DR ATKINS W/MARY NASH STODDARD ON WOR RADIO

TRANSCRIPT
YOUR HEALTH CHOICES
WOR - March 21, 1994


Dr. A - Mary, your book, Deadly Deception Story of Aspartame is chock full of information and lots of reprints of important studies and articles and all sorts of information that if you’re interested in this, you’re gonna want to get it.

The breakdown products of aspartame and all the chemicals that your body will put out when you do, and all sorts of things. All right, let’s start taking calls you’re on WOR, let’s talk to Herb on Long Island:

Herb - Hello, Dr. Bob, I’d just like to relay a story about my daughter who just happened to be the first female jet pilot in the USAF. About five years ago, she came home on Thanksgiving weekend leave and she drank a lot of diet sodas. She had a bad spell here - a weak spell. But, when she got back to base, she went through a medical, and they determined that she had a heart palpitations and arrhythmia.

Dr. A. : Were they alert to the possibility at this point in history, five years ago of diet sodas being the cause? Did they themselves think of diet sodas as the possible problem?

Herb: Yes. And, they determined that it might be the diet sodas and the artificial sweeteners.

Dr. A.: Well, Mary you should, take credit for that, I think, for giving that index of suspicion to everybody connected to caring for pilots that that is a possibility.

M. : That’s wonderful. We have done a lot of work with the FAA and off the record, they are with us - but on the record they can’t say anything.

Herb - Also, in her group in the AF there were other pilots who were grounded because of heart problems. They discontinued using all their artificial sweeteners for one month and their flying status was restored to them. My daughter’s retired now.

Dr. A. - Herb, thank you for sharing that. That is good confirmation of what Mary is saying.

Mary - The female pilot in charge of Air Force One chase plane had a reaction as well several years ago and her doctors told her to get off aspartame and her vision problems cleared up. Her peripheral vision was going, along with other problems.

Dr. A. - Yes, wood alcohol is one of the problems, it causes blindness and visual problems are some of the major frightening things that can happen with this, although, I must say, I haven’t seen that in my practice yet. I certainly see the headaches - all the time. And, seizures patients have problems. That I know

Mary - Well, you’ll see detached retinas and retinal hemorrhaging as well.

Dr. A. - Let’s talk to Joy in NJ., Joy, you’re on WOR.

Joy: Yes, good evening, Dr. Atkins and Ms. Stoddard. I experienced a severe problem with aspartame about ten years ago. I put it in my coffee and within three minutes, I had such a headache I couldn’t stand on my feet. I had palpitations, dizziness, I was deathly sick. I thought I was going to end up in the hospital.

Dr. A. - Mary, do you think the headaches are from the phenylalanine part, the aspartic acid part or methanol?

M. - It could be from any one of those components of aspartame. Most people don’t react immediately, but some people do. We have children who have seizures on one stick of chewing gum.

Dr. A Joy, did you have problems with MSG as well?

Joy: Yes, I did.

Dr. A. Just as bad as with aspartame?

Joy: No, not as bad. Worse with aspartame.

Dr. A. So, you knew you had Chinese Restaurant Syndrome?

Joy: Yes, I did.

Dr. A. That’s what we hear all the time. If you take a careful history most of these people . . .

Joy: And, I was wanting to test it again, and I was stupid enough to try it again, to be sure this was the problem. So, I subjected myself to it once more and got the same reaction.

Dr. A. That’s not stupid. That’s the way you learn. You never would have been certain, if you hadn’t done it a second time.

Joy - Well, how do you know? Now, I did it with the elimination process, and I’ll never touch the stuff again! But people around me don’t seem to have the problem and they don’t understand why I do.

Mary - Maybe they don’t have the problem - but, maybe they do and they just don’t know it. Or, maybe they will have a few months from now or even a few years from now. You can’t even be sure you will never have a problem, because first of all, we don’t know why the people who have problems have the problems they have. There just isn’t enough empirical data available to know for sure.

Dr. A - One thing we know, Joy’s is not dose related.

Joy - No, and this is just like one shot in coffee and I’m almost on the floor three minutes later.

Dr. A - I wonder if you’re not a PKU carrier. Have a PKU trait, because this is an unusually quick reaction to less than ten milligrams.

Mary - And, also we would like you, Joy to write this reaction in a letter and send it to us. We would appreciate having this for our files.

Dr. A - Let’s get that address where they send it.

Mary - Send it to ACSN at P.O. Box 2001, Frisco, Texas 75034.

Dr. A - And, that goes for all of you who are having reactions. All of you - thanks for sharing that and thanks for your call. Okay, time for a call from Victoria in Rye, you’re on WOR.

Victoria - Hello, Dr. Atkins, I listen to your program every night.

Dr. A - Good judgment - thank you!

Victoria - I’m calling about NutraSweet and Sweet n Low. I’ve used them for years. Listening to your program tonight I have so much problem. I’ve put a lot of weight on, I have tons of gas, when I use NutraSweet. And, I have bad indigestion . . . just terrible. And, I am a person who took very good care of my health. But, for years, I’ve been using NutraSweet and Sweet n Low, for a very long time about ten, twelve years.

The hardest thing I have is dizziness, I have headaches, my night sight is almost gone and also my memory . . .
I am a young well-educated person!

Mary - It’s almost like alzheimer’s.

Victoria - Yes, why am I having a hard time remembering?

Mary - One of the things people report most is having symptoms like alzheimer’s. They also report Chronic Fatigue Syndrome symptoms, Lyme Disease symptoms are exactly the same as aspartame symptoms. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, lots of PMS, anxiety and phobia disorders, Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome, which people are dying from and which I had. And, Grave’s Disease, which both President Bush and wife Barbara both had. They were both big users of the NutraSweet products.

Dr. A - What I’ve done since I got your report is this: I will take any of my patients off of it. I now ask all my patients to give me a history of their use and the quantities they are using. Anybody who has an average or more quantity use, I take them off if they have any of those symptoms. And a whole variety of them and then we see. Thank you

Victoria - Just one more thing - do you think acne, I’ve got a lot of acne, is caused by this?

Mary - Skin conditions rashes dermatologists are reporting lots of people with skin conditions from this.

Dr. A - Yes!

Mary - And, they go away and that includes inside the body as well. Lots of people report sores inside the mouth, for example.

Dr. A - Thank you for your call. We’re on WOR.

Commercial Break

Dr. A - WOR time is 9:48, and we’re talking to Mary Stoddard. Now on the phone lines, we’re gonna talk to Simon in Queens. You’re on WOR.

My experience with MSG was a strong thirst. My question is about rice syrup, which is natural.

Dr. A - You might as well use sugar.

Simon - So, what artificial sweetener would be safe?

Dr. A - Well, not only artificial sweetener, but there are some natural ones for instance, Stevia is 180 times sweeter than sugar, glycerisen the licorice one is about 50 times sweeter, ammonium glycerisen is recognized as safe by FDA. There’s something called serendipity berries, miracle fruit, and the grapefruit extract or the orange peel extract, and there are five or six others that have been studied by the Dept. of Agriculture . . . it’s just hard to get them. Matter of fact, the same FDA that keeps saying aspartame is good for you, won’t let Stevia out there . . .

Mary - That’s right!

Dr. A - And, they go around grabbing it when it comes into the country, and confiscating it, or doing whatever they do with it. I think they probably make themselves some limeade with it!

Mary - Yeah, they ban it. They banned Stevia from Whole Foods Markets, as a sweetener.

Dr. A - It’s as though the FDA, now, I’m not saying they do, they act as though they had stock in the NutraSweet Company.

Mary - Oh, absolutely they do. At the Senate Hearings where I gave testimony, FDA was referred to as the “Handmaidens of Industry.”

Dr. A - So, I’m not the first person to call them a name? [laughing]

Mary - No, you’re not! Actually, we have a connection in New York City with a Chancellor with your university there, City University of New York? She did some experiments and got seizures in the lab animals. She was working for NutraSweet at the time and I understand she wanted to report it

Dr. A - They wouldn’t let her, I’ll bet. Why would they?


Mary - Yes, and they [NutraSweet Co.] wouldn’t let her. And, also, in Brooklyn at SUNY, there’s a researcher who has found birth defects, and NutraSweet withdrew support from her, as well, so she finished the studies with her own money.

Dr. A - You know what? You’re beginning to see, I found out a lot of information, in researching this for my newsletter, about studies that were done that were never published!

Mary - It was suppressed . . .

Dr. A - Incredible, the amount of intellectual suppression!

Mary - That’s right.

Dr. A - And, anybody who thinks that the scientific community is honest, I have an entire system of bridges I will sell you - cheap!

Dr. A. - WOR time is 9:58, so uh, we’ll take a few calls after ten o’clock for those of you who want to stay on . . . I know Mary Stoddard would like to answer your questions, and so would I.

Mary - Yes. The listeners out there who have had reactions need to report it to our Aspartame Consumer Safety Network. You need to let us know so that we can report it to others.

Dr. A - How many have you collected, by doing it that way?

Mary - Well over six thousand.

Dr. A - Well, we’ll get another four or five hundred or a thousand from listeners to this program.

Mary - And, Dr. Atkins, we challenge your listeners to go off aspartame for a period of four to six weeks. I guarantee they’ll feel better after that, if they do.

Dr. A - Yeah, that’s a very good way. I love that. The insidious effects wouldn’t get better, but the direct effects would. All right, right now it’s time for the ten o’clock news right here on WOR, Where Your Friends Are! . . .

Break

Dr. A - Welcome back. We have Frank on the line.

Frank - The FDA appointed a Public Board of Inquiry who reviewed the data. The Board reviewed data where aspartame had been given to rats and the rat studies. In one of these studies, the so-called E-34 studies, they found an increased incidence of brain tumors of 3.75 % on aspartame . . .

Mary - That’s right.

Frank - And, the control group was point eight. This board that had been the Public Inquiry Board, was rather concerned about it and they concluded that yes, they had been given large quantities, more than what might be used under normal human consumption levels, nevertheless, they should be considered and evaluated further, prior to any release.

Dr. A - Yes, now that’s a violation of The Delaney Clause,

Mary - That’s right, it is.

Dr. A - It’s the same thing that got cyclamates, which were relatively safe, off the market.

Mary - Absolutely right. And, the same Searle scientists who submitted the aspartame studies to the FDA, lost a court battle and were forced to pay a nine million dollar judgment to Plaintiffs, in the case of their IUD, because the jury found the Searle scientists falsified their tests. We have two former FDA toxicologists who testified under oath at the Senate Hearings, that Searle did the same thing to get aspartame approved. There’s lots of evidence to support that.

Dr. A - What was also interesting, was when a group of scientists asked for a hearing on behalf of the FDA, the FDA actually turned them down.

Mary - Yes, they did.

Dr. A - That was the same year FDA published that 80% of all reactions to all foods people react to, 80% of them were coming from aspartame.

Mary - Yes, aspartame was first approved in 1974, and the approval was rescinded - because of the brain tumor issue. So, it never got to market that year for that reason. Then, in 1981, administrations changed and FDA had a new director, and as soon as that new FDA Director, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., saw to it, aspartame was approved for soft drinks, he left the FDA and two months later, went to work for the NutraSweet public relations firm as a consultant, for a thousand dollars a day.

Dr. A - Oh, God love him! I think it’s just wonderful if a person can put his own career ahead of everybody else! Okay, thanks for sharing that with us, Frank. Now, let’s talk to Susan. Welcome to Your Health Choices.

Susan - You know, saccharin has been used a lot in Europe, and I’d like to know if similar effects have been observed?

Dr. A - Not only in Europe, but also right here in the U.S.

Mary - Right. The FDA, as of this date, has had six complaints regarding saccharin. No deaths, no double blind studies showing harm. Six complaints. Yet, 85% of their complaints now are about aspartame, and yet, the FDA would like to see saccharin banned! I don’t use anything to sweeten tea or coffee, and I don’t drink sodas.

Dr. A - Susan, thank you for your call. Mary, by the way just to help people quantitate their intake, I understand one packet of Equal has 35 milligrams of aspartame and, one ounce of diet soda has about 16 milligrams. The other horrible thing, now that I think about it is they don’t have to print the quantities on the labels.

Mary - I think it’s approximately 190 to 200 milligrams per can of diet soda. [That means there are 20 milligrams of methanol, wood alcohol, in a can of diet soda.]

Dr. A - You know the diet iced teas taste so much sweeter than the soft drinks, I wonder if they put 20 milligrams in them?

Mary - In the soft drinks - they really sock the sweetener to ‘em, because it breaks down in heat. After they reach 86 degrees fahrenheit, aspartame turns into the breakdown products: methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid, phenylalanine and aspartic acid. So, because it breaks down in heat and storage, they add more aspartame than is necessary to the soft drinks.

In fact, we’ve had workers in factories call us very concerned because some of them report coughing up “sweet stuff.” To quote them, “for two hours after they get off work.” They’re getting sick from exposure to aspartame on the job. They are not given protective clothing, and aspartame powder in the air can be inhaled and absorbed by the skin. So, we have a lot of concerns about that.

Dr. A - Okay. Let’s take a call from Mary.

M. - Yes, Dr. Atkins. I’m concerned with the phenylalanine, because I’ve read that phenylalanine can be used for pain, in combination with tyrosine, it can be used for depression. My daughter is currently taking phenylalanine for depression. Is that phenylalanine the same as the phenylalanine in aspartame?

Mary - Yes. Phenylalanine can cause depressions. Suicidal depressions and aberrant behaviors are products of phenylalanine, according to Dr. Richard Wurtman, the head of brain science at MIT.

Dr. A - But, the difference is, if a doctor prescribes phenylalanine, he is aware of the dose, and he’s looking for response. In other words, if you’re thirsty and you just want a nice sweet drink, you’re not doing it to take a dose of medication. Before I learned this, I fell in love with one of the diet iced teas. I started drinking a quart of it a day. And, uh, strange things started happening to me. Uh, I started getting headaches and then, I couldn’t understand why I was gaining weight! Here I was, playing all this tennis and figuring I was going to lose all this weight, instead I would gain weight!

Mary - We have a case of a doctor who was drinking a lot of the aspartame sweetened iced teas, when they first came out, and he developed symptoms similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease. When he stopped using it, most of his symptoms went away - the partial paralysis, for example. Aspartic acid can cause those symptoms.

Dr. A - Okay, Mary, thank you for your call. Now, let’s talk to Diane. Welcome to Your Health Choices.

Diane - I just wanted to report that I was drinking diet iced tea quite a few years ago, and during that time, I had three seizures.

Mary - Good grief!

Dr. A - How much were you drinking?

Diane - A couple of glasses a day. They weren’t grand mal seizures, they were petite . . . small seizures.

Dr. A. - Had you ever had seizures before?

Diane - No.

Dr. A - Really? On just two glasses a day.

Mary - That’s not all that uncommon. I had my reaction on two glasses of diet soda a day. A life threatening blood disorder, [Eosinophilia], from it. And, my child wasn’t drinking that much Crystal Light, either. For some people, it just doesn’t take as much. We don’t know why. But, I’m glad you found out, and I would love to have a letter from you detailing your case. Send it to us at our P.O. box, please.

Dr. A - Mary, I want to thank you for being on the program. I want you to give the phone number to call if you’ve had a reaction. And, so that my listeners can call and order the book. Mary Nash Stoddard, you’re doing a wonderful service, and I appreciate your being on this program.

Mary - Great being with you and your listeners this evening. I’ve enjoyed it.

Dr. A - Thanks. I’m Dr. Robert Atkins, and this is Your Health Choices.





Mary Nash Stoddard, Founder
Aspartame Consumer Safety Network and Pilot Hotline [1987-2005]
P.O. Box 2001 - Frisco, TX 75034
tel. 1-214-387-4001
email: marystod@airmail.net
http://www.aspartamesafety.com