Comment and Opinion

Aspartame – a DORway to Discovery! Say NO to aspartame! (Equal, Nutrasweet)

[Betty's fabulous web site disappeared in 2017, but thanks to the Internet Archive I was able to grab a sample of its awesomness. An apology for its disappearance has been made and you can read it here. PB Feb 2017]

Fresh-baked fruitcake (2/3/2001)
It is hard to wander around in the alternative medicine jungle of the Internet without coming across archloon Betty Martini and her insane campaign against Aspartame. It now seems that Betty has branched out into the cancer curing business and, according to a message she sent to a mailing list, she knows of "800 who were cured from colon cancer, to breast cancer to Hodgkin's lymphoma". She has been advised of the Cancer 100 Challenge but has yet to respond. Apparently, there are two magic formulas which cure cancer, #55 which contains powered rhubarb, spikenard, black snakeroot and lady slipper, and #99 which contains black cohosh roots, spikenard roots, wild cherry bark, mullein leaf, lady slipper powder, tincture of iron, quinine sulphate and oil of wintergreen. No quantities are given for the ingredients. Betty says that thousands of people know the recipe, so, while we are waiting for her to send me the papers so I can get her a Nobel Prize, I would appreciate it if someone who knows could tell me how to mix these things up.

Some facts about Betty Martini and aspartame can be found here.

Here's a song I wrote that mentions Betty Martini. The reference to "c-and-p" relates to Betty's habit of cutting and pasting enormous amount of irrelevant drivel into her replies to almost any question.

Consistently idiotic (4/6/2005)
Some of the weirdest people you find in the anti-medicine world are the anti-chemical loons. Some of them claim to be and appear to be one-trick ponies, in that they concentrate exclusively on one chemical as the source of all ills and world problems. Examples of these dreadful chemicals are milk, aspartame, mercury, fluoride and Ritalin. Why I say they "claim to be" one-trick ponies is that they extend their silliness into opposition to other chemicals, and it is very rare (almost unheard of) to find one who is opposed to one of these chemicals but not others. They are consistent in their idiocy. It's when they extend their complaints without any apparent reason that their true anti-science, anti-medicine (and anti-intellectual) biases show.

I have seen two examples of this lately. The anti-amalgamists have long professed their horror at dentists doing root canal work and have had to invent all sorts of terrible things that can happen to people who have these procedures done to them. All this does is reveal that the anti-amalgamists are really anti-dentists. This was confirmed for me recently when I found out that there is opposition from the same people to dentists offering tooth-whitening services. As there can be no conceivable connection between the three procedures except that they are carried out in mouths by dentists, opposition to all three makes no sense unless the real opposition is to dentistry per se.

I was prompted to write this because of a coincidence which happened a few days ago. I saw an advertisement on television for the sugar substitute Splenda. (This product is made by altering the structure of the sucrose molecule to make it indigestible, so it still stays sweet but provides no calories.) I said to my wife that I supposed that the anti-aspartamistas would be opposed to that too, and, right on cue, arch-loon Betty Martini publishes an article with the title "UK Sweetener Co Admits Sucralose (Splenda) Is Synthetic". Well, duh! The ads say "made from sugar", which sort of suggests to sentient beings that it is synthetic. Of course, I am talking about "sentient beings" and that rules out Betty. And do you want to know why she doesn't like sucralose? It's because it is just like DDT! The amazing thing is that there are people who take this stupid woman seriously.

The ears on the loon go 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round … (9/2/2008)
The promised pickets by Fred Phelps and his gang of rodeo clowns at the funeral and various memorial services for actor Heath Ledger didn't eventuate, but that didn't mean that we were denied the opportunity to laugh at the lunacy of people with less brainpower than nematodes. One of the 'net's great jokes, Betty Martini, announced the real cause of Ledger's death. (Should that be Dr Martini as she prefers to be called since she received an honorary doctorate in theology from some cottage university?) For many years now Betty has been warning us of the terrible dangers of aspartame, and she has now revealed that Heath's death was caused by an interaction between the sweetener in the diet drinks he preferred and the illegal drugs he was taking. Betty must be able to see the future, because she made this announcement before the results of Ledger's post mortem toxicology screen had been released. (The pathologist must have been part of the conspiracy because he found no illegal drugs and didn't test for aspartame.)

One of my favourite Betty stories is the one she spread around about the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Coca Cola was a big sponsor of the event and Betty claimed that there was a secret agreement between the Coke people and the Games organisers not to sell Diet Coke during the marathon. The marathon is one of only a couple of events where closeup views of spectators are seen on television, and Betty claimed that the ban on Diet Coke was to avoid millions of television viewers seeing the inevitable collapse (and perhaps even death) of spectators after sucking down the deadly artificially sweetened concoction. Is this woman mad? Do bears growl in the woods? The amazing thing is that she has followers and believers who defend her rantings as if they have some connection with reality.