Potential Health Hazards of Food Irradiation

Please read this entire thing.  Our governments are out of their collective minds.

From ccnr.org

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Verbatim Excerpts from Expert Testimony
U.S. CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS INTO FOOD IRRADIATION

House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Health and the Environment

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~ JUNE 19 1987 ~

Excerpted from the testimony of

1. S. G. Srikantia, B.Sc.,.B.B.S., D.Sc.
   Professor of Food and Nutrition,
   University of Mysore, India;

   Former Director,
   National Institute of Nutrition,
   Hyderabad, India.

2. Donald R Louria, Ph.D.,
   Chairman, Department of
   Preventive Medicine and Community Health,
   University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey
3. George L Tritsch, Ph D
   Cancer Research Scientist,
   Roswell Park Memorial Institute,
   New York State Department of Health
4. Richard Piccioni, Ph D ,
   Senior Staff Scientist,
   Accord Research and Educational Associates
   New York, NY.

Excerpt #1. from the testimony of

S. G. Srikantia, B.Sc.,.B.B.S., D.Sc.

Professor of Foods and Nutrition,
University of Mysore, India; Former Director,
National Institute of Nutrition,
Hyderabad, India.

In response to a request from the Ministry of Health, Government of India, to carry out appropriate studies to determine if irradiated wheat was safe for consumption, the Institute  [ National Institute of Nutrition ]  initiated studies in the year 1973, using a variety of experimental animals — mice, rats and monkeys — as also some undernourished children. They were fed diets which contained freshly irradiated wheat , the wheat being incorporated into the diet within twenty-one days of being subjected to irradiation.

During the course of these studies the Institute made several new and important observations of practical importance and published them in refereed international journals.

The Institute’s Findings

1. Rats and mice fed diets containing freshly irradiated wheat showed increased levels of polyploid cells [ cells with chromosome abnormalities ] in their bone marrow. This was repeatedly observed in several separate experiments.
2. Normal monkeys and undernourished children fed diets containing freshly irradiated wheat showed elevated levels of polyploid [ abnormal ] cells in circulating lymphocytes  [white blood cells] . Several months after the irradiated wheat was withdrawn, levels of polyploidy returned to normal.
3. Mice fed freshly irradiated wheat-based diets showed evidence of dominant lethal mutation as indicated by increased numbers of intrauterine  [ prenatal ]  deaths.
4. When wheat was stored for twelve weeks after irradiation, and then included in the diet, there was neither an increase in the number of polyploid cells nor was there evidence of dominant lethal mutation.

The meaning of increased numbers of polyploid cells is not clear , though it is often seen in association with rapidly regenerating tissues and with malignancy  [ cancer ] . Whether it signifies either mutational or precancerous changes is not certain. But the meaning of “dominant lethal mutation” is obvious — it indicated undesirable changes in reproductive performance.

The explanation for the increased polyploidy and the dominant lethal mutation following the ingestion of freshly irradiated wheat, is not clear. It is likely to be an effect of a mutagen formed in wheat during the process of irradiation. The fact that these effects were not seen when stored irradiated wheat was fed, suggests that the mutagen is a relatively unstable substance

Based on these findings the National Institute of Nutrition recommended that unconditional clearance of irradiated wheat was not warranted and that when subjected to irradiation, wheat should be stored for a period of at least twelve weeks prior to being released for consumption….

Questionable Methods

Recently the Food and Drug Administration, U.S.A.  [ stated that ]  “The Agency agrees with the conclusions of the Committee of Indian Scientists that the studies with irradiated food do not demonstrate that adverse effects would be caused by ingestion of irradiated foods.” (Federal Register 51, April 18, 1986, p 13 385)

The Committee of Indian Scientists referred to here, is a two-man committee which consisted of Dr. P.C. Kesavan and Dr. P.V. Sukhatme, whose report, according to the federal register’s citation, was submitted to the Joint FA0/WHO/IAEA Expert Committee on the Wholesomeness of Irradiated Food, held at Geneva in 1976.

This statement  [ by the U.S. FDA ]  leaves the reader with the impression that the  [ Kesavan-Sukhatme ]  report was discussed by the Joint Expert Group and that the findings in the report were endorsed by it. This would be at variance with the facts because the report was NOT submitted to the Joint Expert Group and therefore was never discussed . I can vouch for this since I was a member of that Expert Group. At that meeting, the   [ earlier ]  findings of the National Institute of Nutrition were accepted, as is reflected in the published reports of the Proceedings….

The FDA has now accepted that it was indeed incorrect to have cited that the Kesavan-Sukhatme report had been submitted to the Expert Group in 1976. It is unfortunate that many of the original readers of the Federal Register may not get to know the truth….

The  [ Kesavan-Sukhatme ]  report was a confidential document. After receiving the report, the government of India sent it to the Director, National Institute of Nutrition, for his views and comments The Institute’s Director sent his comments to the government, which was also a confidential document. As of today, to the best of my knowledge neither of these documents has been made public. It was therefore surprising to learn that the FDA has a copy of the confidential Kesavan-Sukhatme report, and that it has accepted its findings without being aware that the conclusions of that report had been questioned. In his comments the Director, National Institute of Nutrition, has not only refuted some of the statements made in the report, but also provided additional evidence to back up the Institute’s conclusions….

The FDA has committed a serious error of judgment. Had it seen the Institute’s rejoinder to the Kesavan-Sukhatme report, surely, it would have been in a better position to evaluate that report….

It is indeed very strange that aspersions should have been cast on the scientific honesty and integrity of the Institute’s workers a full ten years after the work was published. It is even stranger that the two scientists who allegedly made these statements have denied having made them when they were approached by me. The person who acted as Chairman at the panel discussions has, so far, not responded to my letter. Clearly, there is more here than meets the eye. It is very unfortunate that attempts are being made to discredit the Institute’s work by resorting to questionable methods.

The Institute’s Position

I wish to reiterate that the Institute has NOT withdrawn anything which it said earlier on this subject and stands fully behind all that it has published. Indeed, its stand has received support from the publications of both Renner and Anderson and coworkers. The Institute also does not agree with the Kesavan-Sukhatme report. It stands behind its statement that eating irradiated wheat-based diets is associated with undesirable consequences and reiterates its recommendation that should wheat be irradiated for human consumptions it must be stored for at least 12 weeks before being released for use.

Excerpt #2.

Donald R Louria, Ph.D.,

Chairman, Department of
Preventive Medicine and Community Health,
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

I am today urging that adoption of food irradiation be halted until two major issues are resolved.

1. The issue of safety
   It would appear that the FDA gave its approval on the basis of five or six studies on rats and dogs. These were selected as methodologically sound from a pool of over two thousand studies , over four hundred of which appeared potentially good enough for preliminary review. Clearly, there are many potential biases in selecting such a small number of studies on which to base major decisions.Two of the studies are in English, three in French, and one in German. The two in English were reviewed by five epidemiologists and biostatisticians. Their judgment was that both studies posed substantial problems in interpretation. In one of the two studies, published in 1964, the authors note “in many cases statistical comparisons were not possible. However, examination of the data intuitively suggests that the differences have no real significance.”

   In actuality, there were differences between controls and those rats given irradiated wheat, but the small number of animals may not have permitted statistically significant differences to be found. There were unexplained stillbirths in the litters of rats given wheat irradiated with twenty thousand rads; recalculation of that stillbirth rate shows a significant increase. This study is hardly an endorsement for the safety of irradiating food. The other study, intensively reviewed, has similar problems with statistical significance, unexplained deaths, and abnormalities in animals given irradiated foods that are treated dississively and virtually ignored.

   So the two studies in English, instead of documenting safety, raise questions about the safety of food irradiation. Additionally, one of the studies suggests that older animals may be more susceptible to adverse effects when eating irradiated foods.

   What about the French and German studies? In two of the three French studies, the dose of radiation to food was less than fifty thousand rads; this small dosage makes the conclusions difficult to apply to the human situation. No specific adverse effects were noted. The German study showed no adverse effects directly, but showed other adverse effects that will be discussed subsequently.

   Taken together, these studies could not possibly establish the safety of food irradiation. Indeed, two of the studies suggest the technology is not safe.

2. The effects on the nutritional value of food
   In the 1964 report the authors noted that both controls and those fed irradiated wheat were given supplementary vitamins; in part, “this was done to avoid the reproductive difficulties that were attributed to destruction of vitamin E induced by radiation”. In the German experiment, in the first year of analysis those animals given irradiated foods weighed significantly less than controls and showed reproductive defects; both these abnormalities were corrected by administration of vitamins, particularly vitamin E. There are now many other data indicating that irradiation of foods can reduce the nutrient value of those foods. Additionally, further processing of the food, for example by cooking, may result in accelerated nutrient depletion compared to unirradiated foods.

   The supporters of food irradiation treat the potential damage to the nutrient value of food as if it were unimportant or nonexistent That is a major mistake. If the nutrient value of food is reduced, then the argument for food irradiation prolonging shelf life is undercut. Surely, it would not make sense to prolong shelf life if the foods are nutritionally defective.

To summarise, I do not believe that irradiated foods have been shown to be safe for general consumption. Equally important, the effects of irradiation on the nutrient contents of food are not established. I believe the prudent action to take is to prohibit the irradiation of food until the basic issues are sorted out. To do less would be irresponsible.

Excerpt #3.

George L Tritsch, Ph D

Cancer Research Scientist,
Roswell Park Memorial Institute,
New York State Department of Health

I am speaking as a private citizen, and my opinions are my own, based on thirty-three years of experience since my doctorate at Cornell Medical College, Rockefeller University, and, since 1959, as a cancer research scientist and biochemist at Roswell.

I am opposed to consuming irradiated food because of the abundant and convincing evidence in the refereed scientific literature that the condensation products of the free radicals formed during irradiation produce statistically significant increases in carcinogenesis, mutagenesis and cardiovascular disease in animals and man. I will not address the reported destruction of vitamins and other nutrients by irradiation because suitable supplementation of the diet can prevent the development of such potential deficiencies. However, I cannot protect myself from the carcinogenic and other harmful insults to the body placed into the food supples and I can see no tangible benefit to be traded for the possible increased incidence of malignant disease one to three decades in the future.

Irradiation works by splitting chemical bonds in molecules with high energy beams to form ions and free radicals. When sufficient critical bonds are split in organisms contaminating a food, the organism is killed. Comparable bonds are split in the food. Ions are stable; free radicals contain an unpaired electron and are inherently unstable and therefore reactive. How long free radicals remain in food treated with a given dose of radiation or the reaction products formed in a given food cannot be calculated but must be tested experimentally for each food. Different doses of radiation will produce different amounts and kinds of products.

The kinds of bonds split in a given molecule are governed by statistical considerations. Thus, while most molecules of a given fatty acid, for example, may be split in a certain manner, other molecules of the same fatty acid will be split differently. A free radical can either combine with another free radical to form a stable compound, or it can initiate a  [chemical]  chain reaction by reacting with a stable molecule to form another free radical, et cetera, until the chain is terminated by the reaction of two free radicals to form a stable compound. These reactions continue long after the irradiation procedure.

I am bringing this up to give you a rationale for the vast number of new molecules that can be formed from irradiation of a single molecular species, to say nothing of a complicated mixture as a food. Furthermore the final number and types of new molecules formed will depend on the other molecules present in the sample. Thus, free radicals originating from fats could form new compounds with proteins, nucleic acids  [DNA] , etc.

These considerations lead to the following conclusions:

1. A large number of new molecules is formed. Therefore, irradiation is not a process but a means of adding new molecules to food.
2. Theory cannot predict the nature or number or quantity of the new compounds, which will vary with the kind of food, the season, and the location in which it is harvested.
3. Because of the above, extrapolation of the effects of irradiation at one dose to higher doses will not be valid for all molecules, notwithstanding that in several instances, the formation of volatile hydrocarbons from fats has been shown to be related to the dose of radiation in a linear fashion.

The first study I will discuss deals with the danger of irradiation of foods which contain unsaturated fats. This is particularly timely since the American public is being advised to reduce total fat intake, especially intake of saturated fats, because of the excellent correlation  [with]  cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer. Unsaturated fat consumption is indeed increasing in the United States. When poly-unsaturated fats are exposed to one to four kilogray (100-400 thousand rads) large concentrations of peroxides are formed and a concomitant oxidation of benzo-pyrenes to mutagenic benzo-pyrene quinones takes place. This response is dose dependent. Unsaturated fats such as cod liver oil and mackerel oil showed much greater benzo-pyrene quinone formation than saturated fats (like coconut oil) or fats containing vitamin E, such as corn oil.

This recent study of 1986 clearly shows that peroxidation of lipids by irradiation produces known carcinogens. Not emphasised in this paper is that peroxidation of lipids also results in their cross-link polymerization in a manner akin to the drying of oil-based paint These polymers cannot be digested by our digestive enzymes and will likely be deposited as insoluble plaques in blood vessels. This would have analogous results as the deposition of insoluble cholesterol plaque is well known to lead to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease in some individuals. In a consensus statement frequently quoted to document the safety of irradiated food by proponents the following statement is made:

“In this research, several anomalies appeared in the test animals (for example, hemorrhages, ruptured hearts and vitamin deficiencies) but these were related to feeding the test animals food they did not customarily eat, and not to treating the foods with ionizing energy”

Hemorrhages and ruptured hearts bring to mind acute and extremely high elevation of blood pressure. I would question the prudence of instigating a study of feeding animals food they do not customarily eat and then dismissing adverse effects for this reason. I do not believe such a statement could appear in the refereed scientific literature.

I would next mention the effects of irradiation on nitrate in foods. Irradiation converts nitrate to nitrite in a dose dependent manner. Mutagenesis is directly proportional to nitrite concentration. Nitrite is a reactive molecule and reacts with nucleic acids and various amino acids in protein and forms the known family of carcinogens known as nitrosamines. These have been demonstrated to be potent carcinogens in man.

Now let me turn to what I believe to be the most convincing and comprehensive group of studies to demonstrate the harmful effects of irradiated food. In 1975 were reported the results of feeding five malnourished Indian children wheat irradiated with 75,000 rads. This wheat produced weight gain, serum albumin, and hemoglobin levels indistinguishable from what was found with unirradiated wheat. However, four of the five children showed gross chromosomal polyploidy four weeks after initiation of the feeding program. Chromosome number returned to normal twenty six weeks after the feeding was stopped. This is unequivocal evidence of a potent mutagen in irradiated wheat. I would remind you that the high lung cancer incidence in the United States in 1982-83 was 80 per 100,000, which is equivalent to 0.08 percent. In these children, incidence of polyploidy was 80 percent  [1000 times larger] .

Proponents of food irradiation have attempted to dismiss this study since only five individuals were involved, but mercifully no one has repeated this with greater numbers of children, especially since equivalent results were found when irradiated wheat was fed to monkeys and rats. In both these studies polyploidy was seen after several weeks of feeding and returned to normal about two months after feeding irradiated wheat was stopped. In summary, I would be hard put to find a group of better studies to demonstrate the mutagenic properties of irradiated wheat

Excerpt #4.

Richard Piccioni, Ph D ,

Senior Staff Scientist,
Accord Research and Educational Associates
New York, NY.

Over the past twenty months, a team of biologists, chemists, physicians and statisticians in our organisation have carried out an in-depth examination of the technical basis of the Food and Drug Administration’s recent approval of food irradiation processing. We feel that there is no assurance in the scientific literature or the arguments of the FDA that the widespread irradiation of food will not be a significant, if silent, threat to the public health.

In summary we feel the FDA has adopted scientifically indefensible criteria for assessing, and in their view, demonstrating, the safety of irradiated foods.

Treatment of food with ionizing radiation presents issues of food safety qualitatively unlike those posed by any other food processing method or food additive. The large amount of energy contained in ionising radiation provides the potential for exceedingly complex chemical transformation of food components including the production of mutagenic or carcinogenic substances which were not present or were present in far smaller amounts before irradiation. This potential far exceeds that of ordinary heat processing, microwave radiation, etc. At the same time, because the production of these “radiolytic products” takes place within the food itself, it is impossible to design a toxicological test in which animals are exposed to exaggerated doses of these products the chemical identity of which remains largely unknown. Thus toxicologists are limited to biological testing which is thousands of times less sensitive than the testing typically required of other chemical additives or pesticide residues.

In 1979, after years of controversy and false starts, radiation food processing was reevaluated by a specially appointed FDA committee, the BFIFC (Bureau of Foods Irradiated Foods Committee) They acknowledged that feeding whole irradiated foods to test animals, even after long periods of time, was completely inadequate to assess the carcinogenic potential of the radiolytic products present in those foods. As an alternative to direct biological testing they proposed acceptance of a theoretical calculation of the maximum concentration of radiolytic products present in irradiated food — and made the extraordinary leap of faith that parts-per-million residues of unknown substances pose no risk when ingested by millions of people over their entire lives.

Subsequently an FDA task force reiterated the BFIFC recommendations and reported the results of an elaborate Review” of the available literature on the toxicological testing of irradiated foods – testing which they, as well as the BFIFC, agreed was inherently incapable of providing definitive evidence of the safety of irradiated food. The five studies which have been mentioned by others at this hearing provided, according to the Fen itself only the assurance that irradiated food is not wildly mutagenic and/or carcinogenic. The task force therefore justified its conditional approval of irradiation of fruits and vegetables with up to one hundred thousand rads, and spices with up to three million rads, on the same theoretical basis as proposed by the BFIFC.

Proponents of food irradiation commonly claim there are no studies in the scientific literature showing mutagenic or carcinogenic activity in irradiated foods or food components. In fact, as our own literature survey has shown, dozens of such studies exist, observed in a variety of biological systems, published by a variety of authors, in a variety of peer-reviewed scientific journals, over a period of twenty years.

In fact, a substantial number of studies can be found in the open scientific literature indicating the presence of known mutagens, carcinogens, or cytotoxic substances in focd or food components which have been irradiated. Furthermore, the radiation chemistry of foods is far from fully understood, as evidenced by a steady appearance in the literature of studies on new radiolytic products found in various irradiated foods (e.g. Simic and Jovanovic, 1986; and ^khlag et al, 1987) Many of these radiolytic products have not been individually tested for mutagenicity or carcinogenicity.

In short, the available scientific literature provides evidence to make a strong presumption of carcinogenicity in some if not all irradiated food. The question is one of quantifying the risk.

Recently, the National Academy of Sciences (1987) identified twenty-three pesticides which are responsible for the vast majority of the total carcinogenic risk posed by the presence of pesticide residues in the U S food supply. Food irradiation would make essentially no contribution to the elimination of these pesticides since, of the twenty-three, several are herbicides or insecticides applied in the field, and the remainder are fungicides, whose replacement by irradiation is a highly dubious proposition. In fact irradiation of fruits and vegetables may well increase, rather than decrease, the requirement for post-harvest application of fungicide, because irradiated products are more susceptible to infection by colds and fungi.

On the question of the use of ionizing radiation to inactivate salmonella in poultry, it is important to understand two points:

1. Doses required for even partial “pasteurisation” of poultry meat are far greater than the doses which have been deemed “safe” by any of the evidence or arguments provided by the FDA to date. All of the concerns of the presence of trace mutagens or carcinogens in foods irradiated at “low” doses of 100,000 rads are only greater at doses of one million rads, required for even partial salmonella inactivation.
2. Major unresolved microbiological questions arise regarding the safety of gamma processing of salmonella-contaminated poultry. Much of the virulence of the recent cases of salmonellosis has been attributed to the presence of antibiotic resistant strains of the pathogens due in turn to the use of these antibiotics in the poultry industry. The addition of a highly mutagenic processing procedure, namely gamma irradiation, on poultry carcasses still containing low levels of antibiotic, is an appalling scenario for the appearance in the irradiated food of new, antibiotic resistant strains. This issue has received serious but not adequate attention in the scientific literature.

The FDA has also been quick to dismiss concerns that irradiation of Aspergillis flavus spores, or the grains upon which this fungus can grow, can increase the production of the potent carcinogen aflatoxin, citing and dismissing a single study on the subject. In fact, there have been several studies showing serious aflatoxin-enhancing effects at or near the very doses proposed for the irradiation of grain.

In summary, the continuing research effort by our organisation indicates clearly that recent and pending approvals of food irradiation processing by the FDA should be rescinded, and the same degree of caution now being expressed by several states and national agencies around the world be implemented on a federal level.

USDA Certified Organic’s Dirty Little Secret: Neotame

By Barbara H. Peterson

Farm Wars

Just when we thought that buying “Organic” was safe, we run headlong into the deliberate poisoning of our organic food supply by the FDA in collusion with none other than the folks who brought us Aspartame. NutraSweet, a former Monsanto asset, has developed a new and improved version of this neurotoxin called Neotame.

Neotame has similar structure to aspartame — except that, from it’s structure, appears to be even more toxic than aspartame. This potential increase in toxicity will make up for the fact that less will be used in diet drinks. Like aspartame, some of the concerns include gradual neurotoxic and immunotoxic damage from the combination of the formaldehyde metabolite (which is toxic at extremely low doses) and the excitotoxic amino acid. (Holisticmed.com)

But surely, this product would be labeled! NOT SO!!! For this little gem, no labeling required. And it is even included in USDA Certified Organic food.

The food labeling requirements required for aspartame have now been dropped for Neotame, and no one is clear why this was allowed to happen. Neotame has been ruled acceptable, and without being included on the list of ingredients, for:

• USDA Certified Organic food items.
• Certified Kosher products with the official letter k inside the circle on labels. (Janet Hull)

Placebo fraud rocks the very foundation of modern medical science; thousands of clinical trials invalidated

(NaturalNews) You know all those thousands of clinical trials conducted over the last few decades comparing pharmaceuticals to placebo pills? Well, it turns out all those studies must now be completely thrown out as utterly non-scientific. And why? Because the placebos used in the studies weren’t really placebos at all, rendering the studies scientifically invalid.

This is the conclusion from researchers at the University of California who published their findings in the October issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. They reviewed 167 placebo-controlled trials published in peer-reviewed medical journals in 2008 and 2009 and found that 92 percent of those trials never even described the ingredients of their placebo pills.

Why is this important? Because placebo pills are supposed to be inert. But nothing is inert, it turns out. Even so-called “sugar pills” contain sugar, obviously. And sugar isn’t inert. If you’re running a clinical trial on diabetics, testing the effectiveness of a diabetes drug versus a placebo then obviously your clinical trial is going to make the diabetes drug look better than placebo if you use sugar pills as your placebo.

Some placebo pills use olive oil which may actually improve heart health. Other placebo pills use partially-hydrogenated oils which harm heart health. Yet only 8 percent of clinical trials bothered to list the placebo ingredients at all!

Stay with me on this placebo issue… because it gets even more bizarre…

Read more

The Future of Food

Feds found Pfizer too big to nail, so they looked the other way on massive fraud

(NaturalNews) When the world’s largest pharmaceutical company was found to have engaged in a massive illegal marketing campaign, federal prosecutors decided the company was too big to punish — so they let it set up a shell corporation to take the blame.

In 2001, the FDA approved Bextra for the relief of arthritis and menstrual cramps, but did not approve it for more severe surgical pain. Yet Pfizer aggressively promoted the drug to anesthesiologists and surgeons — “anyone that use[d] a scalpel for a living,” in the words of one internal company document. Company employees also told doctors that the FDA had approved Bextra as safe in doses as high as 40 milligrams, whereas the agency had actually only approved doses up to 20 milligrams.

More

Proposed “Dietary Supplement ‘Safety’ Act” major threat to health freedom

A dangerous new piece legislation submitted by Critter John McCain threatens to restrict US citizens’ access to dietary supplements at the discretion of the FDA.  Where are the standards by which this is measured?  We already have laws on the books preventing adulteration of any consumable food with contaminants.  There is more to this.  The wording of this bill is purposefully vague and could effectively put an end to all medicinal herbs being sold in the US, when the big pharma lobbyist puppet-masters pay the FDA off to eliminate their competition.

(A) IN GENERAL- If the Secretary finds there is a reasonable probability that a dietary supplement or a product marketed or sold as a dietary supplement would cause serious, adverse health consequences or death, or is adulterated or misbranded, the Secretary shall issue a cease distribution and notification order requiring the person named in the order to immediately–

(i) cease distribution of such dietary supplement or a product marketed or sold as a dietary supplement;

(ii) notify distributors, importers, retailers, and consumers of the order; and

(iii) instruct those distributors, importers, retailers, and consumers to cease distributing, importing, selling, and using the dietary supplement.

Can the FDA be trusted to rule make an impartial ruling on whether a dietary supplement is misbranded or adulterated?  This is the same FDA that approved unlabeled Monsanto abominations like rBGH and pesticide-expressing, herbicide-resistant crops that now infect the gene pool; bacteriaphage virus spray for meats; ammonia treatment of beef for school lunches.  The FDA has just decided to allow the re-labeling of toxic Aspartame as a natural sweetner. Is this the same FDA we want deciding which vitamins and herbs we can use?

How much bribe money will it take to get my plant sterol prostate health supplement designated as “misbranded,” in an effort to get me on the teat of big pharma?  I could tell you that plant sterols can be very effective in treating benign prostatic hypertrophy in men, if making such a statement were legal.

Big pharma sees the threat that natural supplements pose to their profit margins and they’re moving to neutralize it.  In the coming months we’re likely to see a lot of manipulative news stories about how herbal supplements can contain toxic chemicals as the corporate media attempts to drum up support for this freedom-killing legislation.  But they dare not compare it to the > 200,000 yearly deaths in the US due to iatrogenic disease – medical errors and adverse reactions

Here’s a great video from Gary Null about that very issue …

Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener

Friday, February 12, 2010 by:
Ethan Huff, citizen journalist
NaturalNews

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.

G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the “habit of saying yes” and of encouraging a “subconscious spirit of participation” in getting the chemical approved.

G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.

In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the “questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety”. FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.

Despite the myriad of evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market with the exception of a few countries that have banned it. In fact, it continued to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.

The details of aspartame’s history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind. Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency’s multi-million dollar approval process.

Changing aspartame’s name to something that is “appealing and memorable”, in Ajinomoto’s own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company’s multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.

Sources:

Ajinomoto brands aspartame ‘AminoSweet’ – FoodBev.com

Aspartame History Highlights – Janet Starr Hull

FDA’s approval of aspartame under scrutiny – The Globe and Mail (Canada)

An Overdue Ban On A Dangerous Sweetener – Huffington Post

Hoxsey – How Healing Becomes A Crime

Bloodroot is an herb that grows wild in the Americas and has been used for thousands of years to remove skin growths, as an escharotic (necrotizing substance that causes an eschar, or a scab).

I recently removed a mole from my chest with minimal scarring using bloodroot paste.    In the course of my research I found that it’s an ingredient in other internal cancer treatments. There is some evidence that this plant preferentially kills cancerous, neoplastic cells over normal cells.

This documentary is about the Hoxley formula which aside from being used to treat skin cancers is also used internally.   I can’t vouch for any cancer treatment but this documentary suggests it has a high success rate, and based on my own experience with bloodroot there might be something to this…

Google Video description:

This documentary concerns Harry M. Hoxsey, the former coal miner whose family’s herbal recipe has brought about claims of a cancer cure. Starting in 1924 with his first clinic, he expanded to 17 states by the mid 1950s, along the way constantly battling organized medicine that labeled him a charlatan.

Hoxsey’s supporters point out he was the victim of arrests, or “quackdowns” spearheaded by the proponents of established medical practices. Interviews of patients satisfied with the results of the controversial treatment are balanced with physicians from the FDA and the AMA.

A clinic in Tijuana, Mexico claims an 80% success rate, while opponents are naturally skeptical. What is apparent is that cancer continues to be one of humankind’s more dreaded diseases, and that political and economic forces dominate research and development.