice, the FDA finally did ban cyclamates in 1969. In 1977, after a Canadian study showed that saccharin caused cancer in test animals, the FDA proposed to ban that substance as well. But Congress blocked that action -- and to this day the Coca-Cola Co. must sell its saccharin- sweetened cola drink, Tab, with a warning that it may cause cancer. The current controversy is different because it's raging on the Internet. But many of aspartame's leading scientific critics don't go nearly as far as the cyber-activists do, raising a tantalizing question: Is wild speculation on the Internet -- "Does the president qualify for an updated 'Twinkie' defense?" Martini's website asks -- undermining legitimate scientific concerns about the product? Among the most respected scientific critics is Louis Elsas, who heads the division of medical genetics at Emory University Medical School. Elsas told a U.S. Senate committee in 1987 that aspartame "may adversely affect human brain function" and expressed concern that much research into the substance is influenced by industry money. Numerous references to Elsas appear on the Mission Possible website, as do copies of his congressional testimony and correspondence. But Elsas' secretary says he's perplexed by all the attention he's suddenly getting and doesn't know anything about Betty Martini. The FDA surely has heard of Martini and her fellow activists, however. Since 1980, the agency reports, there have been almost 12,000 complaints of adverse reactions to food additives. Aspartame accounts for 7,259 or 61 percent of those complaints. Yet the FDA and other authorities stand steadfast in their contention that aspartame is safe for most consumers. Unlike herbs, vitamins and other dietary supplements, additives like aspartame undergo scrutiny that can take as long as 15 years before being allowed on the market. When aspartame was approved in 1981, it was the first sweetener to be approved in 25 years. And as industry has sought to use aspartame in an increasing number of products, the FDA has continued to investigate questions about the product. Monsanto officials point to stacks and stacks of medical studies that found no link to the many maladies claimed by critics. Far from causing health problems, the company argues, aspartame reduces the risk of excess sugar consumption, especially for diabetics. In recent months, the mainstream media has entered the fray, in general debunking activists' claims. But Martini's fears and those of her cohorts aren't likely to be satisfied anytime soon. They point out that issues of food-additive safety often are dismissed at first but taken seriously over time. And the pendulous nature of scientific discovery is enough to keep suspicions swinging. Even when the FDA ruled in 1981 that aspartame was safe for use in foods, for example, the panel that approved its use referred to a study that pointed to a possible link with brain tumors; soon afterward, a Japanese study refuted those findings. Questions about the motivations of some government officials have fueled even more skepticism. A congressional hearing on the substance's safety was called in 1987 after key attorneys in the Justice Department took jobs with the Chicago law firm representing Nutrasweet. That same year, the General Accounting Office investigated the process surrounding the FDA's approval and said the agency had acted properly in approving the additive. At least one of the alleged problems has gained official acceptance. A 1994 FDA report noted that pregnant women and people with certain advanced liver diseases may have problems with aspartame because they don't effectively metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine, which makes up about half of aspartame's contents. Monsanto agrees that people who suffer from the congenital condition phenylketonuria must restrict their intake of aspartame, and products that contain aspartame contain warnings for people who suffer from that condition. Natural-food advocates argue that artificial products often present risks to those who consume them. Physician Andrew Weil, an alternative- medicine guru popular on the Internet, recommends against the use of aspartame on general principle and points to the small number of calories actually saved by drinking a diet drink or using Nutrasweet. "There are no proven long-term effects," he says, "but there's a lot of suspicion." But Keith Keeney of the Calorie Control Council argues that the substance suffers from the stigma of being "manufactured in a lab" and that some critics have less-than-benign motives. Keeney points out that the sugar industry raised some of the initial questions about aspartame in full-page newspaper ads during the FDA approval process. "Things weave together to become an urban web of speculation," pipes in Nancy Nevin of Monsanto. But it is the medium of the Internet that has rekindled the mission of "people who were ardent critics of us in the past." Fueled by both scientific questions and populist suspicions, the Web war over aspartame shows no signs of abating. In fact, the conflict may be spreading to other arenas. In February, Monsanto, petitioned the FDA to approve the use of neotame, another artificial sweetener. Martini is going after neotame with the same fervor. She's already registered her complaints with the FDA, and her website includes form letters for others to do the same. "Neotame," Martini argues, "is nothing more than a more potent aspartame."