ASPARTAME SUPRESSES THE LEVELS OF SEROTONIN IN THE BRAIN



Aspartame Suppresses the Levels of Serotonin in the Brain."
"According to one recent report, 5 suicides have been linked to
aspartame ingestion."

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/38994.html#


Text of Stephen Fox's speech to Senate Public Affairs Committee
Stephen Fox February 3, 2006
New Mexico is at the most serious crossroads in its history, as the
strongest pro consumer protection bill ever to be presented to the New
Mexico Senate and House is now before your Committee.

Senate Bill 654 would ban an incontrovertibly proven neurotoxin and
carcinogen, the artificial sweetener Aspartame, which is metabolized as
several toxins, particularly methanol which is then assimilated as
formaldehyde.

This product should never have been approved by the FDA, and to the
FDA's credit, approval was turned down from 1966 to 1981, when the
approval process was usurped by the President of G.D. Searle at that time,
Donald Rumsfeld. He got his own crony, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes,
appointed by President Reagan as FDA Commissioner and within a few days, the 16
years of FDA refusal to approve aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde was
overturned, and approval was granted.

You will hear complaints from corporate lobbyists, some speaking
before you, some outside in the hall under the assumption that their work
has been done, particularly Ajinomoto's lobbyists, former House Majority
Leader, Richard Minzner, and Michael Stratton of Colorado, Ken
Salazar's campaign manager, currently on the Democratic National Committee's
(DNC) Presidential Nomination and Scheduling Commission.

In order to protect New Mexican's health from further
neurodegenerative damages done by Aspartame and its resultant formaldehyde, the only
way to correct this egregious manipulation of one of the most vital of
Federal agencies is through legislative measures at the state level.
The obstructionists say this will create a "balkanization" of 50 mini-
FDA's, yet that is precisely what is needed, given the increasing
subversion of the FDA by the industries it is supposed to regulate.

This bill has been carefully crafted by the Legislative Council
service, completely free from corporate manipulation. A Federal judge wrote
its legislative findings about the state having powers to protect its
citizens' health when Federal authorities did not specifically preempt
such powers, to thus clarify legislative intent, and thus: this new
statute could never be successfully challenged down the long legal road
on any viable legal grounds.

Despite the predictable corporate legal boilerplate you are about to
hear from the Ajinomoto lawyer used to defend this neurotoxic poison in
every state, you most certainly have the power under the 10th Amendment
to the US Constitution to enact such legislation.

Aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde violates numerous Federal statutes
against adulterants in food as well as the 1958 Delaney Amendment to the
FDCA, the act of Congress that created the FDA, so you are on very good
grounds to do so in terms of the Federal law.

Note that it is not the FDA that is here complaining about this bill:
it is corporate interests that to date, have been able to hide behind
the FDA approval of their poisonous products!
The U.S. Supreme Court and many many U.S. Court of Appeals decisions
have upheld the right of states to protect their citizen's health, and
remember, again, that it is not the FDA or the U.S. Attorney standing
before you objecting to this bill: it is corporate lobbyists, just one
of whom is a lawyer.

Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Dannon Yogurt, Wrigley's Gum, Merisant, (the
manufacturer of those little blue packs of poison people dump in their
coffee)------and lots of pharmaceutical companies which add
aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde to children's vitamins, aspirin, and pediatric
medications----------it is a wonder they are not all represented here
objecting to this bill, by 50 or 60 Lobbyists.

They have done this sort of thing in every state and in every nation,
over and over, usually successfully, but their thin veneer of
credibility has disappeared and their toxic mythologies are crumbling badly. We
need to stop them here, in New Mexico.

Thanks to Senator Ortiz y Pino, Pro Tem Senate President Ben
Altamirano, and a majority of the members of the Senate Committees' Committee,
New Mexico is ahead of every other state in the medically and legally
well-founded necessity of getting rid of aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde
forever, despite the overwhelming fact that it is found in 6000 food
products and over 600 children's medications.

The corporate objectors' comments are quite predictable. With deep
pockets and so much to lose if their neurotoxic carcinogenic poison is
exposed for what it truly is, these companies might even be sued for
damages. This bill doesn't say sue the corporations. It just prohibits
aspartame/methanol/formaldehye from being added to food in New Mexico,
and it gives $100,000 to the office of the Attorney General to enforce
the ban.

What a great investment in improved health for New Mexico, and what a
great return this allocation will bring in terms of prevention of a
host of entirely preventable illnesses! Their product impugned, and unable
to hide behind the crumbling FDA approval of
aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde, they have hired a legion of lobbyists.

Have you noticed that the New Mexico Grocer's Association is not among
these objectors? Grocers don't want unhealthy customers, and they
recognize what a pleasure it will be to switch to products with healthy
sweeteners. For grocers, a legislative ban of
aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde is no big deal; in fact, it will rapidly and vastly boost their
profits.

Esteemed Senators, you could easily listen to these lobbyists and
decide to vote against this bill.
But if you were to do that, God forbid, do realize that you are
thereby giving a green light and a carte blanche to every toxic food
manufacturer in the world, especially those cranking out the poisonous
additives, telling them that they are safe, that all is well, and that
regulatory boards and legislatures all over the world are in their pocket,
under their control. The growing mountain of evidence about aspartame's
effects cannot be swept under the rug any longer.

Don't wait till the European Union prohibits it or until you watch
that long overdue speech on the House or Senate floor, to formally ask the
FDA to immediately rescind its approval of this product, by Tom Udall
or Jeff Bingaman or Chairman of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee,
Republican Charles Grassley, the best of the FDA critics in the Senate. 1.8
million New Mexicans have given you have the power and the holiest of
obligations to do this today, in this committee, to give a do-pass to
the strongest consumer protection bill that has ever been before the
New Mexico Legislature.

If you as a committee do not pass the bill, you have failed the people
of New Mexico, and have doomed them to yet another year of
neurodegenerative illnesses, new instances of cancer, and especially for small
children, illnesses they should never have been given, all of which could
have been easily prevented by your giving this bill a do-pass.

I have mailed and emailed the best of the definitive medical articles
to you already, and have placed more of such articles in your hands
about aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde written by the top physicians in the
United States documenting its effects, Dr. H.J. Roberts, Internist, and
Dr. Russell Blaylock, Neurosurgeon. The first lives in Florida, and
the latter lives in Mississippi. They cannot be here today, but they are
concerned about what how you are about to vote, like millions of
Americans who have suffered from aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning
all over our nation are closely watching this decision today.

Legislatures in every state and parliaments in every nation are
watching your decision, like Roger Williams, Member of the UK Parliament from
Wales. He is the MP who on December 14 of last year called for a total
ban on aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde for the entire UK! If you vote
for a do-pass, you will have done the supremely right thing. You will be
telling every citizen in New Mexico, particularly those who voted you
into your seat in the New Mexico Senate, that you care more about
protecting their health and that of their children, than you do about
capitulating to several corporations' profit making on their poisonous food
additive.
Just because they can hire the kind of legal power in the folks you
are about to hear, doesn't mean you too have to capitulate to their
demands, nor vote in a partisan block against this bill, just because the
present Republican Secretary of Defense got this horrible stuff approved
in 1981, not by medical or scientific means, but by a sordid political
fiat.
What a wretched legacy Mr. Rumsfeld leaves, far worse than former
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara left with 55,000 dead Americans in
Vietnam, for which he later asked us a nation to allow him to apologize!

McNamara at least apologized; Rumsfeld has inflicted much more medical
damage on those afflicted with aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde
poisoning, and has yet apologized for nothing.. Perhaps in due time, Rumsfeld
will apologize, but it will be too late for those billions of victims
of his fiat, his regulatory coup at the FDA in 1981. Good government
is not about the apologies of old men for their decisions and errors in
the past; it is about doing the right thing, whether in a Parliament
or General Assembly or a Congress or in the New Mexico Senate Public
Affairs Committee.

Donald Rumsfeld recently had a whole set of
aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning symptoms named after him: Rumsfeld's disease.

Aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde's approval was generally in 1981. That
was 25 years ago, and billions of people from all states and all
nations have suffered from that ramrodded FDA approval, but that doesn't
mean WE cannot correct it. WE must correct it, or it will cause more
damage, more damaged fetuses, more overmedicated hyperactive children
taking Ritalin every day, more adult illnesses like Lou Gehrig's disease,
Multiple Sclerosis, seizures, convulsions, and so on----all of the 92
symptoms of aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning listed by the FDA.
I am surprised the lobbyists haven't brought out some diabetics whom
they have somehow convinced to believe that formaldehyde and methanol
are going to be helpful to their under producing pancreas. What a bad
deal the Aspartame manufactures give to diabetics: a drug, not an
additive, that is metabolized into formaldehyde!
Don't forget the Ramazzini report proving
aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde's carcinogenicity, which has been posted at the website for the
National Institute of Health since mid-November of 2005.

Senators: for God's sake! Aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde turns into
methanol then formaldehyde. What kind of no-brainer is it for us to
recognize that it is a poisonous and deleterious food additive, and as such
falls under the statutes in the New Mexico Food Act that prohibit
poisonous and deleterious food additives .

The Environmental Improvement Board would have been the correct
regulatory board with the power to promulgate rules to ban
aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde, but they too capitulated on January 3, and postponing
the 5- day EIB hearings scheduled in July indefinitely, until at least
January 2007.

Your do-pass recommendation on this bill will lead to a New Mexico ban
on this poisonous and deleterious food additive, which will take effect
July 1, 2006. This is the Year of the Child for New Mexico, and if you
want to be real about Healthful Kids legislation and preventing
entirely preventable illnesses in New Mexico, please give this bill a
do-pass recommendation!

Finally, 2006 is the 100th Anniversary of the United States Pure Food
Act. How far we have tumbled as a nation to 29th in longevity
statistics. Senate Bill 654 contains a major protective solution for the most
egregiously carcinogenic and neurotoxic of all food additives .

Senator Ortiz y Pino, Pediatric Cardiologist Grant La Farge,
Pediatrician Ken Stoller, and Leland Lehrman, Founder of Mother Media spoke to
the Public Affairs Committee for a half an hour to counter the half
hour of lobbyists' comments. What the lobbyists said was mindless drivel
and more toxic corporate trash, not worth repeating in the context of
these good ideas: Whom they represent is more interesting, just so you
can see where the influences are coming from:

Altria Corporate Services, the parent company of Kraft and Philip
Morris Coca Cola Pepsi Cola New Mexico Soft Drink Association Calorie
Control Council And of course, the biggest food polluter in the entire
world: AJINOMOTO, the Japan-based world's largest manufacturer of both
aspartame and monosodium glutamate.
One Senator from Las Cruces, Mary Jane Papen, retired car dealer,
expressed great incredulity when I mentioned that some branches of the
military disallow pilots from drinking diet beverages because so many have
had seizures in flight, become incapacitated, and have crashed their
planes.

Within one hour of leaving the hearing, I sent her an article on that
very subject!
The saddest Senatorial dialogue I felt was that of the Majority Whip,
Mary Jane Garcia, also from Las Cruces, who worried as a diabetic what
she would do without her diet sodas. I replied with the baffling fact
that diabetics and their injured pancreases are the last people in the
world who should ingest formaldehyde.

Ortiz y Pino brought up the fact that plenty of evidence shows that
there has been a huge upswing in statistics for diabetes since Donald
Rumsfeld rammed aspartame/formaldehyde's approval through the FDA in
1981.

Senator Garcia replied that her mother had diabetes, and that started
before diet sodas and artificial sweeteners came to be such a deep part
of America life and diet.

In his providential wisdom, Senator Steven Neville from Aztec, New
Mexico (who also drinks Diet Cokes) made a motion to table, and it was
seconded by Senator Stuart Ingle, the Republican Minority Leader from
Portales, who also drinks Diet cokes. Senator Gay Kernan from Hobbs, who
also drinks Diet Cokes, and James Taylor from Albuquerque's South
Valley, who also drinks Diet Cokes, and Senator Garcia, who also drinks
Diet Cokes, all voted to Table.

Only Committee Chair Dede Feldman and Senator Ortiz y Pino voted to
not table.

The only vote to table by someone who DOESN'T drink Diet Cokes was the
only physician in the Legislature, Steve Komadina, M.D, Republican from
Corrales. His comments were duplicitous, at best, to me: an
obstetrician and gynecologist who strongly advises his own patients not to drink
Diet Cokes because of the formaldehyde neurotoxicity and the
abortifacient effects on the unborn, yet speaks and votes against banning
aspartame with adolescent nonsense about amending the bill to include
alcohol, smoking, and 6000 other toxic products would then cause him to
support it. He said that it didn't make sense to pick out just one: that
that just wasn't "fair."
[In an earlier conversation with Komadina on the Senate floor, I
reminded him of the Hippocratic oath, TO DO NO HARM. "Is this not the same
as to PREVENT HARM?" I asked. He said no, they were two different
things. It seems that Dr. Komadina has different standards for quality in
medicine and quality in legislation].

We are working towards an Aspartame ban because it is the most
egregious of food additives . We won't stop until it is banned in New Mexico,
but other states may perhaps come first..

Thus, we cordially invite you to a press conference about Aspartame in
the Rotunda of the New Mexico Capitol on Monday, February 6, at 2 PM,
convened by Senator Ortiz y Pino and me. Our special guest will be Cori
Brackett, Founder of Sound and Fury Productions, a Tucson documentary
filmmaker who was diagnosed with Advanced Multiple Sclerosis by four
physicians. She then recognized that the Diet Cokes she was drinking
might be the problem; she stopped them entirely, and the lesion healed.
She made the film, Sweet Misery, which interviews aspartame poisoning
victims, the leading physicians, and several activists and plaintiff's
lawyers.

We are giving over 100 copies of her film to the legislators, with the
sincerest and most urgent of hopes that fewer will be so abysmally
ignorant and almost belligerent in their right to choose to drink Diet
Cokes, whether they contain formaldehyde or not, which is really quite a
matter of rudimentary chemistry! Maybe next year, there will be less
aspartame- logged legislator in the legislature.

I really hope so, or we will never get rid of this neurotoxic
carcinogen.
Stay tuned for more updates from time to time.

Stephen Fox New Millennium Fine Art New Mexico Nutrition Council
Comments

By joe sonneman (Submitted: 02/06/2006 9:06 am) I'm told that pilots
are banned from drinking CARBONATED beverages, no matter what the
sweetener. ??? Maybe pilots can chime in and say more; it's a retired pilot
who told me, though.

By Johnny Mata (Submitted: 02/06/2006 7:56 am) Maybe Diet Coke and
aspartame causes mental illness too, and clouds the judgement of these
Senators who regularly drink it and it is even in vending machines in the
roundhouse and included in their box lunches!!!. Why don't you nuts
sue Diet Coke for disabling New Mexico's legislature with chemical side
effects of this satanic substance and rendering our government into a
useless condition?

By David Lopez (Submitted: 02/06/2006 7:40 am) I, personally, have seen
what Aspartame can do to members of my family and to friends. I am not
"mistaken" or "over-reacting."

Barbara, please provide details about how aspartame has affected your
family.
That is the weakness with this argument. The negative health effects
are too vague.
The comparison of drinking a diet soda to drinking a bottle of
formaldehyde are too unbelieveable.
If you want to convince a receptive, though unbelieving public,
documented, peer reviewed case studies might do it.

By Barbara Metzler (Submitted: 02/06/2006 7:07 am) All Aspartame
victims have busy lives. They wouldn't take their own valuable time to fight
to have Aspartame banned from our food supply if they didn't think it
was crucial to the health of the American people and to others all
over the world. Thousands and thousands of victims of Aspartame
(NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc,)

poisoning have been trying for nearly two decades to have this
artificial sweetener banned from the market. They have banded together in a
group, and have tried very diligently to get the FDA to take a serious
look at the dangerous consequences - for many people - of Aspartame
use. They have had no luck. All they ever get from the FDA are packages
of information claiming that Aspartame is "safe" and that the victims
are "mistaken" or "over-reacting." I, personally, have seen what
Aspartame can do to members of my family and to friends. I am not "mistaken"
or "over-reacting." The FDA's approval of NutraSweet was very murky in
the first place.

I think that's why the FDA ignores the issue now. Apparently, the
manufacturer had enough money and political influence to convince everyone
of the safety of aspartame. In fact, The Golden Rule is that "He who
has the gold makes the rules." And, this is evident in the way in which
the FDA approved aspartame in the first place.

What it all boils down to is that it's too much of a hassle for anyone
in Washington to care. BUT, THAT ISN'T RIGHT! What's done should be
Undone! It was the United States that put the poison on the market, and
it should be the United States that stops it. I hope that New Mexico
is a leader in banning it from sale! It is idiotic to speak against the
ban. Those who do, don't realize how dangerous it is.


By Donna Voetee (Submitted: 02/05/2006 2:33 pm)
It's not so surprising that seven New Mexico state senators voted to
table Senate Bill 654, which would ban the poisonous chemical aspartame
from all food and beverages in the state.

Six of those senators are imbibers of diet Coke. These senators should
have recused themselves from voting, as their self-serving interest in
aspartame most likely kept them from making a reasonable, prudent
decision. It is a well-known medical fact that methanol is addictive, and
that methanol is part of the aspartame molecule. One cannot expect
addicts to cut off their supply with their own hand.

The seventh senator, Steve Komadina, a medical doctor who warns his
own patients against the use of aspartame, perplexingly also voted to
table the bill. Although Mr. Fox, aspartame foe extraordinaire, had
previously discussed with this senator the Hippocratic Oath, "First do no
harm" that all doctors purportedly adhere to, the senator disagreed that
this time-revered maxim applied in this case. His reasoning was that it
is not "fair" to pick on aspartame while not addressing the health
pitfalls of smoking, alcohol, etc. By this logic, I suppose he would see
the "fairness" of letting rattlesnakes wander freely amongst us until
all stray dogs have been locked up.

Senator Komadina is in the most pitiable position of all: knowing the
truth, yet refusing to come to the rescue of those still bound by
deadly lies. He, too, should recuse himself, as this kind of twisted
thinking bears the imprimatur of a conscience-less, ambitious pharmaceutical
complex that has been transforming the ancient sage's Golden Rule of
Medicine into the Rule of Gold for several decades.

If there weren't over 25 years of solid scientific evidence against
aspartame, these senators would have had reason to vote as they did. As
it is, these seven people are without excuse. Their own lusts prevented
them from having the moral courage necessary to carry out their duty to
the people of New Mexico.

Sincerely, Donna Voetee Teacher of Supermarket Survival, Victorville,
California
By christena parisoff (Submitted: 02/04/2006 11:00 pm) I have gone
through drug withdrawal -
very exhaustive painful and agonizing tremors
All because Schwarz pharma - added a neurotoxin to my Parkinsons
disease medication - called - Parcopa I was not informed by my doctor or
pharmacy -
if I had PKU - I would not be alive at all. this is a matter of life or
death...
aspartame needs to be removed - it is poison.
please read - this article...

sincerely,
christena

http://www.newstarget.com/011804.html

[ ]
By Rich Murray (Submitted: 02/04/2006 6:51 am) letter from Dana K. Day
on aspartame harm in kids 11-14 in Farmington, NM: Murray 2006.01.23

Below, please also find a letter from a Farmington, NM middle school
counselor, disclosing the damage done to schoolchildren by the toxic
effects of aspartame.

Farmington middle school teacher discusses direct experience of
aspartame damage in students From: Dana K. Day Subject: Please Help Ban
Aspartame from New Mexico's Foods To: dave.contarino@state.nm.us January
23, 2006

Dear Respected Person, I am a 42 year old Middle School Counselor that
works with youth ages 11-14 here in Farmington, New Mexico. I see an
average of 30 students a week in individual counseling sessions dealing
with issues ranging from peer conflict, effects of family's drug use
(methamphetamines in particular), all the way to suicidal ideation and
clinical depression. The last two issues are the ones I would like to
emphasize in this letter, as they deal directly with the effects of
aspartame ingestion. Aspartame Suppresses the Levels of Serotonin in the
Brain. Serotonin is a naturally produced brain chemical that is
necessary for healthy functioning and emotional well-being. We know that low
levels of seratonin correlate with depression.

When interviewing students on the circumstances surrounding their
depressive symptons, I inquire about the ingestion of sugar-free gum and
diet sodas, both of which contain aspartame. 9 times out of 10 the
students indicate regular aspartame ingestion... I inform them on the
effects of aspartame ingestion, and ask for them to discontinue use of
products containing aspartame. During follow-up, all complying students
report a significant reduction in depressive symptoms.

According to one recent report, 5 suicides have been linked to
aspartame ingestion. Please do all you can to pave the path to ban aspartame
from our food, drinks, candy, and gum. We must look out for the
well-being of our unsuspecting youth (as well as others). It is our moral,
ethical and legal obligation to do so.

As a person of power within our govenmental structure of our great
state, please do your part to protect our citizens. Thank you, Dana K. Day
Mid-School Counselor Farmington, New Mexico
[ http://fc.fms.k12.nm.us/directory/ Dana Day 6229,1104
dday@fms.k12.nm.us

http://www.fms.k12.nm.us/heights/staff.htm Heights Middle School, 3700
College Blvd., Farmington, NM 87402 (505) 599-8611 Day, Dana
Counselor-SSC 6000 ]


"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to actively find,
quickly share, and act upon the facts about healthy and safe food,
drink, and environment." Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@comcast.net
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages group with 151
members, 1,292 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RmForAll.blogspot.com http://AspartameNM.blogspot.com