- Hawaii Senate Committee "deferred" bill to
Ban Aspartame on 2/25. Pathetic! Many of the five Committee members were
not even there during the heart of the testimony, and then stated that
the FDA should take care of it, not them. It seemed that only one out
of five, Senator Ron Menor, had actually read all of the testimony, who
spoke favorably of "some kind of Resolution," but didn't know
what it should contain.
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- I am the person behind much of this effort. Maybe we
will try a Resolution. No other chances remain during this legislative
session in Honolulu. Here are a few thoughts on that:
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- RESOLUTION COULD ASK THE NEW FDA COMMISSIONER AFTER NOVEMBER
TO RESCIND APPROVAL? THAT HAS SOME TEETH, EH? AND ASK HAWAII HEALTH DEPARTMENT
TO CREATE REPOSITORY FOR VICTIMS and PHYSICIAN TESTIMONIES AND OBSERVATIONS
DURING THE NEXT YEAR?
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- I have requests for response to media inquiry into both
the campaign office and the Senate offices of Hillary and Obama. Haven't
gotten around to the guy from Arizona yet... I prefer to wait on that
one....Hillary-and- Bill were massive supporters of Monsanto during their
tenure in the White House, so don't hold out any high hopes for any miraculous
change of heart with Hillary about the epidemiological dangers of a nation
engorging itself on a chemical in 7000 food products that is metabolized
as methanol, formaldehyde, and another proven causative agent of brain
tumors, diketopiperazine.
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- As to Hawaii and what might come next in what remains
in this legislative session, asking for the usual "review of the
literature" by the Health Department and other mealy placebo platitudes:
that would really be worse than a joke and will produce nothing substantive,
since three out of five of the committee members' staff deleted the testimonial
letter from the world's top expert on Aspartame, Dr. H.J. Roberts, Internist
of West Palm Beach, without even reading his letter! Maybe they read it
in the official testimony that was filed; you certainly couldn't prove
it by their inaction! Hawaii's Health Department Director Dr. Fukino chose
an Ajinomoto funded "study" in Toxicology magazines to oppose
the bill in Hawaii, and the leading professor at the medical school in
Diabetes and Native Hawaiian Health, Dr. Brady, impugned our point of
view on TV basically as "Internet Junk Science."
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- I am horrified that the staff of three out of five legislators
on the Senate Committee would delete without reading the testimonial letter
from Dr. H.J. Roberts, Author of Aspartame Disease, An FDA approved Epidemic,
but I am even more horrified that such legislators rely on commentaries
by a Medical Professor like Dr. Brady, who is supposedly an "expert"
on Diabetes and yet still recommends and encouraging diabetics, which
abound in the Native Hawaiian population, to continue to consume a chemical
additive that is metabolized as methanol and formaldehyde, as if that
would somehow benefit their already damaged and struggling pancreas.
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- What a tragedy for Native Hawaiians, who, like Native
Americans, are continually decimated by white corporate America's chemical
concoctions. Anybody out there want to contact their state legislators
to work on building support for a ban on aspartame in 2009? We cannot all
just sit back and wait for the new FDA Commissioner to make some vague
decision in the distant future, I assure you. The malevolent corporate
powers are killing too many people, with absolute impunity, all over the
world, with their heinous products containing "aspartame."
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- Thanks so much to Malia Zimmerman of Hawaii Reporter.com,
Jeff Rense of Rense.com, Mike Adams of News Target.com, Leo de Azambuja
of the Molokai Dispatch, along with three newscasters on TV in Hawaii,
Gina Mangieri of the Fox Affiliate KHON-2, Sabrina Hall of Channel 9,
and Dick Allgire of Island TV (Channel 4): these are about the only true
journalists in Hawaii interested in or caring about getting out the truth.
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- The Honolulu Advertiser, the largest paper on islands
ran a long article on Sunday, February 10, which was almost totally intransigent,
and then a short follow up, about how everything was OK and nothing to
worry about when you drink your Diet Coke, because "the US Department
of Agriculture still approved aspartame!"!!! Can you believe it? Nothing
about the FDA which still approves it, despite a mountain of evidence
of neurodegenerative harm that aspartame causes.
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- The other paper, the Honolulu Star Bulletin, completely
failed to cover this bill at all.
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- What a wall of ignorance among consumers these papers
create by what they don't report on, and when they do report on such a
bill, they miss the point entirely.
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- Want to write the legislators in your state to ask them
to introduce a ban on aspartame in your state? Or, do you prefer to wait
passively for a new FDA Commissioner, knowing that the same corporations
will still try to be as much in charge as they are now with this guy,
Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach, M.D.
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- As a related side note, some recent articles in the alternative
Health world have chastised Governor Bill Richardson for supposedly accepting
$10,000 in contributions from Ajinomoto, the world's largest Aspartame
and Monosodium Glutamate manufacturer, several years ago. This is not
at all correct. They have been given some misinformation or perhaps misinterpreted
some. Richardson did accept a $10,000 contribution to his 2006 gubernatorial
campaign from Altria Corporate Services, the parent name for Kraft/ Philip
Morris, not Ajinomoto.
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- Dr. Betty Martini, Founder of Mission Possible International
(bless her heart and brave soul), called on him several times, as did
I, to redonate the $10,000 to New Mexico victims of aspartame poisoning.
These requests were ignored; his campaign staff even joked about how Betty
would send a new email every three minutes (not true at all)! Certainly,
those were their actions and not those of Governor Richardson.
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- In fact, Altria and Ajinomoto hired several close friends
of his as lobbyists to influence legislation and to try to kill the Nutrition
Council bill; before this he had cautiously encouraged the state conducting
hearings in the Environmental Improvement Board on Aspartame, and after
those lobbyists "went to work," his support became unclear and
the EIB caved in, canceled the hearings, after Ajinomoto threatened them
with a lawsuit! I don't see this as Richardson's fault at all; I believe
strongly that he would make the best possible United States Secretary
of State.
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- I only pray that whoever it is, President Obama et. al.,
will appoint a very strong consumer protection FDA Commissioner in November;
not much chance of Hillary-and-Bill doing such an appointment, given their
massive and ongoing support and ties to MONSANTO, that most evil and insidious
of American food producing corporations. They were behind the scenes in
the demise of both the House and Senate Bills in Honolulu. Ajinomoto is
certainly on a par with Monsanto, maker of Agent Orange, DDT, Aspartame,
Terminator Genetics, etc. We would like to find some more legislative
friends and allies who might help bring about bills to ban aspartame in
10 states, laying the groundwork, long before 2009! Then even Mr. Corporate
Power himself, FDA Director Andrew Von Eschenbach, would comprehend how
he should have rescinded FDA approval for Aspartame 2 years ago when he
was first explicitly asked to do so by 21 New Mexico Legislators who signed
a letter to that effect.
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- After November, he will be out the door, and we must
now lean on Obama and that guy from Arizona to at least recognize how
important Consumer Protection Overhaul really is!!!! Maybe even Senator
Mc Cain might come around to comprehend the deep need for a consumer protection
oriented FDA Commissioner if enough people wrote to him at his Senate
office and at his campaign headquarters. Mc Cain would be very likely
to keep Von Eschenbach on as FDA Commissioner; Senator Mc Cain should
clarify this on the campaign trail; if he would do so, this might become
a really good reason to vote for his opponent.
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- The next FDA Commissioner may become the #1, most important
Presidential Appointment in November 2008.
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- I welcome direct personal replies from readers.
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- Stephen Fox
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- Managing Editor, Santa Fe News Sun
- Founder, New Millennium Fine Art
- stephen@santafefineart.com
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