Safe Food Campaign wants ban on aspartame in schools in New Zealand: Murray 2007.06.21

Safe Food Campaign wants ban on aspartame in schools in New Zealand:
Murray 2007.06.21
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNMmessage/1443


www.stuff.co.nz/print/4103631a6479.html

Friday, 22 June 2007

Campaign to outlaw sweetener in schools

Food Safety campaigners are calling for a ban on diet drinks and other
artificially sweetened products in schools after a Wellington woman
said she was poisoned by sugar-free chewing gum.

Abigail Cormack, 25, said she began suffering muscle cramps, heart
palpitations, anxiety, depression and skin rashes after chewing gum
that contained the artificial sweetener aspartame.

Her symptoms disappeared when she stopped her four-pack-a-day habit.

A spokeswoman for the Wrigley company, which makes Extra chewing gum,
said aspartame -- which is used in more than 6000 products consumed by
200 million people worldwide -- was the "most tested food additive in
history".

More than 200 studies supported the safety of aspartame, the company
said.

"Wrigley Australia and New Zealand is committed to ensuring that all
safety food standards are met for all of our confectionery products,
including gum," it said.

Since aspartame was 200 times sweeter than sugar, it was only used in
"minuscule" amounts, and was composed of ingredients found naturally
in food.

However, Green MP Sue Kedgley -- who is campaigning to have fizzy
drinks containing aspartame removed from schools -- said the
Government had a responsibility to warn the public.

"The problem is that products containing aspartame are being touted as
a healthier alternative and this means that many children are being
exposed to potentially large doses of this artificial sweetener," she
said.

"While it's important to reduce the sugar intake of children and
adults, to replace that sugar with a controversial additive is just
not the answer."

Safe Food Campaign spokeswoman Alison White said the use of this
"questionable" additive had more to do with "power, politics and
money" than science.

"It is interesting and predictable that the research showing problems
with aspartame is all independently funded," she said.

Ms Cormack's case was likely to be "the tip of the iceberg".

Khandallah man Clive Bennett said he believed he had aspartame
poisoning while living in Britain five years ago. He suffered muscle
pains and dizzy spells while taking sugar substitutes in three coffees
a day.

After reading about aspartame poisoning, he stopped using artificial
sweetener and his problems disappeared.

"It annoys me when scientists and food companies say there is no
proven link to anything bad. More likely, they know there's a problem
but they won't admit it."

Auckland woman Cathy Norman blames aspartame used to sweeten soft
drinks for her heart palpitations, blackouts and unexplained seizures.

At one time, she was drinking two litres or more of diet soft drink a
day.

"I think the doctors thought I was making it all up ... But when I
changed my diet and I cut out aspartame from my diet altogether, I
have not been sick like that since."

Clinical pharmacologist Professor Carl Burgess, from the Wellington
School of Medicine, said to get aspartame poisoning from a diet soft
drink, one would have to drink 28 cans in one sitting.

However, he said some people were more sensitive to additives than
others.

"You might test a product on 5000 people but if it causes an adverse
reaction in one in 100,000 people, you're unlikely to find it."

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www.safefood.org.nz/

Do additives affect you or your children?
Do you have any good stories to tell about this?
A documentary about additives in food is going to be made.
Top Shelf Productions, an Auckland, New Zealand, based television
production company, is currently preparing a documentary that will
discuss the widespread use of food additives in our everyday food
products. To support the documentary, the Top Shelf team is looking
for individuals or families that can contribute interesting experience
and help discuss the problems that are connected to some of the
substances.

Interested readers, please contact Sigrun on (09) 377 8774 or

November 2006

The Safe Food Campaign is a nationwide organisation which campaigns
for safer, healthier food.
We provide consumers with information so that they can make up their
own minds about what is safe to eat.
We lobby government to make our food safer.

How to Contact the Safe Food Campaign:
By Post: PO Box 9206, Wellington, New Zealand
By Telephone: +64 (0)4 476 8607 Alison +64 (0)4 562 8664 Jacky
By email:

To become a member of the Safe Food Campaign send an email with your
contact details to:
Membership Rates:
Unwaged/Low waged NZ$ 10.00
Waged NZ$ 25.00
group/small business NZ$35
business (incl.15 newsletters) NZ$50
corporate (incl.30 newsletters) NZ$100
Donations of any size gratefully accepted.

Other Safefood Contacts in New Zealand:
Auckland, Anne Dubois - (09) 441 2358
Waiheke Island, Wendy Johnson - (09) 372 9680
Hamilton, Phil Evans - (027) 697 0374
Thames, Alia Steward-Finn - (07)868 1030
Napier / Hawkes Bay, Odile Balas - (06) 835 0141
New Plymouth, Nina Vink - (06)758 8174
Levin, Lynnette Attwell - (06)367 8042
Wanganui, Ali Martin - (06) 343 2346
Kapiti Coast, Brigit Howitt - (04) 904 3681
Nelson, Lorraine Leader - (03) 547 0195
Christchurch, Jayne Green - (03) 381 4551
Oamaru, Waitaki Environment Centre - (03) 434 8330

www.wrigley.co.uk/
The Wrigley Company Limited
Estover, Plymouth, Devon PL6 7PR UK
Tel.: +44 (0) 1752 701107 Tel.: +44 (0) 1752 778850


www.wrigley.com.au/home/Default.asp
CONSUMER ENQUIRIES AND COMMENTS:
The Wrigley company welcomes consumer feedback.
If you have any enquiries or comments, please call:
1300 721 831 (within Australia)
0800 408 364 (within New Zealand)


Australia
The Wrigley Company Pty Limited
PO Box 754, Epping NSW 1710, Australia
Phone: +61 2 9815 0300 (within Sydney metropolitan area)
1800 444 200 (outside Sydney metropolitan area)
Fax: +61 2 9815 0301 (within Sydney metropolitan area)

New Zealand
The Wrigley Company Pty Limited
PO Box 14140, Auckland 1134, New Zealand
Phone: 64 (9) 579 9063 Fax: 64 (9) 579 4048
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1442
Wellington, NZ lady, 25, free by 24 hours of severe muscle cramps (5
months) after quitting 4-8 packs daily aspartame chewing gum (past few
years): Murray 2007.06.20

Lifetime exposure to low doses of aspartame beginning during prenatal
life increases cancer effects in rats, Morando Soffritti et al,
European Ramazzini Foundation, USA EPA Environmental Health
Perspectives 2007.06.13 free full text 24 pages: Murray 2007.06.16
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1441

www.ehponline.org/members/2007/10271/10271.pdf free full text 24
pages


"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority,
to actively find, quickly share, and positively act upon
the facts about healthy and safe food, drink, and
environment."

Rich Murray, MA Room For All
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 76 members, 1,443 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNMmessage/1437
stevia to be approved and cyclamates limited by Food Standards
Australia New Zealand: JMC Geuns critiques of two recent stevia
studies by Nunes: Murray 2007.05.29

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1427
more from The Independent, UK, Martin Hickman, re ASDA
(unit of Wal-Mart Stores) and Marks & Spencer ban of aspartame,
MSG, artificial chemical additives and dyes to prevent ADHD in kids:
Murray 2007.05.16
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/hea...cle2548747.ece

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1426
ASDA (unit of Wal-Mart Stores WMT.N) and Marks & Spencer
will join Tesco and also Sainsbury to ban and limit aspartame,
MSG, artificial flavors dyes preservatives additives, trans fats,
salt "nasties" to protect kids from ADHD: leading UK media:
Murray 2007.05.15

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1271
combining aspartame and quinoline yellow, or MSG and
brilliant blue, harms nerve cells, eminent C. Vyvyan
Howard et al, 2005 education.guardian.co.uk,
Felicity Lawrence: Murray 2005.12.21

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1277
50% UK baby food is now organic -- aspartame or MSG
with food dyes harm nerve cells, CV Howard 3 year study
funded by Lizzy Vann, CEO, Organix Brands,
Children's Food Advisory Service: Murray 2006.01.13

formaldehyde as a potent unexamined cofactor in cancer research --
sources include methanol, dark wines and liquors, aspartame, wood and
tobacco smoke: IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks
to Humans implicate formaldehyde in #88 and alcohol drinks in #96:
some related abstracts: Murray 2007.05.15
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1417

aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde) toxicity research summary:
Rich Murray 2007.06.16
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1404

One liter aspartame diet soda, about 3 12-oz cans,
gives 61.5 mg methanol,
so if 30% is turned into formaldehyde, the formaldehyde
dose of 18.5 mg is 37 times the recent EPA limit of
0.5 mg per liter daily drinking water for a 10-kg child:
http://www.epa.gov/teach/chem_summ/F...de_summary.pdf
2007.01.05 [ does not discuss formaldehyde from methanol
or aspartame ]
http://www.epa.gov/teach/teachsurvey.html comments


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1340
aspartame groups and books: updated research review of
2004.07.16: Murray 2006.05.11

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1395
Aspartame Controversy, in Wikipedia democratic
encyclopedia, 72 references (including AspartameNM # 864
and 1173 by Murray), brief fair summary of much more
research: Murray 2007.01.01

Dark wines and liquors, as well as aspartame, provide
similar levels of methanol, above 120 mg daily, for
long-term heavy users, 2 L daily, about 6 cans.

Within hours, methanol is inevitably largely turned into
formaldehyde, and thence largely into formic acid -- the
major causes of the dreaded symptoms of "next morning"
hangover.

Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol -- 1,120 mg aspartame
in 2 L diet soda, almost six 12-oz cans, gives 123 mg
methanol (wood alcohol). If 30% of the methanol is turned
into formaldehyde, the amount of formaldehyde, 37 mg,
is 18.5 times the USA EPA limit for daily formaldehyde in
drinking water, 2.0 mg in 2 L average daily drinking water.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1286
methanol products (formaldehyde and formic acid) are main
cause of alcohol hangover symptoms [same as from similar
amounts of methanol, the 11% part of aspartame]:
YS Woo et al, 2005 Dec: Murray 2006.01.20

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1143
methanol (formaldehyde, formic acid) disposition:
Bouchard M et al, full plain text, 2001: substantial
sources are degradation of fruit pectins, liquors,
aspartame, smoke: Murray 2005.04.02
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