User:Richard T Murray
The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.
2010-09-29 Re: Aspartame/draft
formaldehyde from 0.2 mg daily methanol from aspartame in Singulair (montelukast) chewable asthma medicine causes severe allergic dermatitis in boy, SE Jacob et al, Pediatric Dermatology 2009 Nov: Rich Murray 2010.09.27 http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.htm Monday, September 27, 2010 [ at end of each long page, click on Older Posts ] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1613 [you may have to Copy and Paste URLs into your browser]
methanol (11% of aspartame), made by body into
formaldehyde in many vulnerable tissues, causes modern
diseases of civilization, summary of a century of research,
Woodrow C Monte PhD, Medical Hypotheses journal:
Rich Murray 2009.11.15
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.htm
Sunday, November 15, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1589
Woodrow C Monte, PhD, Emiritus Prof. Nutrition gives
many PDFs of reseach -- methanol (11% of aspartame)
puts formaldehyde into brain and body -- multiple
sclerosis, Alzheimer's, cancers, birth defects, headaches:
Rich Murray 2010.05.13
http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.htm
Thursday, May 13, 2010
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1601
[ Other formaldehyde sources include alcohol drinks and tobacco and wood smoke, while adequate folic acid levels protect most people, but not for brain and retina harm.
See also:
sweeteners (aspartame), methanol (becomes formaldehyde), and premature babies in Denmark, TI Halldorsson et al 2010.06.30 AmJClinNutr: Erik Millstone: Betty Martini: Rich Murray 2010.07.08 http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.htm Thursday, July 8, 2010 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1609 ]
http://whilesciencesleeps.com/references
589 references -- click on each title for free pdf of abstracts or full texts of most of the reports.
Article 2 http://www.thetruthaboutstuff.com/review2.html
Selection from Article 2, Fitness Life, December 2007.
2008-01-04 Re: Aspartame/draft
I apologize for any copyright violations, and for being unable to edit down the huge volume of information I posted. I simply am not very fast or skilled at learning how to edit in CZ.
I am grateful that the article has received some competent attention, and has been stripped down to a proper bare beginning.
The amount of methanol from 6 cans of diet soda, about 2 L, is about the same as from 1 L of red wine, about one part in 10,000, 100 mg/kg, and it is the efficient, swift, natural conversion of this methanol into formaldehyde, and thence into formic acid, that many experts consider to be the major cause of the painful symptoms of alcohol "next morning" hangover in many people. There is enormous individual variation in susceptibility. High levels of the ordinary vitamin folic acid serve to expedite the elimination of formaldehyde, while aspirin and other pain medications block the folic acid. It is safe to say that the chronic toxicity of low level exposure to methanol is a topic that is of great concern and very limited scientific and medical understanding.
role of formaldehyde, made by body from methanol from foods and aspartame, in steep increases in fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, multiple sclerosis, lupus, teen suicide, breast cancer, Nutrition Prof. Woodrow C. Monte, retired, Arizona State U., two reviews, 190 references supplied, Fitness Life, New Zealand 2007 Nov, Dec: Murray 2007.12.26 http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.htm Wednesday, December 26 2007 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1498
folic acid prevents neurotoxicity from formic acid, made by body from methanol impurity in alcohol drinks [ also 11 % of aspartame ], BM Kapur, PL Carlen, DC Lehotay, AC Vandenbroucke, Y Adamchik, U. of Toronto, 2007 Dec., Alcoholism Cl. Exp. Res.: Murray 2007.11.27 http://rmforall.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.htm Wednesday, November 27, 2007 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1495
--[User: Richard T Murray 11:02 pm 4 January 2008 (MST)
2007-11-30 Larry Sanger wrote on 11-29-2007 at 8:40 am:
" As I look at various encyclopedia articles -- and my own writings -- I am struck by *how much work* there is to do, to perfect them.
For example, to find exactly the right reference, and place it at exactly the right place, is very difficult and time-consuming. Most people don't spend the time needed to get it exactly right.
A work is hailed as brilliant if it merely doesn't get anything too badly wrong.
Well, the great thing about the Citizendium is that we have the (growing) community and the (developing) policies that is allowing us to grow not just *another* encyclopedia, but a *continuously improving* encyclopedia.
That is the brilliance of our plan.
The day we look forward to is not the day when we have millions of articles, but the day when serious professionals say, "The Citizendium articles in my area are of such stunning quality that I can't imagine how they could be improved. They have been worked and reworked by hundreds, or thousands, of specialists, in my field. They contain, of course, no known factual errors. The coverage is complete; the tiniest details are covered in more specialized articles. The writing reflects consistently superb craftsmanship: accessible to the college student on more basic topics (without removing accuracy), and clear on more advanced topics. The citations are brilliantly chosen, always reflecting the best (original, or most authoritative) sources. They do not favor any side in any controversy, but provide full details of the debate, so that the reader can be fully informed so as to make up his or her own mind. The bibliographies and external links, fully annotated, list virtually every credible source on their topics. The other supplementary material, on subpages, is of equally high quality. In short, the only reason to change the articles (and whole clusters) now is that the field itself changes."
An article is one thing. A magisterial article is quite another. The difference is huge and hugely important.
It's a long road from here to there. Wikipedia is very, very far from that point, and again I doubt it will ever reach that point; if I thought they did, I wouldn't have started CZ. We, however, have a chance!
In fact, in view of this, you might well ask yourself: what is the point *of Wikipedia*? It's never going to get past a certain level of mediocrity. I think that, as the years go by, we are going to find more and more people asking themselves that -- and coming to CZ. Because it's *not* just about quantity. It's about quality. And we have the nascent community and policies in place that actually have a chance to achieve the sort of high quality a global collaboration of scholars can achieve.
Mind you, I still think it's all right if we start with stubs; we have to start somewhere. But we should also keep our eyes on the prize, because our substantial promise of achieving that sort of stunning quality is really what makes it all worthwhile."
This is a declaration of quality and practical relevance for Citizendium as an innovation in world democracy.
In case of aspartame and many polarized issues, our challenge is to enable quality cooperation among diverse points of view for the common good, by making assessible the practical implications of constantly, exponentially evolving evidence.
2007-11-20 start aspartame article to evolve a diverse group of citizens to create a consensual and ongoing collaboration, with a focus on the practical, opportune issue of safety.
2007-11-23 11:47 am:
A major benefit would be to make the whole issue more legitimate for the community of experts and responsible people in many world networks, as the Net weaves us all much more intimately together in new ways.
After being a silent member for a year, I felt impelled as a volunteer layman information activist ( VLIA ?) to initiate a long process of writing with unknown others a comprehensive article on aspartame on www.Citizendium.com, a new online, open source free encyclopedia, now with 4,000 articles, rather like www.Wikipedia.com , now 3 million articles in 10 years, only Citizendium will have registered writers with known credentials, and a policy that guides polite cooperation that is reason and evidence based.
You may know of a few citizens who may be interested in helping to invent a new social interface among specialists and capable laymen -- of course, any specialist is a layman, too, in the vast areas outside their specialization.
I am sure that the writers who take on the aspartame article will benefit more than they give, as the collaboration evolves into a unusual level of clarity and trust, that dynamically and creatively integrates rather diverse points of view and talents.
On Wikipedia, it is instructive to study the articles on aspartame, aspartame controversy, sucralose, methanol, formaldehyde, and stevia, where the product is rather patchy and sketchy, without opening up very many significant questions. Heads butt, and come to a stop, stuck together, hardly a meeting of minds.
Now, the exponential evolution of science always has a fractile boundary, where the rubber meets the road, the ever more complex, detailed, subtle, and mysterious boundary layer, known merging into the always greater unknown, exploding with the swirling turbulence of questions within paradoxes within mysteries, where genius thrives, always to stimulate and to be overwhelmed by the next level of genius in the incessantly creative world process.
After our Ben Franklin, a playful layman, in 1760, by 1860 we have the unified electromagnetic dynamics of Maxwell, then necessarily, soberly, yet wildly, Einstein's double revolution of special and general relativity, space-time itself in elastic play, 1905-1915, then by 1928 the chain reaction of quantum mechanics, 1948 quantum field theory, on to 1977 the standard model unifying all but gravity, and since 1985 string theory, metastisizing into membrane theories, and hugely innovative basic systems like loop quantum gravity, more primal than space-time.
So, science is not about answers, but about questions that are always more far-flung, wild, varied, super specific, completely general, not quite a crazy quilt, but an always stange, awesome sanity quilt in total.
Not a compendium, Citizendium, I hopefully foresee, can be a shared crucible of questions, which can melt down and alloy all initial positions, streams of social momentum, and points and levels of view.
Children who grow up on farms, exposed to a vile miasma of villains, develop strong immune systems.
Do neurotoxins help the nervous system increase its number of neurons, and complexity of connections?
Have humans therefore been formed by natural selection to experiment with and indeed become addicted to as many neurotoxins as possible -- carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, soot from a million years of fire; alcohol, methanol and formaldehyde from fruits and grains; metals from fires and ceramics and then smelting; exotic plants from the entire biosphere, sugar, milk, caffeine, chocolate, cocaine, pepper, chili, nutmeg, curare, mescaline, marihuana, nicotine; a panoply of new agents, Co-Q10, alpha lipoic acid, fish oil, 10,000 IU daily vitamin D, (the last four by myself), hyperbaric oxygen (used weekly by Sondra Spies, my wife, diabetic 20 years) -- and the avalanche of novel agents and methods that directly improve memory, energy, intelligence, and creativity. I am 65 -- might I continue to improve for another 65 years?
Born July 3 1942. Siblings include a mathematician, executive, and schoolteacher. Probable minor brain defects from high fevers and ordinary toxic exposures as a child, compounded by a serious brain concussion at age 10 -- poor coordination, weak social skills, poor memory, irritability, probable mild Asperger's Syndrome. [I check every line I type for typos.] I grew up a bookworm, fascinated with science and science fiction. MIT 1960-4, BS in physics and history, with a focus on history of science. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the exponential evolution of electronics from 1948 to 1964. I hated pressure and deadlines. Boston University Graduate School, 1965-7, MA in psychology, with a major interest in group dynamics. My scientific dogmatism was shifting due to books such as "Island", Aldous Huxley, and "Zen Buddhism", Suzuki Roshi, and pot in 1967 led to new awarenesses, while I earned my living as a night security guard. My first marriage dissolved in 1970, and I lived in an urban commune, with short-term jobs as group therapist. Arica Training, 1972-4, Oscar Ichazzo, NYC, was quite a circus cult, and enormously accelerated my adventures in awareness. I continued a noncareer path ever since, within an overall timid life style with a home, a companion, a car, and a stress free livelihood. I retired last year after 18 years as a competent home hospice care giver in Santa Fe. My wife since 1995 is a retired acapuncturist, and both my daughters are happy and successful in their lives, a home-schooling mother of four, and a law student.
As a spiritual discoverer, I am open-minded, independent, and tolerant. Besides the usual main sources on Eastern and Western mysticism, I have used John C. Lilly's paradigm of experientially exploring different belief systems, muttidimensional formulations via the Seth books by Jane Roberts, the extraordinary Time Space and Knowledge vision (modernized Dogzhen) of Tarthang Tulku, Rinpoche, the Infinite Way of Joel Sol Goldsmith, A Course in Miracles, and many current teachers in the Nondual tradition of Ramana Maharshi, Poonjaji, Andrew Cohen, Gangagi. Indeed, unity can not be limited to the realm of perception and thought, within which lies (pun inadvertent but acceptable) the realms of common sense and of the sciences.
I have keenly followed all sciences -- a reader of Scientific American, and perused most issues of The Skeptical Inquirer.
I started zeroxing scientific studies on mercury amalgam fillings in 1984, and had my seven replaced with composite. Getting on the Net in Dec 1995 enabled me for a few years to gain confidence and skills in the cold fusion debate, where I soon shifted from believer to skeptic, evolving my style of presenting long, dense, detailed, polite compendiums of mainstream research.
artifacts in electrolytic cells (witch's brew...) simulate putative nuclear reactions, Kirk L Shanahan on micropits in CR-39 plastic, re claims by Richard A Oriani and JC Fisher 2002, Pamela Mosier-Boss 2006.08.02: Murray 2006.11.24 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AstroDeep/22
In January, 1999 I investigated nutrition, and became vegan, avoiding all chemicals, including city water. At the same time, I took on the aspartame debate as a public service, to study the possibilities of the Net for polite volunteers to evolve low-cost global cooperative networks to use evidence to address many such difficult issues.
"Of course, everyone chooses, as a natural priority, to enjoy peace, joy, and love by helping to find, quickly share, and positively act upon evidence about healthy and safe food, drink, and environment."
Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@comcast.net 505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages group with 113 members, 1,496 posts in a public, searchable archive http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1340 aspartame groups and books: updated research review of 2004.07.16: Murray 2006.05.11
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1395 Aspartame Controversy, in Wikipedia democratic encyclopedia, 72 references (including AspartameNM # 864 and 1173 by Murray), brief fair summary of much more research: Murray 2007.01.01
Dark wines and liquors, as well as aspartame, provide similar levels of methanol, above 120 mg daily, for long-term heavy users, 2 L daily, about 6 cans.
Within hours, methanol is inevitably largely turned into formaldehyde, and thence largely into formic acid -- the major causes of the dreaded symptoms of "next morning" hangover.
Fully 11% of aspartame is methanol -- 1,120 mg aspartame in 2 L diet soda, almost six 12-oz cans, gives 123 mg methanol (wood alcohol). If 30% of the methanol is turned into formaldehyde, the amount of formaldehyde, 37 mg, is 18.5 times the USA EPA limit for daily formaldehyde in drinking water, 2.0 mg in 2 L average daily drinking water.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1286 methanol products (formaldehyde and formic acid) are main cause of alcohol hangover symptoms [same as from similar amounts of methanol, the 11% part of aspartame]: YS Woo et al, 2005 Dec: Murray 2006.01.20
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1143 methanol (formaldehyde, formic acid) disposition: Bouchard M et al, full plain text, 2001: substantial sources are degradation of fruit pectins, liquors, aspartame, smoke: Murray 2005.04.02
The Wikipedia article on Sucralose is very good, and on Aspartame Controversy needs expansion. I would like to see more details about many new teams and their findings since 2005, and inclusion of the key fact that low-level methanol (formaldehyde, formic acid) toxicity is an inseparable issue.
In mutual service, Rich Murray