Mike Adams interviews Randall Fitzgerald on "The Hundred Year Lie: How
Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health" 2006.06.21: Murray 2006.09.28
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1372

"1900:
cancer is the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., responsible for
only three percent of all deaths. By the end of the 20th century, cancer
will be the cause of 20 percent of all deaths in the U.S.

Diabetes affects less than one-tenth of one percent of the U.S.
population; by the end of the 20th century, almost 20 percent of U.S.
citizens will contract types I or II diabetes.

Asthma and related immune system diseases are virtually nonexistent; by
the end of the 20th century at least 150 million people worldwide will
be afflicted.

Breast cancer in women is very rare in 1900; by 1960, breast cancer will
affect one in 20 women; by 2005, one in three women will develop breast
cancer."

"1949:
the breast cancer rate for women is 58 cases per 100,000 people; within
40 years the breast cancer rate will be more than 100 cases per 100,000
people. The lifetime risk of contracting breast cancer more than doubles.

1950:
From this date forward to 2000, the overall incidence of cancer in the
U.S. rises by 55 percent, with lung cancer due to smoking accounting for
only one-quarter of this increase. Rates for breast cancer and male
colon cancer increase during this period by 60 percent; testicular
cancer by 100 percent; adult brain cancer by 80 percent; childhood
cancer by 20 percent."


"Mike: So again, that's www.HundredYearLie.com
and the book, by Randall Fitzgerald, is
"The Hundred Year Lie:
How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health."


"Fitzgerald: We looked at some of the studies
done in the later part of 2005,
examining the synergistic reactions between aspartame --
the synthetic sweetener that is found in thousands of products now --
and MSG, along with two common food colorings.
This was a study done in England at a university
in the later part of 2005.
The result was found that when MSG, aspartame
and these two food colorings
were mixed together,
they create a synergy that kills nerve cells.
It causes neurological damage.
We are only now at the threshold of medical science beginning
to do any systematic examination of synergies.

Mike: Just to put in a real-world example of that,
I would like to add that you can get that combination
by drinking a Diet Pepsi and eating a bag of Doritos.

Fitzgerald: Absolutely. It is a children's meal.
In fact, these researchers, at the University of Liverpool,
wanted to examine what children commonly consume every day.
That is why they picked aspartame, MSG and these two food colors,
because they are so commonly found in all of the junk drinks and foods
that children consume.
The results should alarm us all."


[ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1269
neurotoxic synergy of aspartame and Quinoline Yellow, Lau K, McLean WG,
Williams DP, Howard CV, U. of Liverpool, Toxicol Sci 2005.12.13: Murray

Toxicol Sci. 2005 Dec 13; [Epub ahead of print]
Synergistic interactions between commonly used food additives in a
developmental neurotoxicity test.
Lau K, McLean WG, Williams DP, Howard CV.
Developmental Toxicopathology Unit,
Department of Human Anatomy & Cell Biology,
University of Liverpool, Sherrington Buildings, Liverpool L69 3GE, UK;
Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics,
University of Liverpool, Sherrington Buildings, Liverpool L69 3GE, UK.
W. Graham McLean w.g.mclean@...
C. V. Howard c.v.howard@...
D. P. Williams dom@... 0151 794 5791 http://www.liv.ac.uk/
Lau, Miss. Karen Lau karenlau@... 0151 795 4223
[ Deborah A. Sawatzky
Paul J. Kingham
B. K. Park bkpark@...
D. J. Naisbitt dnes@... ; d.j.naisbitt@... 0151 794 5346
Richard W. Costello rcostello@...
Patricia J. Manns trish.manns@...
M. M. Yarborough yarbroug@...
Dr Yvonne Allen Y.Allen@... 0151 794 5449 ]

Exposure to non-nutritional food additives during the critical
development window has been implicated
in the induction and severity of behavioural
disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Although the use of single food additives at their regulated
concentrations is believed to be relatively safe in terms of neuronal
development,
their combined effects remain unclear.

We therefore examined the neurotoxic effects of four common
food additives in combinations of two
(Brilliant Blue and L-glutamic acid,
Quinoline Yellow and aspartame)
to assess potential interactions.

Mouse NB2a neuroblastoma cells were induced to differentiate and
grow neurites in the presence of additives.

After 24 h, cells were fixed and stained and neurite length measured by
light microscopy with computerised image analysis.

Neurotoxicity was measured as an inhibition of neurite outgrowth.

Two independent models were used to analyse combination effects:
effect additivity and dose additivity.

Significant synergy was observed between combinations
f Brilliant Blue with L-glutamic acid,
and Quinoline Yellow with aspartame,
in both models.

Involvement of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors in food
additive-induced neurite inhibition
was assessed with a NMDA antagonist, CNS-1102.

L-glutamic acid- and aspartame-induced neurotoxicity
was reduced in the presence of CNS-1102;
however the antagonist
did not prevent food colour-induced neurotoxicity.

Theoretical exposure to additives was calculated based on analysis
of content in foodstuff,
and estimated percentage absorption from the gut.

Inhibition of neurite outgrowth was found at concentrations of additives
theoretically achievable in plasma
by ingestion of a typical snack and drink.

In addition, Trypan Blue dye exclusion was used to evaluate the cellular
toxicity of food additives on cell viability of NB2a cells;
both combinations had a straightforward additive effect on cytotoxicity.

These data have implications for the cellular effects of common chemical
entities ingested individually and in combination. PMID: 16352620 ]
*******************************************************


Mike Adams Interview with Randall Fitzgerald,
author of The Hundred-Year Lie,
on the prevalence of toxic chemicals

http://www.newstarget.com/z019434.html

NewsTarget.com printable article
Originally published June 21 2006

Interview with Randall Fitzgerald,
author of The Hundred-Year Lie,
on the prevalence of toxic chemicals

Mike: I am joined today by author Randall Fitzgerald,
the author of
"The Hundred-Year Lie:
How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health,"
a groundbreaking new book
that you would do well to pick up and read.

Thanks for joining me today, Randall.

Randall Fitzgerald: Well thank you Mike.
It is a real pleasure and honor to be with you.

Mike: Likewise. Your book was sent to me recently.
I began reading it
and was absolutely amazed at how well
you explain the threats -- to our health,
our way of life and even our future -- that are posed
by the use of synthetic chemicals in foods, drugs and even things
like personal care products.
What was your intention behind writing this book?

Fitzgerald: I wanted to spotlight some trends and patterns
that I had noticed in my circle of friends
and among members of my family.
I had noticed health problems, illnesses and diseases
occurring at younger and younger ages among people I knew,
and I was concerned about that.
I wanted to find answers as to why these sorts of problems --
neurological diseases, Parkinson's, MLS, MS,
the whole range of illnesses, and especially cancer --
were occurring in people that I knew at ages that,
two or three decades ago,
would have only been occurring in elderly people.
So I began informally talking with people
and trying to find out about their eating habits and
about the sorts of chemicals that they were exposed to,
because intuitively,
I felt there might be some linkage
between the health problems, their diet and synthetic chemicals.

I must add that prior to this time, which was about two years ago,
I had never really written about or investigated
the subject of health or synthetic toxins.
I had always been an investigative reporter
who dealt with government agencies
and investigated trends pertaining to government corruption;
and the way that federal agencies performed their duties;
waste, fraud and abuse involving tax dollars.
Health had never really interested me, frankly --
unless I was in poor health,
and I have always been in good health --
so I never really had much reason to give the subject attention
until I just began noticing that there was this pattern
among my friends and relatives.
I just wanted some answers to questions I had.

The evidence of harm emerges

Mike: In your research, do you believe
that you have found many of those answers?
What kinds of links were you able to substantiate
and present in the book?

Fitzgerald: I feel like there were some patterns
that stared me in the face
once I began looking at the evidence from medical science.
There are so many studies out there from not just the United States,
but from countries worldwide,
that indicate a pattern in which synthetic chemicals have
increasingly played a role in the types of illnesses
and diseases that we are beginning to see at very alarming levels.

If you chart on a graph the production of synthetic chemicals,
especially since World War II,
and you compare that graph to the increase in certain diseases --
for instance, neurological disorders and cancer --
the graphs are almost one on top of the other in sequence,
and synchronized.

That led me to believe, even more than just my intuition,
that there was something here that needed to be examined in more depth.
Once I compared statistics on the production of synthetics
to statistics on the increase in diseases,
I began looking for the evidence,
the so-called "smoking guns" in the studies done by medical science.
I found that those studies indeed exist.
They are out there,
and they just had never been brought together at one place,
at one time, before.

Mike: Your book, I think, does an excellent job
of translating all of that science into everyday language
that people can pick up, without needing a technical background,
by the way.

Fitzgerald: I appreciate that.

The lies told by chemical, food and drug companies

Mike: Let me play the skeptic with you for a second here.
As consumers in the Western world,
we are being continually assured by food corporations,
petrochemical companies, drug companies
and even government regulatory bodies like the FDA,
that all of these chemicals are perfectly safe.
There are even allowable limits of many of these chemicals,
which the EPA says are perfectly safe.
Why should a consumer believe
that he or she needs to read your book
if all of these chemicals are advertised as being safe for us?

Fitzgerald: There are two big -- and by big I mean monumental --
problems with the argument and the perspective taken by federal
regulatory agencies
and by the manufacturers of foods and medicines.
The argument is that trace levels of these chemicals
do no harm to human health.
What that argument ignores is the cumulative effect of hundreds,
if not thousands, of these chemicals entering
and then mixing within the human body.
This is known as the "body burden."
We each carry a "body burden" of these synthetic chemicals.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
starting in 1999,
began testing the blood of thousands of Americans
to determine what synthetic chemicals are being carried
in their blood, their body fat and their body organs.
The results of these tests --
more than 10,000 people have been tested so far --
is that every single person tested
was found to carry hundreds of these synthetic chemicals.
The problem here is that our bodies
do not recognize these synthetic chemicals,
most of which have been invented, patented and produced
since World War II.
Our livers, which are the main detoxifying organs of our bodies,
do not recognize these synthetic chemicals,
and as a result, do not metabolize them.
Instead, the chemicals are either pushed off
into the far reaches of the liver, to be stored,
or sent into body fat and body organs to be stored.
As these toxins accumulate,
they begin to interact with each other.
This is where the problem --
that regulatory agencies and manufactures want to overlook --
becomes a health disaster for us.

That is the problem of synergies;
the synergistic reactions of two or more chemicals in the body.
When they interact, it is much more powerful than any
one individual chemical can do on its own.
It may be true --
manufacturers and regulatory agencies insist that it is true --
that these chemicals, in trace amounts on their own,
may be harmless to human health.
I have a question about that,
but I don't really deal with that in-depth in the book.
Instead I look at what happens
when all of these chemicals accumulate in the human body
and they interact with each other to create toxic synergies.
This, I believe, is the key to the explosion in human illness
and disease levels that we have seen since World War II.

Chemical interactions heighten toxicity, even in food

Mike: So these interactions create the really scary chemicals?
For example, in soft drinks, sodium benzoate is a preservative?

Fitzgerald: Yes.

Mike: I think you cover this in the book.
When that mixes with citric acid,
it can sometimes create benzenes?

Fitzgerald: We looked at some of the studies
done in the later part of 2005,
examining the synergistic reactions between aspartame --
the synthetic sweetener that is found in thousands of products now --
and MSG, along with two common food colorings.
This was a study done in England at a university
in the later part of 2005.
The result was found that when MSG, aspartame
and these two food colorings
were mixed together,
they create a synergy that kills nerve cells.
It causes neurological damage.
We are only now at the threshold of medical science beginning
to do any systematic examination of synergies.

Mike: Just to put in a real-world example of that,
I would like to add that you can get that combination
by drinking a Diet Pepsi and eating a bag of Doritos.

Fitzgerald: Absolutely. It is a children's meal.
In fact, these researchers, at the University of Liverpool,
wanted to examine what children commonly consume every day.
That is why they picked aspartame, MSG and these two food colors,
because they are so commonly found in all of the junk drinks and foods
that children consume.
The results should alarm us all.

A mutant species

Mike: Where do we go, Randall,
if we as a global community don't wake up
and come to our senses about this
ongoing synthetic chemical pollution of our bodies, our land,
our rivers and our streams?
What is the bottom line if we don't make changes?

Fitzgerald: We will become a mutant species.
In fact, we are becoming a mutant species.

Mike: That is a very strong statement.
Can you explain? What do you mean by a mutant species?

Fitzgerald: Starting about two decades ago,
wildlife biologists began noticing --
in lakes, rivers, the ocean and in swamps like the Everglades --
that fish and amphibian species, in particular, were becoming mutants.
Hermaphrodites were emerging in numbers never seen before.
Alligators in the swamps of the Everglades
were developing both male and female sex organs.
Fish off of the coast of California
were developing both male and female sex organs.
Fish in the great lakes
began developing both male and female sex organs.
The Potomac River, outside of Washington, D.C.,
has been documented, over the last few years,
as having ever-greater numbers of hermaphroditic fish.
We see it in frogs. We see it numerous wildlife species.

What is the common denominator in all of these changes
that are creating mutants in the wild?
It is synthetic chemicals. It is pesticides,
in particular along with other synthetic chemical contaminants
in the water,
that are being spewed out by waste water treatment plants,
which do not have the technological capacity
to remove these synthetic chemicals.
The result is these chemicals are being excreted by humans
and by industrial processes into our waterways.
They are ending up in the bodies of fish and animals
and producing hybrids, which I call a mutant species.
In turn, humans are consuming many of these wildlife mutants,
including the fish.

We are recycling, through our drinking water
and through many of the foods we eat,
these chemical toxins into our body.
The water purification plants,
much like the wastewater treatment plants,
are not technologically sophisticated enough
to remove these synthetic chemicals.

We are recycling them in ever-greater quantities through our bodies
and through nature,
because more than 1,000 new synthetic chemicals are being created
and introduced into the marketplace every year.

Not only that, but more than 100,000 synthetic chemicals
are already in wide use in the marketplace.
The quantities of those individual chemicals being produced
are increasing by the rate of every decade, doubling,
and in some cases, tripling, in the manufacturing capacity.

Even scientists have no idea what's safe

Mike: Is it true that there are chemicals being manufactured today
that would be illegal to dump into a river or stream,
but are perfectly legal to put into the food supply or medication?

Fitzgerald: Yes, that is true,
but let me change the focus of your question a little bit.
That is the question of, "What is safe? Does the government
even really have any practical idea about what is safe,
by way of chemicals in our foods and medicines?"

The answer I found, and document in this book, is "No."
We do not have the technology to measure the synergistic effects
of chemicals to determine what is safe,
and we do not have the technology to even measure, in the wild,
the presence of most of the synthetic chemicals
that have already been created in the laboratory,
introduced into products and industrial processes,
and then released into nature.

Mike: We don't even know the scope of this problem,
is what you are saying?

Fitzgerald: We are only beginning to realize
that we don't know the scope of this problem.

Mike: Okay, I have a couple of questions on that one,
but let me get to the book for a second here.
What does book provide to a reader?
What are they going to walk away with after reading
"The Hundred-Year Lie"?

Fitzgerald: The book is scary. The book is frightening.
The book is a wake-up call.
The intention of writing the book,
and my intention for the reader, is not just to frighten;
not just to wake you up to the toxic threat
that exists within us and around us.
It is also a prescription, or steps and strategies to take,
where any individual
can go through a practical detox program
and begin to eliminate some of the chemicals from our bodies.

At the end of the book, the last few chapters are concerned
with detox strategies.
One of them I experimented with myself.
I had my blood drawn and
then tested at the Accu-Chem laboratory in Dallas
to determine the extent to
which I was contaminated with several dozen chemicals,
including common pesticides.
After I had my blood test results, I went into a detox facility,
located in Palm Beach, Fla., called the Hippocrates Health Institute.
I spent three weeks in their program,
going through a detox that involved daily infrared saunas.
It involved raw, organic foods. It involved exercise,
and it involved taking some supplements, the primary one being
chlorella. At the end of three weeks, I had my blood tested again,
at the same laboratory in Dallas,
and it was found that the synthetic chemicals that I had focused
on eliminating from my body, especially the pesticides,
had almost been totally eliminated.
So I know it is not a hopeless, helpless, situation for
readers of the book.
There are tried and proven strategies where we can
bolster our immune system
while eliminating the toxins that depress our immune systems,
and make us more susceptible to the triggering of a genetic
predisposition to illness and disease.

The link between chemicals and degenerative disease

Mike: How much do you think these chemical toxins
account for today's most common degenerative disease conditions?
Do you think this is an 80 percent factor,
or is it something less than that?

Fitzgerald: I'm just an investigative journalist.
I am not a health specialist, or authority.
So the answer I'd give is simply based
on my interpretation of what the data,
the medical science data, so far seems to indicate.
My guess would be at least 75 percent of the explosion
we've seen in degenerative diseases since World War II
can be attributed to contact
with synergies of synthetic chemicals
in our foods, medicines and consumer products.

Mike: Do you find it strange
that the commonly accepted treatments for most
of these degenerative conditions, like cancer or diabetes,
involve the introduction of additional synthetic chemicals
into the body?

Fitzgerald: It's a vicious cycle.
The synthetic chemicals in pharmaceutical drugs,
by the admission of the pharmaceutical industry,
are designed to treat symptoms and buy time
for our own immune systems to kick in and actually heal ourselves,
to the extent that we can be healed in the face of
some of these illnesses and diseases.
The irony is that many of these synthetic chemicals
and pharmaceutical drugs, over time, end up either creating toxicity,
which must be treated by more synthetic chemicals or drugs,
or in depressing the immune system to the point
that we become even more susceptible to other illnesses and diseases.
It is a vicious cycle,
and it is a cycle that can only be broken
if we focus our attention on
eliminating, as much as possible,
our contact with synthetic chemicals and
going through our own personal detox programs.

We are all guinea pigs in a vast chemical experiment.
It is up to us, individually, to take responsibility
for navigating the minefield of synthetic chemicals in our lives
and creating, through experimentation, our own regimen for health.

Mike: Do you cover in the book the synthetic chemical content of
personal care products, like shampoo, lotion, perfume
and that kind of thing?

Fitzgerald: Yes, I do.

Mike: So what is your take on that,
because a lot of these manufacturers say that the skin is a barrier?

Fitzgerald: Many of these products contain enhancers --
chemicals that open up the pores of the skin --
to allow deeper penetration of these products.
Hand lotions and body lotions are good example.
These enhancers have been introduced over the last decade
in order to make these products "more effective."
The result of these enhancer chemicals,
in many personal care products,
is that toxins are driven ever deeper into our body tissues.
What happens when these toxins are driven deeper?
They accumulate in those tissues and joints.
Other toxins, which are being introduced through our
air, our water and our food,
once again set up a chain reaction in which synergies can occur.

Dispelling common myths

Mike: You also cover some of the sacred myths
that we in Western society believe,
and have believed for quite sometime,
but you explode those myths.
Can you give us one example of a myth that you cover?

Fitzgerald: Sure. We have been led to believe,
and most of us have chosen to believe, over the last few decades,
that chemicals and the toxicity of chemicals
are all determined by the dose we receive.
What we are finding through medical research
is that new mixtures of chemicals are being absorbed by us
that have never entered the human body before.
These are substances that break down very slowly in the body,
and sometimes these molecules of chemicals are even indestructible.
They don't follow the old public health rules
of what is generally know to be risky or a danger to human health,
so the poison is no longer just in the dose.

Mike: That message there -- exploring that myth --
and many of the other sections in your book,
really attacks the foundational defenses of many of
the most powerful corporations in the world.
Do you expect to be heavily criticized by those companies?
Or do you think your message will be able to withstand
the backlash from those companies?

The five flawed arguments of chemical producers

Fitzgerald: I certainly believe the message can withstand
the backlash and the attack that will be made on me,
because I am an investigative reporter
and I am not a medical professional.
However, the point the book makes -- think most persuasively --
is that the entire foundation on which our public health standards
are based is a flawed foundation.
If you will give me just a moment, I will explain the five areas
in which I think these flaws can no longer be ignored by manufacturers,
by the regulatory agencies or by the public.

The first is that the animal studies that have been used for decades,
which test whether chemicals in our foods and medicines are safe
for human health, no longer work.
We now know that animal studies are not reliable predictors
of harm to human health.
We know that because thousands of people sicken and
die every year from chemicals that animal studies predicted were safe.
Such studies are suggestive, but they are not predictive.
If aspirin were introduced into the marketplace for the first time,
and was tested on animals, most animal species would sicken and die.
Aspirin is toxic to animals, but obviously, for most humans,
aspirin isn't toxic.
We find many examples -- and it cuts both ways --
where a chemical that is safe for animals
turns out to be toxic to humans,
and chemicals safe for humans turn out to be toxic for animals,
and yet we have based our entire public health foundation
on animal studies.

The second point, as I indicated earlier with you,
is that wastewater treatment and water purification plants
are supposed to filter out chemical toxins.
We now know these plants are not technologically sophisticated
enough to remove most of the synthetic chemicals
that show up in our foods, our medicines and our consumer products.
A U.S. geological survey has done testing of ground water
throughout the Western states, and found Ritalin, Prozac and other
pharmaceutical drugs along with industrial chemicals;
chemicals from personal care products.
These chemicals are being recycled through us,
and right now there is nothing that industry or government
can do about it.

Mike: Real quick on point two, you are saying that we are all --
or many of us -- are being medicated with trace amounts of these
pharmaceuticals?

Fitzgerald: All the time. Absolutely.
And think about this: Since the water purification plants
can't remove these synthetic toxins, the beverage industry,
which uses tap water to create beverages in this country --
the soft drinks and the beers -- are simply recycling
many of these toxins along with chlorine and fluoride
into synergistic combinations that no one has
even begun to test the problems with.

Mike: Wow.

Fitzgerald: Third point. To the extent that chemicals are tested
for safety at all, they are only tested individually
and it gets back to the earlier point I made about synergies.
The real looming threat to public health is from chemical synergies;
the combinations of these chemicals stored in our bodies.

Fourth point. The human umbilical cord,
we have been told by medical science for decades,
would protect fetuses from chemical harm.
We were told that the human liver would filter out
these synthetic toxins,
but we now know from tests of umbilical cord blood
that fetuses are absorbing
the chemical "body burdens" of their mothers,
and fetuses are even more susceptible than children and adults
to these toxins.
We have seen this in the "body burden" test done
by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
These toxins are overwhelming our livers.
Our livers cannot store these toxins,
and the consequences for human health are totally unpredictable.

Fifth point. The FDA was supposed to ensure that our pharmaceutical
drugs are safe by requiring drug companies to conduct safety studies
after the drugs were approved for human use.
The last few months we have been told by the FDA
that 63 percent of these studies
that had been promised by pharmaceutical companies
had never been performed.

Mike: These are the follow-up studies, right?

Fitzgerald: No, the original. Many of these drugs were approved
by the FDA without any studies.
Many were approved with the promise that there would be
follow-up studies on the long-term health effects.
The FDA has now conceded,
and this was conceded two months ago,
that 63 percent of the studies, over all these years,
were never performed.
Now, my conclusion from this is that
is one reason why more than 100,000 Americans sicken and die
each year from adverse reactions to prescription drugs.
That is a statistic from the AMA.
Imagine, Mike, the outrage, if 100,000 Americans were dying
in airplane crashes every year caused by faulty engines.
Why don't we hear that outrage
about what our foods and medicines are doing our health?
The reason is because most people have chosen to believe the lie.

FDA fails to protect consumers

Mike: The FDA though, claims that it is the "gold standard" of
evidence-based medicine,
and that it only approves drugs that have gone
through a rigorous testing program;
that we, the American public, can be assured that those drugs
are perfectly safe, even for long-term use.
So you are saying that is hogwash?

Fitzgerald: The FDA's "gold standard" is radioactive.

Mike: A little bit of regulatory alchemy going on, perhaps?

Fitzgerald: The only alchemy that's going on
is the public relations spin
that is being cast on the health of the American public
and the levels of toxins in our foods and medicines.
We were sold the idea that synthetics are
an improvement over nature.

Mike: Right.

Fitzgerald: That belief has become a health care disaster.

The myth of better living through chemistry

Mike: I know I am playing the skeptic frequently in this interview,
but here is another one for you. People walking around,
shopping for groceries, just on the street, look at themselves
and they look at other people and they say,
"Well, I don't look any sicker than anybody else.
We all look about the same. We can't be doing that bad."
But isn't it true that as a population we are all equally diseased?
Compared to healthy people 100 years ago,
we look pretty bad, don't we?

Fitzgerald: There is a myth that people are living longer
because they are healthier. In actuality, what I have found is that,
on average, people are living longer because of technology.
Technology in the form of kidney dialysis machines.
Technology in the form of heart pacemakers.
Technology in many forms that are, indeed, extending people's lives.
However, what I also found is that this life extension
doesn't translate into healthier lives.
Just the opposite. We may be living longer because of technology,
but the quality of our life, the quality of our health,
has deteriorated markedly since World War II.
A big reason for that is the premise,
a foundation on which the Hundred-Year Lie book is based,
which is that synthetic chemicals
have alarmingly and rapidly led to the degeneration of our health.

Mike: Sometimes, Randall, I say we are not living longer,
we are dying longer. That seems to make sense to a lot of people.

Fitzgerald: That is a good way to put it.

Creating a healthier, non-toxic future

Mike: Let me ask you then, what do you hope to see happen?
If you had all the power in the world and you could make the changes,
what would you like to see change in terms of companies,
consumption and a manufacturing?
What would be ideal for us as a civilization to move forward?

Fitzgerald: I would like to see the toxins manufacturers
constantly pressured to remove some of the more noxious individual
toxins from their products.
That can only be done
as a result of public scrutiny and public pressure.
Sometimes it does work. I am reminded of what happened
last year at the San Francisco breast cancer fight,
and the campaign for safe cosmetics pressured some cosmetics
manufacturers to purge their products of
certain chemicals that individually had been shown to cause cancer,
birth defects and infertility,
and these were voluntary actions.
These actions can occur with more regularity
if people simply begin refusing to buy products
that contain some of these toxins.
That doesn't address the problem of synthetic chemical synergies.
That is going to require a public health effort,
a medical science effort,
equal to the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb.

Mike: Wow.

Fitzgerald: There are other suggestions I would make.
For one, I believe we need a naturally occurring standard for products.
Especially for foods and medicines,
and for vitamins and mineral supplements.
It would be a standard, much like the organic standard,
but going far more deeply into the problem.
That would demonstrate which companies
are producing products that are taken directly
from plant or botanical sources,
and do not contain any synthetics at all.
I believe a naturally occurring standard
needs to be implemented in
such a way to where we have more choices available to us.
The problem with labeling right now --
and this is a whole separate area of the book --
is that under trade secrecy laws, the ingredients of many products,
of foods and medicines and consumer products,
are hidden from public view.
You'll find "natural" on products,
but that listing doesn't mean that these products are really natural.

Mike: Right.

Fitzgerald: It's simply a heading under which synthetic chemicals
are hidden.
Just like "flavorings." "Flavorings" is another general category in
which product manufacturers can hide synthetic chemicals from view.
It's all done in the name of trade secrecy,
but the only people for whom the truth is being hidden
are the consumers, because the competitors of these companies
are well endowed enough and technologically sophisticated enough
to reverse-engineer all products to determine
what the synthetic chemical ingredients are.
So the trade secrecy laws are a joke.

Mike: They only harm the consumer,
but they don't protect the intellectual property.

Fitzgerald: Absolutely.

The takeover of organics by chemical companies

Mike: Even the term "organic" has now been somewhat re-appropriated.
There's a lot of debate now about what is organic...

Fitzgerald: "Organic" as a term to inform consumers
has been diluted
and the threat exists every year that it will be diluted more
as a result of actions by the U.S. Congress
and by the agriculture department,
because, as you well know, the organics industry has been infiltrated
and to some extent taken over by the large corporations
that also produce synthetic chemicals in a wide range of products.
It is to their best interest for the organic label
to be as general and as diluted as possible
so they can begin to sneak more synthetic chemicals
in the form of preservatives, colorings and so forth
into products that are labeled organic.

We also find the problem of pesticide contamination of organic products.
Every organic product tested contained some level of pesticide residue.
It may well be much less by a factor of 5,
than other products that are produced with pesticides,
but there is still a residue of pesticides in organics,
and the reason for that is that pesticide chemicals
do not respect boundaries,
they do not respect geographical boundaries.
The molecules of pesticides attach themselves to dust particles
and go everywhere.
Pesticides are being found in the Artic, in the bodies of polar bears,
so we cannot escape synthetic chemicals, especially pesticides.
Not only that, but anytime soils absorb pesticides,
those residues remain in the soil.
They leech into the roots of plants, and they end up in the food crops.
So if soil, even if it goes organic, has ever used in its farming
practices a pesticide, there's going to be some contamination.

We've polluted ourselves on this planet and in our bodies
to an extent that we can't escape these contaminates,
even if we are living on a deserted island in the Pacific,
or if we are living in the Artic.
These toxins come and find us.

How to minimize your exposure to toxins

Mike: How much of this toxicity load is under the direct control
of the consumer through food choice and medicine choice
and personal care product choice, and so on?
I mean, some of it they can't escape,
but how much do they control?

Fitzgerald: We can eliminate two-thirds of the toxic contaminants
that go into our body simply by eating organic whenever possible,
by limiting our exposure to synthetic chemicals
in our personal care products,
and in the way we live our lives.
That means we each have to take an inventory.
We must sit down and look at everything we come in contact with
in the course of a normal day,
and write down all of the synthetic chemicals and ingredients
in the products that we use and what we absorb,
the types of water that we use, especially tap water.
Once you take an inventory, you discover --
and for most people it's very alarming --
we are in contact with hundreds if not thousands
of these chemicals every day.
Yet we can make choices about what
we put on our bodies, in our bodies and around our bodies
simply by being mindful of alternatives
to the conveniences of modern life.

Mike: Laundry, too. I have to mention laundry,
because most people are just
bathing their clothes in toxic fragrance chemicals
and then throwing them in the dryer with more toxic chemicals
in the dryer sheet.

Fitzgerald: Yes indeed, and that's true with dry cleaning as well,
and bringing home those plastic-insulated chemicals
on our dry-cleaned clothes,
and then opening them up in our heavily insulated bedrooms and closets
and getting a whiff of all of these fumes.
It's true with the new car smell and the smell of vinyl,
which is really the off-gassing of chemicals such as
formaldehyde, and we take a breath of it and get a high.
Some people are even addicted to the "new couch" smell
or the "new car" smell.
As soon as we smell it we should realize
that we are contaminating ourselves with these chemicals
we are breathing -- these molecules of toxins --
into our bodies, absorbing it into our body tissues.

Staying informed via the web

Mike: Well said, Randall. Now, we are about to wrap this up,
what I'd like to ask you as a last question here
to maybe give our readers a brief about your website,
www.HundredYearLie.com . That's a fantastic resource.
Can you tell people what they can find there?

Fitzgerald: The website has summaries of many chapters in the book,
but it also has resources that people can refer to in order
to educate themselves about what alternatives to synthetic chemicals
are available, and which organizations are involved in making these
alternatives available.
We don't promote any products on the website
but we do promote ideas and strategies
on the website to enable people to protect themselves.

Mike: So again, that's www.HundredYearLie.com
and the book, by Randall Fitzgerald, is
"The Hundred Year Lie:
How Food and Medicine are Destroying
Your Health."

I want to thank you again for joining me today, Randall.

Fitzgerald: Mike, it's been a great pleasure
and I very much admire and appreciate your work.

Mike: Likewise."Mike: So again, that's www.HundredYearLie.com
and the book, by Randall Fitzgerald, is
"The Hundred Year Lie:
How Food and Medicine are Destroying Your Health."

I want to thank you again for joining me today, Randall."

Mike: Likewise.
*******************************************************


Excerpt from http://www.hundredyearlie.com/

"A study from the science journal, Public Health, described in 2004 how
the incidence of death from brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's, and motor neurone disorders, was found to have tripled in
nine Western countries, including the U.S., during the period 1979 to
1997. The most likely causes researchers identified were exposure to
pesticides sprayed on crops, synthetic chemicals from the processed
foods that we consume, and industrial chemicals used in almost every
aspect of our modern lives.

Food seemed to be a major culprit for this toxicity because Japan, alone
among the ten countries studied, experienced no increase in brain
disease mortality, apparently a result of the Japanese diet being
healthier than Western diets. Only when Japanese citizens relocate to
Western countries and consume those processed foods do their disease
rates exceed that of Japan as a whole."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1283563,00.html

Pollutants cause huge rise in brain diseases:
Scientists alarmed as number of cases triples in 20 years

Juliette Jowit, environment editor
Sunday August 15, 2004 The Observer

The numbers of sufferers of brain diseases, including Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, have soared across the West in
less than 20 years, scientists have discovered.

The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have
trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides,
industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants,
says a report in the journal Public Health.

In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these
conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000.

'This has really scared me,' said Professor Colin Pritchard of
Bournemouth University, one of the report's authors. 'These are nasty
diseases: people are getting more of them and they are starting earlier.
We have to look at the environment and ask ourselves what we are doing.'

The report, which Pritchard wrote with colleagues at Southampton
University, covered the incidence of brain diseases in the UK, US,
Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain
in 1979-1997. The researchers then compared death rates for the first
three years of the study period with the last three, and discovered that
dementias - mainly Alzheimer's, but including other forms of senility -
more than trebled for men and rose nearly 90 per cent among women in
England and Wales. All the other countries were also affected.

For other ailments, such as Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, the
group found there had been a rise of about 50 per cent in cases for both
men and women in every country except Japan. The increases in
neurological deaths mirror rises in cancer rates in the West.

The team stresses that its figures take account of the fact that people
are living longer and it has also made allowances for the fact that
diagnoses of such ailments have improved. It is comparing death rates,
not numbers of cases, it says.

As to the cause of this disturbing rise, Pritchard said genetic causes
could be ruled out because any changes to DNA would take hundreds of
years to take effect. 'It must be the environment,' he said.

The causes were most likely to be chemicals, from car pollution to
pesticides on crops and industrial chemicals used in almost every aspect
of modern life, from processed food to packaging, from electrical goods
to sofa covers, Pritchard said.

Food is also a major concern because it provides the most obvious
explanation for the exclusion of Japan from many of these trends. Only
when Japanese people move to the other countries do their disease rates
increase.

'There's no one single cause ... and most of the time we have no studies
on all the multiple interactions of the combinations on the environment.
I can only say there have been these major changes [in deaths]: it is
suggested it's multiple pollution.'

Pritchard's paper has been published amid growing fears about the
chemical build-up in the environment. A number of studies have pointed
to serious problems. TBT is being banned from marine paints after it was
blamed for masculinising female molluscs, causing a dramatic decline in
numbers. A US report linked neurological disorders to pesticides. And
testing by WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) found non-natural
substances such as flame retardants in every person who took part.

WWF has named chemical pollution as one of the two great environmental
threats to the world, alongside global warming, and is particularly
worried about 'persistent and accumulative' industrial chemicals and
endocrine - hormone distorting - substances linked to changes in gender
and behaviour among animals and even children.

'We've started seeing changes in fertility rates, the immune system,
neurological changes [and] impacts on behaviour,' said Matthew
Wilkinson, the charity's toxics programme leader.

Pesticides and pharmaceutical chemicals must now undergo rigorous
testing before they can be used. But there are an estimated 80,000
industrial chemicals and the 'vast majority' do not need safety
regulation or testing, said Wilkinson.

However, the chemical industry strongly rejects what it claims are often
unproven fears. Just because chemicals are present does not mean they
are at dangerous levels.

But critics are not reassured. 'It is true that just because we find a
chemical does not mean it is dangerous,' said Wilkinson. 'But it is
equally true that for the vast majority of chemicals we have so little
safety data that the regulatory authorities have no idea what a safe
level is.'

The Royal Society of Chemistry also said quantities of pesticides were
declining. 'Improvements in analytical chemistry mean that lower and
lower levels of pesticides can be detected,' said Brian Emsley, the
society's spokesman. '[But] because you can detect something doesn't
necessarily mean it is dangerous.'
*******************************************************


Public Health. 2004 Jun; 118(4): 268-83.
Changing patterns of adult (45-74 years) neurological deaths in the
major Western world countries 1979-1997.
Pritchard C, cpritchard@...
Baldwin D,
Mayers A.
Department of Mental Health, School of Medicine, University of
Southampton, Royal South Hants Hospital, Southampton SO14 OYG, UK.

Dr. Colin Pritchard (Profesor Emeritus, School of Medicine, University
of Southampton and Research Professor; Institute of Health & Community
Studies, Bournemouth University, UK.

http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/ihcs/resgroupsc.html
Institute of Health & Community Studies, Bournemouth University,
Royal London House, Christchurch Rd., Bournemouth BH1 3LT.
Tel.: +44-2380-766487

Clinical Neuroscience Division, School of Medicine, University of
Southampton, Southhampton, UK. dsb1@...

OBJECTIVES:
To compare changes in 'adult' (45-74 years) 'all-cause deaths' (ACDs)
with all neurological death categories by age and gender in the 10 major
Western countries between the 1970s (1979-1981) and the 1990s (1995-1997).
METHOD:
World Health Organization standardized mortality data for age and gender
(1979/97) were used to examine changes in adult mortality rates per
million based upon ICD-9 categories
for ACDs, 'neurological deaths'
and the special neurological categories
of 'other neurological deaths' (ONDs)
and 'mental disorder deaths' (MDDs),
which include the dementias.
Ratios of ratios were calculated to demonstrate how each individual
country's pattern changed over the period by age and gender,
resolving the problem of cross-national comparisons.
Rates of change across the endpoints and between age groups (45-54,
55-64, 65-74 and 75+ years) were examined using analysis of variance,
stepwise regression analysis and cross-tabulation analyses.
RESULTS:
Meningitis deaths fell substantially,
but there was little change in multiple sclerosis or epilepsy deaths.

OND rates for the 1990s increased compared with the 1970s rates for
males and female,
in actual terms and relative to ACDs for almost all countries.

Many of the relative rates of increase
were substantially higher than 20%.

There were significant statistical differences with respect to relative
rates of ONDs between the 1970s and the 1990s data,
even when the 75+ years age group was excluded.

Significant differences were also found between age groups,
but only in the 1990s data.

MDD rates showed similar trends.

Analyses of actual rates of increase in these causes of death showed
that males outnumber females in all ages below 74 years.

The extent of this difference remained constant across the endpoints.

However, in those aged 75 years and over,
females outnumbered males at both endpoints,
but this disparity widened significantly in the 1990s data.

CONCLUSIONS:
The 1990s data indicate substantial increases compared with the 1970s
data for ONDs (especially amongst 65-74 year olds),
and rises in MDDs in 55-64 year olds in five countries,
including England and Wales and Germany,
and in 65-74 year olds in most countries,
suggesting earlier onsets of the underlying conditions.
Further country-specific research is required to explain the emerging
morbidity and mortality.
PMID: 15121436
*******************************************************


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

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1371
Russell L. Blaylock, MD discusses MSG, aspartame, excitotoxins with Mike
Adams: Murray 2006.09.27

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1366
toxicity in rat brains from aspartame, Vences-Mejia A, Espinosa-Aguirre
JJ et al 2006 Aug: Murray 2006.09.06

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1369
Bristol, Connecticut, schools join state program to limit artificial
sweeteners, sugar, fats for 8800 students, Johnny J Burnham, The Bristol
Press: Murray 2006.09.22

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1341
Connecticut bans artificial sweeteners in schools, Nancy Barnes,
New Milford Times: Murray 2006.05.25

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1353
carcinogenic effect of inhaled formaldehyde, Federal Institute of Risk
Assessment, Germany -- same safe level as for Canada:
Murray 2006.06.02

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1352
Home sickness -- indoor air often worse, as our homes seal in pollutants
[one is formaldehyde, also from the 11% methanol part of aspartame],
Megan Gillis, WinnipegSun.com: Murray 2006.06.01


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

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

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 77 members, 1,372 posts in a public, searchable archive
http://RMForAll.blogspot.com


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

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1349
NIH NLM ToxNet HSDB Hazardous Substances Data Bank
inadequate re aspartame (methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid):
Murray 2006.08.19

http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search/f?./temp/~HwoSfJ:1
HSDB Hazardous Substances Data Bank: Aspartame

ASPARTAME CASRN: 22839-47-0
METHANOL CASRN: 67-56-1
FORMALDEHYDE CASRN: 50-00-0
FORMIC ACID CASRN: 64-18-6

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1307
formaldehyde from 11% methanol part of aspartame or from red wine
causes same toxicity (hangover) harm: Murray 2006.05.24

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

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

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

Any unsuspected source of methanol, which the body always quickly
and largely turns into formaldehyde and then formic acid, must be
monitored, especially for high responsibility occupations, often with
night shifts, such as pilots and nuclear reactor operators.

http://www.HolisticMed.com/aspartame mgold@...
Aspartame Toxicity Information Center Mark D. Gold
12 East Side Drive #2-18 Concord, NH 03301 603-225-2100

http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame/abuse/methanol.html
"Scientific Abuse in Aspartame Research"
*******************************************************