chemical? I wondered what chemicals were in aspartame and asked myself how I could find out.
Was I looking for a needle in a haystack? Luckily, I was competent in investigations like this because of my environmental background. As a professional engineer, it was my job to investigate toxic chemicals deposited in soil and groundwater. Could I pioneer an investigation to successfully expose the chemical or chemicals deposited in my body?
I focused my investigation on the Bushes’ two cases of Graves’ disease, trying to trace any environmental similarities between the illnesses of President and Mrs. Bush and that of my adopted sister and myself. I read every obtainable article and watched every interview with the Bushes in which they discussed their cases of Graves’ disease, what the doctors did before and after they destroyed their thyroids with radioactive cocktails, what they ate, how they lived, where they traveled, their exercise routines, their personal histories, everything I could find for clues. I presumed that unless President and Mrs. Bush were traveling in separate cities, they most likely ate, drank, and slept in the same places.
How did this relate to my sister and me? Neither of us did the same things or traveled the same places as President and Mrs. Bush. So what did the four of us living in different surroundings with very different lifestyles do which was identical?
I considered whether my sister and my Graves’ might source from the way we were raised. But I quickly discarded this idea. Mom brought us up on southern home-cooked meals and flu shots every year. Childhood dinners and midnight refrigerator raids had departed from our systems by now. Beth and I both agreed that the cause had to be something we did, and were still doing, after leaving home.
Maybe Beth and I, having been raised in the same household, now ate the same type of foods. I wondered if my sister’s pantry looked like mine. We had lived in different cities for many years, but we still might eat similar things. We might even be eating or drinking the same things the Bushes did. We all might be causing the Graves’ disease ourselves.
Like “sisters in crime,” Beth and I began scanning our diets. We compared foods that we both ate regularly. Nothing too unusual popped up, until I mentioned drinking a lot of diet drinks. Beth interjected, “That’s funny. Lately, I’ve been buying a lot of sugar-free foods with the NutraSweet label. I’m always so thirsty. I sip diet drinks all day long because I’m developing problems with my blood sugar.”
“I’ve been drinking them because of my weight problem.”
Despite our motivations being different, to me, the fact that both Beth and I had developed Graves’ after we both started heavily drinking diet sodas was more than coincidental. Within a few weeks of our conversation, Beth’s condition worsened. She became an insulin dependent diabetic. One morning just after waking, Beth checked her blood sugar to find it so low she was rushed to the hospital, by that time nearly in a coma. Even though we were not blood sisters, I had no doubt I might soon follow in her footsteps. After all, I had duplicated her path of illness so far. That scared me. Again, what were the odds of adopted sisters both developing Graves’ disease and both possibly diabetes? What were we doing the same?
I had never used anything with aspartame until a year or so before my Graves’, but Beth confessed she had been using saccharin in her coffee and iced tea, until, after NutraSweet was introduced, when saccharin became harder to find. It was also around this time that saccharin started getting bad publicity, which worried her. As we talked, Beth remembered first developing blood sugar problems around this time. Now she was insulin dependent. Coincidence? I thought it had to be the diet sweetener. But how?
The year before my Graves’ diagnosis, I fell into the trap of believing “sugar-free is responsibility-free.” Advertisements convinced me I could eat and drink all I wanted without paying the price of gaining weight. “How could I have been so gullible?” Beth bleakly added, “But what else can a diabetic use?”
“We’ll find something safe,” I promised.
Meanwhile, my own body continued to stabilize. The purified diet, the vitamins, and no aspartame seemed to be returning me to health. I was more convinced than ever that it was the aspartame which had been making me sick during the past year. Now, I had to prove it.
I also was beginning to feel I never actually had Graves’ disease. Maybe the real Graves’ can’t be cured. Perhaps my symptoms simply mirrored those of the disease. Could they be, instead, a reaction to aspartame’s toxins accumulating in my thyroid gland that mimicked textbook Graves’?
As I learned more and became more convinced of aspartame’s dangers, I also began hearing stories of others who had reacted negatively. I decided to write to the NutraSweet Company to tell them of my experience. When they wrote back they labeled my experience as anecdotal, which meant they didn’t think it proved a thing because I was not an “official” laboratory guinea pig. I disagreed. I knew what I experienced, and my experience was real and could be summed up very simply: no more aspartame—no more Graves’ disease. That was proof enough for me.
Moreover, knowing that there had to be too many other people similarly suffering as Beth and I had, made me want to do something, anything, to warn them of the dangers of aspartame.
I thumbed through the phone book and called a number listed under Speakers Organizations. If I was going to reach the public, I wanted to learn the best way. They recommended I talk to a woman who could help me get started, Mary Nash Stoddard.
Once again, fate seemed to direct me. A publicist by profession, Mary, I soon found out, had founded the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network (ACSN, Inc.) in 1987. It was a coincidence that astounded me. The ACSN is an international consumer safety organization founded to inform the public about the background and questionable safety of aspartame (NutraSweet). Mary exclusively funds the organization and dedicates countless hours day and night answering a toll free aspartame hotline.
When we met, Mary shared some impressive facts about aspartame which outlined the dangerous side effects the diet sweetener had on laboratory monkeys, rats, guinea pigs, and humans. She apologized for being so straightforward. After all, she didn’t know me and we didn’t meet to discuss the dangers of aspartame but to launch my speaking career. She felt this information might help me to help others who were suffering similar symptoms.
Mary quickly exposed me to the politics of the food industry, which was a real eye-opener. “I can’t believe how naive I’ve been. Probably,” I said, “millions of other people around the world like me believe anything sold for consumption is safe. Too many untrustworthy decisions directly affecting our health are being made by the wrong people: bureaucrats, politicians, big business executives. Not only was I being bamboozled, but millions of other people are being victimized.”
“There are some documents I need to show you,” Mary said soberly. The documents she gave me were shocking. They showed that aspartame is found in thousands of food products. Research studies as early as the 1970s showed holes in the brains of laboratory mice fed aspartame! The FDA had received several thousand official complaints against aspartame. Three Senate hearings had been held to debate the public safety of aspartame, but nothing had ever been adjudicated.
The true history of aspartame was deeply disturbing. I was disappointed in the American government, notably the FDA, which I had always believed ensured the safety of the food we ate. However, I now learned that the FDA possessed the results of research which proved beyond a reasonable doubt that aspartame consumption was risky.
Among the documents Mary showed me was a letter written by Linda Tollefson in 1987 about aspartame complaints and safety, and printed by the Office of Nutrition and Food Services for Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) of the United States Food and Drug Administration. According
