- Real consumer protection is not about the easiest path.
Corporate interests need to be held in check and admonished and rebuked
when it is necessary - not after the fact in huge lawsuits for damages
like we just saw resolved in the Vioxx case in Texas.
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- Over the years the Sun has examined the medical and legal
implications of the artificial sweetener aspartame. For New Mexico, a critical
crossroads is approaching in the very near future, not concerning aspartame
as a potential neurotoxin, but rather questioning whether or not the state
of New Mexico, through its Board of Pharmacy, Environmental Improvement
Board and Board of Education, has the right even to investigate such a
potential.
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- This legal-authority question has been asked of the attorney
general, Patricia Madrid, whose office is presently preparing a formal
opinion as to whether our state's boards can legitimately challenge a Food
and Drug Administrationapproved product like aspartame. The FDA's
approval was flawed, if not corrupt, to begin with, as was made clear in
the September 2005 Sun article "Rumsfeld's Disease." Therefore
it seems incomprehensible that such a faulty FDA approval could not be
questioned by a state board having heard a significant amount of evidence
thus far.
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- But this is just what corporate lawyers representing
the Japanese firm Ajinomoto, the world's largest aspartame manufacturer,
would like the boards and the attorney general to believe. Ajinomoto is
joined in this legal effort by an industry front group, the Calorie Control
Council. They have both hired high-powered lawyers to silence the boards
on the grounds that aspartame is "safe" and that, besides, no
one but the FDA, Congress and the federal courts can challenge any of the
FDA's approval processes, at least until someone dies from an FDA-approved
product.
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- In spite of the industry front group's innocent-sounding
name, and given previous and most recent scientific studies indicating
the harmful affects of aspartame, we take exception to Ajinomoto's assertion
of aspartame safety. Coincidently, Ajinomoto also happens to be the world's
largest manufacturer of another dubious food additive, monosodium glutamate.
We encourage the attorney general to issue a strong opinion supporting
the boards looking into aspartame in children's medicines and in thousands
of food products.
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- Neurodegenerative diseases are on the upsurge, especially
in children and in the elderly, and no corporate interest can silence or
thwart the ongoing quest for medical truth. Protecting our children lies
at the very core of our existence, and most certainly the attorney general
knows this. We'd like Madrid to recognize the obvious: that in 1981 the
FDA's approval was politically motivated and that these corporate interests
have stymied the real truth about aspartame for the last 24 years through
the evolution of "diet" beverages, "sugarless" gum,
"low fat" yogurt and other pleasant delusions whose net effect
has been shown to cause neurodegenerative mayhem in the human physiology.
It is time to put an end to this destructive mythology and corporate deception.
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- Attorney General Madrid could roll over and capitulate
to the corporate interests, as if it were the FDA itself that is making
the preemption arguments, which is not the case. From a bureaucratic point
of view, this might be the easiest thing to do. However, real consumer
protection is not about the easiest path. Corporate interests need to be
held in check and admonished and rebuked when it is necessary - not after
the fact in huge lawsuits for damages like we just saw resolved in the
Vioxx case in Texas. As part of the attorney general's statutory duties
and powers, it is her job to protect New Mexicans from further neurotoxic
exposure. Therefore, we strongly encourage Madrid to say no to the corporate
clamor insisting that the Board of Pharmacy and the Environmental Improvement
Board remain silent on this issue, and instead affirm their right to move
forward with aspartame hearings.
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- In the past, when local laws have threatened corporate
bottom lines, big business has hauled out the Constitution's supremacy
and commerce clauses to support their profits-over-people argument. This
tact has usually proved successful. However, let us not forget the tobacco
suits of the 1990s, which stunningly affirmed, in effect, that those corporations
that knowingly sell products potentially harmful to the public risk paying
billions in reparations to those states that take seriously the obligation
of protecting the health and safety of their citizens.
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- The aspartame industry represents billions of dollars
annually, and we understand the courage needed by the attorney general
to stand tall at this critical juncture for the health and safety of the
people of New Mexico. As with the aforementioned tobacco suits, her decision
may potentially affect the actions of other attorneys general throughout
the country and, therefore, affect millions of Americans and even more
millions of consumers worldwide. However, for Madrid to now surrender to
the industry's legal saber rattling will be nothing less than a complete
abnegation of the powers of her office and a further descent into the growing
corporate control of all government processes.
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- To voice your input regarding this matter of consumer
protection to the attorney general's office, call 827-6000 and ask to speak
to Patricia Madrid's personal assistant.
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