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WHEREAS, in 1980, the Public Board of Inquiry unanimously voted against aspartame approval, but was overruled by a new United States Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Dr. Arthur Hull Hays, against the advice of Food and Drug Administration scientific personnel and advisers; and
WHEREAS, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved aspartame use in sodas, despite the fact that the National Soft Drink Association argued vehemently against aspartame in these quotes from their protest:
(1) "The present record does not contain data which demonstrate that the use of APM in soft drinks will not result in the adulteration of the beverages under section 402(a)(3) of the FDC Act 21 U.S.C. 342(a)(3), which provides that a food is adulterated if it contains, in whole or in part, "a decomposed substance or if it is otherwise unfit for food";
(2) "An important decomposition product of aspartame, aspartic acid, cannot be detected at all using TLC";
(3) "G. D. Searle and Company has not demonstrated to a reasonable certainty that the use of aspartame in soft drinks, without quantitative limitations, will not adversely affect human health as a result of the changes such use is likely to cause in brain chemistry and under certain reasonably anticipated conditions of use"; and
(4) "Specifically, Searle has not met its burdens under section 409....to demonstrate that aspartame is safe and functional for use in soft drinks. Collectively, the extensive deficiencies in the stability studies conducted by Searle to demonstrate that aspartame and its degradation products are safe in soft drinks intended to be sold in the United States, render those studies inadequate and unreliable." Senate Congressional Record, May 7, 1985, S5507–5511; and
WHEREAS, the United States Food and Drug Administration has compiled a list of ninety-two symptoms attributed to aspartame consumption including four types of seizures, coma, and death; and
WHEREAS, the Ramazzini Studies by the European Foundation for Oncology in Italy conducted exhaustive studies over three years with thousands of rats, and proved aspartame to be a multipotential carcinogen, thus confirming the United States Food and Drug Administration's original findings; and
WHEREAS, the United States Food and Drug Administration admitted that aspartame caused cancer over two decades ago when the Administration's toxicologist, Dr. Adrian Gross, told Congress at least one of Searle's studies "has established beyond any reasonable doubt that aspartame is capable of inducing brain tumors in experimental animals and that this predisposition of it is of extremely high significance....In view of these indications that the cancer causing potential of aspartame is a matter that had been established way beyond any reasonable doubt, one can ask: What is the reason for the apparent refusal by the FDA to invoke for this food additive the so-called Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act? Given the cancer causing potential of aspartame how would the FDA justify its position that it views a certain amount of aspartame as constituting an allowable daily intake or 'safe' level of it? Is that position in effect not equivalent to setting a 'tolerance' for this food additive and thus a violation of that law? And if the FDA itself elects to violate the law, who is left to protect the health of the public?" Congressional Record, August 1, l985, SID835:131; and
WHEREAS, aspartame is linked to sudden death, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and many neurodegenerative diseases, as cited in many medical texts, most notably: Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, by H.J. Roberts, M.D., and Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, by Russell Blaylock, M.D.; and
WHEREAS, on November 3, 1987, Dr. Louis Elsas told Congress: "I am a pediatrician, a Professor of Pediatrics at Emory and have spent twenty-five years in the biomedical sciences, trying to prevent mental retardation and birth defect caused by excess phenylalanine, and therein lies my basic concern, that aspartame is in fact a well known neurotoxin and teratogen which, in some as yet undefined dose, will. . . irreversibly in the developing child or fetal brain, produce adverse effects"; and
WHEREAS, there are tens of thousands of case histories and anecdotal accounts from victims of aspartame poisoning who have come forward to make their case histories known; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2008, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Department of Health is requested to create, within their existing budget, an evidentiary repository accessible to the public for patients and physicians to submit over the next year their cases involving victims of aspartame poisoning; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Director of Health is requested to report to the Legislature on the status of the evidentiary repository during periodic interim meetings with the Chairs of the Hawaii State Senate Committees on Health and Human Services and Public Housing, the House of Representatives Committees on Health and Human Services and Housing, and the state Attorney General; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Health is requested to review all existing reports, studies, experiments, and related literature on aspartame, including clinical studies, differentiating each study by its funding source, and submit a report to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the 2009 Regular Session; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the National Academy of Sciences is requested to review all existing reports, studies, experiments, and related literature on aspartame, including clinical studies, differentiating each study by its funding source, and that, if funding is required to undertake this extended evaluation, that the appropriate funding be sought from various foundations and from Congress; and
