- Thank you for your interest in the New Mexico Environmental
Improvement Board meeting September 6, regarding a proposed rule change
which would ban the neurotoxic sweetener, aspartame, for the state of New
Mexico, the first ban of its kind in the USA.
-
- What was scheduled as a 5 minute agenda item, a decision
as to whether to have a full scale hearing in the coming months, turned
into an 80 minute legal wrangle over whether the EIB has the power to challenge
a product with FDA approval, as well as which statutes allowed such a rule
change, and where in the Administrative Code the rule change should be
inserted.
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- My reading of the statutes is quite clear; in the Food
Act, Chapter 25 of the NM statutes, the power to identify deleterious or
poisonous food additives is spelled out in no uncertain terms, and the
power is given to the EIB and to no other branch of state government, not
the Health Department and not the Governor's office.
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- There is no equivalent mirror section of the New Mexico
Administrative Code to match the very clear language of the statutes, and
that was the crux of my proposed rule change, which also added specific
language about neurotoxic food additives being prohibited, and clearly
identified aspartame as one to be banned in New Mexico.
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- Three state Senators [Pro Tem Senate President Ben Altamirano,
Steve Komadina, M.D., and Jerry Ortiz y Pino], and one state Rep. [Harriet
Ruiz] weighed in on this by sending in letters to the EIB, asking the Board
to move forward toward a decision to get rid of this neurotoxin; several
important physicians [Dr. Grant La Farge, Pediatric Cardiologist; Dr. Ken
Stoller, Pediatrician; Dr. H.J.Roberts, Internal Medicine, and Dr. R.G.
Walton, Psychiatrist] and numerous victims of aspartame poisoning from
all over the United States, all submitted letters to the Board asking them
to hold further hearings.
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- The cautionary and heavy-handed advice of the Board's
Counsel, Assistant Attorney General Mary H. Smith, figured heavily into
the EIB's reluctance to jump into this new, untested arena of food quality
regulation; even though it is quite well know that no other body in New
Mexico has the statutory power to control food quality. This counsel to
the EIB was in direct contradiction to the advice graciously afforded to
me by another Assistant Attorney General, almost as if they were two automobiles
going in opposite and diametrically opposed directions!
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- This is perhaps understandable, because, astonishingly,
there is not one iota of case law on this matter, because since the statutes
were passed in 1941, no one in New Mexico has ever used these statutes
to reject or even question the presence of well-known poisonous and deleterious
food additives, even though the statutory mechanisms to delineate the toxins
and what to do about them is quite clear in the statutes.
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- I, as petitioner, (in the next 15 days, in order to comply
with the filing schedule requirements) am forced to bring in a greatly
expanded circle of legal experts to present the legal facts on this issue
at the next EIB meeting in early October, in a presentation limited in
toto to one half hour, specifically those jurisdictional questions and
statutory clarifications which will satisfy the EIB's concerns so that
it can move forward toward resolving these issues decisively, with its
highest concern being to protect the health of all New Mexicans.
-
- The FDA pre emption questions will loom large in the
considerations by the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board in early
October: has any state ever stood up so strongly about getting rid of a
product (aspartame) which has been approved for 24 years, yet done so much
obvious cumulative neurodegenerative damage on so many millions of people?
-
- Apparently the EIB members were bombarded with many emails,
and the Assistant Attorney General, Mary Smith, wrote in her memorandum
that "the Attorney General's Office computer system has been flooded
with emails about this matter," that she asked "her computer
staff to block any unsolicited emails that contain the word "aspartame"
in the subject line and to send those to our spam folder for immediate
deletion!" (although, curiously, not one of the board members complained
in the meeting about the volume of emailed communications---personally,
I think the members' medical comprehension of neurotoxic food additives
is much clearer now because of physicians' and victims'emails to them).
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- This might seem like a temporary setback for open and
sincere communications on a very serious subject, the neurotoxicity of
commonly available food additive, to the very board which has the sole
power to do something positive to correct and prevent further neurodegenerative
damages from the 5000 products consumed by 70% of Americans.
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- However, your views on these matters are still very vital,
so please ask your friends and family to also write letters asking for
a ban on aspartame in New Mexico, and please send them in writing (not
Email) to:
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- Barbara Claire, EIB administrator Department of Environment,
N2153 1190 So. St. Francis Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502 email: barbara.claire@state.nm.us,
if you have a specific question
-
- with 7 copies, one for each member of the Environmental
Improvement Board.
-
- I would also send the same kind of letter directed to
both:
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- The Governor of New Mexico, The Honorable Bill Richardson,
The Capitol, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
-
-
- The Attorney General of New Mexico, The Honorable Patricia
Madrid The Bataan Building, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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- Clearly, the Executive branch has enormous powers to
bring about our goals, and the Attorney General has enormous powers to
initiate suits regarding aspartame's damages similar to the tobacco suits
of the Attorneys General in the 1990's. (In a legal causal sense, there
really is little difference between tobacco's lung cancer and aspartame's
proven neurodegenerative damages.)
-
- Thank you for all of your help, and please keep the unrelenting
correspondence to these officials going, in order to get this vital task
accomplished, the first ban on neurotoxic aspartame in the United States!
I welcome your replies and your insights.
-
- Respectfully,
- Stephen Fox
- Founder, New Mexico Nutrition Council
- 217 W. Water St.
- Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
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- 505 983-2002
- stephen@santafefineart.com
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- For more information on aspartame: http://www.wnho.net
, http://www.dorway.com, http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame (Aspartame
Toxicity Center), and http://www.aspartamekills.com
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- Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, H. J. Roberts,
M.D., www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 827 7991
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- Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, neurosurgeon Russell
Blaylock, M.D., www.russellblaylockmd.com
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- Aspartame Documentary: Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World,
www.docworkers.com
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- Aspartame Information List for updates - www.wnho.net
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