Our FDA opened the 2004
New Year by banning a beneficial and
harmless herbal supplement. If I had to explain
the Ephedra case in a paragraph, in a nutshell, it has
nothing to do with safety since its
been around for about 4000 years with
no problems, and everything to
do with the FDA snatching another
supplement for the pharmaceutical
industry.
You can still walk into any store and
buy cigarettes. According to
the CDC approximately 442,398 deaths
per year are attributed to
cigarette smoking. And the FDA
insisted tobacco should come under
their jurisdiction because it's
addictive and a drug. Dr. David
Kessler was the one responsible for
this. Was it to protect the
tobacco industry since its still on
the market, even after class
action? A couple of years ago I saw a
report on the Internet that
actually said since the FDA didn't ban
tobacco it has to now be
considered safe! It took the lives of
both of my parents.
According to Dave Fairbank in a
January 6, 2004 article in the
Daily
Press, ephedra has been linked to
more than 100 deaths. A
comprehensive, FDA-commissioned review
by the RAND Corporation that
considered every adverse reaction
recorded in the agency's files and
the medical literature through 2002
identified only 20 cases of
serious symptoms among ephedra uses
where there was an attempt to
rule out alternative explanations.
However, I would be willing to bet
even in the 20 cases where there
was an attempt to rule out other
sources no one asked these users if
they were also using aspartame. It has
been said that ephedra could be
linked to strokes, seizures, or
cardiovascular problems. Aspartame
is a seizure triggering drug and 4
different types of seizures are
listed on the FDA's report of 92
documented symptoms triggered by
this toxin including death. (http://www.dorway.com).
It triggers strokes, and big time
damages the cardiac conduction system
and causes sudden
death. It triggers an irregular heart
rhythm and interacts with all cardiac
medication. (Aspartame Disease: An
Ignored Epidemic,
http://www.sunsentpress.com
or 1-800-827-7991 H. J. Roberts,
M.D.).
Most people who are
trying to lose weight and use ephedra
are the
same people who are using aspartame
(NutraSweet/Equal/Spoonful, E951,
Canderel, etc.). And unless you asked
the person using ephedra if he
also uses aspartame, now being used by
2/3rds of the population, and
40% of our kids, there would be no way
of knowing. And it can also be
hidden in natural and artificial
flavors.
Tim Sullivan said in the San Diego
Union Tribune in Feb, 2003, that
whether Steve Bechler's passing (23
year old Baltimore Oriole
pitcher) should prompt baseball to ban
ephedra-based products, is a
more complicated matter, one that
raises questions of civil rights
and individual responsibilities, and
about the gap between medical
opinion and governmental regulations.
But Steve Bechler's death
blamed on ephedra is a good example of
exactly what I'm saying. At
the time of his death, H. J. Roberts,
M.D. immediately called the
Broward County medical examiner, Dr.
Joshua Perper and asked him how
many diet drinks was Bechler drinking.
Dr. Perper didn't even know
why he asked. The Idaho Observer wrote
the story, Aspartame Poisoning
Cover for Ephedra. It was finally
disclosed, Steve Belcher had a
weight problem, he would go without
eating for a couple of days and
then drink diet pop with aspartame all
day. He had a family history
of heart problems and aspartame
destroys the heart. After researching
the issue it's obvious that Steve
Bechler did not die because he was
using ephedra, it was just another
aspartame death! Even Dr. Perper
could only conclude that ephedrine
"probably contributed" to his
death but this doctor was not
knowledgeable of aspartame's effect on
the heart nor did he know that Steve
Belcher was using it.
Consider silicone breast implants.
These women who were concerned
about beauty are the very same class
of women concerned about weight.
And even though aspartame is not even
a diet product, but rather a
neurotoxic drug that makes you crave
carbohydrates, these women
didn't know that. Studies were done on
silicone, and found not to
cause systemic disease. Yet women were
coming down with such things
as multiple sclerosis and lupus.
Aspartame has triggered a tremendous
epidemic of MS and Lupus. Basically it
destroys the central nervous
system and mimics MS. (See position
paper by Dr. H. J. Roberts, MS or
Aspartame Disease? on
http://www.dorway.com.
And we've gotten many people off this
toxin and had them walk out of
wheelchairs, and some even reported
their lesions disappeared. As to
Lupus, Dr. James Bowen pointed out
that aspartame is an adjuvant,
forms antigenic tissue, triggering
immunologic attack. "The ability
of methyl alcohol/formaldehyde to
create antigenicity, especially as
combined in aspartame molecules is so
great as to cause severe
autoimmune reactions to the tissues
deformed by formaldehyde
polemerization, adduct formation. The
immune system turns against the
victim's tissues: Lupus." Did anyone
ask the silicone breast implant
victims if they were using aspartame?
This is not to say that there
aren't problems with silicone breast
implants, especially if they
rupture. An informant who called said
he had worked with aspartame,
formaldehyde, silicone, and Kodak, and
the problem is that when these
silicone breast implants rupture and
come in contact with the
formaldehyde from aspartame, you will
get all kinds of deformities.
The President of DOW was concerned
enough to contact Dr. Roberts but
what happened after getting the facts
we will probably never know.
Did he contact Monsanto? Who knows.
But they paid off in class
action. Dr. Roberts wrote a small book
on silicone breast implants
and aspartame.
http://www.sunsentpress.com
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. Ask the FDA why they
allow aspartame on the market with
free methyl alcohol. I guarantee they
will not answer you. Dr.
Roberts has asked them for years.
So again, we're back to the same
point. It's like when Tryptophan was
banned by the FDA after some deaths.
No health food store would have
sold it had they known it came from a
manufacturer using genetic
engineering. It was an isolated case.
It had nothing to do with
whether tryptophan was safe. It just
wasn't safe to be sold in a
health food store at $5.99. The last
time I checked it was safe for a
pharmaceutical company to sell a
smaller amount of tryptophan for
over $100.00 a bottle, and that was
years ago.
The situation was stated correctly
during congressional hearings.
Cynthia Culmo, R.Ph., a former
official with the Texas Department of
Health said: "The situation isn't a
scientific issue any longer. It's
a political issue, won by a political
agenda."
John W. Olney, M.D., was asked by the
Ephedra Education Council to
review some of the FDA cases. Go to
(http://www.ephedrafacts.com)
for the
full report. Dr. Olney, one of the
most renowned neuroscientists in
the world, founded the field of
neuroscience called excitotoxicity.
Read his CV on
http://www.dorway.com.
In l969,
he published in Science,
evidence that monosodium glutamate
(MSG),
destroys nerve cells in the brain when
fed to infant animals. He also
published evidence demonstrating that
aspartame (NutraSweet) destroys
nerve cells when fed to infant
animals, and published evidence
linking aspartame ingestion to an
increased incidence of malignant
brain tumors.
Dr. Olney along with Attorney James
Turner, Washington, D.C. did
everything possible to try and prevent
the approval of aspartame. His
excellent report to the Board of
Inquiry of the FDA even explaining
what would happen to the brains of our
kids (prophecy fulfilled) is
on CD and available from
www.greatfallspro.com
along with the
Congressional Record on aspartame and
the Board of Inquiry report of
the FDA saying aspartame is not safe
and should not be approved.
The adverse event reports Dr. Olney
examined include those reviewed
for FDA by Doctors Ricaute and Stoll.
Dr. Olney says out of 28 cases,
there is not a single case that the
expert reviewers rated as having
a highly probable causal association
with ingestion of ephedra.
In Case #12837, a self-acknowledged
cocaine addict inquires whether
there are any class action lawsuits
pending against ephedrine he can
get in on.
In Case #13380 this 18-year-old
college student worked out with
weights. Brought unconscious to the
hospital but expired in a "brain
dead" condition the following day, it
was the opinion of the
neurologist who examined him and
analyzed his CT scan this was a
typical case of a ruptured berry
aneurysm. Dr. Olney stated these
aneurysms typically rupture at some
point in early to mid-adulthood
when an individual is physically
straining, as in lifting weights.
The blood screen for drugs revealed no
detectable level of ephedrine
but the urine analysis revealed trace
amounts of ephedrine and
norephedrine, suggesting he may have
taken some preparation
containing a small amount of
ephedrine.
Dr. Olney points out, the letter from
Dr. Ricaute while concluding
ephedra represents a significant
public risk, not to the general
population, but to specific
individuals who have increased
vulnerability to certain illness
perhaps in combination with other
stimulants. So that Olney says what
Dr. Ricaurte has expressed is the
type of concern that might be
expressed for sodium chloride (common
table salt) or caffeine.
In putting the situation in context,
Dr. Olney says: "In that Dr.
Ricaurte has not identified any EA
related risk of central nervous
system effects in the general
population, his expert opinion does
not
strengthen, but rather weakens, the
FDA position. In fact, Dr.
Ricaurte's statement serves to
highlight a basic insistency in the
FDA position, which is that the
regulatory agency is apparently
attempting to apply a DOUBLE STANDARD,
one standard for common
constituents and/or additive to foods
(e.g. sodium chloride,
caffeine) which FDA does not attempt
to police in the marketplace,
and another standard for a dietary
supplement ephedra, which FDA
appears to be attempting to police.
The FDA position is rendered even
more untenable by the fact that the
agency appears to be trying to
police ephedrine in the dietary
supplement marketplace but not in the
over-the-counter marketplace. Thus,
there appear to be glaring
inconsistencies in the FDA position,
regarding ephedra, and Dr.
Ricaurte's expert statement helps to
make these inconsistencies apparent.
In Case 12464 a father believes his
22-year-old son is addicted to
"Ripped Fuel." There is no evidence of
addiction provided and Dr.
Olney says this twitching about the
mouth reported known in medicine
as a "perioral dyskinesia" or "perioral
tic" is a common affliction
frequently seen in ones that have
never ingested ephedra.
Talking about addiction, consider
aspartame. The chronic methanol
poisoning affects the dopamine system
of the brain and causes the
addiction. Methanol is classified as a
narcotic. Four support groups
online expose the suffering of those
trying to break this addiction
and get over the afflictions this
chemical poison causes that fill a
1000 page medical text, Aspartame
Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, by
H.
J. Roberts, M.D. (http://www.sunsentpress.com)
or 1-800-827-7991.
Charles Fleming was so addicted to
aspartame he demanded his son keep
the fridge filled with diet pop. It
cost him his life. Fleming was a
basketball player and death came soon
after this and other exercise.
Athletes everywhere appear to be
dropping like flies because
aspartame damages the cardiac
conduction system and causes sudden
death. According to neurosurgeon
Russell Blaylock, M.D., in
Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills
(http://www.russellblaylockmd.com),
the heart's electrical system contains
numerous glutamate receptors,
making the heart very susceptible to
injury by food based
excitotoxins such as the aspartate in
aspartame and MSG. He says this
may explain the rising incidence of
congestive heart failure and
sudden cardiac death, following
ingestion of meals containing high
concentrations of excitotoxins.
In the case of Fleming, the chronic
methanol poisoning on autopsy from
aspartame was thought to be murder,
and his wife Diane, a sweet
Sunday School teacher was sentenced to
50 years in a hardened
Virginia prison. The FDA knows about
this case but has no concern.
Nor do they show any concern that
sudden cardiac death is the Nation's
#1
killer ending the lives of about a
half a million people a year
without warning, and that 2/3rds of
the population is on this
neurotoxic drug masquerading as an
additive, as well as 40% of our
children. The FDA is concerned about
an herb, Chinese Mahaung that
has been used for thousands of years.
Continuing with Dr. Olney report, case
12860. Here a mother believes
her son's behavior has changed since
he started taking an
unidentified ephedra product being
distributed at a local gym. It
seems her son has left his wife who is
eight months pregnant, is
drinking excessively, and has stopped
going to church. The son denies
he has a problem.
Dr. Ricaurte suggested, that humans
consuming ephedra might place them at
high risk to develop Parkinsonism. Dr.
Olney pointed out this would
seem highly speculative in that
Parkinsonism involves a massive loss
of dopamine nerve cells, causing the
symptoms of tremor, disturbance
in gait, etc. Yet animals exposed to
ephedra have not been shown to
have a loss of dopamine nerve cells.
Dr. Olney in discussing Dr.
Ricaurte comments about Parkinsonism
having to do with ephedra said:
"... but if the animal data predict a
type of risk (early onset of
Parkinsonism) that has never
materialized in two thousands years of
human ephedra consumption, these
animal findings would appear to have
no human relevance."
In the case of aspartame, it is so
responsible for Parkinson's that
it's already documented in three
medical texts, Aspartame Disease:
An
Ignored Epidemic, and Defense
Against Alzheimers Disease by H.
J.
Roberts, M.D., and Excitotoxins:
The Taste That Kills by
neurosurgeon
Russell Blaylock, M.D. As Dr. James
Bowen brought out in a paper
relating to the Gulf War Syndrome, (http://www.wnho.net),
aspartic acid, the excitotoxic component of aspartame
does not cross the blood brain
barrier but is secreted into the
cerebral spinal fluid by the choroid
plexus located in the ventricles of
the brain. There, in the brain's
lower area and upper terminus of the
spinal cord is where Parkinson's
Disease is most prominent, as well as
Lou Gehrigs and Multiple
Sclerosis. These critical locations
are bathed in the toxin as it
removes from the blood. From the third
to fourth ventricle there is a
narrow canal called the sylvian
aqueduct, which fills with this
secretion
and washes the roof of the
hypothalamus. But the FDA with full
knowledge pays no attention even
though they know it even interacts
with L-dopa and other Parkinson drugs.
So Parkinson patients like
Michael Fox, for instance, has no way
of being warned. A former Diet
Pepsi spokesman once made the comment
that he didn't understand how
he could get an old man's disease at
the age of 30. Just get those
supplements away from the public so
the pharmaceutical companies can
increase their greed every year. There
is even a book about it by
Mike Fillon, The Truth About
Ephedra. He uncovers a scandalous
connection between the pharmaceutical
industry and government
regulators to attack dietary
supplements.
If the FDA were
concerned about Parkinson's Disease
and consumer
safety there would be a lot of things
banned. In Health & Nutrition
Secrets To Save Your Life by
neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D.,
there is discussion about aspartame
and even mercury in triggering
Parkinson's. And he says in l976, Dr.
Wolfgang Klein and co-workers
demonstrated that cells exposed to 1
ppm fluoride exhibit a 50
percent reduction in DNA repair enzyme
activity. Not only does this
increase cancer risk it also
encourages aggravation of degenerative
diseases of the nervous system such as
Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease, and Lou Gehrigs
Disease (ALS), as well as other
degenerative diseases of aging. When
unrepaired DNA damage occurs in
reproductive cells, the damage is
passed on to children as well. It
has been proven beyond any shadow of a
doubt how deadly are vaccines
with mercury, and amalgams. And
fluoride is a deadly, deadly
neurotoxin. If the FDA was concerned
about Parkinson's disease, the
first to go would be aspartame, MSG,
and mercury long, long ago.
Dr. Blaylock brings out a profound
point in this book, and that is in
the case of diet drinks in aluminum
cans, the very toxic brain
aluminum fluoride compound co-exists
with multiple toxins found in
aspartame, thus creating the most
powerful government approved toxic
soup imaginable! And the FDA is
concerned about ephedra, the
healthful herbal plant, mahaung???? To
ban ephedra with aspartame on
the market is like choosing to ban
brussel sprouts instead of cyanide!
Ephedra is a wonderful herb and it
would be disastrous if herbalists
lose the ability to use it. It's one
of the best bronchodilators from
the plant kingdom that is extremely
valuable when used for asthma and
allergies. Without it, one would have
to turn to drugs, which is what
the pharmaceutical industry wants.
After all, the proof of drug
company influence is that far higher
doses of the concentrated
synthetic analog of ephedra are still
available, and in far higher
doses per pill than the herbal form,
as brought out by Allan Spreen,
M.D. Sudafed stands for
pseudo-ephedrine. He says there is no
limit
on the dose you might want to take.
Dr. Spreen made the point,
hundreds of people die every year due
to complications associated
with aspirin and acetaminophen. But
they are not going to take
aspirin off the market.
Aspartame interacts with all cardiac
medication, all
anti-depressants, L-dopa, Coumadin,
hormones and even insulin. The
FDA knows it and shows no concern
whatsoever. To make matters worse
they lie to the public and tell them
its safe when their own Board of
Inquiry Report said its not and asked
that aspartame not be approved.
It was Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes who
over-ruled that report. At the time
Don Rumsfeld was CEO and said he would
call in his markers and get it
approved, which is in the
Congressional Record and an eight
month
investigation of aspartame by
United Press International
(http://www.dorway.com).
Aspartame simulates and aggravates
diabetic retinopathy and
neuropathy, and even can precipitate
diabetes. Aspartame is
responsible for macular degeneration,
diabetic blindness and
glaucoma, known to result from
excitotoxin accumulation in the
retina. Aspartame not only can
precipitate neurodegenerative disease
but naturally they are worsened by
aspartame and other excitotoxins.
In addition, we now have good evidence
that excitotoxins play a major
role in exacerbation of MS and other
demyelinating disorders
including trigeminal neuralia. New
studies have shown that
excitotoxins trigger significant
elevation of free radicals in the
lining (endothelial cells) of arteries
which means that products with
aspartame can increase the incidence
of heart attacks and strokes.
And there is a tumor connection, not
only brain tumors, but mammary,
testicular, thyroid, uterine, ovarian,
and pancreatic for starters. It
is a Class A carcinogen and the FDA's
own toxicologist, the late Dr.
Adrian Gross, told Congress aspartame
violated the Delaney Amendment
which forbid putting something in food
you know will cause cancer
because without a shadow of a doubt it
can trigger brain tumors and
brain cancer. (Congressional Record
SID835:131, August 1, l985).
Dr. Olney concluded in his report the
FDA position is
self-contradictory. "The reality is
that ephedrine and its analogs
have been in widespread use of OTC
drugs for many years, during which
neither their abuse potential nor
their adverse side effect potential
has been sufficiently impressive to
cause FDA to even impose
stringent labeling requirements on the
OTC use of these agents. For
many years, consumers have been
ingesting large amounts of caffeine
in coffee, tea, caffeinated soft
drinks, etc. together with OTC
ephedrine, and FDA has shown no
concern that ingesting these sources
of caffeine together with OTC
ephedrine poses a problem from the
standpoint of either abuse potential
or side effect potential. To the
best of my knowledge, FDA has not
established that ephedra contained
in dietary supplement preparations is
less safe than ephedrine
contained in OTC preparations. Given
FDA's precedent of inaction and
lack of concern regarding the use of
OTC ephedrine, either alone or
in combination with multiple sources
of caffeine, it seems
inconsistent and self contradictory
for FDA to now claim that dietary
supplement sources of ephedrine (but
not OTC sources of ephedrine)
pose a serious publish health
problem."
PERSONAL NOTE TO FDA:
I would like to know how you would
ever know if there is an ephedra
reaction. It has been used for
thousands of years without problems.
Inasmuch, as aspartame is a seizure
triggering drug that destroys the
immune system, the central nervous
system, the brain and the optic
nerve, and ravages every organ in the
system, unless you asked
specifically if the consumer was using
aspartame, there would be no
way of knowing if these reactions were
simply not the result of the
Aspartame Disease Epidemic FDA
approved in l981.
For years I've received comments from
people who happened to run into
one of the three scientists who worked
on the aspartame project who
left Searle in disgust. One lady said
years ago "he said one day they
will be dropping in the streets", and
that is what is happening. I've
already sent you the report on sudden
death and aspartame. The
autopsies of athletes that have been
reported are classic of what you
would find with aspartame even
including cardiomyopathy. As Dr. James
Bowen said in a paper, cardiomyopathy
from toxic and auto immune
causes has long been appreciated.
Since aspartame is indeed a toxic,
mitochondrial and auto immune killer
who could expect less! The heart
is especially targeted in alcohol
poisonings of all kinds. Since the
intact aspartame molecule is an
alcohol poison about twenty thousand
times as toxic as most beverage
alcohols, and since most of the
damage from the beverage alcohol comes
from its methanol content,
aspartame, which has the
methanol-formaldehyde-formic acid
toxic axis
as one of its highly aggravated toxic
components, could very
predictably cause extreme damage of
all organs in the body.
H. J. Roberts, M.D., in his recent
article, Aspartame Disease: An
FDA-Approved Epidemic wrote that
products containing the chemical
sweetener aspartame can have multiple
neurotoxic, metabolic,
allergenic, fetal, and carcinogen
effects. Further he said "The
existence of aspartame disease
continues to be denied by the FDA and
powerful corporate entities. Its
magnitude, however, warrants removal
of this chemical as an "imminent
public health threat." The use of
aspartame products by over two-thirds
of the population, and
inadequate evaluation by
corporate-partial investigators
underscore
this opinion."
How do you allow a chemical poison on
the market that interacts with
just about every drug used to treat
the problems it causes? John
Hammell, President of the
International Advocates for Health
Freedom
wrote: "The FDA ban on ephedra is
illegal under the Administrative
Procedures Act. Under the law, the FDA
must act in a consistent way
in their regulations. It is not legal
for the FDA to ban the herb ma
huang (ephedra) while leaving
pseudoephedrine, which is far more
dangerous, on the market in a slew of
OTC cold formulas marketed by
multinational drugs companies." He
refers people to
http://www.ephedrafacts.com
to
keep things in perspective and says:
"If this ban is not challenged
in court and overturned, it will set a
horrible legal precedent that
would enable the FDA to ban literally
ANY dietary supplement under
equally false pretenses. All the FDA
is actually doing with this ban
is protecting the prescription market
of pharmaceutical weight loss
medication which is far more dangerous
than ephedra. My concern is
the ban on ephedra may not serve as
the wake up call to the
supplement industry that it should.
This is an industry which has
been set up for global destruction,
but most vitamin companies,
health food stores and consumers don't
realize what's going on or
what to do about it. That is because
vitamin trade associations world
wide are being denominated the top
down by pharmaceutical interests
which are actively keeping them in the
dark regarding Codex, the EU
Food Supplement Directive, and related
globalization issues." A new
article discusses this:
http://www.thehealthcrusader.com/pgs/CrusadorNewsletterJan04.pdf.
"Europe Declares War Against
Supplements!! Directive to Ban Many
Producers!" Had I known about the
article and had the opportunity to
speak to the writer, I would have told
him the matter is far worse
than thought. I have received several
calls from the UK complaining
of severe medical problems because
they received pharmaceutical
supplements that contained aspartame.
One lady had almost lost her
vision because of aspartame in her
calcium. As you well know since
the Community Nutrition Institute in
Washington, D.C. petitioned the
FDA in l986 to ban aspartame because
of seizures and blindness, the
methanol converts to formaldehyde and
formic acid in the retina of
the eye and destroys the optic nerve.
And this reminds me - my citizens
petition for banning aspartame on
the basis that FDA records show
aspartame to be a chemical poison,
and yet FDA lies to the public, has
yet to be answered. The law
allows 180 days and it's been over a
year and a half. Your excuse of
"competing priorities" is an example
of how you refuse to answer when
you know it will prove your guilt, and
how the FDA is legend at
serving above the law. Even Jerome
Bressler said his FDA audit
(http://www.dorway.com)
was so damning of
aspartame that FDA had the worst 20%
removed when it was retyped. Dr.
Roberts, who he also spoke with, had
his congressman tell FDA to send
the omitted part. The FDA letter
mentioned that sometimes things are
confidential. I would imagine they are
always confidential when they
indict the FDA of wrongdoing.
I write this report in the hope that
every member of Congress will receive
the real facts, and a court action
will finally provide justice for
the consumer.
Dr. Betty Martini
Founder, Mission Possible
International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770-242-2599
http://www.dorway.com
http://www.wnho.net
