Aspartame: Scientific Studies Link Sweetener to Cancers

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The controversial artificial sweetener Aspartame is making headline news, after a recent Italian study linked the common ingredient in diet drinks to lymphomas and leukemias. Aspartame was approved in a highly politicized maneuver involving pressure from Donald Rumsfeld, former CEO of Searle, the Aspartame manufacturer. The recommendations of the FDA's own scientific board of inquiry were disregarded by a political appointee to the FDA's top job, Arthur Hull Hayes, who over-ruled that board of inquiry approving Aspartame for sale, and soon after went to work for the PR Agency of Searle, Burson-Marsteller.

Aspartame critics have pointed to the FDA's own adverse events data and asked that the sweetener be taken off the market, but since the "forced" approval of Aspartame, the agency has been extremely reluctant to revisit the science or to even acknowledge the presence of apparently numerous reports of the sometimes severe side effects, such as sudden cardiac death, vision degradation and multiple sclerosis.

The recent Italian study linking the sweetener to cancers in laboratory animals, has forced the issue into view again. The European Food Control Agency announced that it will initiate a review of Aspartame in the light of this new new data.

A detailed comment from Betty Martini, referencing much of the previously collected information about adverse events calls for schools to prohibit the sale of aspartame laced diet drinks in the ever present vending machines...

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ATLANTA, July 18, 2005 - The Cancer Research Center of the European Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences in Bologna, Italy reported this week that a long-term study to evaluate the potential carcinogenic effects of aspartame demonstrates the chemical sweetener "induces an increase in lymphomas and leukemias in female rats." The research will be presented at a September international scientific conference, "Framing the Future in the Light of the Past: Living in a Chemical World."

Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock M.D. commented: "The new study released in the European Journal of oncology by Morando Soffritti and co-workers should terrify mothers and all those consuming aspartame sweetened products. This was a carefully done study which clearly demonstrated a statistically significant increase in several types of lymphomas and leukemias in rats. Both of these malignancies have increased significantly in this country since the widespread use of aspartame.

"This study confirmed the previous study by Dr. Trocho and co-workers, which also found the formaldehyde breakdown product of aspartame to be damaging to cellular DNA and that this damage was accumulative. The type of damage was a duplicate of that associated with cancers. Along with this most recent study, this means that drinking a single diet cola sweetened with aspartame every day could increase one's risk of developing a lymphoma or leukemia.

"They also found an increased incidence of malignant brain tumors, even though it was not statistically significant. This does not mean there is no association to brain tumors, since only the animals exposed to aspartame developed the tumors. With children and pregnant women drinking the largest amount of diet colas, this puts their children at the greatest risk of developing one of these horrible diseases . Their study found that even low doses of aspartame could cause these malignancies; yet, the higher the dose, the more cancers that were seen.

"Since aspartame can increase obesity and may even cause the metabolic syndrome that affects 48 million Americans, there is no reason to ever consume this product. At the least it should be immediately banned from all schools."

Dr. Blaylock wrote the Miami Herald to counteract propaganda by the Calorie Control Council, an aspartame front group: "It is known that the amount of toxic phenylalanine reaching the baby is twice as high as that in the mother's blood because the placenta concentrates the toxin. In addition, numerous metabolic breakdown products of aspartame are known to damage the developing infant's brain, including methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid, diketopiperazine and phenylacetate.

"Aspartame has been shown by several studies to damage DNA, which can lead to cancer and degenerative brain disorders later in life. The risk of increased brain tumors in such a child would be enormous. Similar mechanisms of damage would be expected in these with liver disease. Studies on aspartame safety have shown that the product increases tumors throughout numerous organs, especially the brain. It was shown that brain tumor incidence increased over 47 times in animals exposed to aspartame.

"With the public concern over childhood obesity and diabetes few are being told of the overwhelming evidence that early exposure to excitotoxins as found in aspartame consistently produce gross obesity and insulin resistant diabetes, just as we are seeing in our youth. The promoters of aspartame use have been lying from the beginning and continue to use their money and political clout to cover up the real and present dangers of this toxic product." Astonishingly the Miami Herald ignored Dr. Blaylock's lifesaving cry of alarm. "Clout" in Miami means advertising dollars!

The Division of Clinical Epidemiology of the University of Texas Health Center at San Antonio just reported a study by Sharon Fowler, MPH, that reviewed eight years of data confirming a diet soda link to obesity. She said: "Something linked to diet soda drinking is also linked to obesity.

An earlier study found weight gain among 78,694 women using artificial sweeteners: Stellman SD, Garfinkel L: "Artificial Sweetener Use and One-Year Weight Change Among Women. Prev Med 1985: 15: 195-202.

Joe Stalin said: "One man's death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
Consider the tragedy of an 8 year old child who consumed aspartame products as told by Dr. H. J. Roberts in his 1038 page magnum work "Aspartame Disease, an Ignored Epidemic". "In two years she developed marked swelling of one shoulder which then involved the neck. Her arm almost tripled in size. ... Numerous physicians and consultants diagnosed histiocytic leukemia. The patient received large doses of Prednisone. Of particular interest is there was dramatic clinical improvement and virtual normalization of the blood changes when the mother eliminated additives. Prednisone was stopped. The patient subsequently ate several bowls of an aspartame containing cereal. Marked swelling of the cheeks developed, coupled with recurrence of the aforementioned features. When aspartame was discontinued, the swelling receded without Prednisone.

"Several months later, the girl was given aspartame chewing gum without the mother's knowledge. Swelling of her entire body, recurrent enlargement of the liver and spleen, a dramatic increase of bone marrow histiocytes, and severe pain in many joints ensued. Total abstinence from aspartame again effected the disappearance of her symptoms and blood abnormalities within 6 months. At the time of Dr. Roberts last discussion with her mother, the child had minimal enlargement of the liver, and was receiving Prednisone in low doses only intermittently.

"The patient had two sets of head x-rays, three CT scans of the brain, two spinal punctures, four bone marrow studies, two electroencephalograms, two heart monitoring studies, two barium enemas, and a host of other studies. Her mother estimated the medical costs at $750,000." [Page 476]

Statistics?

Says Dr. Betty Martini: "There are millions of victims like this little girl! Once documented reports like hers were received as field research by medical professionals. That time has long passed. Today her near-murder is just an "anecdote", a statistic! What unspeakable torture to visit upon an innocent child by these heinous mass poisoners: the chemical sweetener cartel! I've sent thousands of case histories to the FDA and could as well be talking to the Egyptian pyramid of Cheops. The price of medical treatment in the USA means most American families are but a single serious illness from financial destruction. The agony, disablement, death and family ruination wrought by aspartame wrecks our land with a trail of devastation exceeding category 5 hurricanes! With incomparably greater cost and pain!"

Continued Dr. Martini, founder of Mission Possible International, a worldwide volunteer force which for 14 years has exposed chemical sweeteners: "How shall we count aspartame atrocities? Our FDA once listed them, named 92 symptoms from more than ten thousand volunteered complaints by American consumers. Their Buchenwald list included four kinds of seizures, blindness, sexual dysfunction, mental destruction and death. Then FDA shut the report window and no longer take and tabulate reports. I've sent them more cases than they listed, but you can't get the deathlist now; they deny it existed. Think of FDA simply as the branch office of the ph