An Angel On My Shoulder

Here’s one that will get KR going. 😈

If pesticide effects can be passed on for generations, what about GM crops?
This is disturbing news. A report published in the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail (April 1, 2009) quoting a study published in an American medical journal Acta Paediatrica says that the harmful effects of chemical pesticides can be passed on from generation to generation.

The report quotes Paul Winchester, a professor of clinical paediatrics at Indiana University’s School of Medicine, and also a practising neonatologist at the Riley Hospital for Children, as saying:

“In one study baby rats exposed to atrazine, an herbicide that is banned in European countries, were born with no birth defects. But they developed problems including infertility, kidney and prostate problems, cancer and shortened lifespans as adults – and passed them on to their offspring.”
Atrazine, a persistent pesticide, is widely used in India [and the U.S.*]

The rest of this article can be found on Op Ed News.

How to lower stress levels. 😈
http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/26/#6/1

301
Chris B
I had already read that article and decided to let it pass but since you have posted it i will add some comments.
When you read the link and they refer to pesticides being dormant in the surface water.
After many years of denial it is coming to light that sailors who were crews of ships who were anchored in Vung Tau Harbour during the Vietnam war are now showing the highest rates of cancers and the 92 other ailments 😉 caused by Agent Orange. Higher percentages than the Swatties on land.
This is of course due to the “cult” battles which have been going on for quite a number of years. It has been discovered and now being accepted that the defoliant sprayed on the jungles finished up in the rivers (mekong feeds in to Vung Tau Harbour) when it rained.
It then flowed down river to where the ships were anchored and was picked up by the fresh water evaporators on board making the drinking water.
The more water made the more concentration of it in the tanks.
This is an article written by Simon Kearney, from the Australian, in 2006 close on 40 years after the war ended.

http://www.2ndbattalion94thartillery.com/Chas/AgentOrangeShipboard.htm

Actually I’ve recently discovered an alternative completely natural sweetener called xylitol. Great product. Less calories than the juice of the cane. Comes from corn. Check it out at a health store near you.

Lou and I went and saw Chicago at Q-pac yesterday. Great show.

Sweet as.

Hiya Ecky,
It’s awful hard to beat a live performance – especially one as polished as Chicago.
But allowing for that, yep I enjoyed it as much as Gran Torino – for a heap of different reasons.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/04/03/2534111.htm?site=science&topic=tech

Genetically modified virus building a better battery. 🙂

As to conspiracy theories, I suggest that both the left and the right are attracted to conspiracy theories – obviously ones that match their particular beliefs – because, as I have said before, humans are pattern recognition engines. And when all you have is a hammer (pattern recognition engine) you tend to treat everything as though it is a nail (pattern). This is where religion comes from; it is where science comes from; it is where global warming denial comes from; it is where 911 Truth comes from.

I don’t like the after taste of artificial sweetner. But I am not concerned about the health effects; indeed, I am more concerned about the health effects of sugar, given that I am addicted to junk food …

forgot the link

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7886780711843120756&hl=en&fs=true

Jen,

Well, I was a Clintonista, and I think that the criticism of Obama is unfair at this point. I think that some of the criticism stems from the fact that people’s expectations were sky high – impossibly so. And when Obama fails to meet those impossible standards he is condemned. As I never set such impossibly high standards for him, based on my scorecard he is doing very well indeed.

313 Jen Only watched a bit. It looked very right wing stuff to me.

315 Although after Bush’s low base anything is high.

Israel: Women Photoshopped From Cabinet Picture To Cater To The Ultra-Orthodox.
Two women serve in Israel’s new Cabinet, but some Israelis would rather not see them.

Newspapers aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jewish readers tampered with the inaugural photograph of the Cabinet, erasing ministers Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver.

Ultra-Orthodox newspapers consider it immodest to print images of women.

So what happens when Michelle Obama appears in Israel with bare arms? 😈
More of this in The Huffington Post.

310
Kirri
Sticks and stones………………
Get over it.
I would prefer to read your post about the Wall Street cults.

That would be “posts”.

DG, that’s quite true, and if we don’t examine our own tendencies to fall for any wingnut cult just because it fits our preconceptions then we are as gullible as the right wing nutters.

I detest the intellectual dishonesty of dismissing the best available science in favour of some cult for the reason it fits with one’s hatred for some company.

This is the equivalent of dismissing human induced climate change because someone claims it’s all to do with sunspots, despite the fact that all the peer reviewed papers on this subject disprove the claim. (Oh, but it’s made by scientists who claim to be specially qualified in the science of sunspots…yes, but only a tiny number are making the claim. Their ‘evidence’ is refuted, and the consensus is overwhelming that it is NOT the cause of climate change.)

So to accept the science on something so complex as climate change, but dismiss it on something so cut and dried as one food additive, is intellectual gymnastics so contorted as to be laughable.

If you can’t review the evidence, or don’t want to, then sign up for any cult. But don’t expect me not to challenge them with the evidence.

If ANYONE here can show me peer reviewed medical studies that support ANY of the claims made against aspartame in the last two decades, I’ll gladly look at it. But all I’ve seen is unsubstantiated claims that have been refuted over and over, world over.

A little intellectual honesty is hard, but anything less makes this board just another platform for wingnuttery and cultism. And personally, I’ve seen more than enough it to know what it smells like.

I’ve stepped in someone’s dogma, but I do not resile from the challenge and will not be bullied with crap like ‘you believe anything from Monsanto’.

OK, Ferny, will see if Min wants to case the musical mobsters.
“Gran Torino” had great cinema craft and was well edited. The theme of how bigoted people can actually alter their viewpoint when subjected to the humanity of others was well handled. Particularly liked Clint’s attempts at menschkeiting the kid at the barber shop and the job “interview”. Also enjoyed the way the failure to communicate between the old boy and his grasping family was portrayed.

Afraid Clint “the actor” didn’t quite do it for me. As I disclaimed earlier , never been a fan. The only two of the supporting cast that appealed were the barber and the teenage girl who reached out to the old curmudgeon with the big heart early in the film. Don’t think it was an accident that Mr. Eastwood didn’t surround himself with charismatic supports, but hey, it sure made him look better by comparison.
—————————————–

Goodness gracious me, gang, my conciliatory handshake gesture (to agree to disagree) has been spurned.
Quel dommage, mais c’est la vie, Ticsteurs.

Saying that I’ve been duped by Monsanto is intellectual dishonesty (that means you Ecky)

Kirri, you have failed to respond to several polite questions and points of discussion put to you by Gaffy and my humble self, nevertheless, since you choose to impugn my integrity, I ask you to indicate by quoting the comment #, where I said you had been *duped* by Monsanto?

dupe v.t. make a fool of; cheat; gull.
Ref. OxCon

Please take all the time necessary as your accusation is hardly a trifling matter.

Kirri, just as well the “tu quoque fallacy” has never been a mainstay of your dialectic repertoire though…..

Tu quoque, (“You, too” or “You, also”) is a Latin term used to mean a type of logical fallacy. The argument states that a certain position is false or wrong and/or should be disregarded because its proponent fails to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.

In the meantime, this li’l’ ol’
proselytiser of “urban myths”,
peddler of “crank conspiracy theories”,
“intellectually dishonest”,
“cultist”,
“snake oil salesman”,
fact “twister”,
“nutter”,
“slick prick” (nice Clintonesque touch that)
“fascist enforcer”,
“flat earther”,
“scare mongerer”,
“political spinner”,
“cheap debating trickster”
“enforcer of the party line”
designated “disser”
pinch hitter for “politburo political correctness”
“rabid extemist”
“propagandist”
“claptrap”-ist (Shock! Horror! Monk contracts dose of cotton sox)
“Herr Doktor”-style “bully”
“unscientific”

and, oh yes, “Naughty Corner” habitue(et tu, jen)…..
is off to scout the inter-tubes for fresh toonies.

Geez…………. for a minute there I thought I was right about everything!

Not a mention of the name Ronald Regan.

Gorbachev’s role in 1989 turmoil.
The year 1989 reshaped the world. Its news stories – from Tiananmen Square to the fall of the Berlin Wall – are now historical marker posts. BBC Diplomatic Editor Brian Hanrahan watched many of the events at first hand, and will retrace his steps this year.

One of the paradoxes of 1989 was that communism was destroyed by its own system. I’m not thinking here of the weight of economic collapse, which hollowed out the whole Soviet Bloc.

Painful though it would have been, the countries of Eastern Europe and their Soviet overlord could have limped on for many years – their people suffering and their influence declining. They would have been marginalised but left alone until they eventually collapsed, probably with much bloodshed.

Continued in BBC News
Isn’t it amazing how the wingnuts have pumped up Regan’s roll in this.

332
Non industry funded peer reviewed 91 where seven out of ninety one say Aspartame is good and 84 say Aspartame = adverse reactions.

October 24, 2007 — A large-scale review reports there is no evidence that the nonnutritive sweetener aspartame is associated with neurological damage, cancer, or other health problems in humans.

Published in the September issue of Critical Reviews in Toxicology, the 100-page report includes a review of more than 500 studies, including toxicological, clinical, and epidemiological research dating from preclinical work during the 1970s to the latest studies on the high-intensity sweetener.

Led by Bernadene Magnuson, PhD, from the University of Maryland in College Park, an international, independent expert panel from 10 universities and medical schools was commissioned to investigate the safety of the sweetener, which is used in more than 6000 products in 90 countries.

“We found no credible evidence that aspartame is carcinogenic or neurotoxic or has any other adverse effects when consumed even at very high levels,” Dr. Magnuson told Medscape Neurology & Neurosurgery.

Funding Source not a Factor

Although the study was commissioned and funded by unrestricted support from Ajinomoto Company Inc, a Japanese firm that produces aspartame as well as food seasonings, cooking oils, foods, and pharmaceuticals, the authors were blinded to the sponsor until after the manuscript was submitted for publication. Similarly, the company had no knowledge of the identity of the expert panelists, who were recruited by a third-party consulting firm.

Dr. Magnuson said she does not believe the study’s funding source taints the report’s findings or undermines its credibility.

“We tried to make this review as independent as possible. We took great care that the sponsor had absolutely no communication with or knowledge of the expert panelists and vice versa. In addition, there were no preset requirements [by the sponsor], so we were completely free to address this question and look at any and all relevant research,” said Dr. Magnuson.

Furthermore, she pointed out that prior to publication, the paper underwent extensive evaluation by Critical Reviews in Toxicology, a highly respected peer-reviewed journal.

Current Consumption Levels Safe

Using the latest data from the 2001–2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) to determine the most current levels of aspartame consumption, the team reviewed studies that tested a number of health effects of varying levels of aspartame, including amounts far exceeding the acceptable daily intake, on animals and humans.

Overall, the panel’s evaluation concluded that aspartame is safe at current levels of consumption, which remain well below established acceptable daily-intake levels, even among high-user populations such as diabetics and hyperactive and sugar-sensitive children.

Specifically, the investigators report:

* Based on results of several long-term studies, aspartame does not have carcinogenic or cancer-promoting activity.
* Results of extensive investigation in studies that mimic human exposure do not show any evidence of neurological effects, such as memory and learning problems, of aspartame consumption.
* Overall, the weight of the evidence indicates that aspartame has no effect on behavior, cognitive function, neural function, or seizures in any of the groups studied.
* Aspartame has not been shown to have adverse effects on reproductive activity or lactation.
* Studies conclude that aspartame is safe for use by diabetics and may aid diabetics in adhering to a sugar-free diet.
* There is no evidence to support an association between aspartame consumption and obesity. On the contrary, when used in multidisciplinary weight-control programs, aspartame may actually aid in long-term weight control.
* The studies provide no evidence to support an association between aspartame and brain or hematopoietic tumor development.

History of Controversy

The sweetener has been plagued by both safety concerns and controversy over circumstances surrounding its initial approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981.

It has previously been alleged that, rather than being based on the strength of the scientific evidence that aspartame was safe, the FDA’s 1981 approval of the substance was the result of political pressure brought to bear largely by Donald Rumsfeld, former chief executive officer of GD Searle (which held the patent to aspartame), who ultimately became a member of US President Ronald Reagan’s transition team following Reagan’s 1980 election.

Early animal studies during the 1970s, said Dr. Magnuson, sparked initial concerns over aspartame’s safety when it was linked to a possible increased risk for brain damage, brain tumors, and epileptic seizures.

However, in reviewing all of the data to date, including the early research, she said the expert panel could not find evidence to support this.

“The amount of work and number of neurological studies that have been done to determine whether or not aspartame is safe is mind-boggling. Prior to starting this review, I had no idea there had been so much work done on it — virtually every animal model for neurotoxicity, including seizures, tremors, and learning disorders, has been tested in very high [oral] doses with no observed effect,” she said.

Final Word?

Dr. Magnuson added there have been many neurological studies done in humans, including potentially high-risk individuals who are predisposed to seizures, and “these consistently come up negative.”

Similarly, she said, cancer data — both animal and human — studies show no association between oral consumption of aspartame and increased cancer risk.

Dr. Magnuson says she hopes the review will put public concerns about the safety of aspartame to rest.

“I don’t think any more work needs to be done. This is an extensive review that has been published in a top-rated toxicology journal. There will still be people who continue to dispute our findings, but in my opinion we don’t need any more studies on aspartame,” she said.

Asked by Medscape to comment on the review, American Academy of Neurology spokesperson Herbert Schaumberg, MD, who is also a neurotoxicologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in the Bronx, New York, said he was not surprised by the findings.

“The public alarm over aspartame has been a smoke screen, encouraged by some bad science,” he said.

He said that Ajinomoto’s sponsorship could potentially have a negative impact on the public’s perception of the findings. Nonetheless, he added, in his opinion the review is “a definitive one, performed by recognized authorities in the field.”

The study was funded by unrestricted support from Ajinomoto Company Inc. The authors declare they have no known conflicts of interest or potential biases.

Crit Rev Toxicol. 2007;37:629-727. Abstract

Don’t come the raw prawn with me, Ecky, as they say in the vernacular. This is the ultimate put down:

“Kirri, should you wish to believe that all Monsanto’s public relations people and advertisers and researchers and employed scientists and think-tankers say is true, a priori, then it’s pointless continuing the discussion.”

The evidence is clear, the whole ‘aspartame’ causes cancer, birth defects, seizures and a thousand other maladies is a complete crock of shit, and you are talking it.

When reputable medical specialists from the British Medical Journal to our own Dr Karl, tell you it’s urban myth, there is no reputable data, all you can do is question my integrity!

You take the cake for glibness, and yes, intellectual dishonesty.

I did not quote Monsanto, nor blindly accept their statements ‘a priori’. I read the opinions of peer reviewed medical journals and other scientists who had NO connection with Monsanto.

You want to stand up for cultist’s rights, fine, but don’t impugn my integrity in the process.

What sort of nervous side effects will the ousting of the GM boss have on the bank johnies?

Tim Geithner warned on Sunday that the US government would consider ousting board members at American banks as a condition for giving the institutions “exceptional” assistance in the future.

The Treasury secretary said the Obama administration would be prepared to force out senior management to protect US taxpayers, and ensure accountability, as a condition for providing money to help banks restructure. “If, in the future, banks need exceptional assistance in order to get through this, then we’ll make sure that assistance comes with conditions,” Mr Geithner told CBS television.

You may have to register

Gafffy, the only condition that Geithner really wants to satisfy is that no one pokes around too much to see why these banks f*cked up so systemically. If he starts sacking people, then maybe the new guys will want answers.

He doesn’t. He was one of the people supposedly ‘regulating’ this stuff.

He didnt’.

Betty Martini has a ‘worldwide volunteer force’, but it’s NOT…. repeat, NOT a cult! LOL

Republicans: You Lost.
Scott Horton:

“Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administration’s abrupt pull back last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administration’s darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward. (…)

The Justice Department source confirms to me that Brennan has consistently opposed making public the torture memos — and any other details about the operations of the extraordinary renditions program — but this source suggests that concern about the G.O.P.’s roadblock in the confirmation process is the principle reason that the memos were not released. Republican senators have expressed strong reservations about their promised exposure, expressing alarm that a critique of the memos by Justice’s ethics office (Office of Professional Responsibility) will also be released. “There was no ‘direct’ threat,” said the source, “but the message was communicated clearly — if the OLC and OPR memoranda are released to the public, there will be war.” This is understood as a threat to filibuster the nominations of Johnsen and Koh. Not only are they among the most prominent academic critics of the torture memoranda, but are also viewed as the strongest advocates for release of the torture memos on Obama’s legal policy team.

A Republican Senate staffer further has confirmed to me that the Johnsen nomination was discussed at the last G.O.P. caucus meeting. Not a single Republican indicated an intention to vote for Dawn Johnsen, while Senator John Cornyn of Texas was described as “gunning for her,” specifically noting publication of the torture memos.

More in the Washington Monthly

Yeah, she’s a right case Gaffy…sorry, but she’s the prime loony tune in the whole ‘aspartame causes every disease known to man cult’ LOL

oh FFS.
The world is falling apart, and those of us who have/had enough good will to try and understand the Big Picture are now caught up in some spat about chemical sweetners.
I am disappointed.
Actaully , I am really pissed off.
Kirri – if you need to be right, then so be it.
We are all a bunch of cranky cultists, and you are so fucking superiorally intelligent to the rest of us.

As my ordinary 9 year old who can’t play piano for nuts would say– build a Bridge,
and get over it.

And this is not about every one having to agree – see David G and I about Israel/ Palestine.
it is about showing respect and courtesy even when you disagree.
As one of your long time defendants… enough.
I really like it here – because we can disagree without crucifying each other.
I hope you take my point .

So… eat/ drink / inject the stuff by the gallon KR.
can we move on now??
As you have so eloquently pointed out for the past year or more – there are bigger battles to fight.

What a deranged lot of conspiracy theory you sprout Ecky! Do you honestly believe the crap you’re talking?

The company funded the research because a wingnut spends her entire life (just google her! For fucks sake!) claiming that their product is killing millions! (Her claims are hyperbolic, hysterical and patently false)

Of course they did.

And of course they wanted the results to be unimpeachable, and yes, they got the best talent in the field to review the evidence.

Why wouldn’t they?

But no, Ecky, everything must be an EVIL conspiracy?

Really?

Just for fun, go read what the cultists write, it’s as funny as, and to hear people who appear intelligent, defending to the death such utter claptrap is, well, thoroughly amazing.

It’s sure amusing me.

Kirri, oh Cult Outer General, would it be at all possible for you to reply to Flaneur’s four questions without your “four legs good, two legs bad” use of the “C” word.

Your inability to reply specifically to points raised in good faith is a bit of a worry, actually. So let’s just bring it back to one.

Kirribilli Removals, do you claim infallibility on matters related to nutrition that have been discussed in this thread?

Flaneur, did you bother to read Dr Karl’s summary of this?

It’s here, I suggest you do:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/08/05/1167056.htm

The salient point:

There’s one final argument against the toxicity of diet drinks. Nothing in the peer-reviewed medical literature shows relationships between the consumption of diet drinks, and any of the 92 supposed diseases that aspartame causes.

…which, believe it or not, just might account for the amazing consensus that you allude to! LOL

Or, conversely, you can go to cult central and read about all the deaths and disease it causes.

Take ya pick!

And on the tobacco issue Flaneur, I’ll outline the argument again (just for you this time):

One very important early epidemiological study made the connection between smoking and cancer. Research into the various carcinogens in tobacco verified these results. Over several decades the evidence piled up, until it was overwhelmingly obvious that the truth was that tobacco smoking caused cancer (and a lot of other diseases).

But with aspartame, we’ve had the same small group of characters who are on a mission, and who claim an incredible list of diseases are caused by it.

BUT, after nearly three decades, there is NOT a growing body of evidence. In FACT, there is the OPPOSITE, there is a growing consensus from many different sources, in different studies from different countries, that no one can verify ANY of the claims made against it.

So when Dr Karl talks about all the compounds in aspartame being ingested by us all in normal foods, do you really think he’s also part of the aspartame conspiracy? Really? Or do you maybe think there is no medical reason to consider talking about tobacco and aspartame as being in the same class?

Kirri
I respect your right to have an opinion but that does not mean i have to agree that your opinion is right.
And this article is not from Betty Dorway’s website.

Dr. Blaylock: Aspartame Is Still Hazardous
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, April 12, 2006

An important message from Dr. Russell Blaylock, NewsMax medical expert, and author of the monthly Blaylock Wellness Report.

The recently-released National Cancer Institute study that purports to clear aspartame as a carcinogen, is fatally flawed. The Blaylock Report has been closely following the research on aspartame for years. Here’s my opinion on the new study:

The early release of this report represents bad science to say the least and appears to be an attempt to shore up a product that has been getting consistently bad reports from independent scientific researchers for the past decade. And these reports showing harm have been presented in peer-reviewed reputable journals from laboratories from all over the world.

To be properly evaluated, studies such as the one recently released should appear in peer-reviewed journals with all of the data and methods used in the study. Only then can a study be properly evaluated. This study has not been peer reviewed.

Further, the study has some obvious and major weaknesses in its design.
It is accepted among scientist/clinicians that the poorest type of study you can do is an epidemiological (population) study in which you have a large number of people fill out food intake sheets. And of the epidemiological studies the poorest are the ones depending on participants’ memory of intake of the product in question, a so-called retrospective study. The latest aspartame study falls in this category.

In fact, these studies are so poor they have been used for over 60 years to cover up pharmaceutical disasters. For example, despite an enormous amount of scientific evidence that the polio vaccine was contaminated with a cancer-causing virus (SV-40), the government was able to cover up this disaster by conducting similar epidemiological studies.

This has been repeated for the thimerosal(mercury)-autism disaster, the MSG toxicity scandal and the trans-fatty acid scandal — all of which were carefully covered up by such studies, until so much evidence eventually accumulated that the truth won out, at least in the trans-fatty acid scandal.

One reason 567,000 people were used in this aspartame study is that you can dilute out high cancer rates in sub-groups of people — such as particular age groups, women, children, or those with certain genetic weaknesses. This has been shown numerous times in similar studies. It also impresses the public. Yet, most agree that you cannot accurately obtain dietary information from 567,000 people.

Likewise, you cannot adequately determine cancer risk in a population with an age range so small (age 50 to 69). The greatest risk of leukemia and lymphoma would be in a younger population (young children and adolescents) and they would need to be exposed regularly from early in life. The same is true for the rest of the population. Yet, they did not determine aspartame intake prior to the start of the study age. This is ludicrous.

We also know from animal studies that the greatest risk of aspartame-related cancer is in females and that most of the brain tumors being reported are occurring in women (a known characteristic of formaldehyde-a recognized breakdown product of aspartame). Aspartame has been shown by carefully done, irrefutable studies, to cause damage to DNA and present harm to pregnant women and their babies.

Aspartame is not an essential nutrient. I would not risk my life or the lives of those I love, especially my children, on the basis of such a poorly conducted and reported study. There is just too much evidence that this sweetener is dangerous to babies, children, adults and the elderly. And much of the damage, especially to children, is irreversible.

Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
Neurosurgeon
Advanced Nutritional Concepts
Visiting Professor of Biology
Belhaven College

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/4/12/104518.shtml

Patients at our diabetes clinic have raised concerns about information on the internet about a link between the artificial sweetener aspartame and various diseases. Our research revealed over 6000 web sites that mention aspartame, with many hundreds alleging aspartame to be the cause of multiple sclerosis, lupus erythematosis, Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain tumours, and diabetes mellitus, among many others. Virtually all of the information offered is anecdotal, from anonymous sources and is scientifically implausible.

Aspartame, a dipeptide composed of phenylalanine and aspartic acid linked by a methyl ester bond, is not absorbed, and is completely hydrolysed in the intestine to yield the two constituent amino acids and free methanol. Opponents of aspartame suggest that the phenylalanine and methanol so released are dangerous. In particular, they assert that methanol can be converted to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, and thus cause metabolic acidosis and neurotoxicity.

Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol, and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1). Thus, the amount of phenylalanine or methanol ingested from consumption of aspartame is trivial, compared with other dietary sources. Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult) (1, 2).

The anti aspartame campaign purports to offer an explanation for illnesses that are prominent in the public eye. By targeting a manufactured chemical agent, and combining this with pseudo-science and selective reporting, the campaign makes complex issues deceptively simple. Sensational web site names (eg, aspartamekills.com) grab the browser’s attention and this misinformation is also widely disseminated via chat groups and chain e-mail.

People consult the internet about medical issues for various reasons and many users regard online sources as being authoritative and valid. The medical profession has a role in teaching our patients to be discriminating consumers of the information offered there.

Anthony Zehetner, Mark McLean

Department of Endocrinology, Westmead Hospital,
Sydney NSW 2145, Australia

…go on Ecky, tell me these two doctors are just ‘a priori’ accepting Monsanto ‘propaganda’! LOL

Gaffy, just tell me where these studies are, and why NO public health organisation around the world, uses them in their examination of aspartame: “Aspartame has been shown by carefully done, irrefutable studies, to cause damage to DNA and present harm to pregnant women and their babies.”

Blaylock makes extraordinary claims. He says there are all these reputabale studies that ‘prove’ these claims, yet everyone else says they do not exist.

Gotta say, I find it amazing how easily people believe anything if some ‘Dr’, no matter how loopy, makes it. Herr Doktor made quite a few claims too, I seem to recall! LOL

This guy has made a business out of it: books, lectures, media interviews…a veritable one man industry. Does that make it more credible? Nup, it just shows how any cultist operates.

My view is that we should always provisionally accept the current scientific position. While we may be experts ourselves in one narrow area, it is impossible to have the knowledge to make good judgments about the vast majority of things. The scientific process is not perfect, but it is the only methodology available that can provide useful answers about the universe. So, I agree with KR: if you accept the best science available on climate change, you should accept the best science available on every other topic.

If you do not, then it is as though you are picking and choosing the things you accept based on ideology. And this causes problems – for example, climate change deniers accuse the left of accepting the climate change position for ideological reasons, not scientific ones. If they can find inconsistencies in our views on other things, then they have more reasons to be sceptical of the path that led us to our belief.

Having said that, I should state that imo we do not choose our beliefs. Rather, our beliefs arise from our biology combined with our experiences. It is also the case that beliefs do not alter swiftly, as every one of our beliefs if part of an overall view of the world, and changing one affects the whole structure.

As an example, if we believe that Cheney is evil, then it is a lot easier to come to the conclusion that 911 was carried out by the US government. And that will further reinforce our view that Cheney is evil. They are codependent beliefs within the structure. Pulling out one alters or even destroys the other belief.

So: Gaffhook and Kiri will disagree on this issue. But discussion can have tiny cumulative impacts that can over long periods of time result in a complete change of worldview. Christians do deconvert; global warming denialists do change their minds; 911 Truthers do come to their senses.

Thanks DG, your assessment of the debate is exactly what I’m trying to show on one little topic. It’s not possible to ‘pick and choose’ which scientific consensus you like because it fits your worldview (ie anything to do with Rumsfeld or Monasanto is ipso facto EVIL! LOL)

I find the mechanisms for this stuff fascinating, and I question whether the internet actually spreads information, or is better at reinforcing these types of memes.

I think it is better at reinforcing memes, as people gravitate to sites where people already agree with them. This is why I prefer to, for example, have discussions on Christian sites rather than atheist ones. Politics was generally too nasty for me – as I have said before, religious discussions are generally much more civilised; your opponents only think that you are going to burn in Hell in the afterlife, after all – so I refrained.

I was discussing things with a global warming denier the other day – via email – and he made the claim (not a new one) that many scientists who stood against the consensus had been refused publication in peer reviewed journals or even had their careers destroyed for trying to speak out. I asked him to name two of these scientists.

He searched around for ages, and finally came back with David Bellamy’s claim (a claim that has been debunked) that he had not been allowed to make a television program since becoming a denialist and another scientist whose problem was that a colleague had once written him a nasty letter about his stance …

And he accepted these two things as evidence that his initial claim was correct, because they were on the internet …

Lack of faith in institutions such as government, the mainstream media, the courts, science and so on is having a damaging effect on society. Our cynicism is hurting us.

This is yet another reason why I am so glad that Obama won: it cut off at the knees memes regarding Bush and co planning a military coup and other similar nonsense – such as rigging the election via Diebold. Obama can restore some trust back into the government.

“But nothing worth having comes without some fight,
Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.” (Bruce Cockburn)

Just make sure it’s the darkness that’s bleeding. If we’re making people bleed we’ve joined the darkness.

Plot to assassinate Obama foiled in Turkey:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/06/turkey.assassination.plot/index.html

Don’t fret Ferny, I’m bruised, but not bleeding…at least not last time I looked! LOL

Yeah, on first hearing I thought the same Paddy. Here’s the government doing an outside run (is that a correct sport analogy??) around Telstra. Fibre to the home!

Yeah, and f*ck you Sol!

I have to say it sounded brilliant to me, totalling giving them the finger, and then I remembered that the government sold it (Telstra) to the punters at the top of the dotcom craze and they got seriously burnt! LOL

There’s a morality play waiting to be written here, but it’s so absurdist I can’t tell who’s the saint and who’s the sinner, and who’s the biggest fool.

383
Catrina
I bet there would have been 4000 sets of Parents would have wished to see their loved ones returning.

Kirri.

We are what we eat. I’m against GM foods not because they are “controlled” by Monsanto. I’m against them because we have had 30 odd years of old fashioned “genetic engineering” that has put shelf life over taste.

An acquaintance gave us some of his tree matured, organically grown apples over the weekend. They reminded me why I have eaten so many apples in my life. They were the apples of my long-ago youth.

BTW, Kirri, we have been following Dr Neill Barnet’s Vegan diet for reversing Type 2 diabetes (with a few lapses) for about 3 months. We are in our sixties and have porked up a little; the result has been about six kilos each of painless weight loss. And my wife never complains about being hungry!!!

Barnet’s recommendation is to remove to try to ALMOST ALL fats from the diet. Indeed, We find that my cooking a dish such as a quinoa (pronounced “keenwa”) mixed with a vegetable stew a much, much nicer when the onions et al are steam fried using water than when they are fried using oil.

The Margaret Throsby interview program he participated in during December 2008 on ABC Classic FM is quite a revelation.

Yeah, I think there’s some thousands of apple varieties at last count(!) Cardster, about 99% of which are not commercially grown.

The best lettuce I’ve eaten lately was grown hydroponically, never touched soil or saw an ‘organic’ microbe in its life, and it was spectacular to eat because it was picked fresh and was a lovely healthy plant.

Now, I’ll tell you that there’s probably no nutritional difference between food grown in a solution of mineral salts and one grown in composted worm poo or whatever concoction takes ya fancy! LOL (Read the literature)

In other words, much (note: much) of the wonderful claims made for ‘pure organically grown’ food, are bordering on cult status too! It isn’t necessarily ‘better’, either in taste or nutrition, nor in energy use either.

But being an old hippy, I know that idea might just be stepping in some old leftover dogma! LOL

Lateline broadband now.

Flaneur, you may enjoy this from your post on Turkey upthread. Bet Robert Manne writes on it in next month’s Monthly.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090406_will_obama_say_the_g_word/

Ferny, like Cockburn a lot too. Interviewed him live-to-air on the Al Capone on ABC radio when he toured here a few years back. Got him talking about (my favourite song of his), “Postcards from Cambodia”. Very few songs stun me on first hearing, but PfC sure did. Wonderfully talented singer/guitarist/songwriter. Couldn’t find it on You-Tube, but the lyrics give a sense of his depth.

And yes, under similar circumstances what human being wouldn’t utilise an RPG to protect the innocents?

Abe Lincoln once turned to somebody and said:
Do you ever find yourself talking with the dead?
There are three tiny deaths heads carved out of mammoth tusk
on the ledge in my bathroom.
They grin at me in the morning when Im taking a leak,
but they say very little.
Outside Phnom Penh theres a tower, glass-pannelled,
maybe ten meters high,
filled with skulls from the killing fields.
Most of them lack the lower jaw
so they dont exactly grin,
but they whisper, as if from a great distance,
of pain, and of pain left far behind
Eighteen thousand empty eyeholes peering out at the four directions
Electric fly buzz green moist breeze
Bone coloured Brahma bull gazes wet eyed,
hobbled in hollow of mass grave
In the neighbouring field a small herd
of young boys plays soccer,
their laughter swallowed in expanding silence.

This is too big for anger,
its too big for blame.
We stumble through history so
humanly lame

So I bow down my head
Say a prayer for us all
That we dont fear the spirit
when it comes to call

Sun will soon slide down into the far end of the ancient reservoir.
Orange ball merging with its water-borne twin
below airbrushed edges of cloud.
But first it spreads itself,
a golden scrim behind fractal sweep of swooping flycatchers.
Silhouetted dark green trees,
Blue horizon.
The rains are late this year.
The sky has no more tears to shed.
But from the air Cambodia remains
a disc of wet green, bordered by bright haze.
Water-filled bomb craters sunstreak gleam
stitched in strings across patchwork land
march west toward the far hills of Thailand.
Macro analog of Angkor Wats temple walls

Bruce Cockburn