- The internationally acknowledged leader and co-ordinator of the Mission Possible campaign against the toxic synthetic sweetener aspartame/Additive 951 is visiting New Zealand in July and early August 2007 at the invitation of NZ organisations devoted to food safety issues.
(Auckland, 17 July 2007) Betty Martini is currently in Wellington from July 17 till July 31st & then in Auckland from August 1 till August 4, 2007 as the result of an invitation from the NZ Safe Food Campaign (Alison White), Aspartame victim, Abby Cormack, Mission Possible NZ representative Chris Wheeler and Soil & Health Association Co-Chair, Steffan Browning. She is available for media interviews during these periods - as below
Additive 951/aspartame is technically defined as L-Aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester, 98%, aspartame CAS #22839-47-0, C14H18N2O5, or more popularly described since 1981 (when it was approved for general use by the US FDA) under various brand names - Nutrasweet, Equal, Spoonful, Benevia, Equal Measure, Canderel, etc. This synthetic sweetener rapidly breaks down in the human body into three chemicals hazardous to human health: - (1.) Aspartic acid, (around 40%); (2.) Phenylalanine, (around 50%); and (3.) Methanol (10%). Although both aspartic acid and phenylalanine are amino-acids essential to human metabolism they are never presented to the human body in the raw chemical synthetic form that aspartame's breakdown represents. Hence they assault the human brain and nerve pathways with the same addictive violence as methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin with consequent health problems.
In defence of this toxin's presence in the NZ food chain the NZ Food Safety Authority's Sandra Daly and Andrew McKenzie often cite what they call the "robust science" defending aspartame's use by the food industry in popular beverages like Diet Coke. In fact the "robust science" they defend has been demonstrated as being completely industry-generated, while a growing body of unacknowledged and refuted (by NZFSA and FDA) scientific studies are demonstrating considerable health concerns. The reputable and non- industry-funded Italian-based Ramazzini Foundation, for example, has demonstrated strong cancer risk from even just two cans of Diet Coke per day in studies reproduced in peer-reviewed medical publications in 2005 and 2007. The criticism of many of the 200 industry-generated studies of aspartame safety cited by Daly and McKenzie is that few of them actually ever made it to the pages of reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals and therefore the couple's references to "robust science" must have a satiric or ironic intent.
Aspartame is responsible for 75 percent of complaints received by US food safety regulators, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), but is still on the world market where it plays subtle but pervasive havoc with human health. The FDA is under growing criticism for the "revolving door" relationship it has with companies like Searle, Merisant, Nutrasweet and Monsanto who politically manipulated the Administration during the Ronald Reagan presidency into approving aspartame for general use in the food chain in 1981. Then Reagan supporter and confidante, Donald Rumsfeld, has since admitted calling in political favours to force aspartame through the FDA regulatory process on behalf of then-holders of the aspartame patents, Searle. Since then, in the contradictory, politically influenced manner in which food safety regulators usually work, the FDA has compiled a list of 92 symptoms of chronic disease resulting from aspartame ingestion (extracted from over 10,000 consumer complaints) which include anxiety attacks, mood alterations and depression, irrational rage, aggressive behaviour, irritability, headaches, brain lesions and tumours, memory loss, dizziness, vertigo, loss of depth perception, epileptic seizures, blurred vision and blindness, heart palpitations/tachycardia, muscle spasms, numbness, fatigue, miscarriages, sexual dysfunction, rashes, joint pain, nausea, hearing loss, tinnitus, slurred speech, loss of taste, and insomnia, as well as eroding intelligence and short- term memory. Aspartame in the role of a catalyst or synergistic element may also trigger or exacerbate multi-factorial medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, Epstein-Barr, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, mental retardation, lymphoma, and birth defects.
Betty Martini was denied entry on Thursday 19 July in Wellington to the NZ Food Safety Authority's Consumer Forum to present her case as part of a presentation by Alison White of the Safe Food Campaign on the medical hazards behind aspartame use. Since the Food Safety Authority is totally reliant on food industry-supplied data on aspartame's safety and would, in fact, face considerable legal and political fallout from the food industry and Helen Clark's industry-compliant Food Safety and Health ministers were it to even consider the possibility of aspartame being a significant toxin, Andrew McKenzie and Sandra Daly, the Authority's top apparatchiks, are duty bound to block any challenge to aspartame's present use in top-selling supermarket beverages like Diet Coke and the all-pervasive breath freshioners and Wrigley's chewing gums behind recent NZ complaints of aspartame's toxic side-effects.
Chris Wheeler, NZ representative of Mission Possible, who attended last Thursday's NZFSA Consumer Forum, has labelled the Forum "a sham, window-dressing exercise on behalf of Coca Cola and Monsanto. Actually," he says, "the Consumer Forum's membership has been manipulated so that at least 75 percent of membership is virtually illiterate on the complex issues relating to food additive chemicals. The dietician and nutritionist membership of the Forum can only maintain their employment by kowtowing to food industry interests and the rest of the Forum seem to attend mainly because of the free lunch and free aeroplane rides offered by NZFSA.
"On the same basis it might be cheaper and more enjoyable for all concerned if children from a local kindergarten were given the opportunity of attending the Forum's sessions, since on grounds of compliant and obedient behaviour children are undoubtedly better candidates than the somewhat feckless adults who usually attend these bunfights on behalf of Coca Cola."
Betty Martini began Mission Possible International in 1993 when she first investigated what was disabling a family friend and discovered his multiple neurological symptoms were caused by his consumption of products containing aspartame. She discovered that this synthetic sweetener broke down in the human body into methyl alcohol, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, which degraded into formaldehyde, formic acid (ant sting venom) and diketopiperazine, all severe (and medically accepted) poisons causing brain tumours, blindness and even death.
Betty decided to wake up the world. Using the Internet to create an international audience and enlist an army of activists she has sustained a constant campaign against a chemical poison so toxic that only the corruption of the American food regulatory system could have ever permitted its release on the unsuspecting world. She has assembled a huge dossier of case histories regarding the medical problems caused by aspartame, as well as a comprehensive catalogue of medical data from acknowledged world medical experts on this toxic sweetener chemical. An award winning website http://www.dorway.com, originally set up by the late David Rietz, himself an aspartame victim, offers a wealth of facts about aspartame.
Recently Florida toxins expert H. J. Roberts, M.D. published a 1,000 page medical text: Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, (see http://www.aspartameispoison.com) which is the most comprehensive study available on the health problems caused by aspartame. Dr Roberts dedicated his book to Betty Martini in acknowledgement of her tireless efforts to bring aspartame and its deadly toll on human health to the attention of consumers everywhere. Betty has collected thousands of case histories and is now recognized as an international consumer authority on this world plague.
"Worst of all," Betty Martini says, "It's not a diet product. Aspartame defeats the brain's ability to detect serotonin so you crave carbohydrates. It makes most people fat! This entire travesty, this horrible atrocity against our poor human race is driven only by greed! greed! greed! And because of the damage to the hypothalamus some consumers suddenly drop dead (see Dr. Blaylock's paper on Aspartame, MSG and Other Excitotoxins And the Hypothalamus at http://www.dorway.com/hypot.txt). This mechanism may explain the surprise deaths of a number of athletes in recent times as well as the road rage, depression and irrational murders we hear so much about these days," says Mrs Martini.
Currently case histories are being assembled by a number of prominent US attorneys with the intention of carrying out class action cases in the Federal courts against aspartame manufacturers and food industry corporates like Coca Cola and Wrigley's.
Betty Martini is in New Zealand till August 5th and will be conducting workshops and lectures on aspartame at the Auckland and Wellington Medical schools and in Christchurch, along with media interviews during this period.
Mission Possible is represented in New Zealand by Chris Wheeler, former President of the Soil & Health Association of NZ Inc, health issues writer (Self Help Cancer Cure Book) and representative of the Safe Food Campaign in Auckland. The Safe Food Campaign is co-ordinated from Wellington by Alison White and represented in Parliament by Green Party health and food safety MP Sue Kedgley. The Attention Deficit & Hyperactivity Disorder Association (ADHD) is co-ordinated from Auckland by Jenny Scott and the co-ordinating group behind Betty Martini's visit also includes Steffan Browning of the organic farming advocacy group, the Soil & Health Association, New Zealand's oldest organic farming organisation (founded 1941 and linked to the UK Soil Association whose patron is Charles, Prince of Wales).
CHECK THESE RESOURCES FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Web Site - http://www.dorway.com and http://www.wnho.net, the Aspartame Toxicity Center, http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame A new video exposing the aspartame industry is "Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World", available from Email: , Tel (USA) - . Also the medical text on aspartame: "Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic", available online from http://www.sunsentpress.com or Tel (USA) 1-800-827-7991 H. J. Roberts, M.D. (along with other books and tapes). Dr Roberts' book contains a chapter on trial lawyers and drug interactions since aspartame is a severely neurotoxic drug. See also books on aspartame by neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, MD, "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills", and "Health & Nutrition Secrets To Save Your Life." See websites above for details. The latter book tells aspartame victims what they have to avoid and why, and explains how a victim can re-build their immune system. Dr. Blaylock also has a book on Cancer Strategies. With aspartame having caused so many tumours in original studies this is a helpful resource.
Chris Wheeler
P O Box 44, Upper Moutere
Nelson 7144
New Zealand
Website: http://www.selfhelp-cancertherapy.com
"God is not on the side of the heavy battalions, but of the best shots." Voltaire, 1694-1778, The Piccini Notebooks.