- What if someone or some corporation, without telling
you, poured formaldehyde into your morning coffee, your favorite yogurt,
your chewing gum, your diet beverage and your children's vitamins? In essence,
this is what happens every single time you consume aspartame, the neurotoxic
additive whose assimilated by-product includes formaldehyde.
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- What if their sole defense was that this additive had
been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) almost
25 years ago? Would you go on consuming those products, or would you want
to talk with your legislators and your governor about getting rid of this
neurotoxin by statute by creating a new law addressing all neurotoxic food
additives as soon as possible?
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- In the 2005 legislative session, the Senate President
Pro Tempore, Ben Altamirano of Silver City, introduced Senate Bill 525
to create a new New Mexico Nutrition Council, which would have strong powers
to correct the terribly flawed approval processes of the FDA, most of which
have been subverted by industrial and corporate powers. This has resulted
in a gigantic FDA "generally recognized as safe" list of food
additives, which are in reality anything but safe.
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- Many people go to great lengths to avoid chemicalized
food, as well as make strong efforts to keep their children away from junk
food and fast food, since both are loaded with many egregious and harmful
additives. Similarly, through legislation, the state of New Mexico must
create and maintain a higher standard for food quality through a council
of physicians, biochemists, educators and others. This council must, by
statute, be able to operate completely free from the same corporate influences
that have subverted the FDA and turned America into a "fast-food nation.
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- Senate Bill 525 from 2005 was hijacked and delayed by
lobbyists from the Altria Corporation, parent company of Philip Morris
and Kraft, and the Glutamate Association, those folks who tell you that
your MSG headache is "just your imagination" and that MSG is
no different from salt or pepper. The Nutrition Council bill was to be
voted on during the last day on the House floor, but it was killed along
with 50 other important bills and memorials by Roswell Republican "Filibusterin'
Dan Foley" running out the clock.
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- There is no consumer power stronger than the individual's
point-of-purchase prerogative. However, if hundreds of millions of individuals
have been lied to with corporate slogans and jingles, and if they still
naively believe that the FDA will always be there to protect them in the
battle to destroy health for profit, then the state legislatures must enter
into this equation with new consumer-protection legislation in many vital
areas, not just regarding nutrition. It is indeed a matter of life and
death.
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- The 2006 legislative session will see a bill that is
similar to, but even stronger than, the 2005 Nutrition Council Act, which
will again be sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Altamirano, one of
the few in leadership positions who are willing to use their powers to
benefit New Mexicans' health. In 2006, all bills must receive an "Executive
Message" from the governor: this is a special endorsement by him that
ensures that the bill gets presented, voted on and funded. Governor Richardson
controls the agenda in the Legislature every other year, for the short
fiscal session, and all of this is entirely contingent on how many New
Mexicans write to him about this issue.
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- Thus, if all goes well in 2006, the Nutrition Council
will be comprised of six physicians (pediatrician, internist, toxicologist,
oncologist, cardiologist and neonatologist) and designees from the departments
of Health, Education and Environment and the attorney general's office,
plus parents and educators. The text is on the New Mexico Legislature website
as Senate Bill 525.
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- You can personally participate in creating a higher standard
than is possible through the FDA, getting rid of junk food in the schools,
and getting neurotoxins and carcinogens permanently out of New Mexico food.
You can do this by writing to Governor Richardson and asking him to work
toward these goals through 2006 legislation. By taking participatory democracy
seriously and writing to the governor, the attorney general and your legislators,
they will in turn take the appropriate actions much sooner.
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- The same day you read this, please also write to Attorney
General Patricia Madrid, asking her to file compensatory and punitive suits
against food-polluting companies, especially those that add aspartame to
7000 food products, consumed by 40 percent of the children in the United
States. The most toxic end product assimilated from aspartame is formaldehyde,
which has enormously neurodegenerative effects, including seizures, headaches,
asthma, nausea, depression, convulsions, loss of vision and 85 other aspartame-attributed
symptoms compiled by the FDA!
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- Aspartame is found in diet beverages, chewing gum, several
yogurts, sweeteners for coffee and tea, even in children's vitamins! It
was approved for general food use by the FDA in 1981 and for soft drinks
in 1983, despite the FDA's 16 years of objections, in one of the more sordid
chapters in the FDA's history. The pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle discovered
and patented aspartame, and the president of the company at that time (who
is now the present U.S. secretary of defense) told his board of directors
that he was going to "call in all of his markers" to get aspartame
approved, including getting a pro-aspartame FDA commissioner appointed
by Ronald Reagan.
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- Several New Mexico statutes (25-2-6, 25-2-7, 25-2-10
and 25-2-13) give the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board the responsibility
for determining whether an additive is poisonous, as part of the EIB's
overall responsibility for food quality. The chair is Gay Dillingham, and
I will make a presentation about aspartame's incontrovertible neurotoxicity
at the next EIB monthly meeting on June 7, to which the public is invited.
Letters to Environment Secretary Ron Curry and Health Secretary Michelle
Grisham will also be very helpful to strengthen the EIB's decision. If
the board concurs that aspartame is poisonous and deleterious, the attorney
general is expected by statute to prosecute the offending corporations
("prosecute" is the word the statute uses). The most egregious
of these are Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Dannon Yogurt, Wrigley's Gum, Nutrasweet
and Monsanto, which are all presently being sued for using aspartame in
California.
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- Compensatory and punitive lawsuits could be similar in
structure to the tobacco suits of the 1990s, except that instead of lung
cancer and emphysema, the afflictions would include Lou Gehrig's disease,
seizures, loss of vision and a plethora of neurodegenerative illnesses.
If you and/or any of your friends or family in New Mexico are victims of
aspartame poisoning, please write to Deputy Attorney General Stuart Bluestone.
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- Superficially, the causes of neurodegenerative illnesses
might seem harder to prove in court than the causes of lung cancer. However,
the duplicitous actions of the corporations and their more insidious practice
of not admitting or labeling the harm caused by their products - of which
they are often fully aware and have been for over two decades - along with
the brazen corporate manipulations of the FDA processes, are much easier
to prove.
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- Patricia Madrid has been generally resistant to federal
preemption of state's rights. In a Minnesota federal case, the FDA's myth
of preemption is about to come to an end, thanks to Minnesota Attorney
General Mike Hatch's amicus brief, filed in response to Pfizer asking for
a summary judgment of dismissal of a suit against them for a suicide believed
to have been caused by Zoloft, solely based on the FDA approval for their
product. (An "amicus curiae brief" is one filed by an interested
party and comes from Latin for "friend of the court." It is frequently
used to remind a judge that there are higher legal questions at stake,
in this case, the principles of a state's tort laws not being preempted
or "trumped" by corporate-manipulated FDA approvals.)
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- Even if Minnesota's Chief Federal Judge Rosenbaum rules
against the amicus brief, which is doubtful, the arguments Hatch advanced
(primarily that the original act of Congress that created the FDA never
intended to supersede the consumer protection laws of any state) are very
sound, and in my estimation, this amicus brief permanently dumps the FDA
and all of its history of corporate manipulation on its ear. When you write
to Attorney General Madrid, please ask her to adapt the details of Hatch's
amicus reasons to take on the aspartame corporations, which will not be
able to hide behind their FDA approval much longer.
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- This will help New Mexico immensely, like the tobacco
suits helped Mississippi, whose Attorney General Mike Moore was their prime
mover. The grounds for the tobacco suits and the subsequent $235 billion
judgments were based on the corporate deceptions resulting in losses to
the 50 states for health care due to the illnesses their products caused.
The vast "court of public opinion" hinges on the public being
thoroughly informed, and in the case of aspartame, the public remains almost
completely ignorant of its harmful effects, as well as its interaction
with other drugs and chemicals.
-
- These interactions may be one of the underlying causes
of the so-called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which results
in at least 1 percent of New Mexico children being administered amphetamines
by the schools. The teachers and the school nurse essentially arrange for
a prescription from a physician, who often never even meets the student,
and this is sometimes as a punishment for inattentiveness, a problem that
frequently touches every human being.
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- There is no real neuropathological definition for ADHD,
and unfortunately for the children who are diagnosed with it, there are
no statutes in New Mexico that regulate the administration of drugs by
schools - a shocking, gaping hole in New Mexico laws that even a half-awake
plaintiff's lawyer could drive an 18-wheeler through. (One of the ADHD
amphetamine-derivative drugs, Pemoline, has over the years killed so many
children and required liver transplants in so many others that it is finally
beginning to be "phased out," according to the Academy of Pediatric
and Adolescent Psychiatrists.) Since there are no statutes, the system
is subject to abuses like sending inattentive children to the school nurse
for their daily Ritalin. That truly is unfortunate for those children,
and this might be avoided by creating new statutes.
-
- I strongly encourage readers to speak with their legislators
and request them to ask Governor Richardson to include in his call to the
2006 Legislature three bills sponsored by the Pro Tem Ben Altamirano: (1)
the Nutrition Council Act, (2) a bill banning aspartame from human consumption
in New Mexico, and (3) a bill to regulate prescription drugs administered
by schools. As well, letters should also request the governor to personally
request Attorney General Madrid and Deputy Attorney General Bluestone to
-
- * file compensatory and punitive suits against the aspartame
corporations,
- * issue an advisory opinion against schools administering
drugs.
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- Legislators, letters help, but our own letters are absolutely
essential. The United States has dropped to 29th in life expectancy due
to our predilection for junk food, fast food, carcinogens and neurotoxins,
as well as our self-ruinous overdependence on pharmaceutical treatments
for almost every ailment.
-
- Democracy works well when its citizens participate; it
disintegrates and becomes weak, lazy and dysfunctional when citizens don't
participate. The rest is up to you and your letter writing.
-
-
- WHERE TO SEND YOUR LETTERS
-
- Note: It is very important when writing to officials
and legislators to request a prompt reply.
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- The Honorable Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico,
[Attention David Contarino, Chief of Staff], 4th Floor, The Capitol, Santa
Fe, New Mexico 87501
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- The Honorable Patricia Madrid, Attorney General of New
Mexico, Bataan Building, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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- The Honorable Stuart Bluestone, Deputy Attorney General
of New Mexico, Bataan Building, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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- The Honorable Ben Lujan, Speaker of the House of Representatives,
1st Floor, The Capitol, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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- The Honorable Ron Curry, Secretary of the Environment,
1190 S. St. Francis Dr., Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502
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- The Honorable Michelle Lujan Grisham, Secretary of Health,
1190 S. St. Francis Dr., Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502
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- Readers can contact Stephen Fox at stephen@santafefineart.com
and at (505) 983-2002. For more information, go to www.dorway.com and the
website of neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, as well as the website for the
World Natural Health Organization, www.wnho.net.
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- The New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board will hear
Stephen Fox's presentation about aspartame's neurotoxicity on June 7 at
9 a.m. in the New Mexico State Capitol, Room 321. The public is invited
to attend and show their support on this issue as well as to learn more
about it and to see our state government at work.
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