My Ongoing Research Questions???

Recently I posted a blog about the Monsanto’s ties to government. Most disturbing to me was this excerpt from the Organic Consumer’s website about these government ties. http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm 

 “In order for the FDA to determine if Monsanto’s growth hormones were safe or not, Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on that topic. Margaret Miller, one of Monsanto’s researchers put the report together. Shortly before the report submission, Miller left Monsanto and was hired by the FDA. Her first job for the FDA was to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto. In short, Monsanto approved its own report. Assisting Miller was another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen. Deciding whether or not rBGH-derived milk should be labeled fell under the jurisdiction of another FDA official, Michael Taylor, who previously worked as a lawyer for Monsanto.”

 Because GM food is not labeled people may not be making a connection between GM food and increased incidence or new diseases. I started wondering what other products were out there that the FDA had approved or considered food that didn’t need testing like GM Food? Or what foods had been tested that did harm, but were approved anyway, because corporate profit has outranked consumer safety?  What about new diseases or increased incidence of disease and what those possible links might be?   I came up with two right away. One is the product Apartame and the second a new disease called Morgellans disease.

First of all Aspartame, the sweetener that is in almost everything labeled diet. It came out in 1981 and seems to have a  link to increased incidence to brain tumors and other symptoms.  

Note:   This information required a Freedom Of Information Act request to pry it from the reluctant hands of the FDA.

Nutrasweet (brand name for Aspartame) was not approved until 1981, in dry foods. For over eight years the FDA refused to approve it because of the seizures and brain tumors this drug produced in lab animals. The FDA continued to refuse to approve it until President Reagan took office (a friend of Searle) and fired the FDA Commissioner who wouldn’t approve it. Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes was appointed as commissioner. Even then there was so much opposition to approval that a Board of Inquiry was set up. The Board said: “Do not approve aspartame”. Dr. Hayes OVERRULED his own Board of Inquiry.

Shortly after Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., approved the use of aspartame in carbonated beverages, he left for a position with G.D. Searle’s Public Relations firm.  Here is the link to the website this information came from. http://www.relfe.com/Aspartame_92.html 

Here is why Aspartame causes problems.

Aspartame Structure
The structure of aspartame seems simple, but what a complicated structure aspartame really is. Two isolated amino acids in aspartame are fused together by its third component, deadly methanol. In this structure, methanol bonds the two amino acids together, but when released at a mere 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the methanol becomes a poisonous free radical.Methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde, embalming fluid. Methanol is a dangerous neurotoxin, a known carcinogen, causes retinal damage in the eye, interferes with DNA replication, and causes birth defects.Aspartic acid makes up forty percent of the structure of aspartame. Under excess conditions, the structure of aspartic acid can cause endocrine (hormone) disorders and vision problems. Aspartic acid is a neuroexicter, which means its structure affects the central nervous system. Hyperactivity is stimulated by aspartic acid, so this structure is not good for ADD/ADHD conditions and should be avoided during pregnancy. Adverse reactions to aspartic acid are: headaches/migraines, nausea, abdominal pain, fatigue, sleep disorders, vision problems, anxiety attacks, depression, and asthma/chest tightness. The second isolated amino acid in aspartame’s chemical structure is phenylalanine, fifty percent of aspartame’s 3-D structure. Too much phenylalanine causes seizures, elevated blood plasma, is dangerous for pregnancy causing retardation, PMS caused by phenylalanine’s blockage of serotonin, insomnia, and severe mood swings. Read more about Aspartame Side Effects

 Morgellans

 Morgellans is a bizarre skin disease that was written off as a hoax or hypochondria.  Here is a brief article about Morgellans. The CDC website has  a been exploring the cause of this disease and at their website a link for people who may be having symptoms to let them know. This article links Morgellans to GM food, but also states that Morgellans may have been around in the 17th century. That might be a conflict.  Because GM food has been modified by taking a gene from on species and implanting it in another might there be new proteins created that create new gene expressions never before known. One reason why scientists use bacteria to grow DNA is because it mutates so fast. Will we see new mutations that were never intended in nature in humans. It is already happening to bugs and has created new species of weeds. Here is that article about Morgellans.  

Skin Disease May Be Linked to GM FoodMorgellons
12-Oct-2007 

Many people—and most physicians—have written off Morgellons disease as either a hoax or hypochondria. But now there is evidence that this mysterious disease may be REAL and related to GENETICALLY MODIFIED food! The skin of Morgellons victims oozes mysterious strands that have been identified as cellulose (which cannot be manufactured by the human body), and people have the sensation of things crawling beneath their skin. The first known case of Morgellons occurred in 2001, when Mary Leitao created a web site describing the disease, which had infected her young son. She named it Morgellons after a 17th century medical study in France that described the same symptoms. In the Sept. 15-21 issue of New Scientist magazine, Daniel Elkan describes a patient he calls “Steve Jackson,” who “for years” has “been finding tiny blue, red and black fibers growing in intensely itchy lesions on his skin.” He quotes Jackson as saying, “The fibers are like pliable plastic and can be several millimeters long. Under the skin, some are folded in a zigzag pattern. These can be as fine as spider silk, yet strong enough to distend the skin when you pull them, as if you were pulling on a hair.” Doctors say that this type of disease could only be caused by a parasite, but anti-parasitic medications do not help. Psychologists insist that this is a new version of the well-known syndrome known as “delusional parasitosis.” While this is a “real” disease, it is not a physically-caused one. But now there is physical evidence that Morgellons is NOT just psychological. When pharmacologist Randy Wymore offered to study some of these fibers if people sent them to him, he discovered that “fibers from different people looked remarkably similar to each other and yet seem to match no common environmental fibers.” When they took them to a police forensic team, they said they were not from clothing, carpets or bedding. They have no idea what they are. Researcher Ahmed Kilani says he was able to break down two fiber samples and extract their DNA. He found that they belonged to a fungus.

 

An even more provocative finding is that biochemist Vitaly Citovsky discovered that the fibers contain a substance called “Agrobacterium,” which, according to New Scientist, is “used commercially to produce genetically-modified plants.” Could GM plants be “causing a new human disease?”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8464

And from Morgellons.org :

“Morgellons is an unexplained and debilitating condition that has emerged as a public health concern.  Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has received an increased number of inquiries from the public, health care providers, public health officials, Congress, and the media regarding this condition.   Persons who suffer from this condition report a range of coetaneous symptoms including crawling, biting and stinging sensations; granules, threads or black speck-like materials on or beneath the skin; and/or skin lesions (e.g., rashes or sores) and some sufferers also report systemic manifestations such as fatigue, mental confusion, short term memory loss, joint pain, and changes in vision”

 Follow this link for a 2007 CDC document which gives a more detailed description of Morgellons disease.

 

From what I learned in about an hours time researching these two things I that I see a pattern here. 

• The FDA seems to be approving products that are known to cause harm in humans.
• Some people who work for the FDA have worked for the corporate products they approve.
• Government ties to corporations who make products that need FDA approval. This presents a conflict of interest.
• The FDA is not requiring genetically modified food to be tested or labeled making it hard to be in charge of my own safety.
• Because GM crops have been allowed to enter the food chain without knowing what the consequences might be we are the giant genetic experiment. We are the lab rats.   Consequences are happening because of GMO crops and food.
• I should be on the lookout for what might be happening myself.

~ by Lorina Coble on March 30, 2008.