By Stephen Fox | Stephen@santafefineart.com

New Mexico still has one great opportunity to rid our state of the 6000 USA food products and over 500 children’s pharmaceutical products that contain aspartame. This chemical is metabolized as methanol and formaldehyde, and 2 unessential amino acids, which, at the levels found in Aspartame, are proven brain toxins (aspartic acid and phenylalanine).

The Environmental Improvement Board members will soon determine whether they will have hearings requisite to banning aspartame. To do so is quite urgent, in order to protect the health of all New Mexicans, and this imperative has been stymied and blocked by all-out efforts by the corporations involved to prevent the hearings which would reveal the obvious and inevitable punitive and exemplary suits, comparable to the 1900’s tobacco suits, despite the obviously flawed FDA approval of aspartame, which was rammed through the FDA in 1981.

The Environmental Improvement Board process is however very slow. Toxicological considerations require a far more rapid response, which would certainly be obfuscated by the Ajinomoto Corporation and Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola hiring lobbyists, toxicologists, pediatricians, oncologists, chemists, etc., to “prove” that adding methanol and formaldehyde to food products in the USA is somehow acceptable.

Preventing the sale of poisonous and deleterious food additives is, of course, allowed by a statute in the New Mexico Food Act (NMSA 25-2-7). Why would this not be allowed? This is part of a long-standing human imperative, which, in the USA, goes back to the 1906 Pure Food Act.

You must read the labels to detect the presence of Aspartame. The state has a legitimate and clear obligation to move forward with this unprecedented consumer protection effort, which would be facilitated by a clarion call from Governor Bill Richardson [Fax (505) 476-2226] and from Attorney General Patricia Madrid [505] 827-6000 and Deputy Attorney General Stuart Bluestone (505) 827-6004. New Mexicans clarifying their views to Secretary of Environment Ron Curry would also be vital.

The corporations involved have used lobbyists to table Senate Bill 654 by Senator Ortiz y Pino, the intent of which was to ban Aspartame, and you can read that bill on the New Mexico Legislature Website. Coca Cola’s Lobbyist, Antonio Anaya, has discussed corporate-serving viewpoints at length with EIB member, Greg Green, and Pepsi Cola’s Lobbyist Lucas Otero has unduly influenced EIB member Ken Marsh.

Rodey’s firm’s Richard Minzner, the lobbyist for Ajinomoto, the Japanese corporation, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of aspartame and another proven neurotoxic additive, monosodium glutamate, has blocked this medical imperative in the Senate Public Affairs Committee, the Board of Pharmacy, and the Environmental Improvement Board.

The Health of every New Mexican is at stake here, and we must not watch the strongest consumer protection efforts in New Mexico’s history be thwarted by corporations who products are harmful, and will continue to be harmful.

I began the effort to get junk food out of the New Mexico schools in 1998 with the first Nutrition council Bill (SB 784-Cisneros-1999). It has taken 8 years for this to be achieved, thanks to many parents, educators, legislators, and Governor Richardson, so that in due course, New Mexico will have higher standards than any other state in this realm. We must do the same thing by getting rid of Aspartame by improving on the flawed FDA approval processes.

At the end of the 2006 Legislative Session, ten New Mexico Senators signed a letter asking Governor Richardson to declare a public health emergency to remove the cause of aspartame/methanol/formaldehyde poisoning in 70% of the adults and 40% of the children.

This has yet to be achieved, and would actually be the fastest and most efficient way to remove this chemical from human consumption in New Mexico.

The NM Health Secretary has perhaps begun to comprehend that aspartame is a toxic waste spill of epidemiological proportions which began in 1981 with the forced approval of Aspartame.

To declare a public health emergency requires that Governor Richardson stand up to the Japanese corporation producing Aspartame and all of the USA corporate end-users, to deliver the clear message that they care more about protecting New Mexico’s Health than they do about capitulating to the obvious corporate intent to destroy health.

We must move forward with these efforts to put New Mexican’s Health above many other considerations. Certainly, the Department of Health could begin to long overdue efforts in vital statistics to corroborate that victims of Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, birth defects, chromosomal damage, memory loss, macular degeneration and blindness, and dozens of other illnesses and sets of symptoms (all of which have been dutifully listed by the United States Food and Drug Administration), have involved consumption of “diet” sodas, “sugarless” chewing gum, Equal, “low fat” yogurt, Equal, and other Aspartame containing products, despite the industry’s claims otherwise.

This is precisely the same elaborate and painstaking process that industrial- governmental collusion required to get rid of DDT, leaded gas, asbestos, etcetera. If we continue to ignore the incontrovertible medical truth about this Artificial Sweetener, citizen indifference and ignorance may doom New Mexico to many more deaths resulting from Aspartame.

Sending a fax to Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach, M.D., United States Food and Drug Commissioner, formally asking him to rescind the approval for Aspartame, might bring about this beneficial result for all Americans. [The Honorable Andrew Von Eschenbach, Commissioner, United States Food and Drug Administration Fax (301) 443-3100].

Truly,

Stephen Fox
New Millennium Fine Art
217 W. Water St.
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501
Stephen@santafefineart.com
505 983-2002

Article received from Stephen Fox