Hawaii Aspartame Bill Update

House Bill 2680 and Senate Bill 2506 are now being considered by the Hawaiian legislature. Both these bills must clear their respective health committees, and your help is needed!

The New Mexican attempts to ban aspartame failed because the bills died in committee.

Regardless of who you are, or where you live, consider sending the Hawaiian congresspeople an email, calling them or doing both. I’ll make some suggestions here on how to write an email and what to say. The most important thing is this has to be done quickly! I’m already several days late in making this post, decisions on these bills could be made at any minute, and almost certainly by the end of the week. Your email can be as long as you want, but a couple of sentences is enough if that’s all you want to say.

For everyone reading this who lives outside of Hawaii, let’s let the Hawaiian legislature know people all around the world are watching them!

Instead of saying ‘Hi’, ‘Dear’ or whatever, you should precede the name of the congressperson with ‘To The Honorable …’, possibly including their title and position, followed by a comma or colon. For example, ‘To The Honorable Senator David Y. Ige Chairman of Senate Health Committee:’ or shortened to ‘To The Honorable David Y. Ige:’.

Within the first few sentences of your email you should state your position clearly. For example, ‘I am writing to urge your support of Senate Bill 2506’ or ‘I ask you to please put your support behind recent measures to ban the food additive aspartame in the state of Hawaii’.

After this you should write something personal. You might include some of the following:

• You or someone you know has been poisoned by aspartame.
• The US Food and Drug Administration approval of the additive was a failure, and illegal.
• Cover ups or apparent cover ups of scientific studies which show aspartame has killed laboratory rats and causes cancer.
• Among other chemicals aspartame is metabolised to methyl alcohol and formaldehyde, a known neurotoxin and carcinogen. These have no place in our food supply regardless of level of concentration.
• People are being misled by advertising campaigns that suggest there are health benefits to aspartame, when if fact these do not exist. In particular there is no truth to the idea that it helps you lose weight.
• The list of known or suspected health problems is very long and complicated, and rather than waiting for these health problems to be painstakingly proved one at a time, it should be the responsibility of the aspartame manufactures to prove their product is safe, something they have not done. In the meantime, it should not remain on the market.

Feel free to add to this list with your own research, it’s easy to find a lot of information on the Internet on this subject. There are several posts on this blog to read through.

Finally be sure to include something about yourself and where you live.

Make sure to be polite in your email! Never make any personal attacks against a person or company. Also be sure to emphasise health concerns for Hawaiians, after all this is a measure intended to protect their health.

Thanks for caring about this, and remember please be prompt!

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SENATE:

David Y. Ige Chairman of Senate Health Committee
16th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 215
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
phone 808-586-6230; fax 808-586-6231
E-mail sendige@Capitol.hawaii.gov

Carol Fukunaga, Senator, Vice Chair
11th Senatorial District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 216
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
phone 808-586-6890; fax 808-586-6899
e-mail: senfukunaga@Capitol.hawaii.gov

HOUSE HEALTH COMMITTEE:

Josh Green, M.D., Chair
6th Representative District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 327
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
phone 808-586-9605; fax 808-586-9608
From the Big Island, toll free 974-4000 + 69605
E-mail repgreen@Capitol.hawaii.gov

John Mizuno, Vice Chair
30th Representative District
Hawaii State Capitol, Room 436
415 South Beretania Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
phone 808-586-6050; fax 808-586-6051
E-mail repmizuno@Capitol.hawaii.gov