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22 members of Hawaii House of Representatives Sign Resolution asking FDA to Rescind Approval for Neurotoxic Aspartame

Stephen Fox

HAWAII HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 128, 2009

For those of your readers who might sometimes be concerned about their own health and about Consumer Protection in general, the Hawaii House of Representatives has moved forward an extraordinary Resolution asking the FDA to rescind the approval for Aspartame.

This Resolution is particularly auspicious and significant because both the Chair and the Vice Chair of the House Health Committee, as well as the Vice Chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee, have signed on as cosponsors. This means the measure will receive a scheduled hearing in the House Health Committee, something that was denied last year by Senate Health Chairman David Ige for the Senate Resolution, as well as the Senate Bill to ban aspartame outright. It will go to House Finance Committee after the Health Committee referral.

The text of the Resolution follows, and although perhaps tedious and precise to some, clearly indicates the reasons that such a recinding of aspartame's approval by the FDA is appropriate and long overdue, an approval which to its credit, the FDA rejected for many years before it was forced in 1981 by then President of G.D. Searle, Donald Rumsfeld.

[You personally could write in support of this long overdue and obvious imperative to Margaret Hamburg, M.D., FDA Commissioner, 5400 Fisher's Lane, Rockville Md., or to commissioner@fda.gov, and to her Deputy, Joshua Sharfstein, M.D., as well as to the Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius; you should also ask your US Senators and Representatives to also do this]

Measure Title: REQUESTING REVIEW OF EXISTING REPORTS AND STUDIES RELATED TO ASPARTAME AND RECISSION OF APPROVAL OF ASPARTAME FOR UNITED STATES MARKETS.

Report Title: Aspartame, Approval, Food and Drug Administration

Introducer(s): CARROLL, MCKELVEY, SHIMABUKURO, Awana, Belatti, Brower, Chang, Ching, Coffman, Evans, Hanohano, Har, Ito, Magaoay, Manahan, Morita, Nakashima, Nishimoto, Sagum, Takumi, Wakai, Yamane

The Prime Sponsor is Representative Mele Carroll, Chairman of Hawaiian Affairs, representing East Maui (from Paia and Haiku to Hana and Kaupo), Lana'i, Moloka'i, Kalaupapa, and Kaho'olawe.

These are the leadership positions held by the cosponsors:

Angus McKelvey: Economic Revitalization, Business, & Military Affairs (Chair)

Maile Shimabukuoro: Hawaiian Affairs (Vice-Chair)

Karen Awana: Transportation (Vice-Chair)

Della Au Belatti, J.D.: Member Health, Judiciary

Tom Brower: Human Services (Vice-Chair)

Jerry Chang: Higher Education (Chair)

Corrine Ching: Member, Environmental Protection, Higher Education

Denny Coffman: Energy & Environmental Protection (Vice-Chair)

Cindy Evans: Member, Economic Revitalization, Business, & Military Affairs

Faye Hanohano: Public Safety (Chair)

Sharon Har: Interim Task Force on Smart Growth (Chair)

Ken Ito: Water, Land, & Ocean Resources (Chair)

Michael Y. Magaoay: Member, Interim Task Force on Standards of Conduct

Joey Manahan: Tourism, Culture, & International Affairs (Chair)

Hermina Morita: Energy & Environmental Protection (Chair)

Mark Nakashima: Higher Education (Vice-Chair)

Scott Nishimoto: Health (Vice-Chair)

Roland Sagum III: Member, Finance

Roy Takumi: Education (Chair)

Glenn Wakai Consumer Protection & Commerce (Vice-Chair)

Ryan Yamane: Health (Chair)

The text is not yet posted on the Hawaii Legislature website, but this is the identical text from Senate Concurrent Resolution 191 from 2008:

SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES TO REVIEW EXISTING REPORTS AND STUDIES RELATED TO ASPARTAME, AND REQUESTING THE UNITED STATES FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION TO RESCIND APPROVAL OF ASPARTAME FOR UNITED STATES MARKETS.

WHEREAS, aspartame was originally developed as a drug to treat peptic ulcers; and

WHEREAS, manufacturers state that aspartame is made up of forty per cent aspartic acid, fifty per cent phenylalanine, and ten per cent methanol; and

WHEREAS, aspartic acid is a nonessential amino acid that is used by the body to initiate apoptosis or cell death in aging cells, and that excess aspartic acid from aspartame consumption causes apoptosis in healthy cells that can destroy healthy tissue, especially in the brain; and

WHEREAS, phenylalanine is an essential amino acid found naturally in protein but when isolated becomes neurotoxic, lowers the seizure threshold, depletes serotonin triggering psychiatric and behavioral problems, and interacts with antidepressants and other drugs; and

WHEREAS, methanol is a severe metabolic poison classified as a narcotic that converts to formaldehyde and formic acid, and can embalm living tissue and damage DNA; and

WHEREAS, aspartame metabolites include formaldehyde, a "class A" carcinogen, diketopiperazine, a brain tumor agent, and formic acid; and

WHEREAS, in 1974, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved aspartame as an artificial sweetener, but asked its manufacturer Searle to hold back from selling it on the market until further tests could be made with regards to its safety; and

WHEREAS, scientific data revealed that there was a problem with aspartame safety data and the United States Food and Drug Administration withdrew its approval; and

WHEREAS, in 1975, the United States Food and Drug Administration initiated an investigation into Searle's laboratory practices and discovered fraud in scientific experiments as well as manipulated data giving favorable results proving aspartame to be safe; and

WHEREAS, the results of this investigation are included in what is called "The Bressler Report" by Jerome Bressler; and

WHEREAS, in 1980, Dr. John Olney submitted scientific data to a United States Food and Drug Administration Public Board of Inquiry showing that aspartic acid, the excitotoxic ingredient in aspartame, caused holes in the brains of mice; and

WHEREAS, Dr. John Olney stated that it warranted special emphasis that excitotoxins act by an acute but silent mechanism requiring only a single exposure to toxic concentrations for CVO neurons to be quietly destroyed, that clearly Searle failed to establish the safety of their product, aspartame, for use in children's food, and that all age comparative data support the following conclusions: (1) orally administered excitotoxins destroy CVO neurons at any age; (2) immature animals are most vulnerable; and (3) the toxic threshold increases only gradually between birth and adulthood; and

WHEREAS, in 1980, the Public Board of Inquiry unanimously voted against aspartame approval, but was overruled by a new United States Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Dr. Arthur Hull Hays, against the advice of Food and Drug Administration scientific personnel and advisers; and

WHEREAS, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved aspartame use in sodas, despite the fact that the National Soft Drink Association argued vehemently against aspartame in these quotes from their protest:

(1) "The present record does not contain data which demonstrate that the use of APM in soft drinks will not result in the adulteration of the beverages under section 402(a)(3) of the FDC Act 21 U.S.C. 342(a)(3), which provides that a food is adulterated if it contains, in whole or in part, "a decomposed substance or if it is otherwise unfit for food";

(2) "An important decomposition product of aspartame, aspartic acid, cannot be detected at all using TLC";

(3) "G. D. Searle and Company has not demonstrated to a reasonable certainty that the use of aspartame in soft drinks, without quantitative limitations, will not adversely affect human health as a result of the changes such use is likely to cause in brain chemistry and under certain reasonably anticipated conditions of use"; and

(4) "Specifically, Searle has not met its burdens under section 409....to demonstrate that aspartame is safe and functional for use in soft drinks. Collectively, the extensive deficiencies in the stability studies conducted by Searle to demonstrate that aspartame and its degradation products are safe in soft drinks intended to be sold in the United States, render those studies inadequate and unreliable." Senate Congressional Record, May 7, 1985, S5507–5511; and

WHEREAS, the United States Food and Drug Administration has compiled a list of ninety-two symptoms attributed to aspartame consumption including four types of seizures, coma, and death; and

WHEREAS, the Ramazzini Studies by the European Foundation for Oncology in Italy conducted exhaustive studies over three years with thousands of rats, and proved aspartame to be a multipotential carcinogen, thus confirming the United States Food and Drug Administration's original findings; and

WHEREAS, the United States Food and Drug Administration admitted that aspartame caused cancer over two decades ago when the Administration's toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, told Congress at least one of Searle's studies "has established beyond any reasonable doubt that aspartame is capable of inducing brain tumors in experimental animals and that this predisposition of it is of extremely high significance....In view of these indications that the cancer causing potential of aspartame is a matter that had been established way beyond any reasonable doubt, one can ask: What is the reason for the apparent refusal by the FDA to invoke for this food additive the so-called Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act? Given the cancer causing potential of aspartame how would the FDA justify its position that it views a certain amount of aspartame as constituting an allowable daily intake or 'safe' level of it? Is that position in effect not equivalent to setting a 'tolerance' for this food additive and thus a violation of that law? And if the FDA itself elects to violate the law, who is left to protect the health of the public?" Congressional Record, August 1, l985, SID835:131; and

WHEREAS, aspartame is linked to sudden death, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and many neurodegenerative diseases, as cited in many medical texts, most notably: Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, by H.J. Roberts, M.D., and Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, by Russell Blaylock, M.D.; and

WHEREAS, on November 3, 1987, Dr. Louis Elsas told Congress: "I am a pediatrician, a Professor of Pediatrics at Emory and have spent twenty-five years in the biomedical sciences, trying to prevent mental retardation and birth defect caused by excess phenylalanine, and therein lies my basic concern, that aspartame is in fact a well known neurotoxin and teratogen which, in some as yet undefined dose, will. . . irreversibly in the developing child or fetal brain, produce adverse effects"; and

WHEREAS, there are tens of thousands of case histories and anecdotal accounts from victims of aspartame poisoning who have come forward to make their case histories known; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2008, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Department of Health is requested to create, within their existing budget, an evidentiary repository accessible to the public for patients and physicians to submit over the next year their cases involving victims of aspartame poisoning; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Director of Health is requested to report to the Legislature on the status of the evidentiary repository during periodic interim meetings with the Chairs of the Hawaii State Senate Committees on Health and Human Services and Public Housing, the House of Representatives Committees on Health and Human Services and Housing, and the state Attorney General; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Health is requested to review all existing reports, studies, experiments, and related literature on aspartame, including clinical studies, differentiating each study by its funding source, and submit a report to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the 2009 Regular Session; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Academy of Sciences is requested to review all existing reports, studies, experiments, and related literature on aspartame, including clinical studies, differentiating each study by its funding source, and that, if funding is required to undertake this extended evaluation, that the appropriate funding be sought from various foundations and from Congress; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that given the enormous amount of evidence that has been compiled concerning the neurodegenerative harm it can cause, that the United States Food and Drug Administration is requested to rescind approval of aspartame immediately on a phaseâ€‘out basis over six months to one year; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the members of Hawaii's Congressional Delegation, the Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, the Executive Director of the National Academy of Sciences, the Director of Health, the Director of Human Services, the Attorney General, and the Director of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

HAWAII HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 128

It is particularly auspicious and significant because both the Chair and the Vice Chair of the House Health Committee, as well as the Vice Chair of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee, have signed on as cosponsors. This means the measure will receive a scheduled hearing in the House Health Committee, something that was denied last year by Senate Health Chairman David Ige for the Senate Resolution, as well as the Senate Bill to ban aspartame outright. It will go to House Finance Committee after the Health Committee referral.