We're All Going To Die

In 1938 a group of actors staged a radio adaptation of a story written in 1898 by H.G. Wells. It was called “War Of The Worlds” and depicted an attack on planet Earth by a band of marauding aliens. Martians, I believe they were. They’re the worst.

The show was broadcast on Halloween night, and despite a precautionary introduction and admonitions at station breaks that the play was a work of fiction, Americans went bonkers. Well that’s understandable. We’re a touch gullible, with short-term attention spans, and most surely some of the Philco dial-twiddlers had missed the briefings.

But the truly sad aspect of the story was not that people wigged out like a coup full of chickens picking up the scent of fox. The pathetic part was that Americans looked out their picture windows and saw the Martians with their own damn eyes.

In 1986 the respected “news magazine” 60 Minutes aired its own brand of hocus pokus entitled “Out Of Control” wherein the show’s producers purported to reveal how the Euro-automaker Audi had conspired to kidnap owners of their 5000 Class car by causing the vehicles to spontaneously shift into drive and then forcefully accelerate without the consent of the driver. The show’s technicians, in preparing for the story and to assure that some good video would be had, rigged the test car to behave as reported for the cameras. Now that’s entertainment!

Naturally, it wasn’t long before anyone involved in an accident involving an Audi 5000 was looking to blame it on the car’s evil intentions. You know what came next, right? Enter the shysters.

Why do I mention these two seemingly disconnected events? Because I’ve reached my mid-fifties and have my fair share of medical anomalies. And I love the taste of Crystal Lite.

Crystal Lite is a powdered drink mix that makes use of the synthetic sweetener aspartame. Aspartame has pretty much no calories, and it is an ingredient in several products I enjoy because of my genetic heritage. I am drawn to fat, salt and sugar. Aspartame makes things taste fabulously sweet without the oft-cited concerns for problems like diabetes and dental caries. You know what comes next, right? Enter “Dr. Janet Starr Hull”.

In my attempt to acquire rational information on the possible medical side effects of aspartame, I kept running into this human roadblock: “Dr. Janet Starr Hull.” She seemed to own the copyright on the word “NutraSweet”. How is it that one person could come to wield such power? I Googled her name but only came up with her own entries. How could she not exist beyond her own carefully coiffed resume? How could no one have anything to say about her but she herself?

I lost my interest in aspartame and went in search of this doctoral degree recipient from Clayton College of Natural Health, a now defunct institution of once questionable learning in Birmingham, Alabama known on at least one occasion to have certified a dead cat as a member in good standing of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants. Perhaps the feline had met the school's requirements while still alive.

I began to lose patience tracking down any critical investigation of this crusader for the common consumer, she who claims to understand all the intricate and dynamic conditions that govern the human body. She seemed to be making money hand over fist on simpletons she’d whipped into a sucrose frenzy, while beating Google at its own game. She’d scrubbed the Internet clean of any contrary opinion of her.

Then it dawned on me: On her websites she constantly hawks the lid-blowing expose/diary she’d written, entitled “Sweet Poison: How The World’s Most Popular Artificial Sweetener Is Killing Us – My Story”. Odds are if you make it all the way through the title your aspartame consumption rate is relatively low, and you may have some time left.

Amazon carries the book, along with actual reader reviews. Real criticism! And sure enough, there among the doubtlessly planted ad copy (You owe it to yourself…) and uncritical dotings of soccer moms (This book saved my little Jordie’s life!) were the lonely voices of informed thinkers who smelled the stink of a snake oil salesman and called her on her faux science.

Hull’s panacea comes in the form of a “detox” kit, an elixir of pixie dust and pep talk CDs. She has claimed to heal herself of Grave’s Disease in thirty days all by her lonesome simply by giving up aspartame. You will need her kit, though, to do it yourself, an autographed form of which you may purchase for $59.95, plus shipping and handling. 


You may also have your hair analyzed by the good doctor online for $180. I assume there is more to that than shoving your head up against your laptop’s USB port.

Hull claims on one of her websites that there are “… over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption. It seems surreal, but true. How can one chemical create such chaos?”

No shit, “Doc”. I have an even better factoid for you. Breathing oxygen is associated with every health side effect known to mankind. I know! It seems surreal but true!

Hull is not alone in the wilderness. No, it’s a crowded wasteland out there. Synthetic bad! Natural good! Electromagnetism bad. Magnets good. Homeopathy, healing crystals, Reiki, guardian angels…

You want to know what’s bad for your health? I'll tell you what's bad for your health. It's lending your ear to any self-proclaimed Messiah out there with a mail-order degree, Photoshopped mug shot, and one more goddamn bridge up for sale.