Has Southwest Airlines banned aspartame from the cockpit?

In article , Paul G wrote:
Let's keep out of the debate over aspartame's safety. This is an
exercise in getting some primary source evidence. I just want to find
out if SWA does indeed have such a policy. Are there any crew out
there who can confirm or deny?

It sounds pretty silly on the face of it. Aspartame is consumed in vast
quantities - if it was dangerous, it'd have shown up by now.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

In article ,
(Paul G) wrote:

A friend of mine who is on a bit of an anti aspartame crusade, tells
me that SWA no longer allows pilots to be served diet coke for fear of
some dire medical consequences.

I doubt it, but if you and your friend are really curious, try
contacting some Southwest Airlines employees to ask them.

"Shawn Hearn" wrote in message


A friend of mine who is on a bit of an anti aspartame crusade, tells
me that SWA no longer allows pilots to be served diet coke for fear
of some dire medical consequences.

It sounds like an attempt to start an urban legend. Others have come
befo

http://www.snopes.com/toxins/aspartame.asp

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/TknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_s...veloperid=4415
____________________

Dylan Smith wrote in message ...
In article , Paul G wrote:
Let's keep out of the debate over aspartame's safety. This is an
exercise in getting some primary source evidence. I just want to find
out if SWA does indeed have such a policy. Are there any crew out
there who can confirm or deny?

It sounds pretty silly on the face of it. Aspartame is consumed in vast
quantities - if it was dangerous, it'd have shown up by now.

Peanuts have been consumed in vast quantities for a long time too.
I've *never* personally known or even heard of anyone having having
any peanut allergy problems, yet we see all kinds of warnings labels
on products containing peanuts these days.

Aspartame metabolizes into 10% methyl alchohol, a potent neurotoxin,
in the human body. Methanol, as we know, then metabolizes into
formaldehyde. Nice stuff.

Here's just one of thousands of references:

TI: Neuropsychological and biochemical investigations in
heterozygotes for
phenylketonuria during ingestion of high dose aspartame (a sweetener
containing
phenylalanine).
AU: Trefz-F; de-Sonneville-L; Matthis-P; Benninger-C; Lanz-Englert-B;
Bickel-
H
SO: Hum-Genet. 1994 Apr; 93(4): 369-74
JN: HUMAN-GENETICS

"Upon ingestion, aspartame is completely metabolized to two amino
acids and
methanol (approximately 50% phenylalanine, 40% aspartic acid, and 10%
methanol)."


In the body, virtually all of the Aspartame gets metabolized thru the
liver too, it doesn't pass thru and get excreted unmetabolized like
many other chemical substances.

When Aspartame-sweetened diet sodas first became popular in the
mid-late 1980's, I drank them like crazy, until I began getting bad
"eye socket" headaches with a strange toxic feeling to them, a
hangover-like feeling a lot like after breathing lacquer thinner fumes
in a paint booth, then the bad news stories about aspartame started
emerging and I began reading all I could about it. Sure enough, I
drink two cans of diet soda, and within an hour or two... bad headache
with that characteristic toxic feeling to it. I ceased drinking these
diet sodas after learning about the methanol problem and never had
that kind of headache again, and it's been almost 15 years since I
ceased drinking diet sodas. However, I can still consume small amounts
of candy or chewing gum sweetened with aspartame and it doesn't bother
me, but I dare not drink a can of diet soda.

"Rutger" wrote in message
om...
It sounds pretty silly on the face of it. Aspartame is consumed in vast
quantities - if it was dangerous, it'd have shown up by now.

Peanuts have been consumed in vast quantities for a long time too.
I've *never* personally known or even heard of anyone having having
any peanut allergy problems, yet we see all kinds of warnings labels
on products containing peanuts these days.

They haven't banned them from the cockpit though.

Aspartame has some very real, well-documented medical issues with it. But
only for a relatively small segment of the population. The issues should be
used to educate potentially susceptible people, but it wouldn't make sense
to base a global ban on aspartame on those issues.

Pete

Jim Baker wrote:

My wife's college roommate's 12 year old son was allergic to peanuts. He
died from it. No bull. There's one.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has a columnist named Sam Venable. His son is violently
allergic to them. That's two.

George Patterson
If you want to know God's opinion of money, just look at the people
he gives it to.

I have to agree. During the summer time where I live, I gets hot enough
that
I consume incredble quantities of soda, mostly diet, and I do not suffer any
ill effects.


"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article , Paul G
wrote:
Let's keep out of the debate over aspartame's safety. This is an
exercise in getting some primary source evidence. I just want to find
out if SWA does indeed have such a policy. Are there any crew out
there who can confirm or deny?

It sounds pretty silly on the face of it. Aspartame is consumed in vast
quantities - if it was dangerous, it'd have shown up by now.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Rutger" wrote in message
om...
Dylan Smith wrote in message
...
In article , Paul G
wrote:
Let's keep out of the debate over aspartame's safety. This is an
exercise in getting some primary source evidence. I just want to find
out if SWA does indeed have such a policy. Are there any crew out
there who can confirm or deny?

It sounds pretty silly on the face of it. Aspartame is consumed in vast
quantities - if it was dangerous, it'd have shown up by now.

Peanuts have been consumed in vast quantities for a long time too.
I've *never* personally known or even heard of anyone having having
any peanut allergy problems, yet we see all kinds of warnings labels
on products containing peanuts these days.

Aspartame metabolizes into 10% methyl alchohol, a potent neurotoxin,
in the human body. Methanol, as we know, then metabolizes into
formaldehyde. Nice stuff.

Here's just one of thousands of references:


You have fallen victim of a hoax. The 'thousands' of references are in fact
not written by any of the people who are claimed as the authors. They can be
traced to an individual calling herself "Nancy Markle" who invented a
non-existent world conference and wrote a bunch of bogus scientific papers
that were supposedly presented at the conference. It appears that this
person is a Sevia dealer who was disappointed that 'her' product was not
approved by the FDA and who has created a huge conspiracy theory where the
FDA has conspired with Monsanto in order to conceal the truth about
aspertame.

You can find more than 6000 sites and studies on the internet trashing
aspertame. None of the studies are real.


TI: Neuropsychological and biochemical investigations in
heterozygotes for
phenylketonuria during ingestion of high dose aspartame (a sweetener

Phenylketoneurics are the only people that have a legitimate cause to worry
about aspertame, but such persons must also avoid many other more common
foods such as milk, eggs, and hamburgers.

From The American Academy of Pediatrics:

http://www.aspartame.net/media/opinion/op_aspint.html

"Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20
mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol,
and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is
about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg,
500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1). Thus, the
amount of phenylalanine or methanol ingested from consumption of aspartame
is trivial, compared with other dietary sources. Clinical studies have shown
no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of
methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg
aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult)
(1, 2).

The anti aspartame campaign purports to offer an explanation for illnesses
that are prominent in the public eye. By targeting a manufactured chemical
agent, and combining this with pseudo-science and selective reporting, the
campaign makes complex issues deceptively simple. Sensational web site names
(eg, aspartamekills.com) grab the browser's attention and this
misinformation is also widely disseminated via chat groups and chain
e-mail."

This hoax has also been debunked by the FDA, the American Academy of Health
and Science, and every other reputable health organization. If you have a
problem with aspartame, rest assured that you have a problem with a great
many other foods that people normally eat.

G.R. Patterson III extrapolated from data available...



Jim Baker wrote:

My wife's college roommate's 12 year old son was allergic to peanuts.
He died from it. No bull. There's one.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has a columnist named Sam Venable. His son
is violently allergic to them. That's two.


Let's begin the head count, then....

One, two.......and at what number do you want the world to stop serving
peanuts? Do you want the airlines to be barred from serving an inexpensive
and at least filling snack beloved by many?

Millions of folks, any number of them legitimately, but a vast number of
them mostly in their imaginations, are at risk from reactions to a variety
of substances from every corner of the natural and laboratory spectrum.
Aside from those items which bear potential harm to a vast majority of
folks who may encounter them, it's simply ridiculous to attempt to
quarantine the "world" from substances which may endanger a few.

The positive contribution of peanuts to nutrition, the relief of hunger, or
the world's economies certainly outweighs the risk to the relatively small
population segment allergic to them.

......Unless you subscribe to the sort of world-view which favors
exterminating cobras, fer de lance and rattlesnakes because of the bad
reactions displayed by those bitten. S

hucks, I want to ban California Reds because they make me sneeze...but
since I certainly can't drink French Reds these days, wouldn't drink German
reds short of desperation, and am faced by shelves stocked with less than
the optimal choices of Italian reds, I guess I'll have to switch to the
oligarchic, nearly slave-labor produced right wing wines of Chile, accept
the narrow spectrum of somewhat over-priced but drinkable local Texas reds,
or do as I do, just keep on sneezing.

TMO

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message ...
"Rutger" wrote in message
om...

Aspartame has some very real, well-documented medical issues with it. But
only for a relatively small segment of the population. The issues should be
used to educate potentially susceptible people, but it wouldn't make sense
to base a global ban on aspartame on those issues.

True. But how do we determine if we are part of that small segment? As
a pilot, I don't want to put my medical in jeprody by taking a chance
on having an unexplained seizure.
--
Gene Seibel
Hangar 131 - http://pad39a.com/gene/plane.html
Because I fly, I envy no one.