On Monday, February 25, 2019 at 11:15:05 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:
On Sunday, February 24, 2019 at 10:09:52 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Monday, February 25, 2019 at 4:53:42 PM UTC+13, 2G wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 3:34:30 PM UTC-8, wrote:
On Thursday, February 21, 2019 at 5:32:51 AM UTC+13, Papa3 wrote:
snip

For the hangover condition, they flew 14 hours after drinking enough ethanol mixed with diet soft drinks to attain a blood alcohol concentration of 100 mg/dl.

A questionable study, if in fact the ethanol was "mixed with diet soft drinks" that contained aspartame (a confounding variable). Aspartame, according to retired food scientist Dr Woodrow Monte (a former neighbor of mine in the South Island), is the most dangerous food additive on the market today. It changes the ratio of amino acids in the blood, blocking or lowering the levels of serotonin, tyrosine, dopamine, norepinephrine, and adrenaline. Even though it is touted as natural, it has a synthetic methyl group on one of the amino acids that rapidly breaks down to methanol (wood alcohol). According to Dr Monte, methyl alcohol is metabolized differently in the human body compared to other animals, and is far more toxic in humans, which is why studies have trouble nailing down the hazards related to aspartame, because most rely on animal, not human studies. Methyl alcohol, after it is taken up by the body as a "Trojan horse" into susceptible tissues such as the brain, converts rapidly into formaldehyde, causing serious damage to proteins and DNA.

Fresh fruits and veggies contain minute amounts of methanol, but there's a natural mechanism that makes it harmless. Pectin firmly binds to methanol, allowing it to simply pass through your body and be excreted, because the human body does not have the enzymes to break that bond. If you or anyone you know drinks diet sodas (or uses NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure), then have him or her look at Woody's website -- WhileScienceSleeps dot com. Or get a copy of his book, as I did -- While Science Sleeps, a Sweetener Kills.


Yet another aspartame hoax:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130505...health-hoax-2/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ews-180961880/

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/as...-sweet-poison/

Reply to 2G:

You're joking, right? You cite Snopes as a reputable fact-checker? LOL. And you cite the ACSH (American Council on Science and Health)? What do you know about the ACSH? Who started it and who funds it, eh? It has been funded from the get-go by big agri-business and trade groups such as Kellogg, General Mills, PepsiCo, and the American Beverage Association, among others. That's open source. The entire concept of ACSH was commissioned by Pfizer in response to the 1958 Food Additive Amendment, which restricted the use of cancer-causing chemicals in food. Propaganda is very effective in protecting corporations' profits.

The ACSH has been active in downplaying the risks from DDT, dioxin, asbestos, and other polluting chemicals. Shortly after ACSH's founding, it abandoned even the appearance of independent funding. In a 1997 interview, the ACSH's founder explained that she might as well take industry money without restrictions, as ACSH was already being touted as a "paid liar for industry". It's a good-paying gig, if you can get it.

During its first 15 years of operation, ACSH published the names of its institutional funders, but it has stopped doing this, making it harder to identify where all of its money comes from. As consumer advocate Ralph Nader wrote: "ACSH is a consumer front organization for its business backers. It has seized the language and style of the existing consumer organizations, but its real purpose, you might say, is to glove the hand that feeds it.."

Those big pharma, agri and chemical companies are getting good bang for their propagandistic buck when people like you cite them as a definitive source to convince consumers to ignore independent scientists' findings and warnings and instead treat them as a "hoax". A dude named Gilbert Ross was acting prez and exec director of ACSH as of 2015. His medical license was revoked for professional misconduct in 1995 after it was revealed that he had been involved in a scheme that defrauded the New York State Medicaid system of $8 million. He was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison and didn't regain his med license until 2004. But, hey, that's good enough for the corporations that fund ACSH. He's their kinda guy! And you can imagine just how much money is being made by the sale of aspartame. Those profit margins are huge and well worth protecting, right?

If you read Dr Woodrow Monte's book _While Science Sleeps, a Sweetener Kills_, you'll see to what lengths these corporations will go to silence or even incapacitate independent scientists (who have nothing to gain from their whistle-blowing, but everything to lose, including their lives). Read. The. Book. Dr Monte is the worldwide expert on aspartame, and it has cost him plenty to take on the powerful corporations and try to warn the public. I admire his courage. He's published his findings on his website and has given plenty of interviews (YouTube), too, so it's free to the public. And then come back to RAS and set me straight, 2G.

And concerning your indictment of the ACSH, this is from their website (https://web.archive.org/web/20130503...sh-come-from/), which disputes EVERYTHING you claim:

Where Did ACSH Come From?
ACSH’s founder, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, described ACSH’s origins, mission, and detractors in this essay written on the occasion of ACSH’s twenty-fifth anniversary in 2003:

A 25th Anniversary Commentary
from Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
President, Co-Founder
American Council on Science and Health:

After I received my doctorate from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1971, I began writing on health issues for consumer magazines — Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, and others — and found it fascinating that these magazines focused so heavily on purely hypothetical health risks and totally ignored real health hazards, like smoking. (Indeed, the editors I worked with regularly spiked my articles highlighting smoking as a risk, saying they would anger advertisers. I protested about this constantly..)

On April 3, 1973, I accepted a freelance writing assignment from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer: they wanted a background paper on something called “the Delaney Clause” — which I had never heard of.

I was soon to learn that the Delaney Clause was part of the 1958 Food Additive Amendment, and it banned any food additive that caused cancer in laboratory animals. That brief, isolated, assignment prompted me (on my own time, at my own expense) to write a book on the history of food scares: Panic in the Pantry.

Origins

When the manuscript was drafted, I asked Dr. Fredrick Stare, founder of the Harvard Nutrition Department, to write a preface. He liked the manuscript so much that he became involved as a co-author. The book argued that our food supply was safe and that banning chemicals “at the drop of a rat” had no scientific basis. When it was published in 1976 it shocked many, particularly those in the media, as the prevailing popular wisdom was that organic, “chemical-free” food was superior. And no one else had then prominently challenged that misconception.

Panic in the Pantry, which was listed by The Wall Street Journal editorial page as one of the best books of 1976, was the first consumer-oriented book to challenge the popular wisdom that “chemicals” were inherently dangerous and that natural was better. Dr. Stare and I later wrote books that elaborated on that same theme, including The l00% Natural, Purely Organic, Cholesterol-Free, Megavitamin, Low-Carbohydrate Nutrition Hoax. I later took on the issue of chemicals in the general environment with books like Toxic Terror.

At the same time, I wrote and published books dealing with real health threats, including A Smoking Gun? How the Tobacco Industry Gets Away with Murder.

At some point around 1978, Dr. Stare and I asked the question: why are there not more scientists speaking out to counter misinformation about the relationship between chemicals, nutrition, the environment, and health? Twenty-five years ago, we wrote to fifty scientists — including Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, who was among ACSH’s founding directors — asking them to join an effort to bring the message of sound science to consumers, via the media. And the blueprint of ACSH came into being.

With the legal and financial assistance of two attorneys — my father and my husband — ACSH’s non-profit, tax-exempt status was secured. And with assistance from former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon, ACSH was introduced to the Scaife Foundation and John M. Olin Foundation, which provided ACSH with its first financial support.

Critics

ACSH adversaries have over the years referred to ACSH as a creation of “the petrochemical industry.” In fact, though, ACSH did not accept funding — even general operating funding — from any corporation or trade association for the first two years of operation. I initially ran things that way because, when we wrote Panic in the Pantry (Atheneum, 1976), I was regularly called a “shill” for the food industry. Barbara Walters, for example, canceled a TV appearance by me, calling me a “paid liar for industry” — even though I had no support whatsoever from the food industry or any other industry in writing and promoting the book.

So I convinced the original Board of Directors that ACSH should only accept funding from private foundations. For two years we tried that, but the media still regularly implied that ACSH had industry support. When we released a report saying that New Jersey’s so-called “cancer alley” was not a real case of industrial chemicals raising cancer rates, the Star-Ledger called ACSH a surrogate for the petrochemical industry. The ACSH Board of Directors concluded that what critics objected to was not ACSH’s funding but ACSH’s views — and that in avoiding corporate donations we were limiting ACSH’s fundraising potential to no avail. So the Board voted to henceforth accept funding from corporations as long as no strings were attached. This remains the fundraising policy today, with about 40% of ACSH funding coming from private foundations, about 40% from corporations, and the rest of the sale of ACSH publications..[1]

Sometimes, if reporters complain about our corporate funding, I remind them that they are funded by corporations and advertisers as well. Phil Donahue was stunned into silence when I pointed that out on his show, and Ed Bradley once threw down his microphone and stormed out of an interview with me.. The important thing, though, is not the source of your funding but the accuracy of the points you make, and ACSH’s scientific advisors and use of peer review keep us honest.

Growth

Since 1978, ACSH has grown from fifty scientists to nearly 400. In the past quarter century, on a budget that has never exceeded $l.5 million (compared to our adversaries in the so-called consumer advocacy/environmental movement, with budgets of $20 million or more annually), ACSH has entered public debates on issues ranging from food safety to cigarette smoking, environmental chemicals to bioterrorism. Enter terms like “cancer epidemic,” “cranberry scare,” “lead and health,” “junk food tax,” “cigarette warning label,” and many more into the Internet search engine Google and you will find that ACSH comes up #l each time.

As ACSH begins its second quarter of a century, its missions remain the same: a) promote sound science in regulation, in public policy, and in the court room; and b) assist consumers, via the media, in distinguishing real health threats from purely hypothetical ones.

1. As of today, ACSH’s funding continues to come from individuals across the country, as well as private family foundations and corporations — although the percentages fluctuate from year to year.

From the Oxford Dictiornary:
thread drift
Digression from the topic of a thread or forum. See alsooff-topic. ...

RAS is both informative and entertaining! LOL

WH