Are Monsanto And The Ajinomoto Company Poisoning Africa? Aspartame, MSG Danger Revealed

With so much to read about Kanye and the K-K-Kardashians, it’s no wonder that news of actual import gets overlooked. After all, why should anyone care about dangerous food additives and questionable growing practices when there are celebrities to watch and selfies to post? Truth is, there’s a whole lot of creepy stuff going on, and precious little of it makes headlines.

Take, for instance, MSG and aspartame. Both are suspected of contributing to and even causing a number of devastating health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, chronic migraine headaches, and even cancer. When was the last time you heard a news report about either product? The fact that multinational corporations such as Ajinomoto and Monsanto knowingly add potentially deadly chemicals to the foods you eat should scare you into action.

One man’s voice rails against corporate food giants

Stephen Fox, Santa Fe gallery owner and erstwhile editor of the New Mexico Sun News, is an outspoken opponent of Ajinomoto. His consumer protection op-ed pieces have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and other international publications. When Fox contacted this writer regarding the mess that Monsanto and Ajinomoto are making in Africa and around the world, I already knew enough to eschew migraine-causing MSG and the troublesome artificial sweetener called aspartame. Things revealed in subsequent conversations with Stephen alarmed the journalist in me enough to delve more deeply into the topic.

Fox referred me to an article by journalist Lily Kuo. The former Reuters news reporter whose work has appeared in The Atlantic and the New York Times delivered a disturbing piece about the Ajinomoto company in Quartz Africa magazine on December 8, 2016. MSG danger and the ubiquity of aspartame are the primary focus of the article in which she noted that the Ajinomoto company is in the process of purchasing a 33 percent stake in an African food distribution outfit called Promasidor. The $532 million deal was confirmed by Reuters who noted that PepsiCo also expressed interest in purchasing large stakes in the company that sells aspartame-sweetened drinks, processed foods and seasonings such as MSG in more than half the countries on the continent.

Ajinomoto products have been imported to Africa for years. This big buyout, however, marks the first time that the the largest manufacturer of aspartame on the planet has made such a bold money maneuver in Africa. Corporate investments on the continent are not unheard of, however. In 2015, Kellogg’s shelled out several hundred million dollars to buy a 50 percent stake in Nigeria’s largest food distributor.

Can the United Nations protect us from aspartame and MSG danger?

In 2006, Fox authored a resolution to create a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition at the United Nations. The new position, had it been approved, would serve to protect consumers worldwide from known neurotoxins, suspected carcinogens, and other harmful food additives. Following is a portion of the resolution, as published by Red Ice Creations:

“The General Assembly must recognize that there must be henceforth a cessation of all manufacturing of and addition to foods of carcinogens, neurotoxins, mercurial fungicides used in the international transport of coffee beans, bovine growth hormones, pesticides, herbicides, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, cottonseed oil, steroids, chemicals fed to chickens to accelerate the frequency of their egg laying, bleach used to whiten flour and sugar, “anti-caking agents” like sodium silicoaluminate added to flour, chemicals added to color and preserve meat, artificial sweeteners, hundreds of manufactured food products containing aspartame (also called NutraSweet), methyl bromide, calcium propionate, malathion, parathion, dieldrin, food coloring, sodium erythorbate, BHA, BHT, TBHQ, sulfides and sulfates added to dried fruits, and foods irradiated with radioactive strontium and cesium, just to name a few.”

In a November 17, 2006 press release, Fox offered an open letter to United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea. Fox noted that when the United States acts alone, they move too slowly on public health matters and had thus far failed to remove “such ghastly additives like aspartame, sodium nitrites, bovine growth hormones, and hundreds of other harmful chemicals from its own manufactured food products.” But that’s not all Fox had to say to the UN.

“Other nations are not so slow. Even Republics in the most “disadvantaged” parts of the world, even those with the shortest life expectancy, like Somalia, Nepal, Haiti, Liberia and 8 other African nations, recognize what the intolerable biochemical mess USA manufacturers have gotten the USA into. By preventing these corporate errors in their nations, the life expectancy in poorer nations will increase; even while the USA’s decline.”

The resolution, which, according to Fox, was supported by India and 53 co-sponsoring nations, failed to pass.

Bid to ban (or at least properly label) Aspartame products in California goes belly up

In October 2016, Dr. Betty Martini of Mission Possible World Health International published an open letter to Michelle Ramirez of California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Dr. Martini also filed a Citizen Petition to amend Proposition 65 to include aspartame in the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC)’s official List of Chemicals Known to the State to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity. Had the petition been approved, product packaging would have changed to include a warning about the potential health risks of the ubiquitous artificial sweetener. Dangerous or not, aspartame failed to be added to the list.

Are Aspartame and MSG danger real?

One of the most frightening things we know about aspartame is the way that Ronald Reagan forced its approval on his first full day as United States President on January 21, 1981. On that day, Reagan signed an executive order that severely limited the protective power of the Food & Drug Administration. Simultaneously, Reagan’s personal friend, Donald Rumsfeld, who happened to head the G.D. Searle company at the time, applied (yet again) to have aspartame approved for human consumption. Suddenly, after seven years of being turned down for FDA approval, aspartame became a legal food additive. Four years later, Monsanto bought the Searle company and Donald Rumsfeld received a hefty $12 million bonus.

A January 2007 study published by the International Journal of Experimental and Clinical Pathophysiology and Drug Research clearly indicates that aspartame ingestion alters gene expression in live test animals. Oncogene and tumor suppression genes are especially affected by aspartame. The study concluded that aspartame does indeed cause detectable and detrimental biological effects that include a significant increase in tumors of the lymphatic and central nervous systems. The study also concluded that aspartame ingestion may cause an upswing in kidney and bone marrow cancers. It can also make you fat. In other words, aspartame is not a healthful food additive.

This Is How Aspartame Causes Obesity https://t.co/YuCJOHrpms

— Dr. Joseph Mercola (@mercola) December 6, 2016

MSG (Monosodium glutamate) was discovered by Japanese scientists in 1908 and patented as a flavor enhancer by Ajinomoto shortly thereafter. Recognized by the FDA as “generally safe,” the powdery flavor booster is known to cause a number of adverse reactions in humans. Mayo Clinic says the most commonly reported MSG reactions include severe headaches, heart palpitations, flushing, sweating, chest pain, nausea, and facial tingling, burning or numbness.

MSG or Monosodium Glutamate And Your Health https://t.co/qmu5JPn7c7

— Chiropractor Dr Burt (@chiropracticrss) December 7, 2016

Stephen Fox was right when he told the UN that the United States takes too much time to protect consumers from potentially dangerous products like aspartame and MSG. Perhaps someday, Fox’s vision of a nutritionally aware United Nations Undersecretary General for Nutrition will come to fruition. In the meantime, it’s up to each global citizen to make their own consumer health decisions. The Inquisitr News will keep readers informed of the danger of MSG and aspartame as new information becomes available.

[Featured image via JK1991/Thinkstock/Getty Images]

Are Monsanto And The Ajinomoto Company Poisoning Africa? Aspartame, MSG Danger Revealed is an article from: The Inquisitr News