Breast Implants Or Aspartame (Nutrasweet(r)) Disease? : The Suppressed Opinion About Perceived Medicolegal Travesty

The silicone breast implant litigation culminated in a proposed $3.2 billion settlement filed on November 9, 1998. A major issue, however, has been ignored by the medical profession, attorneys, the courts, and even the corporate defendant. Specifically, most researchers have failed to provide convincing clinical or investigational proof that these implants induce immune reactions, which purportedly caused severe systemic symptoms. A special court-appointed scientific panel concurred. Yet, huge punitive damages were awarded in this legal quagmire. Dr. Roberts emphasizes the lack of convincing evidence for this premise. He stresses the remarkable overlap of symptoms in these patients and among persons suffering aspartame disease (severe reactions to aspartame products)… a condition he has researched on a corporate-neutral basis for 15 years. “Diet” products are being consumed in large amounts by figure-conscious women, who represent the same socioeconomic group usually requesting breast implants. His data base (listed) of 1,200 aspartame reactors – most women – underscores the frequency of reproducible headache, dizziness, confusion, memory loss, seizures, insomnia, chronic fatigue, hypoglycemia, dryness of the eyes and mouth, joint pain, rashes, hair loss and atypical pain. Commentary By “Even though this matter is controversial, my inability to obtain any forum for these perspectives over a five-year period represents a disturbing commentary on contemporary medical and general journalism. The exhorbitant awards for dubious litigation in the absence of such input underscore this perceived travesty.” Dr. Marcia Angell, Executive Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, “Why has the hypothesis that breast implants cause these diseases been so readily accepted with so little evidence to support it?”