Special Reports & Tweets - 20120202_SpecialReport_Alex Aired: 2012-02-02 Duration: 05:33 === Aspartame: The Sweet Danger (05:01) === [00:00:01] Thousands of popular diet and sugar-free foods and beverages contain an artificial sweetener that researchers say may cause cancer. [00:00:10] The ingredient is aspartame, and it is by far the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to our foods. [00:00:17] Aspartame is an artificial sweetener found in thousands of products worldwide. [00:00:23] And chances are, you are consuming it. [00:00:26] It's added to sugar-free gum, juice beverages, tabletop sweeteners like Equal and NutraSweet. [00:00:32] It's in cereals, soft drinks, yogurt, breath mints, multivitamins, wine coolers, and even over-the-counter medicines. [00:00:39] The toxic long-term effects of aspartame are often dismissed as a hoax by the sweetener industry. [00:00:45] However, numerous independent controlled studies using human subjects have concluded that aspartame is deadly. [00:00:53] Now there's a number of studies that claim that aspartame is completely safe to consume, but the vast majority of those studies were conducted by, well, you guessed it, the aspartame industry. [00:01:04] In fact, groups like Monsanto, J.D. [00:01:06] Searle, and ILSI concluded that aspartame posed no health risk. [00:01:11] But that's about as credible as Marlboro Camel and Winston dismissing the link between cigarette smoking and cancer. [00:01:18] Winston tastes good like a cigarette chew. [00:01:23] Have you heard of aspartame? [00:01:26] Yes, I've heard of it before. [00:01:27] Have you heard good things or bad things? [00:01:28] I hear mostly bad things about it. [00:01:30] What kind of bad things? [00:01:31] Just like it's an artificial sweetener and it's bad for your health and you should try to stay away. [00:01:36] I've heard it's an artificial sweetener and I'm guilty of drinking beverages sweetened with it. [00:01:41] However, it degenerates and it does harmful things. [00:01:44] What do you think about aspartame? [00:01:46] I don't like it. [00:01:47] It gives me headaches. [00:01:48] They did studies on rats. [00:01:52] It supposedly causes cancer. [00:01:53] Even Fox News recently reported in 2005 that artificial sweeteners had been linked to a wide range of cancers after studying involving rats. [00:02:04] So these rats actually had tumors the size of golf balls. [00:02:07] So does that concern you when you hear stuff like that? [00:02:09] Greatly, yes. [00:02:10] And the FDA is supposed to be protecting us from things like cancer, not giving it to us and telling us it's safe. [00:02:15] You cannot go to the grocery store now and buy any type of even regular sugar gum that hasn't had aspartame added to it. [00:02:23] In the 1970s, Searle tried to get it approved, and they couldn't. [00:02:28] It took them three separate times. [00:02:30] Because in their own studies with monkeys, large portions of them that were fed it died and contracted cancer. [00:02:37] Now we have mainstream news articles, and the EU has done a major study, finding lower birth weights, early birth, and yes, miscarriages from women that drink aspartame-laden soft drinks like Coke Zero. [00:02:51] Do you think that aspartame should be on the market today? [00:02:55] No. [00:02:56] Why not? [00:02:57] Because it hasn't been demonstrated to be safe. [00:03:00] The FDA looked at the research, and in 1975, put aspartame's approval on hold. [00:03:06] It set up an independent panel of doctors to study aspartame. [00:03:09] In 1980, that public board of inquiry unanimously ruled aspartame should not go on the market. [00:03:15] Edith was drinking a cup of low-calorie hot chocolate that night. [00:03:19] Aspartame made it sweet. [00:03:20] And Johnson says aspartame made her sick. [00:03:23] All of a sudden, I couldn't see. [00:03:25] My eyes went out of focus and it was like my vision became quite blurred. [00:03:29] And you think it's because of aspartame? [00:03:31] I think it's very deliberately because of aspartame, yes. [00:03:34] It was terrifying. [00:03:36] Kate Randall thought she was going crazy. [00:03:38] I started popping in my hands and twitching in my feet, my legs, my knees, my upper legs and shoulders and arms and everywhere. [00:03:46] Many of these individuals have been aspartame reactors. [00:03:51] Have tested themselves 5, 10, 20 times. [00:03:55] Every time getting the same response. [00:03:57] And then they realized that this was a legitimate cause and effect relationship. [00:04:03] What is aspartame? [00:04:04] It is the fecal matter of the E. coli bacteria. [00:04:08] They took it and genetically engineered it. [00:04:10] They can feed it toxic waste and then it defecates aspartame. [00:04:14] And it has so many bad health effects, it's just unspeakable. [00:04:17] How do you think a product like that was managed to be approved by the FDA? [00:04:23] Oh, I think there's loopholes to everything. [00:04:24] I say shut the FDA down. [00:04:26] Shut down any government agency that's not doing its job. [00:04:30] Would you think that possibly the FDA is corrupt? [00:04:34] I'm gonna go ahead and say no. [00:04:35] I trust the FDA with my health. [00:04:38] Do you think there's a chance the FDA could be corrupt? [00:04:42] About as big a chance as any other part of our government. === List of 92 Symptoms (00:45) === [00:04:48] Now the FDA approval of aspartame was highly contested and subject to multiple congressional hearings and scientific criticism. [00:04:55] In fact, aspartame was continuously rejected by the FDA for over 15 years until it was finally approved in 1981. [00:05:04] Since that time, the FDA has published a list of 92 symptoms of aspartame poisoning, which includes headaches, vision loss, including blindness, seizures, neurological problems, cardiovascular problems, and death. [00:05:18] The FDA even admits adverse reactions to aspartame comprise about 80% of consumer complaints it receives each year. [00:05:27] Yet the dangerous substance remains on the market and is consumed by millions of people every single day.