To: response@guardian.co.uk
From: Dr. Betty Martini,D.Hum., Bettym19@mindspring.com
Date: Thu, Nov 02, 2006 12:44 am
Subject: To Zoe Williams regarding your article" Why Aren't We buying Gum? (included below)

Dear Zoe:

My compliments to the writer! I had to laugh when I read " sugar-free gum contains aspartame, which is the only sugar substitute with its own crack legal team)". Yes, the manufacturers are scared to death for the truth to be told because they have no leg to stand on.

But aspartame gum is a serious matter. We just had a letter about a little girl who was taken to an ER who blacked out on Hershey's Ice Breakers - they make gum and mints with aspartame. Blackouts are common with aspartame and is discussed in the medical text, Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic by H. J. Roberts, M.D., http://www.sunsentpress.com 1038 pages of horrors triggered by the excitoneurotoxic carcinogenic drug aspartame which is illegal and should never have been approved.

Aspartame gum is very deadly because its buccal, and as a drug works like nitroglycerin under the tongue, goes straight to the brain through saliva. We had an expo in Atlanta some years ago and we used a lady who was handed a piece of sugarfree gum who had never had aspartame. She had a grand mal seizure immediately. Here is Dr. Roberts article on aspartame and absorption which will help you understand. You ought to publish it.

I hope you read Pat Thomas' incredible cover story in the Ecologist: http://www.wnho.net/the_ecologist_aspartame_report.htm

Also, here is our Report To Schools with new articles from the world experts on aspartame being emailed to schools the world over to get aspartame out of schools and save the children. You might like to email it on to schools in England. We do have a network there who probably has been doing this. You can contact Felicity Mawson Londaf1@aol.com, Mission Possible UK.

Here is Dr. Roberts report below my signature and please email me if I can ever help. Incidentally, aspartame is behind the epidemic of obesity as it makes you crave carbohydrates so you gain weight - just one of the reasons. Read Dr. Cabot's article Aspartame Makes You Fatter in the Report For Schools.

All my best,

Dr. Betty Martini
Founder, Mission Possible World Health International
9270 River Club Parkway
Duluth, Georgia 30097
770-242-2599
E-Mail: BettyM19@mindspring.com
http://www.wpwhi.com
http://www.whno.net
http://www.dorway.com

Aspartame Toxiocity Center: http://www.holisticmed.com/aspartame

THE POTENTIAL HAZARD OF ASPARTAME ABSORPTION FROM WITHIN THE MOUTH [Since we have this report already posted, instead of reposting it here, we have provided a link to it for you:

Why aren't we buying gum?

Zoe Williams
Wednesday November 1, 2006

Guardian

The British gum market went down 6% last year and 5% the year before. Cadbury blames a lack of competition and believes that breaking into the market with its American brand, Trident, will help sales snap back.

I would dispute this reasoning. When I decide to buy slightly less of something, year on year, it is almost never because I'm thinking, "If only there were more choice! If only I wasn't staring down the barrel of the same old minty flavours!"

And yet, chewie occupies an ambiguous place in the national psyche that might account for the slump. The British Dental Association is in favour of sugar-free gum as "chewing stimulates saliva in your mouth, which helps fight the bacteria that cause tooth decay". But when I first started eating it, it was because it stopped you eating proper food, and by this cunning means made you thin. I did not need science to prove this not to be the case; all I needed was a full-length mirror. Science did weigh in, though, with various notions: gum stimulated the stomach juices, and so made you hungrier, which made you fat. And if you didn't eat, those stomach juices gave you ulcers. Plus, sugar-free gum contains aspartame, which is the only sugar substitute with its own crack legal team (maltisol is on legal aid, so far as I know), so I know from experience that if I say anything about it there will be trouble.

So it's no good for the dieters, and no good for the health-conscious, who are often just dieters in a not-very-convincing Lycra disguise. As an unhealthy, fattening treat, though, it's really not much of a treat, and almost everything on the open market is more satisfying, even a Tic Tac.

The only possible accounting for the continued popularity of gum is nostalgia. The mystery is not why the market is declining, but why it isn't declining faster.

Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2006