- TO: david.katz@yale.edu
-
- Dear Doctor Katz:
-
- Only two things are wrong with your critique
of the 3-year Italian aspartame study:
-
- Your facts are wrong
- Your conclusions are wrong.
-
- YOU SAY -
-
- 1. The researcher studied the effects
of about five sodas a day worth of aspartame on each of 1,900 rats that
is the equivalent of 100 ounces of soda for a 150-pound person
-
- 2. The Italian doctor also increased
the time the rats ingested the chemical
-
- 3. This is an animal study. There's
[nothing] to indicate this is the same threat in humans.
-
- 4. Rats have short life spans and
are more susceptible to cancer.
- [Prove it!]
-
- 5. The major conclusion [you] drew
is that rats and humans were both more likely to develop cancer toward
the end of their lives.
-
- 6: If there is any potential harm
it's a very low level because of how widespread the use is, and it's been
around long enough.
-
-
- SHAME ON YOU for dismissing this vital
peer-reviewed research that proves aspartame causes cancer. Obviously
you're blinded or hired by the aspartame industry! Here are the facts:
-
- 1: "Each of the rats" DID
NOT GET the equivalent of 100 ounces of diet soda
- 300 rats received zero aspartame
- 300 received 12% of the human
ADI
- 300 received 40%
- Half the rats got zero or a fraction
of the human ADI [Average Daily Intake] By the way, five 12-ounce sodas
is 60 ounces, not 100. Who taught you math?
-
- 2: The rats received it their whole
lives because people use it till they die. Makes sense.
-
- 3 & 4: The 300 rats that didn't
get aspartame showed no cancer increases. Rat studies are standard in
drug testing, and the rat can tolerate more aspartame than humans. Rats
can tolerate the toxic effects of methanol better. The late Dr. Adrian
Gross, FDA toxicologist, told Congress aspartame violates the Delaney
Amendment since it can trigger brain tumors and cancer. The bottom line
is that when a substance causes cancer in lab animals it must not be added
to food. The test animals were genetically uniform. You're saying don't
pay this study any mind 'cause they used animals. Well, for 22 years
there's been an ongoing test on humans, billions of them, and it's killing
us. FDA listed 92 symptoms of aspartame disease from 10,000 volunteered
consumer complaints. Come down to my office and I'll show you thousands.
-
- 5: The conclusion of this study
by the researchers: "APM causes dose-related statistically significant
increase in lymphomas and leukaemias in females at dose levels very near
those to which humans can be exposed. Moreover it can hardly be overlooked
- that at the lowest exposure of 80 ppm
there was a 62% increase in lymphomas and leukaemias compared to controls."
-
- 6: You're saying: "I've smoked
them all my life and I ain't dead yet." Google lists 3,110,000 posts
on aspartame.
-
- Dr. Katz, is your problem ignorance,
or old fashioned hubris? You have misled millions
- of ABC listeners with your spout suggesting
that aspartame is no more carcinogenic than broccoli or peanuts. How many
consumers have you met who eat 837 cans of broccoli, the number of sodas
you say average Americans swallow? Do they have a course in remedial
arithmetic for you at Yale, Dr. Katz? I ask because you say 837 sodas
are 46 gallons. At 12-ounces/can it's 79 gallons. Of course I understand
that when you're doing a whitewash job little things like truth and accuracy
don't count. Your abundant errors show you never read the impeccable
Ramazzini Study, peer-reviewed by 7 world experts which proves beyond
doubt aspartame causes leukemia and lymphoma, kidney cancer and cancer
of the cranial peripheral nerves.
-
- Only rats fed aspartame developed malignant
brain tumors. But you say: "This is an animal study. There's (nothing)
to indicate this is the same threat in humans." I was shocked to
hear a doctor say something so dumb. Obviously you were told to allay
the expected fears of the public. Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D.
reviewed this study and said mothers should be terrified, as well as all
aspartame consumers. Read his remarks: http://www.wnho.net/new_aspartame_studies.htm
Dr. Blaylock authored Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, <http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/>www.russellblaylockmd.com
and is a renowned neurosurgeon who has focused on aspartame excitotoxicity.
-
- Dr Blaylock's book explains what animal
studies tell us about humans.
- 40% of the aspartame molecule is excitotoxic
aspartic acid. Dr. John Olney founder of the field of neuroscience called
excitotoxicity has shown that MSG and aspartame produce the same damage
to neurons in all animal species tested - dogs, rats, mice, chickens,
and primates. And in each case, it is the same types of cells that are
affected, those with glutamate receptors. There is a major difference,
though, between humans and animals. We accumulate higher amounts of MSG
in the blood following similar oral dose than does any known animal.
Human brain cells are as sensitive to the damage of excitotoxins as lab
animals, often even more sensitive.
-
- H. J. Roberts, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.C.C.P,
declared Aspartame Disease a global plague and published the 1,038 page
medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, <http://www.sunsentpress.com/>www.sunsentpress.com.
He compares aspartame effect on humans and rodents. Corporate representatives
assert you would have to drink enormous quantities before reaching the
toxic threshold. This is nothing more than propaganda to bamboozle the
public. Dr. Roberts says conversion of phenylalanine to tyrosine is
much slower in man than rodents so the time is extended and toxicity to
humans is intensified. Obviously, animal studies are essential, as a
physician don't you know that?
-
- FDA toxicologist Dr. Adrian Gross told
Congress since aspartame causes brain tumors and cancer, FDA should not
have set an allowable daily dose. Dr. Roberts says quantitative information
about aspartame content is absent on labels of products in the US; so
concerned parents are unable to calculate how much their children consume.
-
- Dr. Frank E. Young, former FDA Commissioner,
defined the ADI during the 11/3/87 Senate hearing on aspartame as "an
estimate of the amount of the food additive expressed on a body weight
basis in animal studies, that can be ingested daily OVER A LIFETIME without
appreciable health risk. He focuses on continued lifetime exposure,
not on a single day's dose!
-
- I ask a similar question: How do you
set an allowable daily dose of an excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug that
damages mitochondria and interacts with all drugs and vaccines - a chemical
causing 92 documented symptoms including 4 types of seizures, coma and
death published by FDA? Medical texts show it precipitates everything
from diabetes, obesity, sudden cardiac death and all types of neurodegenerative
diseases, blindness and birth defects.
-
- Dr. Roberts, a diabetic specialist, says
not only can aspartame precipitate it, but also aggravates and simulates
diabetic retinopathy and neuropathy, destroys the optic nerve and interacts
with insulin.
- Dr. William Deagle, M.D., FCFP, DABFP,
AAEM, CCFP told me just today that aspartame is toxic to Beta islets that
make insulin and pushes the blood insulin levels higher burning out the
already enlarged pancreas in prediabetics and the last bit of autonomous
production in diabetic patients. Insulin resistance is much higher in
diabetics and the toxic effects of aspartame on mitochondria lower the
calorie burn side of the energy equation, resulting in higher obesity
and thus yet higher insulin resistance. Aspartame promotes neuropathy
by direct toxicity to brain and nerve cells inducing peroxynitrile radicals
and neuron death or apoptosis.
-
- Professional organizations and front
groups like the Calorie Control Council, the American Diabetes Association,
the American Dietetics Association, etc, push aspartame on diabetics
whereas it should never be used by a diabetic or prediabetic with insulin
resistance syndrome or Syndrome X. Those responsible to solve the problem
ARE the problem, just like yourself, Dr. Katz.. You say rats have short
life spans and are naturally more susceptible to cancer. This is just
whitewash; and hides the real issues.
-
- The Ramazzini study was conducted on
almost 2,000 rats as opposed to the 280 to 688 rodents used in Searle's
studies, and the rats lived for up to three years instead of being sacrificed
after two years, the human equivalent of age 53. "Cancer is a disease
of the third part of life," Dr. Soffritti declares: "You have
75 percent of cancer diagnoses for people who are 55 years old or older.
So if you truncate the experiments at 110 weeks and the rats are supposed
to survive until 150 to 160 weeks, it means you avoid the development
of cancer at the time when cancer would be starting to arise."
-
- Such early terminations really help the
poisoners. Just kill the rats before they get sick! Dr. Soffritti did
exactly the right thing. In his book Dr. Blaylock says that when brain
tumors develop spontaneously in rats, the rate at which they appear begins
to accelerate after two years of age, exactly when the Searle's study
ended. Importantly, brain tumors are extremely rare before age one and
one half in the rat. So in truth the incidence of spontaneously occurring
brain tumors would be even less than cited above. Yet aspartame fed rats
developed 2 tumors by 60 weeks and 5 by 70 weeks.
-
- He says in a collective study of 41,000
rats no tumors were seen before 60 weeks and only one by 70 weeks. That
320 aspartame fed rats developed six brain tumors by 76 weeks indicates
an "incredible and unprecedented" occurrence. Within the final
28 weeks 6 more brain tumors occurred in the aspartame fed group. Dr.
Olney said, "one must assume that many more (brain tumors) would
have occurred after 104 weeks.
-
- Dr. Blaylock says it became obvious that
the G. D. Searle was trying desperately to protect their billion-dollar
bonanza. In original studies tumors were dose related. In Dr. Soffritti's
study tumors were dose related. You would expect aspartame to be a carcinogen.
- Dr. Roberts discusses the mechanisms
obvious to any physician. Here are some from Aspartame Disease: An Ignored
Epidemic:
-
- * Many constituents in the human diet
are nitrosated within the gastrointestinal tract to form potentially carcinogenic
nitroso compounds. Shephard et al (l993) reported mutagenic activity
by aspartame after nitrosation, using Salmonella typhimurium as the test
organism.
-
- * The diketopiperazine derivative of
aspartame has been incriminated as a tumor-causing chemical.
-
- * Formaldehyde released from the breakdown
of methyl alcohol is known to be carcinogenic.
-
- * The potential carcinogenic effects
of chronic hyperinsulinemia have been discussed in prior publications,
with special reference to the prostate. (Roberts l967d). Others have
implicated hyperinsulinemia in the pathogenesis of breast cancer (Diamanti-Kandarakis
l999).
-
- * Alteration of glucose transport is
a characteristic of experimental tumors. Reporting on this phenomenon,
and the dramatic increase in total cellular glucose transporter protein,
Birenbaum et al (l987) emphasized the induction of such transformation
when fibroblasts are starved for glucose.
-
- * Increased phenylalanine may play a
role. Animal and human studies indicate that restricting dietary phenylalanine
decreases tumor growth and metastases (Norris l990).
-
-
- I could go on, but I suggest you get
the medical text: Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic! I read your
following statement twice because it sounds like the Twilight Zone. "If
it caused any significant harm, we would know about it. If there was
any potential for harm, it's a very low level ... because of how widespread
the use is and because it's been around long enough."
-
- FDA was so swamped with complaints it
admitted in congressional hearings they sent them to the AIDS Hotline
to get rid of them. There were three of these hearings because of the
outrage of the public being poisoned. The aspartame wars are historic.
There are millions of posts on aspartame and thousands of web sites carrying
the warnings. I quoted a couple of medical texts on aspartame but there
are stacks of books on aspartame toxicity, and a film: Sweet Misery: A
Poisoned World. Get it on amazon.com or at Barnes & Noble. More
are coming.
-
- Aspartame is continuously in the news.
Mission Possible International is a global volunteer force set up to
warn consumers with operations in most states and over 30 countries.
An Aspartame Information List keeps the public up-to-date, and is a support
group as well.
-
- In the UK Roger Williams, a Member of
Parliament has called for a ban. I made two tours there. Robin Goodwin,
Mission Possible Falkland Islands, petitioned for a ban. Stephen Fox
petitioned the Environmental Improvement Board and Board of Pharmacy in
New Mexico to ban it and wrote a ban aspartame bill for the legislature.
See <http://www.wnho.net/>www.wnho.net, click on aspartame. Activists
in other states are about to follow in the footsteps of New Mexico. A
letter to Governor Richardson signed by 10 Senators asks that New Mexico
be declared a state of public emergency so aspartame can be immediately
banned without waiting for the next legislative session.
-
- Petitions to ban aspartame have been
submitted to the FDA on several occasions, including my own which they
refuse to answer, even though the law requires FDA to do so. In l996
Dr. John Olney made world news on the aspartame/brain tumor connection
on 60 Minutes. Dr. Ralph Walton joined him with research showing 92 %
of independent peer-reviewed studies show problems. <http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html>http://www.dorway.com/peerrev.html
-
- I find it very unusual that you don't
know what's been going on, especially since you're at Yale. Isn't that
Monsanto/Searle's CEO Robert Shapiro's old stumping grounds? Isn't Yale
where Dr. David Kessler went when he resigned from the FDA after granting
blanket approval for this toxin to be used everywhere, like sugar, even
though Searle's own secret trade information admitted it couldn't be used
in everything? Unless you been on sabbatical on another planet, I don't
understand how you can say "If it caused significant harm we would
know about it." In reality it has created a global plague.
-
- You mention alternatives like Splenda
(Sucralose) and refer consumers to this trichlorinated sugar molecule,
which liberates deadly chlorine. <http://www.wnho.net/splenda_chlorocarbon.htm>http://www.wnho.net/
splenda_chlorocarbon.htm The one caution you give about aspartame is that
it makes you crave carbohydrates. Yes, it's addictive. It liberates
free methyl alcohol causing methanol poisoning. This affects the brain's
dopamine system and causes addiction. True, if you want to get fat NutraSweet
is where it's at.
-
- You make light of this impeccable study
and say even healthy foods like broccoli, spinach and beans contain potentially
carcinogenic compounds. Frankenfood companies have genetically engineered
broccoli with rat genes, but it doesn't destroy families. Aspartame triggers
male sexual dysfunction, ruins female response, is an abortifacient,
teratogen (triggers birth defects and mental retardation) and even damages
DNA, which can destroy humanity. Here's the history of aspartame: http://www.wnho.net/the_ecologist_aspartame_report.htm
-
- Your report was broadcast to millions,
Dr. Katz. You owe ABC and the public an apology and a retraction! Aspartame
experts have always said the original studies need to be repeated because
of all the shenanigans committed by Searle, the reason FDA had asked for
their indictment. They simply couldn't take a poison and show safety,
and they were caught doing such things as excising the brain tumors from
the rats and putting them back in the study. When the rats died they
would resurrect them on paper. (Bressler Report, FDA audit -
- http://www.dorway.com/bressler.txt )
FDA toxicologist, the late Dr. Jacqueline Verrett told Congress that all
original studies were built on a foundation of sand and should be thrown
out. Now the studies have been repeated and the world owes thanks to
Dr. Soffritti. The New York Times article shows Dr. Soffritti standing
before us like the hero he is. Now the public knows what the aspartame
manufacturers and their front groups have been covering up for years.
-
- Dr. Betty Martini, D.Hum, Founder
- Mission Possible International
- 9270 River Club Parkway
- Duluth, Georgia 30097
- 770 242-2599
-
- http://www.wnho.net/ and http://www.dorway.com/
-
- Aspartame Toxicity Center http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame
-
- Dr. David Katz
- ABC News Medical Contributor
-
- - In 2005, Dr. David L. Katz became a
medical contributor for ABC News, with regular appearances on "Good
Morning America" and occasional appearances on "20/20,"
"World News Tonight" and other ABC News programming.
-
- Katz is an associate professor of public
health at the Yale University School of Medicine. He directs the Yale
Prevention Research Center, which he co-founded in 1998. In July 2005,
he became the associate director for nutrition science at the newly established
Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity at Yale University.
-
- His ninth book, "The Flavor Point
Diet," is due out from Rodale in January 2006.
-
- Elected to the governing boards of both
the American College of Preventive Medicine and the Association of Teachers
of Preventive Medicine, Katz was recognized in 2003-04, and again in 2004-05,
as one of America's top physicians in preventive medicine by the Consumers'
Research Council of America.
-
- Katz has been an expert consultant on
obesity control for the U.S. Secretary of Health, the FDA commissioner,
several governors, private corporations and the health insurance industry.
-
- He and his wife, Catherine, developed
an innovative nutrition-training program for elementary school students
called "The Nutrition Detectives Program."
-
- Katz earned his undergraduate degree
at Dartmouth College, his M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
and his master's in public health from the Yale University School of Public
Health. He is board-certified in internal medicine and preventive medicine/public
health. In 2000, he founded, and currently directs, the Integrative Medicine
Center in Derby, Conn., a unique facility in which conventionally trained
and naturopathic physicians work collaboratively to provide patients with
evidence-based, holistic care.
-
- Committed to "practicing what he
preaches," he works out for at least 40 minutes most days. Katz believes
he should not be offering advice that he himself would be unwilling to
follow.
-
- Katz lives in Connecticut with his wife
and their five children: Rebecca, Corinda, Valerie, Natalia and Gabriel.
-
-
- Artificial Sweeteners: Are They Safe?
-
- Animals in Study Ingested Huge Amounts
of the Chemical
-
-
- Feb. 13, 2006 - The debate over the safety
of artificial sweeteners intensified over the weekend, when an article
in The New York Times said Aspartame, the most popular sugar replacement
in America, might cause cancer in rats.
-
- Aspartame, which was invented in 1965,
is found in more than 6,000 products, and most people know it by its trade
names, NutraSweet and Equal. It is estimated that 200 million people consume
Aspartame so if it is unsafe, the effects could be far-reaching. Dr. David
Katz, ABC News' medical contributor, said that people should not jump
to conclusions based on the rat study.
-
- "If it caused any significant harm,
we would know about it," he said. "If there was any potential
for harm, it's a very low level because of how widespread the use is and
because it's been around long enough."
-
- Katz, a Yale professor and the author
of the "Flavor Point Diet," said that the latest study, which
comes from Italy, demonstrated a "statistically significant increase
in lymphomas and leukemias over three years." The Italian researcher
studied the effects of about five sodas a day worth of Aspartame on each
of the 1,900 rats -- that is the equivalent of 100 ounces of soda for
a 150-pound person every day. The Italian doctor also increased the time
the rats ingested the chemical.
-
- Katz said: "This is an animal study.
There's [nothing] to indicate this is the same threat in humans."
-
- Katz said that rats had short life spans
and were naturally more susceptible to cancer. He also pointed out that
even healthy foods like broccoli, spinach and beans contained some potentially
carcinogenic compounds.
-
- Considering that the average American
drinks 837 sodas each year, equivalent to 46 gallons -- and 27 percent
of that is diet soda, sweetened with artificial sweetener -- the new study
has alarmed many people.
-
- There are alternatives to Aspartame like
saccharin (Sweet'N Low) and sucralose (Splenda), which Katz said were
not the same chemically, but served the same purpose.
-
- "We seem to have the notion in our
society that science is something to be suspicious of and the natural
stuff is safe," Katz said. "But we know peanuts are dangerous
to some people, and we never discuss banning peanuts."
-
- Katz said there were bigger reasons to
be wary of artificial sweeteners.
-
- "I think artificial sweeteners are
harmful and, not because of the cancer risk, but because as a class they
are 300 times more sweet than sugar," he said. "You may not
get calories from diet soda, but because you drink it, you develop a sweet
tooth and have these cravings."
-
- If people are worried about getting cancer,
Katz said, they should keep their weight down and avoid tobacco. Katz
said that the major conclusion he drew from the Italian rat study was
that rats and humans were both more likely to develop cancer toward the
end of their lives.
-
- "More cancer was seen in this study,
and the study's author, Dr. Morando Soffriti, was saying if you're studying
cancer, it makes more sense to look at the stage of life when the cancer
is likely to crop up."
|