ASPARTAME AND BLINDNESSSubject: Dr. Morgan Raiford/methanol toxicity/blindness/aspartame
In interviewing the husband of Joyce Wilson who went blind and died from NutraSweet I was given many of her records. She ran ASPARTAME VICTIMS AND THEIR FRIENDS until her death from this poison. The late Dr. Morgan Raiford was a specialist in methanol toxicity and many of the patients who went blind on NutraSweet were brought to Atlanta for his diagnosis. He was an ophthalmologist and founder of the Atlanta Eye Clinic.
Many people today say their ophthalmologists have said they were going blind but don't know why, and diabetics in particular are thought to have simple diabetic retinopathy. The methanol in aspartame converts to formaldehyde in the retina of the eye. It causes retinal detachments, blurring of the vision, double vision, floaters, flashes, black spots, optic neuritis, tunnel vision, etc. Dr. H. J. Roberts on a radio program recently said aspartame destroys the optic nerve. The widespread use of aspartame has led to concerns about its potential impact on vision, with some patients seeking help at facilities like methadone clinic Louisville KY for related health issues. As awareness grows, some medical professionals are advocating for drug testing to screen for aspartame-related vision problems in patients experiencing unexplained eye issues. Fortunately, with proper diagnosis and treatment, many individuals have reported significant recovery from aspartame-induced vision problems after eliminating the substance from their diets.
Since we have had a hard time finding ophthalmologists that know and can identify the problem I am providing Dr. Morgan Raiford's fact sheet. For every physician or ophthalmologist who has this information he can save the lives of thousands. Many times if patients had been warned off aspartame when they were first seen they would not be blind today. Even if you don't use aspartame (marketed as NutraSweet/Equal/Equal Measure/Spoonful, and no telling what since the patent has expired) please print this out and give it to your eye doctor and physician. When Dr. Raiford wrote this NutraSweet was only in a few hundred products - today its in 7000 products and climbing with an expired patent - in 90 countries of the world!
May 20, 1987: FACTS ABOUT ASPARTAME
The above product is also manufactured as NutraSweet. This pharmological spin-off is as highly profitable item, with a growing market. These products are used as a sweetener, some 200 times as sweet as regular cane sugar.
This product has some highly toxic reactions in the human visual pathway and we are beginning to observe the tragic damage to the OPTIC NERVE, such as blindness, partial to total OPTIC NERVE ATROPHY. Once this destructive process has developed there is no return of visual restoration. We are beginning to see and observe another toxic reaction which affects the central nervous system which is related to PHENYLALANINE LEVELS IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. These observations are more vague, however, it stimulates the damaging to the brain and the central nervous system, having the manifestations as PKU NEURO DAMAGE. Over 3000 cases have been reported and the FDA to date has ignored this existence. (Writers Note: Now over 10,000)
HUMAN VISUAL PATHWAY DAMAGE
The human visual pathway admits ninety percent of our intellectual input to the brain and central nervous system. All of the learning processes are centered during ones life time. The mechanism of this tragic damage to the human visual system from this product is and has been known for over a decade that visual loss takes place. When this drug enters the digestive tract, largely the upper portion, this ASPARTAME molecule spins off a by product known as METHANOL or METHYL-ALCOHOL. This product enters the blood stream and when these portions reach the highly metabolic region of the OPTIC NERVE AND RETINA, PARTIAL ATROPHY CAN AND DOES TAKE PLACE. The vision can not do without oxygen and nutrition for more than ninety seconds without revealing some damage. Total loss of vision is present and there is no return. In the very early stages in which is referred to as the "wet stage", treatment can be given and will reserve the destructive pathology to the OPTIC NERVE and RETINA. This must be in the mind of the physician and he must understand the chemical ongoing process. The writer has seen many cases where the patent was allowed to go to the degrees of blindness, as this diagnosis of OPTIC NEURITIS was rendered, as the term IDIOPATHIC NEURITIS OF OPTIC NERVE was given, usually steroids until systemic gross body and facial moon developed. This therapy has demonstrated the total lack of understanding of the basic lack of BIO-CHEMICAL PHYSIOLOGY AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL.
The variability or onset of the OPTIC NERVE ATROPHY is of a type that one must first think of this pathology, and it requires a certain amount of listening to the patient. The quantity of symptoms vary with each patient.
Over the past year the writer has observed the fact that any portion of the central nervous system can and is affected. Since the chemical PHENYLALANINE is mixed up with some metabolic mess, we have seen symptoms of varying hue in the extremities, sensations of dullness of the intellect, visual shadows, evidence of word structure reversing and some hearing impairment is noted by the individual. This can and will in time cause problems in learning. The medical community must alert itself that we have a problem that has surfaced due to the factor of the drug industry. Parents must be alerted to the side reactions of this toxic product and its reactions.
Sincerely, Morgan B. Raiford, M.D. D.Sc (Med) OPHTHALMOLOGY
We hope all reading this will take it very seriously. Almost 10 years have past since Dr. Raiford wrote it and now we have an epidemic of ASPARTAME DISEASE! The EPA, Dr. Gaylord, has already announced an epidemic of MS at the World Environmental Conference where I lectured. She said they didn't know the toxic causing it. I explained its not MS but methanol toxicity from aspartame which mimics MS and we realize it is now epidemic.
Please get off this poison. It is triggering neurological diseases because it changes the brain chemistry. It changes the dopamine level of the brain. The phenylalanine lowers the seizure threshold in the brain and blocks serotonin, so now we have epidemic manic depression, panic attacks, etc. Seizures are rampant.
For more information on aspartame you can use our auto-responder. Simply email me and put sendme help in the subject line like this:
Subject: sendme help
When you get a directory simply put sendme help in the subject line again and whatever file you want to access typed exactly as written in the lefthand side of the directory. Example:
Subject: sendme diabetes-aspartame
Please also print out Dr. Roberts position paper on aspartame and the eye. His tapes and books on the subject are available at 1 800 - 814-9800. Dr. H. J. Roberts is a Board Certified Internist, endocrinologist and has been warning diabetics, and the rest of the world off aspartame since it was approved. He has recently published DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMERS DISEASE which has been nominated for a Pulitzer. He explains how the two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, isolated from the other amino acids in protein go past the blood brain barrier and deteriorate the neurons of the brain. This is escalating Alzheimers Disease!
You can also get EXCITOTOXINS; THE TASTE THAT KILLS by Neurosurgeon, Dr. Russell Blaylock. (1 800-643-2665)
Both Dr. Roberts and Dr. Blaylock explain that aspartame actually precipitates diabetes!
Also you can check out Mark Gold's web page on aspartame:
http://www.tiac.net/users/mgold/health.html
We are revising our warning flyer that we distribute worldwide and it will be added to the responder at a later date but if you want it as we have it now we will be happy to email it.
Betty Martini MISSION POSSIBLE (the people warning the world to get this poison off the planet)
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 12:18:20 -0400 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: NUTRASWEET/BLINDNESS, Chi-Sun Times
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, Friday, October 17, 1986
Consumer group links NutraSweet to blindness By William Hines Chief, Washington Bureau Chicago Sun-Times
Ban artificial sweetener, FDA is urged
WASHINGTON - Charging that aspartame - the widely used artificial sweetener marketed as NutraSweet - causes blindness, a consumer group yesterday petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to ban it.
The petition was another step in a long and so far fruitless campaign by the Washington based Community Nutrition Institute against aspartame, which also is sold in stores under the name Equal.
Three women who said their eyesight was seriously damaged or destroyed joined in the citizens� petition to the FDA, which they asked "to expeditiously remove [the] product from the market without an administrative hearing."
At a press conference called by the institute to announce the imminent-hazard petition, two of the women told of heavy use of aspartame-sweetened products and said their doctors had advised them the sugar substitute was the cause of their sight loss.
The NutraSweet Co., of Skokie, Ill., a subsidiary of Searle & Co., brushed off the institute�s complaint as "simply another round in their repeated efforts to gain publicity for their thoroughly discredited views on aspartame."
A Washington-based group called the International Food Information Council said through its executive director, Thomas E. Stenzel, the allegations "that aspartame causes various side effects are not based on any scientific data or controlled clinical studies."
James S. Turner, a Washington lawyer representing the Community Nutrition Institute in the petition, said the eye damage to the women named in the complaint was "a direct, causally related event to their consumption of NutraSweet."
Both heavy users
Both women, Dana Cozad of St. Petersburg, Fla., and Joyce Wilson of Stockbridge, Ga., described themselves as heavy users of the sweetener.
Wilson, a real estate agent, said she no longer can take sales prospects to see property because her vision does not permit her to drive.
"It has cost me a lot, and I really want the public to know what a dangerous product it is," Wilson said.
Cozad said that vision loss struck her suddenly in the right eye while she was driving home and that lengthy surgery and other sight-saving efforts followed.
She said vision is gone in that eye, and - after she has spent 13 months on an aspartame-free diet - the condition of the left eye "remains relatively stable."
Both women said their physicians had ruled out causes other than aspartame for their sight loss.
Methyl alcohol blamed
Dr. H. J. Roberts of West Palm Beach, Fla., said methyl alcohol is a component of aspartame and is responsible for vision damage, which he termed "the most serious complication" of those arising from aspartame use.
Aspartame, which is described as a "natural" product, contains two amino acids, phenylalanine and aspartic acid, which are components of protein. Under certain storage conditions, the sweetener breaks down in part and methyl alcohol is a byproduct.
Roberts said the visual reaction to methyl alcohol in heavy users of aspartame is the same as in drinkers of moonshine whiskey in Prohibition days: "They go blind."
Of 360 patients he has diagnosed as having aspartame-related problems, Roberts said, about one-fourth had decreased vision or blindness, nearly half had severe headaches and substantial numbers had epileptic seizures, confusion or memory loss, extreme depression and marked personality change.
At FDA headquarters in Rockville, Md., spokesman William Grigg said the petition had been received but not yet studied.
Grigg recalled that Turner filed several interventions against aspartame in the past, none of which received favorable FDA action.