Aspartame/Nutrasweet

Always interesting to see large scale productions and substances getting into the market, even with so much resistance and controversy.

Aspartame – Killing Us Sweetly

By Carol Guilford
9-13-7

The headlines scream: “Dramatic Increase in Teen Suicide”, “American Girls’ Suicide Rates Spike” and “Suicide Rates Up In US Girls.”

After a decade of decline, the suicide rate for girls ages 10-14 rose 76% percent in 2004, the biggest spike in 15 years. The CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reports suicide rates among older teen girls, those aged 15-19 shot up 32%.

“In surveillance speak, this is a dramatic and huge increase,” in pre-teen and teen suicide, said Ileana Arias, PhD, the Center’s director. At a news conference, Dr. Arias reported hanging and asphyxiation rather than firearms and poisoning are becoming much more common as methods to commit suicide among 10-14 year olds.

The suicide rate had declined by 28% between 1990 and 2003 before the dramatic jump in 2004.

Guess what happened, circa the turn of the century? Breath strips with aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet) made their way into the marketplace. Plus, without informing its customers, The Wrigley Company put aspartame, the artificial chemical sweetener in all of its gums, not just the sugar-free kind-now gums such as Doublemint and Juicyfruit are laced with aspartame.

Coincidence?

In 1993, under the Freedom of Information Act, the FDA released 92 symptoms caused by aspartame, reported by 10,000 consumers. No. 3, on the list is change in mood quality or level-in other words, depression.

With chewing gum added to the copious amounts of aspartame-laden diet sodas consumed by young women, one can virtually hear a death knell.

In 2001, Mary Nash Stoddard, founder of the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network wrote: “Aspartame (aka NutraSweet, Equal), as shown in the literature, can be a powerful, mind-altering drug-driving some over the abyss into dark, sinister depressions they can not shake, even with the use of anti-depressants. Suicide, for many individuals may seem to be the only way out.”

…

(Full Article: http://www.rense.com/general78/swet.htm)