UK Supermarket Chain Bans Aspartame From Own-Label Products; Japanese Manufacturer Ajinomoto Sues! Can this company be so stupid? World’s largest manufactuer of two neurotoxic carcinogens, Aspartame & MSG, should accept responsibility for causing spike in Neurodegenerative Illnesses: Tumors, MS, ALS, Migraines, Seizures, all recognized by USA FDA

Such a move was not going to go unnoticed by aspartame’s manufacturers, of course. It turns out the Ajinomoto, the Japanese company that makes aspartame, has served a writ in London against Asda, and is suing on the basis that Asda has suggested that aspartame is unhealthy and is something that consumers concerned for their health should avoid.

An Ajinomoto spokesperson is quoted as saying: “This is a UK initiative and a relatively cynical one,” adding: “It doesn’t reflect concerns at a consumer level—it is just bandwagoning.” However, an Asda spokesperson maintains that: “We have removed some of the ingredients our customers tell us they don’t want in their food. That includes aspartame.”

So, what we have here is an example of where what seems to be well-guided consumer pressure has led to a major supermarket chain to take action over a very dubious food ingredient indeed. This, I think, is an example of people power, and I am, personally, hugely enthusiastic about this turn of events.

Now that a writ has been served, my hope is that Asda does not capitulate and “do a deal” with Ajinomoto. Ajinomoto’s lawyers are notorious aggressive. (I’ve had personal experience of this myself as I’ve had exchanges with over what I believe to be factually correct and utterly defensible comments in the Observer magazine some years ago). However, now that a writ has been served, my suspicion is any attempts for a deal to be done have failed. So, it looks as though we’re heading for a full-blown battle.

As this plays out, it might be that Asda’s lawyers may want to draw attention to aspartame’s checkered political history, the fact that this substance has been continually mired in controversy, and that there is (whatever its manufacturer maintains) more than enough evidence to view this substance with considerable suspicion. It might be, therefore, that this legal action will only serve to sow further seeds of doubt about the safety and legitimacy of aspartame. While Ajinomoto obviously feels the need to defend its product and no doubt will instruct its lawyers to give Asda both barrels, in mounting this action it may well end shooting itself in the foot.

Rather than bring this House bill to ban aspartame to a vote in his Health Committee in the Hawaii House, which is what he said he would do only last Friday in the prior meeting of his committee, Chairman Josh Green M.D. today, Wednesday, “deferred at the discretion of the Chair” the bill carried by Rep. Mele Carroll to ban Aspartame. This shoots that particular bill down for this session. There still is a Senate Bill, but with more than 3,000 bills to consider, the Senate Bill to ban aspartame has yet to be scheduled for its hearing.

So much for consumer protection in Hawaii House. It didn’t even come to a vote in the committee, but a few members spoke seriously of putting together a Resolution for this session in Honolulu. Resolutions have no legal “teeth” in them, but they could be strong, as strong as the legislators themselves, like directly asking the FDA Commissioner to rescind the approval of Aspartame immediately, or at least to improve the accuracy of the labeling, and even to ask the Department of Health in Hawaii to take in complaints of patients and families of those who have actually died from aspartame/methanol/diketopiperazine poisoning, and then report back to the Legislature next year.

By then, of course, President Obama will have appointed a new FDA Commissioner, so those who feel strongly should be writing to him and that Arizona chap from. Consumer protection should be part of the agenda and choices in the 2008 Presidential Debates.

If the Resolution crafted by the Hawaii Representatives only asks the usual kind of thing, for the Department of Health to “review the literature,” or some other such pusillanimous mousey feeble intention, this would be a waste of Legislative time and paper, since the Department of Health Director, Dr. Fukino, has already indicated that she is completely in accordance with the phoney FDA approval for aspartame.

Besides, the medical testimony and letters sent to the House Health Committee members include all but one of the top medical experts in the world on the subject of aspartame’s neurodegenerative effects. To me, it seems that the Hawaii DOH is not willing nor capable of doing much more than pulling down corporate-sponsored aspartame information from their corporate websites, which will tell you that this deadly poison is as “harmless as mother’s milk” or “just like salt and pepper,” the kind of jive the corporate lobbyists spout to legislators when their boards of directors begin to get a little worried.

All that will happen really is that more people in Hawaii will drink or consume aspartame and get migraines, brain tumors, Multiple Sclerosis, worse cases of diabetes than were ever imaginable, etc., and Hawaii will just observe an increase the death-by- aspartame body count; a real resolution would set up a repository for victim testimony all year round.

So far, only a few legislators in Hawaii or New Mexico or even Washington D.C. have given these neurotoxic carcinogenic poison manufacturers anything to worry about at all, since most of the legislators don’t seem too worried about anything either (what’s a little neurotoxic carcinogen too worry about, anyway?) or very ambitious about consumer protection ideals in the first place.

I had respectful and sincere high hopes for Dr. Green’s abilities for recognizing the medical realities of this neurotoxin’s effects, since it is found in 7000 food products and even in hundreds of children’s medications, despite it turning into methanol and formaldehyde in the child’s or the adult’s stomach and liver.

Thus, my faith in his medical degree and the fact that he is the only physician in the Legislature were perhaps misplaced. We will see what the Resolution has to say. In the meantime, my advice to Hawaiians and everyone: please protect yourself and your family and quit drinking and consuming products that contain aspartame, even though the manufacturers in Japan, the Board of Directors of Ajinomoto (world’s largest manufacturer of both Aspartame and another neurotoxic food additive, MSG), the Coca Cola distributors, the Wrigley’s Gum Board of Directors, and the people poisoning themselves with more diet sodas, are most certainly very happy and grateful with the work by Josh Green, M.D., Chairman of the Hawaii House Health Committee.

Maybe someday this will dawn on him and the rest of the committee, but for the past, present and near future victims of aspartame poisoning in Hawaii, it will be too late.

Mahalo for sharing so many victims’ stories and physicians’ letters; I particularly appreciate New Mexico Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino writing to the legislators to ask them to move this bill forward, and to not capitulate to corporate lobbyists from Ajinomoto and Coca Cola.

All of our efforts will save lives in Hawaii, and, like leaded gas, DDT, and asbestos, the grim truth about aspartame will someday be known by all!

Stephen Fox
Managing Editor of the Santa Fe Sun News
Founder of New Millennium Fine Art
505 983-2002

Although the CSPI has - with a delay of several years - come out now with a warning against the use of aspartame, Betty Martini charges that its executive director, Michael Jacobson, should have had the courage to do so long ago. She says the information was available since the time of the aspartame approval through political pressure called in by Donald Rumsfeld, former CEO of aspartame manufacturer Searle and now defense secretary.

Diet soda, which generally is sweetened with aspartame, has been shown to be linked to an increased incidence of obesity by Sharon P. Fowler, MPH, and colleagues at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio in a recent study. While Fowler is quick to point out that the link does not prove causation, the facts showed that the more diet drinks a person consumed, the higher was the likelihood of being obese.

Why can’t we encourage people to just overcome their sweet tooth?

Perhaps it would help, but of course there is no money in that. We have the sugar industry, the chemical sweetener manufacturers and the processed foods and drinks industry making sure that does not happen. But people do pay the bill - some with their lives, others with suffering and illness, others simply with obesity, and all of them with their weekly grocery bills, not to talk about hospital costs that hit every one of us. Great system and real great advice by CSPI, which says it is defending consumers…

Unfortunately the article fails to mention that Sainsbury’s is not just removing the aspartame from products but are instead REPLACING IT with an equally controversial sweetener called Sucralose (also known as Splenda). That is not progress. That is not an improvement. That is replacing one problem-causing substance with ANOTHER problem-causing substance. It has taken many years for the world to catch up on aspartame and demand its removal as its associated problems surfaced and got researched and investigated. It will take again many years for people to catch up on Sucralose. So this is nothing more than a reset of the industry to fool the consumer again.

In a move designed to head off yet more negative publicity for the toxic sweetener, the FDA issued a press release on Friday - just days before Soffritti’s talk at the Mount Sinai Medical School - re-stating the FDA’s earlier contention that there is “No evidence the sweetener causes cancer”. In this way, the press was induced to carry the FDA’s denial in numerous variations and Soffritti’s talk last Monday was no longer considered “newsworthy”, although there IS a new study in progress and it certainly adds to emerging knowledge about the effects of the artificial sweetener. It is of interest to see PR at work here and one should should note how well the technologies of public communication are being used by Big Pharma and its supposed “regulator”, the FDA. The two, it seems, will soon be joined in an incestuous ‘marriage’, if a recent bill proposed by Senator Kennedy finds the approval of US lawmakers.

Sainsbury’s is replacing aspartame with sucralose, a low-calorie sweetener made from sugar. It is also removing the widely-used artificial colouring E150d from its cola drinks. E150d also appears in beer and bread. The chemicals will generally be replaced by natural colours and fruit and vegetable extracts, while flavourings will be from named fruits and other natural sources.

The founder of the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group, Sally Bunday, said: “This is fantastic news particularly for our members whose children are affected by the artificial colours used in so many products targeted at youngsters.” Sainsbury’s soft drinks manager, Cathy Port, said: “This is the result of extensive research among customers who told us what they want. We’ve invested a huge amount of time to ensure we get the taste of the new soft drinks exactly right.”

Comment: so they are banning one poison and ADDING A DIFFERENT ONE! A few individuals have commented about this exchange of one controversial substance by another on the UK Daily Mail comments section under their article but such comments were not allowed. Ergo, you are supposed to read this news about the aspartame ban and think it’s a good thing but you evidently aren’t allowed to learn that it is being replaced by something equally controversial.

UPDATE: April 30th, 2007 — Unfortunately aspartame has not been banned. Please see the first comment on this article for details.

The new site, www.sweetremedy.tv, is updated daily by the makers of the two scathing films, “Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World” and “Sweet Remedy: The World Reacts to an Adulterated Food Supply.” Cori Brackett and her husband, J.T. Waldron will incorporate over 120 hours of never before seen excerpts and interviews that were not included in the final cut of “Sweet Remedy”. New footage includes pilot testimony concerning aspartame, Dr. Russell Blaylock’s presentation linking Alzheimers with vaccines, and coverage of Stephen Fox’s battle to get aspartame banned in New Mexico. Similar to other battles against corporate tyranny, “sweetremedy.tv” will take on the conscious misdirections put forth as truth that contradict empirical evidence.

“This site is not completely about emphasizing what’s negative about our world”, Cori states in a RBN interview with Frank Whalen on the nationwide program “Frankly Speaking Radio”, “It’s simply designed to strip away the facade of corporate medicine. Within this huge struggle for sanity and health, there ultimately lies a path to freedom and empowerment. We celebrate that.”

Cori’s extensive daily of habit of searching through news feeds will eventually culminate into a new weekly cable television program, “Notes from a Poisoned World”, which will premier in May of 2007. This program will not only provide a summary of what was covered on the site, but will included interviews and exclusive footage from our “poisoned world.”