From: Jaffe, Lyle D Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 8:11 AM To: Dockets, FDA Subject: FW: In Answer to FDA's Letter on Competing Priorities: The Aspartame Disease Epidemic, and Citizens Petition for Recall (Open Letter) -----Original Message----- From: Betty Martini [mailto:Bettym19@mindspring.com] Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 9:18 AM To: RXH@CFSAN.FDA.GOV; DHATTAN-CFSAN.FDA.GOV; Jaffe Lyle D Subject: In Answer to FDA's Letter on Competing Priorities: The Aspartame Disease Epidemic, and Citizens Petition for Recall (Open Letter) Dear FDA: I am in receipt of your letter stating the reason you have not complied with the law to answer my Citizens Petition on the recall of aspartame within the 6 months allotted is "competing priorities". While I understand the FDA has always served above the law, I would like to know what these competing priorities are. A couple of years ago Charles Fleming, an aspartame addict drinking 10 diet drinks a day and using aspartame products dropped dead. His autopsy showed the usual, chronic methanol poisoning, pulmonary edema, etc. The police had no idea there was free methyl alcohol in aspartame that he was using and prosecuted his innocent wife for murder. She is now serving 50 years for the murder of her husband when it was the deadly chemical poison aspartame approved by the FDA that killed her husband. She has lost her home and her husband, and now her three children are left without their parents. Are your competing priorities more important than these lives? Then there is the man who had one of the aspartame blackouts while driving. His car went 6 blocks, crashed and killed three people. He served almost 5 years in prison. Are your competing priorities more important than this man whose life was so shattered, and the lives of 3 innocent people? He's lost everything now. Then there was the American pilot Neal who was drinking a diet drink in flight, blacked out and died. How important is his life and the other 4 American Airline pilots who were heavy users of aspartame who also died, and the two who had aspartame strokes? Then there was Mr. Jansen who spent years in a mental institution whose life was shattered by aspartame. As you well know, there is also the problem of serotonin depletion which triggers manic depression, mood swings, paranoia, suicidal tendencies, etc. Doctors H. J. Roberts and Russell Blaylock have mentioned today there are many people in mental institutions who are simply aspartame victims. And why has FDA not notified physicians that aspartame interacts with anti-seizure medication. But then again if you told the truth physicians would know aspartame is a drug that was approved as an additive, which is a crime. And what about the millions of babies murdered in their mother's womb because the FDA has steadfastly refused to add a warning on aspartame for pregnant women? They have no idea that aspartame is an abortifacient and teratogen. How many babies today were born autistic because of FDA refusal to have some integrity? Are your competing priorities more important than removing this deadly neurotoxic drug from the market place so that babies can live. Are your competing priorities more important than the millions suffering with seizures because FDA approved a seizure triggering drug that even interacts with anti-seizure medication? (Waisman/Rao used as pivotal in the approval of aspartame, a 52 week oral toxicity study where 7 infant monkeys were fed aspartame. Five had grand mal seizures and one died.) And are they more important than the epidemic of diabetes that aspartame has triggered? Did the FDA even bother to notify physicians that aspartame interacts with insulin, blinds and causes diabetics to go into convulsions. Today diabetics are losing limbs and dropping dead. And what does FDA do? Lie and say its safe for diabetics. No doubt many of the athletes dropping dead are because of using aspartame products. Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., explains that over stimulation of the hypothalamus by aspartame could result in cardiac electrical abnormalities leading to sudden death. He says this has been demonstrated by hypothalamic stimulation experiments, and that there have been clinical reports of cardiac related emergency room visits following a meal high in excitotoxin additives. Sudden deaths following such meals have also been reported. He also said: "..there is compelling evidence to indicate that food additive excitototoxins, such as aspartame, pose a serious danger to our well being, especially so in the case of children and the elderly. It has been demonstrated that excitotoxins in the diet can dramatically elevate free radical generation for prolonged periods of time and that once induced, it triggers a viscous cycle that ends in neuron death. Most authorities now agree that elevated free radical generation is associated with virtually all degenerative diseases as well as most injuries and toxins. It makes little sense to expose the general public to a product that we know increases free radical generation so dramatically and is associated with laboratory proven injuries to the nervous system." I sent you the Idaho Observer article from March on the coverup where FDA says its ephedra. Dr. James Bowen explains in this article too how aspartame causes sudden death. It's also discussed in Dr. H. J. Roberts medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.sunsentpress.com I've noticed you've had competing priorities for years when you don't want to answer questions like those sent to you by H. J. Roberts, M.D. having to do with free methyl alcohol in aspartame. There may be millions misdiagnosed as having MS because of the methanol toxicity, although its due to the entire chemical mess. The death of Joyce Wilson who was misdiagnosed as having MS and who went blind comes to mind. I have her pitiful last letter to Senator Metzenbaum where she stated "its too late for me, please warn others". It's been too late for many who have died from the methanol toxicity just like Charles Fleming, whose wife remains in prison for FDA's crime, not hers. As your own FDA toxicologist, Dr. Adrain Gross told Congress, 'aspartame violates the Delaney Amendment (forbids putting something in food you know will cause cancer) because without a shadow of a doubt aspartame can trigger brain tumors and brain cancer.' And don't forget his last words to Congress "And if the FDA violates its own laws who is left to protect the public?" How do you people sleep at night, or is that your "competing priorities" keep you so busy it doesn't matter to you. You've obviously been too busy to answer former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who asked you to answer my 24 questions years ago. The law requires that you answer all congressmen. This reminds me that Dr. H. J. Roberts had his congressman write for the rest of the FDA audit by Jerome Bressler. We have that FDA audit as you know on www.dorway.com Ms. Melinda Plaisier from the FDA wrote back and said that sometimes records are not released because they are confidential. Translation: If records show the FDA has committed a crime we won't release them. Ms. Plaisier didn't answer my last letter either of July 16, 2001 because every time she lied I quoted the FDA record that showed she was lying. Keep in mind that Dr. H. J. Roberts and I have both spoken to Jerome Bressler and he has told that when the Bressler Report was typed the FDA had the 20% that was the most damning deleted. He also told us about the cover letter and the two mouse studies. That explains why the FDA doesn't want to release the records - it shows again the coverup by the FDA on the deadly effects of this chemical poison. Remember my Citizens Petition is not based on the fact that aspartame is not safe. We know that and the FDA says that in its Board of Inquiry report. In fact, Bob Flint, Mission Possible Maine, www.greatfallspro.com provides it for the public on CD. And the summation is on www.dorway.com This Citizens Petition is asking for recall because the FDA records show aspartame to be a deadly chemical poison, and yet FDA lies to the public and physicians, tying their hands. And what happens to the victims, besides so many of them dying. Read below the history from Steve Frye, an aspartame victim. Look what this man has endured because of the FDA approval of a poison, and the fact that the FDA lies about it, so physicians are unable to help him. What an outrage and a crime that the information on what aspartame causes is kept from physicians so they cannot help the victims. Notice this was an able man and what he has been reduced to, just like those veterans who drank diet drinks in the Persian Gulf. They went over in top condition, fighting machines and came back reduced to invalids. That is, those who came back. 40,000 perished!!!! Did you bother to tell the military that aspartame is a chemical hypersensitization agent and interacts with vaccines. But then again the Antrax vaccine that was given to them was never approved. It was then Acting Commission Michael Friedman who told the military "give it to them anyway!" Let's discuss Dr. Michael Friedman. While the FDA knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that aspartame triggers brain tumors and brain cancer as told to Congress by your own on-site FDA toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, yet Friedman got on 60 Minutes and defended the then manufacturer, Monsanto, by saying aspartame didn't cause brain tumors. I wonder why he didn't answer my email when I asked him when he was going to get his reward for his lie? As you know, he got his reward in June, l999 when Monsanto hired for a lot of money!!! I told him then the FDA no longer needed a revolving door, they could just build a bridge to take care of the traffic. Sometimes I think the FDA would lie when the truth would do! And when it comes to brain tumors I can't help but remember the cries of Kelli Motluck who developed glioblastomas from aspartame. She kept saying, "I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, but if I die please tell the world that Monsanto murdered me." She left a grieving husband and small child to grow up without a mother. If the FDA had not approved a deadly chemical poison for human consumption Kelli and millions of others would be alive today. One of the most profound statements ever written was by Dr. James Bowen who explained how aspartame destroys the entire fertility process. "At every point in the fertility process aspartame destroys, beginning with the gleam in Mom and Pop's eyes; it ruins female sexual response and induces male sexual dysfunction. Beyond this, aspartame disrupts fetal development by aborting it or inducing defects. And if a live child is born aspartame may have heinously damaged the DNA of the baby, cursing future generations." Even in Dr. Blaylock's new book "Health & Nutrition Secrets to Save Your Life" he says all it takes is one diet drink a day to cause significant DNA damage. And just think, if aspartame had never been approved those on the Internet wouldn't be getting Viagara spam all day long, as well as other vulgar ads and porn on the situation. Think of how many families have been shattered and how many divorces there are because of this. To actually approve a poison that damages the hypothalamus of the brain and the mitochondria (life force) of the cell. And as Dr. Bowen says: "Because of aspartame's extreme toxicity even minute doses are destructive, damaging fetal nervous systems and related structures. Eyes and hearing come to mind. All tissues are similarly damaged as beyond its functional neurological intoxicating effects, methyl alcohol/formaldehyde is the strongest organic base in the living organism and is a polymerizing agent, turning tissue into plastic. From such poisoning there is no escape, it is obligatory metabolism by alcoholdehydrogenase of methyl alcohol into nascent formaldehyde, occurring 75% in the cytosol (cytoplasm) and 25% in the mitochondria. USA Today on April 17 quoting a study said that "Side effects from prescription medicines plague one in four patients, and when these adverse reactions surface, most doctors fail to act".. In Dr. H. J. Roberts medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic (www.sunsentpress.com) there is a chapter on drug interaction with aspartame because aspartame is not an additive. An additive by law is required to be inert, and aspartame is so reactive the symptoms and diseases it causes fills this 1038 page medical text that every doctor in the world should have in order to treat the millions of victims. This is just one more crime the FDA committed. It shows that aspartame interacts with just about every drug used to treat the problems it causes. For instance, aspartame can precipitate Parkinson's and interacts with L-dopa. This is also discussed in detail in Excitotoxions: The Taste That Kills by neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D., www.amazon.com It interacts with all cardiac medication while it triggers an irregular rhythm. It damages the cardiac conduction which is one of the reasons it triggers sudden death. What chance does an aspartame cardiac victim have when the doctor doesn't know this. Since aspartame is a literal poison it probably interacts with most drugs. And, of course, has a synergistic effect with MSG (www.truthinlabeling.com). This reminds me of another crime of the FDA. Glutamate researchers used aspartame as a placebo in studies so they could say MSG wouldn't react anymore than the placebo. MSG is also an excitotoxin (a product that literally stimulates the neurons of the brain to death causing brain damage of varying degrees - Russell Blaylock, M.D.). In 1993 Jack Samuels, President of the Truth in Labeling Campaign, was reviewing FDA docket files relating to an FDA study on the safety of amino acids in supplements. In the files, he found a letter dated March 22, 1991, from Andrew G. Ebert, PhD, Chairman, International Glutamate Technical Committee --a glutamate industry organization -- in which Ebert admitted that aspartame had been used since at least 1978 in test and placebo materials that his organization provided to scientists who study the safety of MSG. A review of studies conducted with the above-referenced test material clearly indicates that some subjects reacted to both MSG test material and placebo material. Scientists conducting such studies concluded that since subjects reacted to both MSG and placebos, their reactions were not from MSG. Even though such logic is highly questionable, we now know that subjects reacted to placebos because of the presence of aspartame, an additive that causes MSG-type responses in MSG-sensitive people. Because of the disclosure of the use of aspartame in placebo material by Jack Samuels, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, in its July 1995 report on the safety of MSG in food, concluded that the use of aspartame in placebo materials was inappropriate. FDA knew this for years and did nothing. The word inappropriate is quite mild. It is illegal to use a deadly chemical poison, a neurotoxic drug as a placebo. A placebo is suppose to be inert, or non-reactive. Dr. Bowen told you years ago and his letter on labeling remains on www.dorway.com, that aspartame is mass poisoning of the American public and more than 70+ countries of the world, now 100. This is genocide. Now you tell me what competing priorities are more important than removing aspartame from the market place and allowing the people to live? Two thirds of the population and 40% of our children are using this poison. No wonder all the epidemics and puzzling problems researchers can't answer like why children are getting Bipolar, an adult disease. Dr. Ralph Walton has shown with his research on peer reviewed scientific studies and funding, on web, that virtually 92% of all independent studies show problems with aspartame. And if he eliminated a pro-industry summary and 6 studies the FDA had something to do with, 100% of independent, peer reviewed studies show the problems aspartame triggers. And you can understand why he questions studies the FDA had something to do with, based on the fact that FDA lies so much. One anti-aspartame journalist wears a button about the FDA that says "they lie and deny"! And that is what the Citizens Petition is all about. And you people have the audacity to go after vitamins and supplements while FDA approval of aspartame is poisoning the world. And so many prescription drugs should never have been approved like Celebrex. One lady using Diet Pepsi and Celebrex died when all her skin fell off, and I understand there is a suit on this one. What does it take to get you people to tell the truth? Don't you realize everything is a matter of public record - your records. For 16 years FDA kept aspartame off the market and your two FDA toxicologists, Dr. Jacqueline Verrett (who told Congress that all studies on aspartame were built on a foundation of sand and should be thrown out) and Dr. Adrian Gross who tried to prevent its approval and said the manufacturer should be indicted, were heros. Dr. Gross' comments about how Searle lied are legend and are quoted all over the world. With all this evidence how in the world can you tell the public and physicians that aspartame is safe when people are actually dropping dead of the poison? As Dr. Blaylock says in a lecture on www.dorway.com, the reactions to aspartame are not allergic but toxic like arsenic and cyanide. And unbelievably with methanol classified as a narcotic you allowed this deadly addictive drug. The methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain. And our kids are using this narcotic. Why not just approve cocaine. We have four support groups and some have said they used cocaine and it was easier to get off cocaine than aspartame. Already a generation of kids have been destroyed. Parents magazine in about Sept 1999 wrote an article titled What's Happening To Our Kids? They mentioned most every family in this country is affected, and by the time a child has reached the fourth level of high school, one out of four has contemplated suicide. And that's serotonin depletion. It reminds me of Mary Reiff who was on a TV program with me. She had an aspartame seizure while driving causing a horrible accident and ending up in the hospital along with her son. She then was declared legally blind which, of course, was from the free methyl alcohol. The seizures stopped immediately once she was off aspartame. A year later her vision returned. But I noticed her wrists had been slit. She said: "While on aspartame I kept wanting to kill myself but didn't know why." One aspartame victim just couldn't take it anymore and went to the cemetery, put a pillowcase over his head and shot himself to death. People are dying everyday from this poison. You tell me what competing priorities are more important than removing a poison so people can live!! And if you don't have the courage to do this, than the doors of the FDA should be closed forever so an agency can be setup that is concerned with safe food and drugs. As Ed Horton, Editor of the prestigious Lancet said in May, 2001, the FDA takes money from industry and endangers the lives of the people. He spoke about how the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in particular has become a servant of industry. And history has shown that to be the case, and that the FDA has no interest in consumer safety or safe food and drugs. It's pretty bad when consumers have to set up operations all over the world to warn people not to use aspartame because its a poison and doctors that have found out set up aspartame detoxification centers. There are now over 100,000 web sites warning consumers and an Aspartame Toxicity Center, www.holisticmed.com/aspartame. Courageous physicians who refuse to be silenced continue to write books and warn the public. The famed Dr. John Olney who founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity told the FDA in his report to the Board of Inquiry what would happen to the brains of our kids if aspartame was approved. Unfortunately, the prophecy has now been fulfilled as children are medicated instead of educated and ADD and ADHD are epidemic in countries all over the world. I expect to hear you within 30 days. In June it will be year since the petition was filed with you certified mail. Read on for the case on one more victim's suffering because of FDA approval. Betty Martini, Founder, Mission Possible Intl, 9270 River Club Parkway, Duluth, Georgia 30097 770 242-2599 www.dorway.com >From: "Steve Frye" >To: >Subject: 53 symptoms >Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 15:38:29 -0400 > > >Hello, My name is Steve Frye. I happened onto your site and read the >symptom list at this link from your >page .Bad News about products with >Aspartame > >Of the list posted there, I have 43 symptoms. I am on disability and >unable function in any normal way at all anymore. I just lay on the floor >in quiet desperation. The physicians I ve seen haven t found anything >wrong with me. 2 years now that I ve been in this misery and don t even >have a concrete diagnosis! Before I d call the ambulance to get me, I d >have a laundry list of symptoms written down to give the medics in case I >was unable to converse. I did this at least 6 times. My list was >virtually ignored by the attending ER doctor as well as my own private >doctors. They all have their preconceived notions what is wrong and in >their assembly line approach to medicine and treatment don t care to have >patients who have a clue what may be wrong with them. This has not >happened once, but every time I visit a doctor, any doctor. So now I have >given up on being treated, much less cured of this affliction. > >Several times I ve been ambulanced to the ER after unexplained elevations >in my BP. This has occurred many times over the past 4 years. > >The ER keeps me under observation for a couple hours&..does the MRI, blood >tests and xrays, then determine there s nothing wrong and sends me on my >way without ANY treatment. I ve been kicked out of doctors offices&..I >have documentation of that, and as I said, have given up on any treatment. > >I am only on Toprol XL (200 mg. Per day, which I understand is unheard of) >And am on Topamax at 75 mg. A day (for seizures). That s it. > >I mentioned that I had 43 symptoms, actually I have more that weren t on >that list. > >My Aspartame use was very high prior to my slip into this physical >condition. I lost about 45 lbs on a diet coke and hot tea w/sweetener, (equal) > >The decline I experienced was frighteningly swift. In the matter of a >week, once the symptoms started, I was where I m at now. I must tell you >that last spring and thru the summer (2002) I was in pure hell. I mean I >didn t want to live any more, that is how miserable this thing is. > >If you look in my bedroom there are holes in the walls where I punched >them thru. The reason is that a doctor put me on Imdur, a vasodilator >which increased my headaches so badly that it felt like my eyes were bleeding. > >All my life I ve been a strong person. I probably shouldn t say this as >you more than likely think I m nutts, but I would fistfight 4 people at once. > >That s just to describe myself to you so you can gauge how far down this >has brought me. I sit now, most of the time weeping like a baby because >the cumulative effects of these symptoms have devastated my life. I no >longer have a life. I have no where to turn for help and the doctors >cannot treat me or are unwilling to. I could tell you stories that most >people don t believe about how I ve been mistreated by the medical >establishment. > >I m not a nutt job, so in mine and others opinions there is absolutely no >justification in my treatment. The treatment I ve been given has been >geared toward the dollar and not patient care. These crooks (and that s >what they are) have run more worthless tests on me costing thousands and >accomplishing nothing. > >In fact last summer when I was ER d at least 5 times, they tested me for >the SAME things and ran the SAME tests, all the while I complained that >they didn t find anything a couple weeks ago and they won t find anything >now unless they look elsewhere. This happened at 2 local hospitals. > >Anyway&&yadda, yadda, yadda. I could go on for hours. So here is a list >of the symptoms I suffer from daily. > >Abdominal pain&&&&.prompted camera up the butt test > >Diarrhea&&&&..constant for past 2 years > >Anxiety attacks > >Arthritis&&&&&&I gross my wife out when I make her listen to my wrists as >I rotate them&.snap crackle pop! > >Asthma > >Breathing difficulties&&.awaken in middle of nights unable to breath > >Burning eyes > >Burning urination > >Can t think > >Chest pains&&..severe > >Chronic cough&&.dry cough > >Chronic fatigue > >Confusion&&&almost like loosing my mind&..terrifying! > >Depression&&&..cry all the time > >Dizziness&&&&..this is the worst, you can do a lot of things in pain, >but if you have bed spins all the time, you can t do anything. > >Excessive hunger&..I have gained 55 lbs. The symptoms seem to lessen with >food intake > >Fatigue > >Feel unreal&&..that s accurate > >Flushing of face&&&&..if that means turning white and no color in face, >that s me > >Headache&&&&strange pains in head in unusual place for me, to have >stinging pains behind left eye. CAT scan reveals nothing > >Hearing loss&&&&&.left ear rings loudly then followed by >deafness, sometimes hear computer like sounds. > >Heart palpitations > >High Blood pressure&&&..yes > >Inability to concentrate > >Insomnia > >Joint pains > >Memory loss > >Migraines > >Muscle spasms&&&..big time, all over, usually slight in intensity but >happens allot > >Nausea&&.terrible and I cannot vomit > >Numbness and tingling&&&&..This is terrible, mostly on the left side from >the head to my foot > >Panic attacks > >Poor memory > >Rapid heartbeat > >Seizures&&&.Last doctor says my symptoms sounded like seizure activity so >put me on the topamax > >Slurring speech > >Swallowing difficulty > >Tremors&&&&&..another terrible symptom > >Tinnitus > >Vertigo > >Vision loss&&&terrible > >Weight gain > >Extreme sensitivity to noise&&&&I line with earplugs in > >My only refuge is sleep > >Vision distortions&& > >Extreme sensitivity to light > >Chemical odor sensitivity > >Stinging from left nipple to the left elbow thru armpit on inside of the >arm ( where most spasms happen) > >Disorientation > >Parts of body go cold, face, arms and hands, parts of head > >Hands keep wanting to go closed, kinda like a flower closing back on my >forearm (inside) > >Sometimes my legs and arms don t want to do what I want, like I have to >make them work > >As I begin to feel worse and worse, I notice the veins on the back of my >hands disappear, after I eat the veins reappear and I feel better > >I don t know if this is what you were looking for, but I hope you can shed >some light on this for me. The worst thing about this (as if all this isn >t enough) is the not knowing what s wrong and not having a diagnosis to >get treatment. Any treatment. I know one thing for sure&&&&. > >This is no way to live. > >Thanks so much for caring. > >Steve Frye > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >