http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1076
environmental journalism [ aspartame ]: Mark Dowie, Nov 1998:
Murray 2004.04.25 rmforall

http://www.mediachannel.org/views/interviews/dowie.shtml

INTERVIEWS | Mark Dowie February 17, 2000

Stormy Weather; Mark Dowie

Mark Dowie on environmental journalism in the age of the airhead anchorclone
and why the term "alternative media" is a tactical error.

Mark Dowie is a former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine and
former editor-at-large of InterNation, a transnational feature syndicate
based in New York. He is the author of four books, including "Losing Ground:
American Environmentalism at the Close of the Twentieth Century," published
in 1995 by MIT Press and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is currently at
work on a history of American foundations, tentatively entitled "The
Philanthropic Imagination," for MIT Press.

Dowie's investigative journalism has won 17 major awards, including four
National Magazine Awards.
In 1992 he received the Media Alliance's Meritorious Award for Lifetime
Achievement;
in 1995 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by
John F. Kennedy University in Orinda, Calif.
His award-winning articles include:
"Pinto Madness" (first report on Ford Pinto and gas tank),
"A Case of Corporate Malpractice" (Dalkon Shield),
"The Illusion of Safety" (series on products chemicals),
"The Corporate Crime of the Century" (export of banned and hazardous
products to undeveloped countries),
"Redwood Summer" (environmental confrontation with logging industry),
"The Rothschild Years" ($39 purloined while SEC ignored), and
"The War for the West" (militia movement).

The following interview was conducted by Casey Walker, Editor/Publisher of
the journal Wild Duck Review, in November 1998 in Pt. Reyes, CA.

CASEY WALKER: Describe the problems as you see them for communicating
ecological sensibilities through media for mainstream culture?

MARK DOWIE: First, "media" carries two separate meanings in our culture.
There's the McLuhanesque idea that media is everything upon which ideas and
information are transmitted, which includes print, broadcast, stage, screen,
computer, Internet, and telephone media. Then there's the more common
definition of media as the press, which often defines itself as "the media."
When thinking about communicating ecological sensibilities in media, we
should include all media.

A large part of the problem is that people in media are more cynical than
the material merits, generally. I've worked with the press for almost 30
years, and its particularly cynical view is a big reason that environmental
coverage doesn't get a fair shake. The press in America, as I see it, is one
big camera somewhere over Kansas City that rotates to focus in on anything
that is hot, trendy, sexy, compelling and will keep people watching or
reading. That's my own cynical view, of course, but there's something to be
said for it. The press is very, very trendy and the environment is not a
part of the trend anymore. The environment was a hot topic in the early 70'
s, and the press paid attention to it; but, almost inevitably, the press
became as cynical as they do about any story they cover a lot.

Since then, we've seen a rise of contrarian writers who now actually do as
well today as any reporter with strong environmental sensibilities.
Reporters such as John Tierney in The New York Times, and Greg Easterbrook
at Newsweek, are "hot" writers and get big articles in The Atlantic and in
Sunday's New York Times Magazine. It's very hard for ecologically-oriented
reporters to get that kind of coverage in mass media. It can always be done
in the small press, but mass media is a problem. Once, almost every
television station in this country had an environmental reporter, and I
think there may be two left today. There are some local TV stations that
will cover the environment as part of a general assignment, but there used
to be whole programs on the environment and national documentaries. We
hardly see any of these anymore. And there's barely an environmental column
left in the news weeklies. There are 1,300 members in the Society for
Environmental Journalists, but too many of them are regurgitating public
relations material. There are some very good reporters in SEJ, but it's rare
that their work finds its way into mass media.

Beyond the general fatigue of any story, has the press, the public or both
lost the desire for investigative reporting? What explains the paucity of
hard-hitting, well-researched stories?

Investigative reporting, in America, runs through cycles of hot and cold.
Each cycle runs about 25 years. There'll be one big story like Watergate
that will turn the press back into an investigative medium for five, six
years before it begins to seriously cool. To make things worse today, the
press has become increasingly superficial, particularly broadcast media -
save NPR and a few local stations such as yours, KVMR in Nevada City, or
Pacifica - and its superficiality can be explained quite simply: money.
Ninety-nine percent of broadcast media revenue now comes from advertising,
with a somewhat lower percentage, - 65-70% - for print media. Commercial
broadcast media is an advertising engine, nothing more. In television, about
70% of ad revenue comes from the 100 largest corporations in America. So
corporate advertising drives television, which exists to seduce consumers
into watching commercials. If people don't keep that verity in mind at all
times while talking about TV as a medium with which to communicate ideas,
sensibilities, values, and politics, then they're being naive. That's not
why it's there.

Now, there was an era in the history of television when the leadership knew
and accepted the fact that good, solid news reporting was a losing
operation. They considered it a service that needed to be offered to keep
people watching the rest of the stuff - particularly the ads. Leadership
doesn't believe that anymore. News divisions now have to carry themselves
financially in television. And the only way the news can carry itself is to
make its content entertaining.

Watch the news today on TV for awhile. You'll notice that more and more
stations are running background music to dramatic stories. Sometimes it will
just be deep, heartbeat tones - boom, boom, boom - behind a story that is
sad or particularly dramatic. Or, for a chase scene or a fight-or-flight
situation, there'll be intense, metallic music in the background. Listen to
the voice of contemporary newscasters. They do "Gunga Din" bits like they're
reading Richard Halliburton to you! They're not just telling you the news.
The old Edward R. Morrow, here-it-is, straight-to-the-point,
take-it-or-leave-it, make-up-your-own-mind kind of reporting just doesn't
exist anymore in television or AM radio. It's all been dramaticized,
theatricalized. CNN is trying to hold onto traditional news, but it's up
against the competition from MSNBC and other all-day news programming. It's
all becoming more tabloid, more dramatic, more entertaining all the time.
Infomercials now carry material packaged as entertainment. It's all getting
blended together - "infotainment."

Where do important values and sensibilities get broadcasted?

They don't. By entertainment standards, serious subjects like environmental
degradation are seen as downers - depressing and complex. Advertisers won't
buy it. They want to see a show with good music, a good-looking airhead, and
the rest of it.

Yesterday, while we were out walking, you said, "Most environmental
journalists do not understand media, and that's their problem." Will you
elaborate?

They don't understand that their work and workplace product is a sales
instrument. It's not an instrument for projecting ideas and hard information
independent of serving the commercial mix. Ted Turner recently addressed the
annual convention for the Society for Environmental Journalists and admitted
right off that he had trouble getting environmental stories onto CNN. The
Turner Foundation is one of the major environmental funders and they do have
a half-hour environmental show run by Peter Dykstra, which is very good, but
it doesn't air on prime time, is marginalized in the operation, and loses
money.

Now Ted Turner really believes that the planet is in serious trouble - he
pumps tons of money into activism and gave one billion to the U.N. - part of
it for environmental work. But he can't get good environmental information
into his own, or Time Warner's programming?! The board's argument is always:
Who will buy it, who will sponsor it? No corporation will underwrite a
good - "good" as we know it - environmental program.

I worked with Robert Redford for six, eight months, helping him design a
14-part, independently produced, public broadcasting series on environmental
issues. He chose 14 issues that had been untouched by the media - avant
garde stories that included things such as atmospheric, climate and ozone
science that would move the public discourse into new conceptual ground. A
number of us worked very hard on it; he hired expensive consultants and
found an excellent producer, Renata Simone, to put it together. It was not
lacking for talent, authority, or ideas. In the end it simply lacked
sponsorship. There wasn't enough money in the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting to buy it and support it, and he was forced to look elsewhere.
No corporation would pick it up and Redford had to drop it.

It used to be that you could get good books on environmental subjects
published fairly easily. It's harder than ever now. There are two or three
presses now - Gibb Smith, Island Press, and one or two others - that publish
almost nothing but good environmental books. But they are having a hard time
selling books - even in Amazon.com or Borders - along with a million other
books.

There are very few bookstores with an environmental section. More commonly,
there's a "nature" section with Sierra Club photo books. Serious, nonfiction
books on environmental issues are less than one-third of a shelf at Borders.
Books are no longer a useful medium for environmental thinking.

Will you speak to corporate goals and values in media and general awareness
of them?

There's no question that corporations are the dominant institution in our
civilization. Corporate culture not only dominates commerce, but our
churches, our foundations and nonprofits, and, of course, it dominates our
media. Our government agencies are being redesigned to the corporate model.
Corporate culture is our culture.

Now, media is interesting on the subject of corporations. I'm also a member
of a national organization called Investigative Reporters and Editors, with
about 3,200 members, and it polls its members from time to time to see what
interests we have, what we deem worthy of investigation. Last time I saw the
count, there were only six members, myself included, who said they were
interested in investigating corporations. Six out of 3,200?!

Why? We are living so inside corporate culture, we fail to see how insidious
it actually is. The only contemporary philosopher I know who has seen it
clearly is John Ralston Saul in Canada. He understands the extent to which
corporate culture has pervaded all cultures globally. It is not only
profoundly undemocratic, it is anti-democratic.

Ben Bagdikian's book, The Media Monopoly, is in its 6th edition, trying to
keep up with the concentration of media. Before he can get one edition out,
media has concentrated itself so quickly through new mergers and
acquisitions that another edition must be done. His first documentation
cited about 80% of media owned by about 27 corporations. Now, it's something
like 90% of media owned by 5 corporations. That concentration is
accelerating, especially as big moguls like Eisner, Murdoch, and Newhouse
compete.

We have incontrovertible facts about human population, extinctions, a number
of problems that demand serious attention and action, yet have no place in
mainstream media or the public mind to document or discuss them. What can be
done?

I have gone back and forth on this question. When I was younger, I thought
the best way to save the world was to scare people, to get them frightened
by the horrifying facts: polar ice-caps melting, ozone depletion, pesticides
in our food, and so forth. But I soon discovered that people don't like
being frightened. So it's not a good strategy for an environmental
communicator. Information has to be projected in some way, of course. But
environmental stories can be terrifying and people grow numb. I agree with
you that if we suspend the word 'environment' and just communicate
sensibilities, we're better off.

I may sound elitist, but most people with an ecological sensibility have
gone down a long path to find it. Most of the people media are trying to
reach are at the very first step of that path.

Worldviews can be powerfully carried by film, video, television, books. But
we need to explore and test new ways of projecting eco-sensibilities and
story. Thinking cultures are very, very rare. Philistines have always
outnumbered thinkers. Yet, thinkers are powerful if they learn to project
their ideas. So, what's the strategy of projecting good values in media? How
do we get it in there?

We need to create new media. Wild Duck Review is new media. It's a
noncommercial, very intelligently produced journal. One of the problems of
the world you're floating in is that these journals often refer to
themselves as "alternative media," and that is a psychological mistake. This
is not alternative media, it is traditional media. Consider the publications
of the founding fathers.

In that light, you are doing the work of Patrick Henry, of Thomas Paine.
That's traditional media. When the First Amendment was drafted, it was for
the protection of the Wild Ducks of this world. Our forefathers were not
protecting airbrushed, centerfold nudes or regurgitated corporate press
releases in the racing forms of capitalism such as the Wall Street Journal.
They were protecting the projection of radical ideas and values, the
arguments of discourse. It's all gotten out of hand. Hustler magazine and
The Wall Street Journal are alternatives to what the founding fathers of
this country, the authors of democracy, had in mind when they drafted the
First Amendment. You must see that what you are doing with Wild Duck is
traditional, very traditional. All publishers and broadcasters of similar
media have to argue that to our supporters, our sponsors, and our funders.
We should be supported for being independent, for staying independent, for
being important to what this society is about. . .for being traditional, not
"alternative."

Where are the poets, scientists, philosophers, historians, intellectuals who
can deliver the arguments of discourse - and how might they become motivated
to communicate with the public?

They're everywhere, but mostly in the academy. Unfortunately, the academy
has not learned to communicate with the public. Look at the media that flows
from our institutions of higher learning. It's turgid and uninspiring.
Academic writers constantly refer to one another by their last names - as if
it's an insider's club. They're breathing their own exhaust. Their discourse
is arcane, insular, and boring. If they want to project discourse - which is
fascinating and very important in itself as a subject - then they have to
learn how to communicate with the public.

Colleges and universities have always been elite institutions, and
exacerbate their elitism by the way they communicate. Those who project
outward to the public in a popular style or format begin to lose the respect
of the academy. If academics want tenure, to have salaries and benefits,
that's a threatening problem for them. The ivory tower image is an
appropriate image - it is incredibly insular - and the terribly exciting
discourse they know so well is not reaching the audience it needs to reach.
I don't have a great deal of faith in academic media.

One of the problems in journalism, which was argued persuasively in Anne and
Paul Ehrlich's Betrayal of Science and Reason, is the notion that all good
journalism should arrive at equivocation: "On the one hand this, and on the
other hand that." As a result, many problems that most scientists agree on
as life and death problems, such as human overpopulation, climate
instability, biodiversity losses, and so forth, become obfuscated, recede
from the public mind, and make democratic political action difficult. How do
you see appropriate scientific reporting evolving?

I think science reporting in mass media is really lacking. Very few science
reporters are scientists or are well-grounded in science. The scientific
academy is aware of it and is offering curricula to journalists - which is a
good step. A reporter can go to MIT now and, despite being indoctrinated
with a lot of technophilia, he or she can get a lot of science demystified.

It's not just the mass media that abuses science. Science is abused by
scientists too. There's the saying, "For every Ph.D., there's an equal and
opposite Ph.D." The media concept of "balanced coverage" accommodates
contrarians such as Julian Simon, Fred Singer, or Patrick Michaels, as
individual scientists against the thousand scientists who believe the
opposite. The average person reads the newspaper and it looks balanced
because Singer is quoted saying there's absolutely no problem with ozone
depletion. This is a big problem. The press should be saying, "There are
2,000 scientists who think there is a problem with ozone, and there are four
scientists who don't. And three of the four who don't are supported by the
Fossil Fuels Association." That's good reporting, but we don't see it. There
are academies that will whore to the point of taking paid contrarians into
the academy, giving them credentials and credibility. It's terrible.
Scientists can be whored like any other professionals, of course; some will
become "experts" on a side of an issue that they know, objectively, is
wrong, simply because they're being paid $500 an hour to testify.

Will you describe your investigative report printed in The Nation (July 6,
1998) on Gina Kolata's science journalism in The New York Times?

Gina Kolata has always interested me for two reasons. One, she is an
absolutely brilliant reporter. She has a good grasp of science and she is
fast. From the point of view of watching a working journalist, she is just
amazing. She is also the sister of Judy Bari - whom I covered until her
death from breast cancer - one of the best minds in the environmental
movement. Judy understood we couldn't win the environmental battle without
bringing labor, the working class - and not just the middle class but the
working poor - into the struggle and introducing them to science. She paid
attention to the people who were on the vulnerable edge of our economy,
particularly those who were affected by environmental regulation. That was
Judy's life work - and it was tough, tough work. If she had lived another
ten years, I think she would have succeeded. Loggers are beginning to
understand that sustainable yield forestry is good for their future, and
that clear-cutting is a terrible mistake that will wipe out their whole
culture and economy in less than a generation. Judy was getting that message
through.

I was also interested in the family dynamics of these two sisters, who were
very close in age, both very smart, and yet despised each other's values and
politics. I spent a lot of time looking at their lives and developed
material my editor didn't include in The Nation article because she thought
it was a bit invasive, too ad hominem.

However, the reason I interrupted my own work on a book and took on Gina
Kolata was because of one story she did in The New York Times that was one
too many. I've been reading her carefully for ten years - she's been with
The New York Times for eleven years. A lot of her work is excellent. Her
coverage of pure science is terrific, her stories on mathematics (with one
exception) are terrific. But there have been three or four areas that border
on environmental issues (in the broadest sense of the word, in that they
deal with drugs and toxins that find their way into our bodies), in which
she has taken a hard, pro-technology, pro-corporate line on products or
issues that are very controversial: silicone breast implants, irradiated
food, experimental AIDS drugs, and breast cancer. In fact, Gina took a
strong position that breast cancer has no environmental etiology at all, and
took every opportunity to make that point even as her sister, Judy, was
struggling with breast cancer. Gina reviewed "Rachel's Daughters," a film
made on breast cancer, and strongly criticized the film's inquiry of
environmental causes.

Do you see Gina Kolata's scientific judgment as primarily distorted by the
tensions between herself and Judy?

Yes, I do. They never outgrew a classic sibling rivalry. It simply became an
intellectual rivalry. They would go back to Sunday dinner as young adults,
and everything would be fine until they were both present. They would scream
at each other across the table. One ex-husband told me that, and one
ex-fiancee. It didn't stop until Judy died.

However, I do think my editor was right not to make much of the
relationship. What needed to be in the media was not a story about two
sisters competing, but a deconstruction of Gina Kolata's work. I took one
hundred of Gina's six hundred stories in The New York Times, and read them
carefully. Then, I took many of those and went back and re-reported them as
if I were the original reporter. I called all her sources - the ones she
named - and found out there were many she had, in fact, interviewed at great
length and had not included in the stories. I'm not saying she's a dishonest
person, but I am saying she has practiced dishonest journalism and wasted a
great talent in those stories.

Now, I also did it because Kolata works for The New York Times, which has
evolved in recent years from the national paper of record to the global
paper of record. Any reporter or group of reporters in the world's "paper of
record" who covers issues of life and death - scientific matters or
environmental matters - should be held to a much higher standard, it seems
to me, than [the one to which] The NewYork Times is holding Gina Kolata.

Given the scale of ongoing disintegration, where and how do you see change
occurring?

I am not optimistic. I grasp for reasons to be hopeful but they are scarce.
The fact that there is a strong, environmental sensibility in our often
buried, often misguided, but real civilization gives me hope. If 70 to 80%
of American people are comfortable calling themselves environmentalists, and
even a higher percentage want to think of their water as clean, that their
air will not give them cancer, that their food is healthy, that their soil
is arable and will sustain agriculture for generations, and offenses to
these are taken seriously, there are values here to defend. What is needed
are "proving events," events that prove a point. For example, people of
color in the United States have been disproportionately exposed to toxins
and pollutions all along. This has been so blatantly obvious it should have
been seen by everyone, but it wasn't until a specific event that this
consciousness rose to the surface.

People of color, who had derided environmentalists for preempting their
agenda of civil rights, eventually came to see the substrate of
environmental issues underlying civil issues. One major toxic problem that
affects the health of a large number of people - whether it is Love Canal or
Times Beach or Arthur, Illinois or Chester, Pennsylvania - will engage whole
classes of people who really "get it." The media cannot ignore Lois Gibbs
shrieking at the President of the United States. This story has become lore
that will be passed on.

-- Casey Walker is the founding editor and publisher of Wild Duck Review
(P.O.Box 388, Nevada City, CA 95959; 530-478-0134), a journal featuring
essays, poetry, book reviews, memoirs and over 70 interviews to date, with
writers, poets, ecologists, cultural critics and politicians.
This interview first appeared in Wild Duck Review; reprinted by permission.
Copyright Wild Duck Review, 2000.

[ http://www.wildduckreview.com/ Wild Duck Review PO Box 388, Nevada City,
CA 95959 530-478-0134 casey@...

Casey Walker founded Wild Duck Review in 1994, and has edited and published
twenty issues to date. The last issue on Biotechnology is now available from
Sierra Club Books, Made Not Born: The Troubling World of Biotechnology,
October 2000.

She was educated at UC Davis and the Institute for European Studies in
Vienna, Austria, in International Relations; Western European History; with
graduate studies in English Literature: Fiction Writing. ]

AS THE MEDIA WATCH THE WORLD, WE WATCH THE MEDIA.
The Media Channel is a not-for-profit project of OneWorld Online and The
Global Center, and is produced by Globalvision New Media.
*************************************************************

Mark Dowie, a long-time award-winning investigative journalist, former
Publisher and Editor of Mother Jones magazine and the author of (among
several other works) Losing Ground: American Environmentalism at the Close
of The Twentieth Century (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), is also
currently, among other roles, Chairman of the Board of Coyuchi Inc.
(manufacturers of organic cotton products), a trustee of the Richard
Goldensohn Foundation in New York, The Sheridan Brown Fund in Los Angeles,
the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin and a national advisory
board member of the Center For Investigative Reporting, and of Fairness and
Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Center for Investigative Reporting
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1071
research on aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity:
Murray 2004.04.25 rmforall

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

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/927
Donald Rumsfeld, 1977 head of Searle Corp., got aspartame FDA approval:
Turner: Murray 2002.12.23 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1039
three-page review: aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde) toxicity:
Murray 2003.11.22 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1026
brief aspartame review: formaldehyde toxicity: Murray 2003.09.11 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1025
aspartame & formaldehyde toxicity: Murray 2003.09.09 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1067
eyelid contact dermatitis by formaldehyde from aspartame, AM Hill & DV
Belsito, Nov 2003: Murray 2004.03.30 rmforall [ 150 KB ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1070
critique of aspartame review, French Food Safety Agency AFSSA 2002.05.07
aspartamgb.pdf (18 pages, in English), Martin Hirsch: Murray 2004.04.13

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/957
safety of aspartame Part 1/2 12.4.2: EC HCPD-G SCF:
Murray 2003.01.12 rmforall EU Scientific Committee on Food, a whitewash

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1045
http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/scf2002-response.htm
Mark Gold exhaustively critiques European Commission Scientific
Committee on Food re aspartame ( 2002.12.04 ): 59 pages, 230 references

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/989 On 2003.04.10
the European Union Parliament voted 440 to 20 to approve sucralose,
limit cyclamates & reevaluate aspartame & stevia: Murray 2003.04.12 rmforall

http://www.eatright.org/Nutritive(1).pdf
J Am Diet Assoc. 2004 Feb; 104(2): 255-75.
Position of the American Dietetic Association: use of nutritive and
nonnutritive sweeteners. American Dietetic Association.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1068
critique of aspartame review by American Dietetic Association Feb 2004,
Valerie B. Duffy & Madeleine J. Sigman-Grant: Murray 2004.04.03 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
122 members, 1075 posts in a public searchable archive

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartame/messages
783 members, 16,803 posts in a public, searchable archive

It is certain that high levels of aspartame use, above 2 liters daily for
months and years, must lead to chronic formaldehyde-formic acid toxicity.

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).
The methanol is immediately released into the body after drinking--
unlike the large levels of methanol locked up in complex molecules inside
many fruits and vegetables.
Within hours, the liver turns much of the methanol into formaldehyde, and
then much of that into formic acid, both of which in time are partially
eliminated as carbon dioxide and water.

However, about 30% of the methanol remains in the body as cumulative
durable toxic metabolites of formaldehyde and formic acid-- 37 mg daily,
a gram every month, accumulating in and affecting every tissue.

If only 10% of the methanol is retained daily as formaldehyde, that would
give 12 mg daily formaldehyde accumulation-- about 60 times more than the
0.2 mg from 10% retention of the 2 mg EPA daily limit for formaldehyde in
drinking water.

Bear in mind that the EPA limit for formaldehyde in drinking water is
1 ppm, or 2 mg daily for a typical daily consumption of 2 L of water.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/835
RTM: ATSDR: EPA limit 1 ppm formaldehyde in drinking water July 1999
2002.05.30 rmforall

This long-term low-level chronic toxic exposure leads to typical patterns of
increasingly severe complex symptoms, starting with headache, fatigue, joint
pain, irritability, memory loss, rashes, and leading to vision and eye
problems, and even seizures. In many cases there is addiction. Probably
there are immune system disorders, with a hypersensitivity to these toxins
and other chemicals.

J. Nutrition 1973 Oct; 103(10): 1454-1459.
Metabolism of aspartame in monkeys.
Oppermann JA, Muldoon E, Ranney RE.
Dept. of Biochemistry, Searle Laboratories,
Division of G.D. Searle and Co. Box 5110, Chicago, IL 60680
They found that about 70% of the radioactive methanol in aspartame put into
the stomachs of 3 to 7 kg monkeys was eliminated within 8 hours, with little
additional elimination, as carbon dioxide in exhaled air and as water in
the urine.
They did not mention that this meant that about 30% of the methanol must
transform into formaldehyde and then into formic acid, both of which must
remain as toxic products in all parts of the body.
They did not report any studies on the distribution of radioactivity in body
tissues, except that blood plasma proteins after 4 days held 4% of the
initial methanol.
This study did not monitor long-term use of aspartame.

The low oral dose of aspartame and for methanol was 0.068 mmol/kg, about 1
part per million [ppm] of the acute toxicity level of 2,000 mg/kg, 67,000
mmol/kg, used by McMartin (1979).
Two L daily use of diet soda provides 123 mg methanol, 2 mg/kg for a 60 kg
person, a dose of 67 mmole/kg, a thousand times more than the dose in this
study.
By eight hours excretion of the dose in air and urine had leveled off at
67.1 +-2.1% as CO2 in the exhaled air and 1.57+-0.32% in the urine, so 68.7
% was excreted, and 31.3% was retained.
This data is the average of 4 monkeys.
"...the 14C in the feces was negligible."
"That fraction not so excreted (about 31%) was converted to body
constituents through the one-carbon metabolic pool."
"All radioactivity measurements were counted to +-1% accuracy..."
This indicates that the results could not be claimed to have a precision of
a tenth of a percent. OK, so this is a nit-pick-- but I believe espousing
spurious accuracy is a sign of scientific insecurity.

The abstract ends, "It was concluded that aspartame was digested to its
three constituents that were then absorbed as natural constituents of the
diet."
Thus, the concept is very subtly insinuated that methanol, as a
constituent of aspartame, is absorbed as a natural constituent of the diet.
"Dietary methanol is derived in large part from fresh fruits and
vegetables."
This is a serious error, since the large amounts of methanol in fresh fruits
and vegetables are not readily released by human digestion. (W. C. Monte,
1984)
Nowhere in this report are mentioned the dread words, "formaldehyde" and
"formic acid".

Of course, methanol and formaldehyde toxicity studies are highly relevant to
the issue of aspartame toxicity. [ Aspartame has to be turned into its
toxic products, formaldehyde and formic acid, in the body, before it is
toxic, so some pro-aspartame reseach studies test aspartame outside the
body, and then proclaim that they have proved that it is not toxic. ]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/915
formaldehyde toxicity: Thrasher & Kilburn: Shaham: EPA: Gold: Murray:
Wilson: CIIN: 2002.12.12 rmforall

Thrasher (2001): "The major difference is that the Japanese demonstrated
the incorporation of FA and its metabolites into the placenta and fetus.
The quantity of radioactivity remaining in maternal and fetal tissues
at 48 hours was 26.9% of the administered dose." [ Ref. 14-16 ]

Arch Environ Health 2001 Jul-Aug; 56(4): 300-11.
Embryo toxicity and teratogenicity of formaldehyde. [100 references]
Thrasher JD, Kilburn KH. toxicology@...
Sam-1 Trust, Alto, New Mexico, USA.
http://www.drthrasher.org/formaldehyde_embryo_toxicity.html full text

http://www.drthrasher.org/formaldehyde_1990.html full text Jack Dwayne
Thrasher, Alan Broughton, Roberta Madison. Immune activation and
autoantibodies in humans with long-term inhalation exposure to formaldehyde.
Archives of Environmental Health. 1990; 45: 217-223. "Immune activation,
autoantibodies, and anti-HCHO-HSA antibodies are associated with long-term
formaldehyde inhalation." PMID: 2400243

Confirming evidence and a general theory are given by Pall (2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/909
testable theory of MCS type diseases, vicious cycle of nitric oxide &
peroxynitrite: MSG: formaldehyde-methanol-aspartame:
Martin L. Pall: Murray: 2002.12.09 rmforall

Environ Health Perspect. 2003 Sep; 111(12): 1461-4.
Elevated nitric oxide/peroxynitrite theory of multiple chemical sensitivity:
central role of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in the sensitivity mechanism.
Pall ML.
School of Molecular Biosciences, 301 Abelson Hall, Washington State
University, Pullman, WA 99164, USA. martin_pall@...

The elevated nitric oxide/peroxynitrite and the neural sensitization
theories of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) are extended here to propose
a central mechanism for the exquisite sensitivity to organic solvents
apparently induced by previous chemical exposure in MCS.
This mechanism is centered on the activation of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)
receptors by organic solvents producing elevated nitric oxide and
peroxynitrite, leading in turn to increased stimulating of and
hypersensitivity of NMDA receptors.
In this way, organic solvent exposure may produce progressive sensitivity to
organic solvents.
Pesticides such as organophosphates and carbamates may act via muscarinic
stimulation to produce a similar biochemical and sensitivity response.
Accessory mechanisms of sensitivity may involve both increased blood-brain
barrier permeability, induced by peroxynitrite, and cytochrome P450
inhibition by nitric oxide.
The NMDA hyperactivity/hypersensitivity and excessive nitric
oxide/peroxynitrite view of MCS provides answers to many of the most
puzzling aspects of MCS while building on previous studies and views of this
condition. PMID: 12948884

Prof. Pall describes processes by which an initial trigger exposure, such as
carbon monoxide or formaldehyde, can generate hypersensitivity to many
substances. He himself had recovered from a sudden, debilitating attack of
multiple chemical sensitity in June/July 1997.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1055
hormesis: possible benefits of low-level aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde)
use: Calabrese: Soffritti: Murray 2004.03.11 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1056
disorders of NMDA glutamate receptors in brain range from high activity
(MCS, CF, PTSD, FM, from carbon monoxide or formaldehyde (methanol,
aspartame)-- Pall)
to low activity (schizophrenia-- Coyle, Goff, Javitts):
Murray 2004.03.13 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/946
Functional Therapeutics in Neurodegenerative Disease Part 1/2:
Perlmutter 1999.07.15: Murray 2003.01.10 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/97
Lancet website aspartame letter 1999.07.29:
Excitotoxins 1999 Part 1/3 Blaylock: Murray 2000.01.14 rmforall
The Medical Sentinel Journal 1999 Fall; (95 references)
http://www.dorway.com/blayenn.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1034
Brain cell damage from amino acid isolates (aspartame releases
phenylalanine, aspartate, methanol [formaldehyde, formic acid] Bowen &
Evangelista May 6 2002: Murray 2003.11.10 rmforall

http://www.aspartame.ca/Brain%20Cell%20Damage.pdf
Brain cell damage from amino acid isolates 5.6.2 41 references
detailed 22 page review by James D. Bowen, MD and Arthur M. Evangelista,
former FDA Investigator orwilly@...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/628
Rich Murray: Professional House Doctors: Singer: EPA: CPSC:
formaldehyde toxicity 2001.06.10 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1047
Avoiding Hangover Hell 2003.12.31 Mark Sherman, AP writer: Robert Swift, MD:
[ formaldehyde from methanol in aspartame ]: Murray 2004.01.16 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1048
hangovers from formaldehyde from methanol (aspartame?):
Schwarcz: Linsley: Murray 2004.01.18

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1052
DMDC: Dimethyl dicarbonate 200mg/L in drinks adds methanol 98 mg/L
( becomes formaldehyde in body ): EU Scientific Committee on Foods
2001.07.12: Murray 2004.01.22 rmforall

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/782
RTM: Smith, Terpening, Schmidt, Gums:
full text: aspartame, MSG, fibromyalgia 2002.01.17 rmforall
Jerry D Smith, Chris M Terpening, Siegfried OF Schmidt, and John G Gums
Relief of Fibromyalgia Symptoms Following
Discontinuation of Dietary Excitotoxins.
The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 2001; 35(6): 702-706.
Malcolm Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Gainesville, FL, USA.
BACKGROUND: Fibromyalgia is a common rheumatologic disorder that is
often difficult to treat effectively.
CASE SUMMARY: Four patients diagnosed with fibromyalgia syndrome
for two to 17 years are described.
All had undergone multiple treatment
modalities with limited success. All had complete, or nearly complete,
resolution of their symptoms within months after eliminating monosodium
glutamate (MSG) or MSG plus aspartame from their diet.
All patients were women with multiple comorbidities
prior to elimination of MSG.
All have had recurrence of symptoms whenever MSG is ingested.

Siegfried O. Schmidt, MD Asst. Clinical Prof. siggy@...
Community Health and Family Medicine, U. Florida, Gainesville, FL
Shands Hospital West Oak Clinic Gainesville, FL 32608-3629
352-376-5071
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