Killing Me Sweetly
Is aspartame really a safe sugar substitute?
If not, why is the FDA blocking the release of a better alternative?
By Bill Strubbe
EVELYN BLAKE'S downhill spiral began in 1994
when she decided to lose weight: she switched to diet sodas and began using
Equal as a sugar substitute. "After about four months I began feeling
nervous and uneasy," Blake recalls. "My heart was beating so irregularly
that I wondered if I was having a heart attack! Then one night I woke with this
very strange feeling, like I was in a zombie state. I felt as if my tongue was
swelling, my teeth clenched tight."
Blake began to shiver, and by the time she
reached her son's room her body shook uncontrollably and she couldn't talk. The
frightening incident eventually subsided, and they decided against visiting the
emergency room. "Not making any connection, I continued to use Equal in
everything--coffee, bread, cereal, salad--and the seizures got worse."
Though millions of people sip diet sodas,
ingest yogurt lite, and stir the contents of those little blue packets into
their coffee without noticeable side effect, Blake's ordeal is only one of
thousands of alleged aspartame-poisoning complaints registered over the last
two decades. By the federal Food and Drug Administration's own admission, 73
percent of all food complaints are aspartame-related--most commonly headaches,
memory loss, depression, heart palpitations, and vision problems. Some contend
that prolonged use of aspartame is the root cause of their permanent nerve
damage, their brain lesions and tumors, and even the untimely deaths of family
members.
"Since many consumers may never make the
connection between their maladies and aspartame intake, conceivably those
complaints are only the tip of the iceberg," says Betty Martini, who heads
Mission Possible International, which attempts to educate the public about the
dangers of aspartame.
Industry and FDA spokespersons point out that
these accounts are "merely anecdotal" and "unscientific,"
but the sheer volume of accusations in itself should raise questions about
aspartame's approval process--the independence of industry-funded research, the
ethics of the revolving door relationships between FDA officials and
industry--and call for the re-examination of this chemical that is now commonly
found in grocery stores, on kitchen shelves, and in children's lunchboxes.
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Sweet Nothing: Proponants of stevia, a natural sweetener, do battle with NutraSweet.
NUTRASWEET--along with Equal, Spoonful,
Indulge, Equal-Measure, etc.--is a brand name for aspartame, discovered by
accident in 1965 when a chemist with G. D. Searle pharmaceuticals was testing
an anti-ulcer drug: he happened to lick his hand, and the rest is history.
Originally approved for use in dry foods in July 1974, aspartame was put on
hold several months later owing to objections filed by neuroscience researchers
and consumer attorneys.
When ingested, NutraSweet breaks down into
aspartic acid, a chemical found in the brain; phenylalanine, an amino acid; and
methanol (wood alcohol), which converts to formaldehyde, which at high levels
can cause brain damage and blindness. Monsanto--the former
They also insist that except for people with
the rare disease phenylketonuria, aspartame is safe. (G. D. Searle, the
original makers of NutraSweet, was bought by Monsanto in the 1980s. This past
year, Monsanto sold NutraSweet to J. W. Childs and divested itself of Equal,
which is now a registered trademark of Merisant Co.)
Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, professor of
neurosurgery at the
The risks to infants, children, and pregnant
women are higher because the blood/brain barrier, which normally protects the
brain, is not fully developed until adulthood. Dr. Blaylock and numerous other
experts believe that long-term exposure to excitotoxins may play a part in
diseases such as early-onset
Dr. John Olney, a neuroscientist at
Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, who has demonstrated the
harmful effects of excitotoxins and testified before Congress, believes that
both glutamate and aspartate damage areas of the brain controlling endocrine
functions leading to obesity.
He posits that the 30 percent increase in
obesity in
"While there were a few inaccuracies [in
the original safety tests], there was nothing convincing to keep aspartame off
the market," insists David Hattan, Ph.D., acting director of the FDA's
Division of Health Effects Evaluation. "The large body of animal and
clinical research carried out in a controlled environment convinces me that
aspartame is safe."
But a number of his colleagues have
disagreed. During a congressional investigation in 1985 to scrutinize Searle's
aspartame safety tests, Dr. Jacqueline Verrett, a former FDA toxicologist and
FDA task force member, testified that the tests were a "disaster" and
should have been "thrown out." Dr. Marvin Legator, professor of
environmental toxicology at the
Because of FDA budget limitations, it is
standard procedure for the bulk of initial safety tests to be financed,
designed, and carried out by the company with a vested interest in the product.
The reliability of their results is called into question when 74 out of 74
industry-sponsored articles attested to aspartame's safety, while 84 out of 91
of the nonindustry-sponsored articles identified problems with the chemical.
"I'll admit there's validity to these
concerns, but it's not unusual for industry to fund studies, because they're
expensive--and who else will?" counters a spokeswoman at Merisant Co.
"It's a disservice to the fine scientists involved whose reputations are
besmirched by aspartame detractors."
AND WHAT'S to keep adverse industry test
results from disappearing altogether? According to a reliable source, who chose
to remain unnamed but has signed a sworn affidavit, Searle in the early 1980s
conducted aspartame research in five communities in Central and
By the end of these 18-month studies, the
source recalls from translating the reports from Spanish into English that many
subjects experienced grand mal seizures and damage to the central nervous
system, causing muscular and neural instability, hemorrhaging, brain tumors,
and other maladies.
"When I finished the project, I was told
to destroy all my records and copies. If those studies had reached the FDA,
there's no way they could have approved aspartame," the source says.
"Imagine my surprise when I found out
soon after that aspartame is being consumed en masse! I urged my family and
everyone I knew not to use anything containing aspartame because, as I said,
'it would make their brains into mush.' "
The late Dr. M. Adrian Gross, former senior
FDA toxicologist, stated in his testimony before Congress, "Beyond a
shadow of a doubt, aspartame triggers brain tumors," and "therefore
by allowing aspartame to be placed on the market, the FDA has violated the
Delaney Amendment," which makes it illegal to allow any residues of
cancer-causing chemicals in foods. His last words to Congress were: "And
if the FDA itself elects to violate the law, who is left to protect the health
of the public?"
The cancer-causing agent referred to above is
diketopiperazine, or DKP. So concerned was Searle about toxic DKP that it's
mentioned several times in an early 1970 internal memo distributed by Herbert
Helling: "My prime concern at this time is with the production of DKP and
our lack of complete toxicological data on DKP if [aspartame's chemical code
broke down] completely to DKP. We then must consider how much DKP could be
formed from the time the system is converted to a wet system to the time of
consumption allowing for maximum likely abuse."
"SOUNDS LIKE the tobacco fraud all over again. But this
time it's the drug industry, and it's big," says former U.S. Department of
Justice attorney Ed Johnson, who for the last 10 years has served as president
and CEO of a large law firm in San Antonio. Several years ago, he was diagnosed
with a pituitary adenoma and underwent two life-threatening surgeries to remove
the tumor, which he believes was caused by his heavy ingestion of Diet Coke and
NutraSweet.
"When the class actions [lawsuits] hit,
and they will, I predict that they'll rival the tobacco litigation we have seen
in the past few years."
Aspartame tests in the United States
continued until July 18, 1981 when FDA Commissioner Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr.
disregarded the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, which states that a food additive
should not be approved if tests are inconclusive, overruling six of the nine
scientists on two agency review panels who thought the studies of brain tumors
in rats had been inadequate.
Applying an "acceptable daily
intake" measure, the FDA approved the chemical for use in dry products and
then raised the ADI in 1983 to enable the introduction of aspartame into
beverages.
In subsequent years, $30 million to $40
million annually was pumped into advertising by NutraSweet Co. alone, and
ads--featuring the likes of Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Joe Mont
Soon after, complaints to the FDA began
rolling in: headaches, dizziness, anxiety, depression, memory loss, joint pain,
vomiting, heart palpitations, slurred speech, seizures, brain tumors, comas,
and even deaths attributed to aspartame.
The FDA took "some of these early
reports quite seriously," and Monsanto performed follow-up studies. But,
according to the principles of science, "if test results cannot be
reproduced in a controlled setting, then you cannot preclude other factors that
might have caused seizure expressions," explains Hattan at the FDA, who
declares that he consumes copious amounts of aspartame with no ill effects.
"I think that many of the symptoms
attributed to aspartame are actually caused by something else in the
individual's environment."
EVELYN BLAKE'S seizures got worse, racking
her body on a regular basis, sometimes twice a day. She recalls entering into a
"zombie stare . . . looking but not seeing," and feeling as if her
body "were attached to an electrical current," her heart racing.
More EKGs, EEGs, and blood tests followed,
but the doctor could determine only low blood pressure and a slight thyroid
problem. Meanwhile, she says, her hair started falling out by "the
handful." Temporary relief finally arrived when she visited her brother in
Georgia and she skipped her "diet," which included the use of Equal.
For three weeks, she began to recover.
Upon returning home--and back to her use of
Equal--the nightmare revved up again.
"I thought it might be stress from the
house remodeling and other duties," she says. "My memory was getting
so bad I couldn't remember where I was going when I got into my car. My
eyesight suddenly got worse. I was afraid of being alone, never knowing when
the next seizure would hit! The doctors could find nothing wrong with me."
WITHIN SEVERAL years of aspartame's
appearance on the market, a number of FDA and government officials left their
posts and took jobs closely linked to the food, beverage, and NutraSweet
industries. Shortly after pushing aspartame's approval, Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes
left the FDA under a shadow of improprieties and became a consultant--at $1,000
a day--with Burston-Marsteller, Searle's public relations firm. Wayne Pines,
Hayes' former top spokesman, previously had joined the firm.
In July 1986, Anthony Brunetti, an FDA
consumer product officer who drafted the 1983 notice approving NutraSweet's use
in soft drinks, joined the Soft Drink Association as a science adviser.
In the late 1970s, Samuel Skinner and William
Conlon, two senior Justice Department prosecutors investigating criminal
allegations against G. D. Searle & Co. for falsifying NutraSweet
safety-test results, later joined the law firm of Sidley & Austin, which
represented Searle during the lengthy investigation. Skinner, who knew of the
statute-of-limitations deadline, delayed pursuing prosecution, thus placing
Searle out of reach. He subsequently defected to Sidley & Austin in July
1977.
"The aspartame
"Though it's against ethics laws for an
FDA official to sit in on any action regarding a firm with which they had any
prior relationship," explains former FDA investigator Arthur Evangelista,
"there is nothing to stop federal officials from being influenced with
promises of a position in a firm they are meant to be regulating."
Evangelista believes that influence-peddling
is rife throughout the FDA, both directly and indirectly, via government PAC
monies influencing politicians, who in turn use their influence on regulatory
agencies.
And the revolving door continues to spin. In
1999, Dr. Virginia Weldon, vice president for public policy at Monsanto (the
former parent corporation of NutraSweet), was considered for the FDA's
commissioner post. On June 14, 1999, retiring FDA Commissioner
How can the FDA effectively safeguard the
public's health while being influenced by the corporations it is meant to
regulate?
For two decades the aspartame controversy has
continued to simmer, leaving respectable organizations with opposing verdicts.
The American Diabetes Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the
American Medical Association, and the Epilepsy Institute endorse aspartame as
safe (though it is a matter of record that several of these organizations have
received donations from NutraSweet).
But hundreds of airline pilots reporting
adverse effects from aspartame, including grand mal seizures while in the
cockpit, led a dozen aviation publications, including Navy Physiology,
Planes & Pilot, C
"I am not denying these people's
symptoms," says Hattan at the FDA, "but it is entirely possible that
when patients stopped using aspartame they might also coincidentally have had
remission of their symptoms."
Both the FDA's and NutraSweet's categorical
dismissal of the thousands of aspartame consumer complaints as coincidental,
anecdotal, or unscientific has not diminished the convictions of thousands of
unpaid volunteers at Aspartame Victims and Their Friends; the Aspartame
Detoxification Center in Atlanta; and chapters in dozens of countries of
Mission Possible International that compile aspartame-related articles and
personal accounts.
As of 1987, the last year that NutraSweet
publicized records, Americans consumed about 17.l million pounds of aspartame,
and the number is now estimated to top 25 million pounds. Since the chemical
additive is now sold in dozens of other countries, aspartame-poisoning
complaints now are fielded from around the world. Those who suspect that they
have any symptoms of aspartame poisoning, nutritionists say, should take the
aspartame test: For one month stop using aspartame-containing products and see
if your symptoms subside.
Evelyn Blake decided to try eliminating, one
by one, everything she was eating, but the seizures continued.
"When I finally eliminated Equal, I
never had any more attacks or seizures! Since I stopped Equal on Sept. 13,
1997, my health has slowly improved: my eyesight and memory returned, my hair
quit falling out, my blood pressure is good. My heart continues with an
irregular beat, which my cardiologist says only a pacemaker can correct,"
Blake says.
"Because of Equal, my life for four
years was one living hell. Can't someone do something about this unregulated
chemically engineered drug called Equal/aspartame that has affected
thousands?"
Blacklist
BEWARE of any food product that contains the
words "lite," "diet," "low-calorie," or "no
calorie."
Among these are:
diet iced teas
diet soft drinks
Crystal Light
yogurt lite
Diet Jell-O
some cereals
some children's vitamins.
Bill Strubbe is a California-based freelance writer who confesses to having once been addicted to SweetTarts.