Week of September 15, 2005, Issue #517
COVER
Killing us sweetly
By CHRISTOPHER THRALL
p>As long as aspartame kills fewer than 300 people per year in the United States, the American Food and Drug Administration will continue to consider it “safe.”
This, despite an increase in fibromyalgia, lupus, brain tumours and cancer in heavy users of the product since its approval in 1983. This, despite scientific shenanigans in GD Searle research labs during their efforts to get aspartame approved. This, despite a damning report from the US Center for Disease Control and political maneuverings that forced the FDA to approve aspartame over the objections of its own scientists. In her first film, Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World, Cori Brackett’s personal quest for the facts behind her own medical condition became a scathing indictment of the institutions meant to protect us from harm.
In 2001, Brackett was a health-conscious young video and film producer with a taste for six to 10 cans of diet soda per day. “I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in February of 2002,” she says from her production company office in Arizona. “My diagnosis really helped restructure and refocus my life. I found that I had been planning so much for the future that I wasn’t really living in the now.”
When Brackett’s condition started to improve after cutting out the diet pop, her husband began researching a long-circulated urban legend regarding aspartame’s toxicity. What he found sent them on a 7,000-mile journey across the country, conducting interviews with medical specialists and fellow sufferers. “We financed the project ourselves,” she confides. “We’re not big media moguls, but we were driven to do this film.” She felt that the story behind this all-pervasive artificial sweetener needed to be told.
With Sweet Misery, which is being screened at this year’s North of Nowhere Expo, Brackett exposes aspartame as a toxic compound that affects protein synthesis and synapse function in the brain. While some people may experience immediate reactions including headaches and dizziness, others suffer from the slow accumulation of toxins in their bodies. She delves into the three components of aspartame: aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methyl ester. One is an excitotoxin that leaves holes in the brains of lab mice; one is an amino acid that affects serotonin levels to produce mood swings or seizures; and the last breaks down into formaldehyde, which is a poison the body is unable to eliminate. “Since aspartame is considered a food additive rather than a drug,” states one of her medical sources in a level voice, “any dangerous side effects do not have to be reported to the FDA.”
Brackett found that aspartame experiments in the 1970s resulted in death or grand mal seizures in monkeys and a significantly higher occurrence of brain tumours in mice. GD Searle, the company seeking FDA approval for aspartame, suppressed or manipulated any unfavourable results. In response, the FDA attempted to indict GD Searle for fraud in 1977. In one of the most politically charged conversations of the film, Brackett learns from lawyer Jim Turner that Searle’s new president was none other than current US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “He moved ahead with the goal on legal and political grounds,” Turner recalls, “not scientific or factual. He put all of his resources into accomplishing the goal at hand.”
According to the film, the Grand Jury prosecuting attorney and his assistant were hired by Searle’s legal firm and the statute of limitations ran out on the case, but the FDA still refused to approve aspartame. In 1981, on the day after his inauguration, Ronald Reagan suspended the FDA commissioner’s authority, and the newly appointed commissioner overruled the Public Board of Inquiry’s demand for further research and approved aspartame for use in dry food. Two years later, he approved this additive for use in carbonated beverages and immediately resigned to become a $1000-a-day consultant for GD Searle. A backroom deal in Great Britain led to its approval there without testing, and the chemical has since been approved in over 90 other countries. Health Canada, which approved its use in 1981, disputes each point of the “aspartame toxicity hoax.”
Brackett keeps Sweet Misery moving from medical experts to personal stories while telling her terrifying story. She speaks to a woman jailed for killing her husband by methanol poisoning and suggests that the aspartame in diet drinks could have been the culprit. People across the United States tell the director stories of their ruined health and careers. When they stopped their aspartame intake, their conditions improved, but their doctors were unwilling to identify the additive as the cause. Brackett also speaks to the organizer of Mission Possible, a non-profit organization that supports and lobbies for people affected of aspartame poisoning.
“A lot of names came up in my research,” Brackett says, “but Betty Francini of Mission Possible was my best resource for victims of aspartame. She does good work.” In her conversation with Francini, the term “coverup” is never spoken, but never far away. Brackett must have been prepared to be lambasted by Searle or the FDA in the courts or the media.
“We haven’t heard a thing from them,” she says with a laugh. Otherwise, the film has seen overwhelmingly positive response. “We have opened a lot of eyes about the subject,” Brackett says with a note of pride, “and we’ve helped a lot of people identify the symptoms they have experienced.” Sweet Misery has relied on word-of-mouth promotion through private viewings in living rooms around the world. Since starting her project, Brackett has noticed more people becoming aware of the aspartame issue. “There was a recent story published in London’s The Ecologist,” she says, “and we have shipped copies of the film to people in Nigeria, Israel, France and all over Canada.”
In the end, Brackett is optimistic about the future of her film, as she has just signed with indie distributor Cinema Libre for wider distribution. The aspartame issue is receiving more attention as well: a recent Italian study reaffirms its link to cancer in mice, a $350 million class action lawsuit has been filed in San Francisco and New Mexico is considering a state-wide ban on the over 6,000 consumer products that contain aspartame. Even Brackett’s own future has taken a turn for the better. She is now almost fully recovered, has published a collection of poetry about her experience with multiple sclerosis and the follow-up to Sweet Misery, titled Sweet Remedy, is in post-production. However, she knows there is still a long way to go.
As long as aspartame kills fewer than 300 people per year, there is no clear resolution in sight. The number of symptoms associated with aspartame poisoning, the slow spread of information about its risks and the economic power of the additive industry make the challenge Sisyphean. At best, Brackett hopes for clearly labeled products that list both ingredients and potential side effects so that consumers can make informed decisions. “I think we have to take back control of our health care, our bodies and our lives,” she says wistfully. “We have surrendered too much to the government already.” V
Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World
Directed by Cori Brackett • Stanley A. Milner Library Theatre • Wed, Sept 21 (7 pm) • Visit edmontonsmallpress.org for details