The Ecologist Vol 32 No 4
April-29-2002
from Rense Website

A dirty tricks campaign leads straight to the door of a Monsanto PR company, says Jonathan Matthews in the launch of his new column.

The journal Science reporting recently on how the Mexican "maize scandal" was driving the battle over GM crops,

"to new heights of acrimony and confusion", noted the part played by, "widely circulating anonymous e-mails" accusing researchers, Ignacio Chapela and David Quist, of "conflicts of interest and other misdeeds".

These accusations surfaced first in late November on the day of Nature's publication of Chapela and Quist's findings of GM contamination of maize varieties in Mexico - the global heartland of maize diversity. Samples of native criollo corn were found to contain a genetic 'switch' commonly used in GM crops and one sample was even found to contain a commonly inserted gene that prompts the plant to produce a poison. The results were particularly surprising as Mexico banned the growing of GM maize in 1998, and the last known GM crops were grown almost 60 miles from where the contaminated maize was found.

For the biotech industry this could not have come at a worse time. Its efforts to lift the European, Brazilian, and Mexican moratoria on GM seeds or foods were all coming to a head.

Chapela and Quist came under immediate attack in a furious volley of e-mails published on the AgBioView listserv. AgBioView correspondents calling themselves 'Mary Murphy' and 'Andura Smetacek' claimed Chapela and Quist's research was a product of a conspiracy with "fear-mongering activists". The conspirators' aim, apparently, was to attack "biotechnology, free-trade, intellectual property rights and other politically motivated agenda items."

These claims prompted a series of further attacks from others. Prof Anthony Trewavas, for example, denounced scientists like Chapela who had "political axes to grind".

Trewavas demanded Chapela be fired unless he handed over his maize samples for checking.

This was not Trewavas's first controversial intervention in the GM debate in response to material put into circulation on AgBioView. Last October, for instance, Trewavas was named in the High Court as the source of an anti-Greenpeace letter at the centre of a libel case. Trewavas subsequently claimed that the letter originated on AgBioView.

The last piece in question was posted by one Andura Smetacek, who regularly posts vitriolic attacks on critics of the biotech industry. In Smetacek's early posts, interestingly, repeated reference is made to one particular website, CFFAR.org. Ostensibly, CFFAR - or the Center for Food and Agricultural Research, to give it its full title - is "a public policy and research coalition" concerned with "food and fiber production." But despite links to CFFAR.org from the websites of US public libraries and university departments, there appears to be no evidence this organization really exists.

To judge by the frequent usage of words like "violence", "terrorism", and "acts of terror", the real purpose of the site is to associate biotech industry opponents with terrorism. This mission is facilitated by fabricated claims. In its "vandalwatch.org" section, for instance, CFFAR.org accuses Greenpeace of engaging in multiple attacks on British farms. Greenpeace is accused of commandeering farmers' tractors and crashing through fences in pursuit of farmers' families.

The domain registration details for CFFAR.org show the registrant to be one 'THEODOROV, MANUEL'. Among early signatories to a pro-agbiotech petition launched by AgBioView list editor, Prof CS Prakash, the following details can be found:

• NAME: emmanuel theodorou.

• POSITION: director of associations.

• ORGANIZATION: bivings woodell, Inc.

• DEPARTMENT: advocacy and outreach.

What kind of "advocacy and outreach" do Bivings Woodell, Inc., aka the Bivings Group, do?

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune,

"The Bivings Group has developed 'Internet advocacy' campaigns for corporate America since 1996... Biotechnology giant Monsanto [is] among the Bivings clients who have discovered how to make the Internet work for them."

As part of its brief, Bivings designs and runs Monsanto's websites and Theodorou is believed to have been part of Bivings' Monsanto team. Mary Murphy would also seem to connect to Bivings. Or so it would seem from the evidence of a fake Associated Press article on the bulletin board of the foxbghsuit.com website. It was posted by "Mary Murphy (bw6.bivwood.com)".

Between them Smetacek and Murphy have had 60 or more attacks published, often very prominently, by Prakash on the AgBioWorld listserv. Prakash presents AgBioWorld as a mainstream science group reliant on the support of individuals and philanthropic foundations. However, a website design specialist who took a detailed look at the AgBioWorld site reported that there appeared to be evidence that part of its content was held on a Bivings' server.

Furthermore, agbioworld.org, vandalwatch.org and the Bivings'-designed thebivingsreport.com, all seemed to be the work of the same designer.

Perhaps it's time for Prakash to clarify where AgBioWorld finishes and biotech industry PR begins. Come to that, the Royal Society might like to tell us why Trewavas, one of its media advisors, seems so keen to promulgate PR industry smears.

And, finally, Monsanto needs to explain how its much vaunted pledge to abide by principles of openness, transparency and respect tallies with a dirty tricks campaign.

 

Comment
From Betty Martini
Bettym19@mindspring.com
May-15-2002

Dear Dr. Tyron and Bonnie,

This article is very timely because it explains what went on with the post you have and the way Monsanto uses PR, front groups, etc.

I lectured for the World Environmental Conference some years ago. I actually wrote the post you have to Dr. Rivner who headed a list of neurologists after I had returned. The post was put on web. Then somebody by the name of Nancy Markle published it under her name, changing the title. Someone in the UK saw it and sent it to a global networker, Shoshanna Allison. She had just gotten a divorce because aspartame had shattered their marriage.

 

Her husband developed lupus from aspartame, ballooned up to 400 lbs and had the usual mood swings. She didn't want it to happen to anyone else so she took my post and put it on 450 global networks and it made world news overnight. It was unbelievable how many calls came in and still come in about it. People called from countries in languages I couldn't understand. It didn't take long for anyone to realize I was the author by simply doing a search on the Internet.

I removed call-waiting from the phone because I couldn't talk to two people at once, and the phone would ring every two minutes as soon as you put it down and went on like that for months. Plus radio stations were calling constantly and you couldn't be interrupted during a broadcast. We have a Mission Possible list that has the world experts on Aspartame, and it showed the physicians how epidemic Aspartame Disease really is the world over.

 

We started more Mission Possible operations from Mission Possible Romania to Mission Possible Indonesia.

 

Four support groups were set up for the sick and disabled. Because Monsanto, the FDA and the professional organizations funded by industry were putting out propaganda that aspartame is an additive and safe, physicians were unable to diagnose their patients, and they went from doctor to doctor. Many of them died because nobody could help them.

Monsanto could not put the fire. A person on aspartame had put to read the post to see their symptoms and finally understand why they were so sick. Calls came from victims in tears who told horror stories. Since aspartame destroys the central nervous system and mimics MS, many people had been misdiagnosed as having MS. And many people who read the post in wheelchairs, got off aspartame and walked away well. Front groups were set up on the Internet to try and persuade the people it was a myth but it didn't work.

 

Even people who didn't know I was the author simply decided if they were so sick, it wouldn't hurt to get off the toxin and see what happened. The blind began to see again. Mary Reiff who was on Texas TV with me a couple of years ago had a grand mal seizure while driving and had an accident, and she was declared eventually legally blind. After getting off aspartame the seizures stopped and eventually by the time we were on the Debra Duncan Show her vision had been restored.

 

People who suffered horrific, agonizing joint pain got off aspartame and could walk again. And, of course, these people made thousands and thousands of more copies. The professional organizations funded by NutraSweet (Monsanto) went to their defense. Still thousands got off NutraSweet and got well and told others.

Even respectable institutions like Mayo Clinic put false information on their web site. Giving them the correct information I couldn't understand why they didn't change it until I read who funded the misinformation web site - and it was Searle. Searle was the original manufacturer of aspartame and Monsanto bought them in l985.

So their are many organizations who pimp poison for a price. In order to warn the victims off the poison they have to close the diamond mine, and presented with saving the lives or continuing to accept bribes they elect to sacrifice the people. Those responsible to solve the problem ARE the problem.

Finally, knowing the world now knew about aspartame's toxicity, even in the jungles of Africa, Monsanto sold the NutraSweet Company dividing it into several pieces, to Ajinomoto, their Siamese twin, another aspartame manufacturer, Childs in Boston, Michael Dell of Dell Computers, and an investment firm of Monsanto managers.

 

But like Mohammed Ali once said: "They can run but they can't hide".

 

We are now taking case histories for class action on aspartame starting with brain tumors, seizures, blindness and eye deterioration. I hope in the end they will take them all.

These monsters knew before aspartame was ever approved what would happen to the population. If you go to www.dorway.com you can read the Secret Trade Information which was voluntarily submitted during Congressional Hearings. You will notice in the last paragraph they say they have to consider almost complete conversion to DKP, the brain tumor agent, and if they tell the FDA they won't approve it. so they knew people would come down with brain tumors and they didn't care, they wanted it approved.

 

They knew it was an addicting (methanol classified as a narcotic) neurotoxic drug, and would be a cash cow.

In l983/84 Searle decided to find out just how much aspartame could humans tolerate. They sacrificed people in 6 countries to do studies in poor villages. The studies showed in 18 months that aspartame destroyed the brain and the central nervous system which we already knew from post marketing surveillance reports. People developed all kinds of brain tumors as well as seizures. The pregnant woman lost her baby and disappeared according to the study.

 

Aspartame hardened the synovial fluids which helped us to understand why aspartame victims suffer such agonizing joint pain often diagnosed as fibromyalgia, a diagnostic waste-bucket. A new study at the University of Florida shows that eliminating excitotoxins, aspartame and MSG, eliminates the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Some people died in these studies. Searle finding out that aspartame was a killer did not publish the studies and in l985 sold to Monsanto.

Never does a day pass that I don't get calls about this post that made world news. It also went to media the world over and articles were written around the world. Nobody ever found Nancy Markle although as people got well they wrote songs about her, and on some web sites you would see notes - "please write home Nancy Markle".

 

I believe she lives in England because she wrote the Ecologist using my home address telling them to contact Mission Possible. I explained to the Ecologist and they did their own investigation of aspartame and its on www.dorway.com titled Sweet Talking!  When I lectured in England we broadcast for Nancy Markle as I did radio interviews but to no avail. Shoshanna Allison has now been dubbed Paula Revere for firing the shot heard around the world.

I wrote the story for the Disinformation web site, they were going to put it in a book called "They Lied To Us". However, they put it on their web site instead and we have it on www.dorway.com/nomarkle.html and its titled Update World Environmental Conference. I suspect the post has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and was the beginning of the end for Monsanto. Monsanto eventually merged with Pharmacia Upjohn, trying to get rid of their bad name. It was changed to Pharmacia after we started calling them PU.

Today, no one can even question the medical information in the post as its now all been documented in the new medical text on the global plague of Aspartame Disease by H. J. Roberts, M.D., Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic, www.aspartameispoison.com or www.sunsentpress.com or 1 800 814 - 9800 1038 pages, 8 1/2 by 11 on the symptoms and diseases triggered by this deadly neurotoxin.

 

There is a chapter on Multiple Sclerosis or Aspartame Disease?, behavioral and psychiatric problems, diabetes, brain tumors, seizures, infertility, male sexual dysfunction, drug interaction, birth defects, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrigs, Desert Storm Syndrome, ADD, autism, and even the implications of marketing a chemical poison for human consumption including the cover-ups. Every physician in the world needs a copy, it's the only way he can diagnose Aspartame Disease.

 

Many victims getting well have said one day Aspartame Disease may be called Roberts Disease.

Dave Rietz, webmaster of www.dorway.com likewise is a victim. He went to 21 physicians who could not diagnose his agonizing joint pain. He eventually built on to his home and put in a Jacuzzi because it was too painful to walk. Eventually he got on the Internet and saw the FDA report of 92 symptoms and realized it was aspartame causing his problems.

 

He got off of it and the joint pain disappeared. He set up www.dorway.com as a DORway to Discovery, saying he was paying back to the Internet what the Internet gave back to him - his life. He still suffers from Prostate cancer. World famous toxicologist, Dr. George Schwartz wrote a paper on aspartame and prostate and mammary tumors.

 

In original studies aspartame triggered brain, mammary, uterine, ovarian, testicular, thyroid and pancreatic tumors, as well as grand mal seizures.

There are some particularly serious problems all physicians should know about. Aspartame damages the cardiac conduction system and can cause sudden death. It also interacts with cardiac medication and patients can go into complete heart block or cardiac arrest. It is also a chemical hypersensitization agent and interacts with vaccines and other toxins and additives.

 

Since vaccines have been known to trigger autism and aspartame can trigger autism babies don't have much of a chance, especially if their mothers are not warned not to use aspartame while pregnant.

 

Read these reports on www.dorway.com:

• Aspartame Murders Infants by James Bowen, M.D.

• Aspartame and Pregnancy and Small Children by H. J. Roberts, M.D.

• Testimony before congress by Louis Elsas, M.D., pediatric professor, Emory University.

All physicians should also have in their library, Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills by neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, M.D.

 

It was the famed Dr. John Olney, who founded the field of neuroscience called excitotoxicity. He did the studies on aspartic acid in l970 and found out it causes lesions in the brains of mice. He told Searle but they did not tell the FDA until after it was approved. Aspartic acid which is 40% of aspartame is an excitotoxin. Dr. Blaylock explains on the back of the book this is a product that literally stimulates the neurons of the brain to death causing brain damage of varying degrees.

If you want to read some of the horror stories you can go to www.holisticmed.com/aspartame, the Aspartame Toxicity Center. We have four support groups on line and there are now five Aspartame Detoxification Centers in the United States and one in Canada.

Bonnie, I need to know which is the correct email, rosenet.com or net. I'm sending this to both.

Below this note is an excellent article on Monsanto PR, and you will understand about the front groups on the Internet and people paid to lie for industry, and those paid to pimp poison for a price.

You will see my invitation to speak for the World Environmental Conference and my correspondence with Dr. Gaylord who gave the keynote address on www.dorway.com

If I can help you further please let me know. We do have these four support groups on line for victims. In Dr Roberts medical text there is a chapter on detoxification and how to treat a patient who has used aspartame. There is also a detox page on www.dorway.com and Newton Labs has made an antidote to try and pull some of the formaldehyde out of the body. There is also a page on pre-embalming in the medical text. The Trocho Study shows that the formaldehyde converted from the wood alcohol accumulates in the cells and damages DNA. A new study in Norway shows that aspartame destroys the brain which, of course, we knew, especially in the areas of learning. This accounts for the global epidemic of ADD.

Sandra Cabot, M.D., Mission Possible Australia, has a book on cleansing the liver on www.dorway.com with recipes that are very helpful. Be sure to read Dr. James Bowen's paper on how aspartame triggers steato hepatitis, as well as his article on male sexual dysfunction. This is why so many are on Viagara.

I will send you an email from a former U.S. Attorney writing these misinformation sites to cease and desist from putting out lies. This is against the law under Title 18, Section 1001 and the Justice Department has been notified. I doubt Mr. Ashcroft, Attorney General, will do anything about it as he received a lot money from Monsanto and is from St. Louis their home town.

 

But they have been reported just the same. Be sure you read the UPI investigation and you will understand the fiasco of aspartame approval and how Searle went so far as to even threatening physicians to prevent studies on aspartame.

 

And, of course, read on below my signature this excellent article on how industry misinforms the public.

All my best,
Betty