I’ve sent this in before but I’m not sure that I sent it to this site or to you. My daughter, Xxxxxxxx, had Petit Mal or absence seizure from the time she was about 3. Another child born to her aunt had seizure from birth. Xxxxxxxx’s seizures, and her cousin’s seizures, were controlled with medication until Xxxxxxxx was about 12 or 13. By that time she had begun to have a Grand Mal seizure per month in conjunction with her menstrual cycle.
Gradually she started having more and more Grand Mal seizures, Petit Mal seizure, complex partial seizures, and seizures of every kind. This was just about the time products with NutraSweet were released into the market. Being a teen-aged girl, naturally she watched her weight, as did I, and we both drank only diet soft-drinks. By the time Xxxxxxxx was 17, she was having between 150 and 200 seizures in a 24-hour day. She had a partial right-frontal lobotomy at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx hospital to remove the focal point of the seizures and, hopefully, control them. Her doctor, Dr. Michael S., said the portion of her brain that they removed didn’t even have obvious grooves any longer due to the number and strength of the seizure she’d been having for so long.
To our dismay, the surgery did not stop the seizures. It did slow them down initially. Then we watched as they began to escalate again. During all this time, she continued to use products with NutraSweet. We had no idea of any connection. Finally, when she was about 20, she entered the drug trials for Lamictal. For the first time, she was taking a drug that offered some seizure control without sedating her. (She’d been taking 185 mg of phenobarbital per day WITH 700 mg of Dilantin.) When I asked her doctor how this medication was different than the rest in its mechanism, he just told me I wouldn’t understand.
By this time the internet was now generally available, so I looked the drug up there. I found that among other things the drug prevented the uptake of ASPARTATE, which is the metabolized form of aspartic acid. I called Dr. Smith to ask him in what way aspartate was related to Aspartame Again he dismissed by saying that just because the words were alike, didn’t mean the drugs were. Well, I’m a mechanical engineer and had 4 years of Latin language. I knew that if the names were similar there was a reason. So I continued to research and began coming up with all of these horrible stories. Worse yet, I found that the executives at Searle, and subsequently at Monsanto, knew about the potential dangers, especially to those who already had epilepsy or a genetic inclination to it. They’ll have to stand before God one day and answer for this evil they perpetrated, for money, against their fellow human beings.
I immediately took all products that might possibly contain NutraSweet away from Xxxxxxxx. Her seizures stopped that week. She remained on Lamictal, but she was able to get off Dilantin and Phenobarbital. We did have to add Topamax to the Lamictal but she’s living a much better life than previously.
The surgery affected her short term memory, her cognitive ability, and her developmental functioning. She’s now 30 and she’s living in a residential facility about 90 miles west of Chicago. It took me a long time to let her go but she’s much happier there, more independent and living her own life. However, before her seizures began to escalate so drastically, she was a year ahead of her age-peers in math and reading.
She was an exceptionally bright and talented child, attending a special school for children gifted in the arts. Now her IQ is 74 and functionally she’s reached an age-level of about 17. We don’t know how much farther she will progress. And it’s a huge credit to her courage, strength of character, and personal determination that’s she’s come this far.
I won’t say that NutraSweet, Searle, and Monsanto ruined her life because she’s made her life over with purpose and grace and courage. I just can’t help but wonder what her life would have been like if she’d never tasted the stuff. She’d have epilepsy, yes, but we would have been able to control the seizures right from the beginning. She’d have been able to finish high school, gone on to college, have a career, a marriage, and children, drive a car. None of this will ever be now. I’m grateful to God that she’s accomplished what she has. I work hard not to dwell too much on what might have been. Ultimately, we’re all in the hands of God and I have to believe there’s a reason for what happened to her.
Her doctor has subsequently become a believer and now tells all his patients not to touch NutraSweet. None of us ever should. It’s poison for everyone. I hope you nail not just the companies, but the executives as well. They bear a personal responsibility for their decisions and it’s time they were made to accept that responsibility. Based on the people who’ve died and been crippled for life, they’re guilty of manslaughter at the least.