CONSUMERIST– A new study on the effects of low daily doses of the artificial sweetener
aspartame shows a statistically significant increase in leukemia, lymphoma and
breast cancer in rats. Consumer advocates are calling for the FDA to take
another look at the safety of aspartame in light of the study, but the FDA
seems uninterested.
“Because aspartame is so widely consumed, it is urgent
that the FDA evaluate whether aspartame still poses a ‘reasonable certainty of
no harm,’ the standard used for gauging the safety of food additives,”
said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “But consumers,
particularly parents, shouldn’t wait for the FDA to act. People shouldn’t
panic, but they should stop buying beverages and foods containing
aspartame.”
The study, which can be read here,
followed a group of 4,000 rats who were given low daily doses of aspartame
(comparable to what a dedicated human diet soda drinker might consume, were
he/she a rat) beginning during “prenatal” life. The rats were
dissected after natural death and the effects of the aspartame calculated. From
the study:
The results of this carcinogenicity bioassay not only
confirm, but also reinforce the first experimental demonstration of APM’s
multipotential carcinogenicity at a dose level close to the acceptable daily
intake (ADI) for humans. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that when lifespan
exposure to [aspartame] begins during fetal life, its carcinogenic effects are
increased.
NATURAL NEWS– In response to growing awareness
about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one
of the world’s most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin
marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of
Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of
the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called AminoSweet.
Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food
supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free
desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been
turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial
sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest
aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public
into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to
the contrary.
Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had
been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle &
Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two
naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a
sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug
to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.
NATURAL NEWS– Consumer rights advocacy group Mission Possible is leading a campaign to
fill a product liability lawsuit with New York and New Jersey residents
whose brain tumors may be linked to the consumption of the artificial
sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal/Spoonful, etc.).
“Neither congressional hearings or repeated petitions calling for a ban
have stopped aspartame manufacturers from exposing the public to this
sweet poison. In fact, aspartame producers are reporting increased sales
and boasting the marketplace addition of ‘neotame,’ a new aspartame product,”
explained Mission Possible International Founder Betty Martini.
For 16 years, the
FDA resisted pressure to approve aspartame due to safety studies
linking the artificial
sweetener to numerous adverse reactions, including the development
of brain tumors
in animal studies. In 1977, FDA investigator Jerome Bressler released a
report describing how, in clinical studies submitted to the FDA, Searle
removed aspartame-induced brain tumors that developed
in lab rats and placed them back into the study. If the rats died,
Bressler reported, Searle would resurrect them on paper.
In a personal conversation with Martini and prominent aspartame experts,
Doctors H. J. Roberts and Russell Blaylock
he admitted the studies were so bad FDA removed 20% of the most
damaging data of his report.
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY– A new book titled Do fish feel pain? by the renowned scientist, Victoria
Braitheaite, is a very important read for those interested in the general topic
of pain in animals, especially because it has been long assumed that fish are
not sentient beings and are not all that intelligent.
A few years ago I
reviewed the literature about
sentience in fish and other animals who live beneath the surface (see
also) and it’s clear that a strong case can be made for protecting fish and
other aquatic animals from harm. Professor Braithwaite’s book contains an
incredible amount of recent scientific data that support this idea.
Many people will likely not take or have the time to read her book, so let
me tell you what she says at the beginning of her chapter titled “Looking
to the future.” She writes: “I have argued that there is as
much evidence that fish feel pain and suffer as there is for birds and mammals
— and more than there is for human neonates and preterm babies.” (page
153).
Professor Braithwaite then goes on to note that these data will require us
to change the ways in which we interact with fish because we now know that they
suffer and feel pain.
WASHINGTON
POST– The National Security Archive at George
Washington University
has published a series of declassified U.S.
documents detailing the U.S. embrace of
Saddam Hussein in the early 1980’s. The collection of documents, published
on the Web, include briefing materials, diplomatic reports of two Rumsfeld
trips to Baghdad, reports on Iraqi
chemical weapons use during the Reagan administration and presidential
directives that ensure U.S.
access to the region’s oil and military expansion.
Join Joyce Battle, Middle East analyst at the
National Security Archive at George Washington
University, online Thursday, Feb.
27 at 11 a.m.
ET to discuss the series of declassified U.S.
documents detailing U.S.
support of Saddam Hussein in the early 1980’s.
The transcript follows.
____________________
washingtonpost.com: washingtonpost.com: Hi Joyce. Welcome. Before we
could begin maybe you could give our readers a little background about Donald
Rumsfeld’s visits to Iraq
in 1983 and 1984. What was he doing and why is this information relevant today?
Joyce Battle: Hello. I’m very pleased to have this opportunity to
discuss some of the historical background to the U.S.’s
present policy toward Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld was sent to the Middle East as a special
envoy for President Reagan in December 1983 and March 1984. At the time, he was
a private citizen, but had been a high-ranking official with several Republican
administrations. He had a number of items on his agenda, including conflict in Lebanon.
However, one of his main objectives was to establish direct contact between
President Reagan and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — he carried a letter from
Reagan to Saddam to further this process.
His trip, and other overtures by the U.S.,
were necessary because the Reagan administration had decided to assist Iraq
in its war against Iran
in order to prevent an Iranian victory, which the administration saw as
contrary to U.S.
interests. But until the early 1980s, U.S.-Iraqi relations had been frosty — Iraq
broke off formal diplomatic relations in 1967. So in order to enable the U.S.
to set up the mechanisms needed to provide Iraq with various forms of
assistance, contacts had to be established, Iraq had to be removed from the
State Department’s list of countries supporting terrorism, and diplomatic
relations needed to be re-established (which occurred in November 1984.)
____________________
Derwood, Md.:
Who cares what these documents say? Iraq
is the enemy of the day and needs to be dealt with.
Joyce Battle: I respectfully disagree with your point of view. In a
democracy, citizens are expected to be informed about decisions that affect
their own lives and that of their neighbors. If the U.S.
goes to war with Iraq,
many people will be put in harm’s way, and I think that we all should seek some
understanding of earlier developments and policies that led us to the current
situation.
____________________
Wheaton, Md.:
I hear pro-Saddam activists often claim that Reagan supplied Hussein with
chemical weapons. I’ve seen no evidence to support these claims. Is there any
truth to this?
Joyce Battle: I have not personally seen documents that indicate that
the Reagan administration supplied Iraq
with chemical weapons. However, the documents we recently posted on the
Internet demonstrate that the administration had U.S.
intelligence reports indicating that Iraq
was using chemical weapons, both against Iran
and against Iraqi Kurdish insurgents, in the early 1980s, at the same time that
it decided to support Iraq
in the war. So U.S.
awareness of Iraq’s
chemical warfare did not deter it from initiating the policy of providing
intelligence and military assistance to Iraq.
There were shipments of chemical weapons precursors from several U.S.
companies to Iraq
during the 1980s, but the U.S.
government would deny that it was aware that these exports were intended to be
used in the production of chemical weapons.
____________________
Chicago, Ill.:
Greetings,
This might be slightly off point but I’ll submit it for discussion.
The current administration has made a point of keeping all information that
it can close to the vest. Not just secret information (which is
understandable), but also material this is simply unflattering.
Examples: Energy documents from Cheney’s summits; instructing DoJ to find
reasons to reject even the most legit FOIA requests
Does a pattern of Secretizing Everything result in greater public skepticism
when the administration pulls the “Trust Me” card in its discussions
of the potential war in Iraq?
Joyce Battle: I agree with you. Strangely, one of the earliest
responses of the current Bush administration to the events of September 11 was
to begin efforts to vastly augment the ability of the government to limit the
availability of information about its activities to the public. In particular,
it attempted to impede the release of documents from the Reagan and Bush
administrations, which were to be declassified under existing guidelines for
making historical documents available. I considered this suspicious, since at
that time questions were being raised as to the extent to which U.S.
support for Islamist militants, in Afghanistan
and elsewhere, had helped in creating the infrastructure used by al-Qaeda. I
believe that government efforts to control and/or conceal information
contribute not only to skepticism but to paranoia on the part of those who see
contradictions between government rhetoric and policy.
____________________
Maryland: The
Sun in London recently published a
photo of Chirac shaking hands with Saddam in 1984. Do the archives have any
photos of current US
officials shaking hands with Saddam?
Joyce Battle: Our website displays an image of current Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam during this 1983 visit. You
can also view a short video (silent) clip of Rumsfeld’s meeting with Saddam. To
locate our website, just use a search engine to find “national security
archive.”
____________________
Arlington, Va.:
Ms. Battle,
Do the declassified documents you’ve seen reveal much detail of the U.S.
policy toward Iran,
and the extent to which Saudi influence and an Arabist-heavy
State Dept. caused us to take sides
in a Sunni-Shiite, Arab-Persian conflict? It seems that our willingness to
accept Saudi influence with regard to two policy areas during the 80s
(supporting Afghan resistance against the Russians, supporting Saddam against Iran)
has caused enormous “blowback” today.
Joyce Battle: Based on the documents I have seen, I don’t believe
that Saudi Arabia
was the tail that wagged the American dog. The U.S.
and Saudi Arabia
have had mutually supportive relations for some 70 years, and particularly
since World War II. For decades, the U.S.
believed that it was in its interest to support Saudi
Arabia and other conservative Gulf
monarchies. Despite their differences with the U.S.
over issues like the Arab-Israeli dispute, these monarchies have on the whole
been very supportive of U.S.
political and economic interests. The U.S.
was as fearful of the possible consequences of the expansion of revolutionary
ideas from Iran
as the Saudis were.
The U.S., for
many years, held the view that promoting Islamist beliefs would effectively
counter the spread of communist ideology in the Middle East,
South Asia, and Africa, and was
not at all opposed to Saudi support for conservative Islamist movements. In
return, the U.S.
presence in various military facilities in Saudi
Arabia is widely viewed as the ultimate
guarantor of the Saudi royal family’s continuing rule. Again, these two
countries’ policies have always been based on mutual self-interest.
____________________
Cumberland, Md.:
Do you believe that the US
should have stayed neutral in the Iran-Iraq war thereby allowing Iran
and the Ayatollahs to win thereby enlarging their influence in the region?
Joyce Battle: It is obviously very difficult to second-guess history,
and I won’t attempt to do so. I believe that when the U.S.
became aware of Iraq’s
chemical weapons use it should have used what influence it had to stop it.
Doing so was actually incumbent upon the U.S.
under international law. I believe the U.S.
should have used its international influence, which is enormous, to do
everything it could to end this war. It was an atrocity, resulting in hundreds
of thousands of casualties. Too many countries had ulterior motives and did not
do enough to cut off arms shipments to the two combattants. I think that U.S.
support for Iraq,
despite its public condemnation of chemical warfare, encouraged Saddam Hussein
to believe that the U.S.
did not really believe, or act on, its public posture.
____________________
Ocean Pines, Md.:
We often hear that Saddam Hussein gassed his own people in 1988. It is
reported by Stephen Pelletiere that most of the civilians killed at that time
were killed by Iranian poison gas. Do you know anything about this?
Joyce Battle: I have seen one analysis that makes this claim. Most of
the government documents I have seen from this time period (1987-1989) indicate
that the U.S.
believed that Iraq
had used chemical weapons against the Kurds. This was part of a series of
measures undertaken by Iraq
to punish Kurdish insurgents for allying with Iran
during the war.
____________________
Alexandria, Va.:
Are you arguing that the policies of the early 80’s were correct? Or that
they were mistaken? Or just that we need to know? Personally, while I would
wish that the policies of the early 80’s had turned out differently, the goal
appears to have been to establish a working relationship with Iraq.
That goal obviously was not reached, and Saddam took the wrong message, that we
were not bothered by his use of chemical weapons.
Times change; it could be argued that the current Bush administration is
being more realistic than were the Reagan and Bush 1 administrations.
Joyce Battle: Mostly, I think that we need to know. We try to
make documents available to the public to help them reach their own
conclusions. Before making the decision as to whether they support or oppose
war with Iraq, people should learn as much as they can about the issues and about the
history of our relations with that country. The Bush administration, in
attempting to persuade the public to support the war, presents an overly
simplistic case. The problems of the Middle
East are enormously complex. The Reagan
administration’s policies toward the Iran-Iraq war show that international
relations are conducted not in black-and-white but in shades of gray
____________________
Joyce Battle: It’s time for me to go — thank you all very much for
your questions and for your interest in this very important topic.
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