Dr. Robert Califf, a prominent cardiologist with extensive clinical research experience and big ties to Big Pharma, who served as FDA commissioner during Obama’s final year in office has once again been appointed top boss at the FDA.
Califf, who was dubbed the “ultimate industry insider” in 2015, hasn’t changed much during the years since he last was tagged to run the FDA. He may have even improved on his Pharma connections.
The consumer group Public Citizen notes that after Califf left the FDA in 2017 he “revived his lucrative ties with FDA-regulated pharmaceutical companies, receiving consulting fees totaling tens of thousands of dollars…”
The group called for the Senate to reject “Biden’s recycled FDA commissioner pick.”
But they didn’t. Despite being close, 50 YEAs to 46 NAYs, Califf’s nomination was confirmed. But in the scheme of how things work at the FDA, does the name of the FDA head really matter?
Big Food and Big Pharma run the show at the FDA, with agents in place at every level saving the commissioner from making hard decisions – such as how to continue to claim that toxic MSG and its toxic manufactured free glutamate (MfG) are harmless.
But thinking on the bright side, maybe the Senate confirmation hearings could be made to serve a different purpose. Perhaps someone could get those 46 Senators who voted against Califf to have the use of toxic glyphosate (Roundup) banned – or even just limited. Or, maybe they could order an investigation as to why the FDA continues to serve the glutamate industry and not have MfG banned from use in processed foods – or at least labeled. Now that would really be something.
Sections below taken in part from the obituary of John W. Olney posted at Washington University in St. Louis, THE RECORD.
“John W. Olney, MD, the John P. Feighner Professor of Psychiatry and a professor of pathology and immunology, died April 14, 2015. He was 83.
“A longtime leader in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Olney remained active in research until the last few days of his life.
“He studied neurotransmitters in the brain and how they can become toxic under certain circumstances. He was the first scientist to propose that when high concentrations of the neurotransmitter glutamate were released from brain cells, the glutamate could overexcite cellular receptors and destroy cells through a process he named ‘excitotoxicity.’”
Dr. John Olney in 1991 appearing on a 60 Minutes segment on MSG.
More than a talented researcher, John Olney was a kind and caring human being. Seeing the dangers posed by use of free glutamate in food, he published articles on the subject and spoke out on the dangers of MSG, putting his reputation and research funding at risk. In 1972 he testified before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, warning that ingestion of MSG places humans at risk, with the greatest risk being for the very young. He gave evidence to a National Academy of Science panel organized to determine whether MSG ought to be banned from baby food, only to find that it had been an “industry arranged whitewash” carried out by a group of scientists with almost no experience in neuropathology. In 1991 he was interviewed for the only 60 Minutes segment ever aired questioning the safety of MSG.
In 1993 he gave testimony to the FDA’s review of the safety of monosodium glutamate – and convinced other neuroscientists to join him. Never hesitating to do what he could to stem the tide of the growing use of MSG, he then was a plaintiff in a lawsuit designed to force the FDA to require appropriate labeling of monosodium glutamate when present in food.
“John was truly a unique individual who had an enormous impact in psychiatry and across many scientific and clinical disciplines,” said Charles F. Zorumski, MD, the Samuel B. Guze Professor, professor of neurobiology and head of the Department of Psychiatry. “He was an innovator and a pioneer. Literally, the field of studying glutamate as an excitotoxin, and even the word ‘excitotoxicity’ itself, can be traced to John’s seminal studies in the late 1960s and 1970s. And his most recent work on the effects of drugs on the developing brain has changed how pediatric anesthesia is done.
“Olney came to Washington University in 1964 as a resident in psychiatry and joined the faculty in 1968. He started his medical training at age 28, leaving a job in the U.S. Army to pursue a medical degree when his sister was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Born in Marathon, Iowa, Olney earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Iowa.
“In addition to working with glutamate, Olney studied the effects of anesthetic drugs, such as ketamine, on the developing brain. He did important and much-cited research into fetal alcohol syndrome, concluding that if a pregnant woman consumed as few as two drinks, the alcohol could cause nerve cells in the fetal brain to die. And Olney found that as the brain continued to develop in the years after a baby was born, anesthetic drugs also had the capacity to do damage. Consequently, he recommended that elective surgery be avoided in very young children whenever possible.
“Olney was a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He was a recipient of the Wakeman Award for Research in the Neurosciences, the Dana Foundation Award for Achievement in Health and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry.”
Maybe now that it has been demonstrated that excitotoxic glutamate ingested by a pregnant woman will cause brain damage in her fetus and newborn, leading to intractable obesity (the obesity epidemic) and reproductive disorders (the infertility crisis), someone will listen. Adrienne Samuels
Yeast extract might well be called the darling of the processed food industry, and the straw that breaks the camel’s back for MSG-sensitive people. Like MSG it’s manufactured (not “natural”), and also like MSG it contains toxic manufactured free glutamic acid (MfG).
Yeast extract is one of those “clean label” ingredients, often used in products such as soups and fake proteins that state “No added MSG” on the label (which is actually against FDA regulations, but enforcing that rule is no longer bothered with by the FDA). Also qualifying as a “clean label” ingredient would be any ingredient other than MSG that contains MfG. (Check out over 40 ingredient names that contain varying amounts of MfG here.)
Now we’re learning of a recent invention, a method for “large scale” production of a yeast extract product with nearly triple the brain damaging “glutamic acid content” of other yeast extracts. Its patent describes how this new and improved yeast extract “possesses more delicious flavor and improved capability for food flavor enhancement.” Glutamic acid, the patent states, in free form can “strengthen the delicate flavour of food.” We’re being told in this official document that the more MfG an ingredient contains, the more flavor it will impart to any food it’s added to.
The patent was applied for and owned by Angel Yeast Co., which calls itself a “high-tech yeast company in China” with 10 “advanced” manufacturing facilities in China, Egypt and Russia. Angel provides yeast extract to food manufacturers for use in everything from soup to snacks, promising its product provides a “magic flavor explosion.”
It’s a “magic flavor explosion” that comes with brain-damaging – excitotoxic – glutamate.
When consumed in excess (which differs from person to person), free glutamate becomes excitotoxic, with the capacity to overstimulate glutamate receptors in the body, causing them to fire rapidly and die. In simple terms, it causes brain damage.
We know that the new and improved yeast extract will contribute to the accumulation of toxic free glutamate.
What we don’t know is how much it will take to cause an excitotoxic “explosion.”
Like a creeping fungus the PR firm Edelman Communications is covering the media landscape with as much propaganda as inhumanly possible related to all things MSG.
This gigantic public relations agency, with offices all over the globe, has several missions where its prize client Ajinomoto (one of the world’s largest producers of MSG) is concerned.
Its bedrock campaign, however, is over the term “umami.”
Once again, umami has popped up as a “food trend,” for 2022, something Edelman has been peddling for years now.
A Japanese word loosely translated to mean a “pleasant” taste, Edelman’s efforts to rebrand MSG as umami has been gaining momentum for some time. But don’t just take our word about it. Ajinomoto, at its global website says in the first line of copy on its umami “fact” page: “Umami, which is also known as monosodium glutamate…”
The “facts” go on to say that “umami spreads across the tongue,” and “provides a mouthwatering sensation.” It also hypes the concept of the newly discovered “fifth taste,” which in case you didn’t guess is, of course, umami.
There are some basic flaws to those claims, clearly explained by Truth in Labeling co-founder Adrienne Samuels in a blog last year titled: “Umami: The con of the decade?”
She wrote:
“It’s common knowledge that there are glutamate receptors in the mouth and on the tongue. Could researchers be hired to produce studies demonstrating that glutamate containing food can stimulate those glutamate receptors, and then declare to the world that a fifth taste has been discovered — calling it umami? I wondered.
Never mind that for years monosodium glutamate was described as a tasteless white crystalline powder. Never mind that Julia Child, who in her later years was recruited to praise the use of monosodium glutamate, never once mentioned the additive in her cookbooks. Never mind that if there was taste associated with monosodium glutamate, people who are sensitive to MSG would be highly motivated to identify that taste and thereby avoid ingesting MSG – which they claim they cannot do.”
As Adrienne said: “I don’t know whose brainchild it was, but it certainly was a brilliant move on the road to marketing monosodium glutamate – a move precipitated by a growing public recognition that monosodium glutamate causes serious adverse reactions. And even one step farther up the brilliance chart, this monosodium-glutamate-taste-of-its-own was given a name. Naming things makes them easy to talk about and gives them respectability.”
Did you ever wonder why consumers didn’t have problems with monosodium glutamate before 1968? That’s one of the favorite stories told in the ongoing MSG-is-safe-for-you propaganda, and it happens to be true. True, because of a 1957 invention that enabled production of so much MSG so quickly that it became easily and cheaply available. What had once been a harmless amino acid available and used in limited quantity became poisonous when available and used in great quantity.
Until Dr. Kwok wrote his well-known 1968 letter titled “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome,” physicians passed off reactions to MSG as allergic reactions, and the brain damage caused by MSG wasn’t obvious.
Prior to 1957, the amount of free glutamate in the average diet had been unremarkable. But that 1957 change (in which Ajinomoto switched from extraction of glutamate from a protein source, a slow and costly method, to a method of bacterial fermentation), allowed them to churn out virtually unlimited amounts of MSG. And Ajinomoto began to market its product aggressively. Shortly thereafter, food manufacturers found that profits could be increased by utilizing flavor-enhancing additives that contained free glutamate. Over the next two decades, the marketplace became flooded with manufactured/processed free-glutamate in ingredients such as hydrolyzed proteins, yeast extracts, maltodextrin, soy protein isolate, and MSG. And an ever-increasing variety of free glutamate-containing products became readily available to consumers who were being actively solicited.
Prior to 1957, the date of Ajinomoto’s launch of mass-production, there had been no reports of MSG-induced adverse reactions; no studies demonstrating MSG-induced brain damage; no obesity epidemic; no infertility crisis; and the incidence of glutamate-induced abnormalities such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease, and autism had not yet begun to skyrocket.
In 1968, eleven years after Ajinomoto began mass producing MSG, the first report of MSG-induced adverse reactions was made public. And soon MSG-induced obesity and infertility would be recognized in young adults who had suffered glutamate-induced brain damage before birth or as newborns.
It’s repeated over and over and over again in glutamate-industry propaganda: “backed by science.” The current meaningless feel-good phrase designed to con you into thinking monosodium glutamate is good for you.
The only science that the Glutes use is rigged to guarantee to conclude that MSG is both “safe” and a good thing to eat. Rigged? Yes, “rigged.” The details are spelled out for you in a little post called “designed for deception.” But if you don’t care to read all the details, just remember that the placebos they have been using in their double-blind studies since 1978 all produce the same reactions that are caused by MSG, and it’s on that basis they make their claim that MSG is harmless.
Part of an ongoing series of Truth in Labeling Campaign blogs about plant-based protein substitutes.
Screenshot from Vox.com | AP Images for Beyond Meat
Last August there was a five-hour feeding frenzy at an Atlanta Kentucky Fried Chicken location.
The restaurant, decked out in special green paint to match the new colored KFC buckets, had a parade of customers that went around the building. They all were lining up for the new offering, a “plant-based” concoction made by Beyond Meat dubbed “Beyond Chicken,” which sold out in a few hours.
All the hype, news stories, and press releases (the CEO of Beyond Meat said his “only regret is not being able to see the legendary Colonel himself enjoy this important moment”) becomes even more ridiculous when you realize what these folks were waiting to purchase – a brew of brain-damaging chemicals constructed to look like a chicken nugget.
Now, this mixture of soy protein isolate, natural flavors, yeast extract and pea extract (all sources of manufactured free glutamate, or MfG) will be rolling out at 4,000 KFC locations around the U.S.
The entire concept of these so-called “plant-based meats” are the ultimate in deceiving the public. They are certainly not health foods, they won’t turn meat-eating consumers into vegans, and for those who already shun animal products this new KFC fake fare isn’t even prepared in a vegan or vegetarian manner, being cooked in the same oil as the actual KFC chicken is.
So, what’s the attraction?
As we said in a blog at the end of December, sales of these “substitute” foods (what the FDA calls them) have taken a nosedive. Despite scores of fake meat, chicken and even fish products easily available in both supermarkets and restaurants, sales have gone flat. It appears that consumers are catching on to this con. And for those still in the dark about what these foods are made from, the novelty of tasting something fake that’s pretending to be something real has worn thin.
Could it be that the only thing keeping this phony food market seemingly afloat is the sheer amount of press being given to it? The new KFC mock chicken was mentioned in practically every news source you can think of, including vegan and vegetarian publications. The ones we saw applauded it, some giving three cheers to all the chickens that will be saved by KFC (which certainly remains to be seen).
What you won’t be hearing from the media is how food chemists have managed to make a laboratory concoction comprised of highly processed ingredients that, when tweaked enough, will manage to have a chicken-like taste. It’s not easy to do. Perhaps that’s the “Kentucky Fried Miracle” they are advertising.
Here’s a look at what this faux foul is made from. The ingredients in red are all sources of MfG, the very same excitotoxic, brain damaging, glutamic acid found in all flavor enhancers, including MSG.
Obviously, there’s no “miracle” here, just a witches’ brew of chemically processed ingredients and flavorings.
If you’re not a TLC blog reader, here’s a quick rundown of some of the things free glutamate is associated with: Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, ALS, autism, schizophrenia, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), epilepsy, ischemic stroke, seizures, Huntington’s disease, addiction, frontotemporal dementia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism.
Although spring is still some weeks away, here at the Truth in Labeling Campaign we’re not waiting to do our spring cleaning.
The first thing that needs to be cleaned up and tossed out is the idea that the safety of MSG is controversial.
Like everything else the “Glutes” put out to deceive you into believing that MSG is “safe,” claiming that the safety of MSG is controversial is part of their basic con.
The only “controversy” here is that the Glutes continue to say MSG is “safe” despite clear and copious data demonstrating MSG is toxic.
There really is nothing to debate. But being that selling MSG is their business, they work very hard on twisting the truth. Here are the facts of the matter:
1. The opinion that free glutamic acid (the active component in MSG) causes brain damage, is based on data amassed between 1969 and 2021 by neuroscientists studying the brain.
2. No data demonstrating anything to the contrary exist. Those who manufacture and sell MSG say that MSG is harmless or “safe” by pointing to studies that failed to find toxicity. That’s a big difference.
Here’s how it works:
They claimed to have replicated studies of glutamate induced toxicity from the 1970s without finding toxicity, but they were not true replications. Rather, the methods and materials used in setting up studies and analyzing results prevented identifying evidence of MSG toxicity.
From the 1980s until it was made public that they were using placebos in their double-blind studies that caused reactions identical to those caused by MSG test material, their claims of “safety” were based on studies that were rigged to exclude the possibility that MSG was anything but “safe.”
Since being exposed, claims of safety now come from what’s called consensus meetings. These are meetings organized and paid for by the U.S. manufacturer of MSG or their agents where participants discuss the safety of MSG and publish the conclusion that they find it to be “safe.”
MSG is a toxic ingredient. There should be no question about the truth of the matter. In that sense, there really is no controversy.
The second thing that needs to be tossed is the notion that the FDA protects consumers.
But industry’s control of the FDA reaches far beyond that. An opinion piece in the September 2, 2021 New York Times titled “America Desperately Needs a Much Better F.D.A.” gives some detail.
New year’s resolutions
1. Start thinking MfG
MSG is toxic as ever and you don’t want to forget that. But you need to also know that the poison in MSG is manufactured free glutamic acid (MfG). And MfG can be found in dozens of other ingredients, not just MSG. (https://www.truthinlabeling.org/assets/names_ingredients_linkedin.pdf).
If this seems confusing remember that the U.S. manufacturer of MSG has spent millions of dollars trying to confuse you and everyone else – and has been quite successful.
2. Realize that you are not alone in reacting to MSG and MfG. Besides possibly suffering reactions, everyone is vulnerable to brain damage from ingesting MSG and MfG.
It’s likely that you, along with millions of others, have been conned into thinking that there’s something mentally wrong with you. You’re not just told that no one is sensitive to MSG. The big con is to get you – personally — to doubt yourself. You’re told that:
if you were truly reacting to the glutamate in MSG, you’d also be reacting to the glutamate and beef and chicken and mushrooms and tomatoes. Here’s why that’s one of the big scams the Glutes push to make consumers doubt themselves. The glutamate in MSG is free glutamate. The glutamate in unadulterated beef, chicken, mushrooms and tomatoes is not free. It’s bound, tied in chains to other amino acids. Bound glutamate does not cause either brain damage or adverse reactions.
If you think you are reacting to MSG, get tested by an allergist. That’s another one of their big scams. The reaction to MSG/MfG is not an allergic reaction. It’s a reaction to a poison, and an allergy test will be negative.
Not so personal is the alleged “evidence” that MSG is safe. Put simply, the U.S. manufacturer of MSG designs and executes studies that couldn’t possibly find anything wrong with MSG. Basic to getting that job done is setting up double-blind studies where the placebo causes reactions identical to reactions caused by the MSG test material. “Designed for deception” has the details. https://www.truthinlabeling.org/deception_web.html
3. If you are overweight consider that your obesity may have been preset when your pregnant mother consumed large amounts of MfG, which would have destroyed that part of the brain needed for weight regulation – leaving you without the ability to use diet and exercise to control you weight.
“Dose dependent toxicity of glutamic acid: a review,” published in the International Journal of Food Properties, explains.
Adrienne Samuels (2020) Dose dependent toxicity of glutamic acid: a review, International Journal of Food Properties, 23:1, 412-419, DOI: 10.1080/10942912.2020.1733016
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Need a project to get your mind off the world situation? How about helping us spread the truth about the obesity epidemic and the infertility crisis!
We recently came across this press release issued in 2010: USDA-ARS and Ajinomoto launch sodium glutamate research collaboration. Wait…what?
Why in the world would the U.S. Department of Agriculture be cozying up with Ajinomoto, likely the world’s largest manufacture of monosodium glutamate?
The eleven-year-old release came from the Ajinomoto PR office, describing how this “powerful partnership” will “seek a better understanding of how to improve eating behaviors and human health” (a quote from then Ajinomoto president Masatoshi Ito, who is now listed as chairman of the company).
This “research” collaboration, the release states, “will add to the growing base of science around umami, widely accepted as the fifth basic taste.”
To be sure, the USDA ARS (Agricultural Research Service) does plenty of research. A long list of current collaborations and projects include biological control of coffee berry borer and combating the threat of fusarium wilt to cotton production. But this is something else entirely. An Ajinomoto-funded promotion of its product utilizing the name and resources of a federal agency. And not just any product, but one known to be a neurotoxic (brain damaging), obesity promoting, headache inducing additive, that untold numbers of citizens would like to avoid entirely.
We tracked down the scientist named in the press release, Dr. Kevin Laugero, of the USDA/ARS Western Human Nutrition Research Center (the WHNRC’s mission is described in part as conducting “nutrition interventions” that will help “prevent obesity and related metabolic disorders.”), located at the University of California, Davis campus, and sent him an email. No response.
We then contacted the USDA/ARS public affairs office, which didn’t have very much to say except that perhaps we should contact Ajinomoto to learn more. They also said that sometime in the new year they may be able to reach Dr. Laugero. We are also filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the USDA.
Even if our research hits a brick wall, this is still a stunning illustration of how closely connected industry is with our so-called watchdog federal agencies, which includes, of course, the FDA. Another example of how they’ve been partners in crime for decades.
Here at the Truth in Labeling Campaign we’ve posted quite a bit about fake meat products that contain brain-damaging amino acids. These plant-based, so-called alternative proteins aren’t made from plants but in plants.
Not long ago, products such as Beyond Meat, the Impossible Burger and others appeared to be unstoppable. They managed to infiltrate supermarkets, restaurants such as Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts and even more elegant sit-down establishments.
Now, however, something is happening to the fake food industry – a great many consumers just aren’t buying these “substitute” foods (as the FDA calls them) anymore. U.S. sales of the Beyond brand (makers of Beyond Meat and the Beyond Burger) recently took a deep dive. Other manufacturers in the pretend food business are seeing their profits sink as well. One CEO of a Canadian company said the “category performance” of plant-based products “has basically flatlined.”
Could it be that people are becoming aware that fake fish, mock meat and counterfeit chicken are nothing more than highly processed promotors of obesity, infertility and migraines? Have consumers figured out that they contain large amounts of manufactured free glutamate (MfG) — the same toxic ingredient found in monosodium glutamate? In other words, are folks catching on to this con?
We believe so.
While it’s no shock that a cattleman wouldn’t support bogus burgers, the comments one made about these ersatz meat products is a bit surprising (perhaps he reads the TLC blog!).
Robert McKnight, Jr., president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, said in a trade publication article that medical professionals are concerned about plant-based “meats” as they contain “dozens of highly processed, laboratory-invented ingredients.”
You’ll find an assortment of those “laboratory-invented ingredients” in most all of these products. For example, take a look at four of the top ingredients in Beyond Beef, all that contain MfG:
Pea protein
Rice protein
Natural flavors
Dried yeast
The Impossible Burger does even better, with 6 MfG-containing ingredients:
Soy-protein concentrate
Natural flavors
Potato protein
Yeast extract
Food starch, modified, and
Soy-protein isolate
Now, there’s even “fish-free” tuna on the market. Good Catch brand is a catch of 7 brain damaging MfG ingredients:
Pea protein isolate
Soy protein concentrate
Faba protein
Lentil protein
Soy protein isolate
Citric acid, and
Yeast extract
Despite all the clever marketing and hoopla over these foods, a recent survey found that nearly half of the consumers questioned want “more information” about plant-based foods before trying them, and over 43 percent want “complete transparency of ingredients.”
But based on the ingredients already on the labels, we’ve seen enough to say that they are nothing more than well-packaged chemical concoctions.
