Murder by methanol (Aspartame)

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Thursday, 26 June 2003 1:59

Murder by methanol (Aspartame)

 

 

 

From the June 2003 Idaho Observer:

 

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Wife, mother wrongfully convicted of murder; aspartame not even indicted

(yet)

 

by Don Harkins

 

We live in a time where the money power rules: Products that maim and kill

are approved by the government and the injuries and deaths they cause are

blamed on something -- or someone -- else. When infants die from an adverse

reaction to vaccines, innocent parents are routinely sentenced to serve

life in prison for shaking their babies to death. Today, an innocent woman

and widowed mother of three sits in a Virginia prison, sentenced to serve

20-year and 30-year sentences concurrently for poisoning her husband with

methanol. As you are about to see, her husband was murdered, but Diane

Fleming was not the murderer. Shortly after New Year's, 2000, Chuck

Fleming, 37, an athletic man, decided to put himself on a dietary regimen

and exercise program to get back into shape. Six months later he dropped

dead. The autopsy shows he died of methanol poisoning.

 

Fleming's dietary regimen involved a product called Ripped Fuel, an

ephedra-containing muscle-building formula. He also drank copious amounts

of Gatorade and had just begun mixing a product called Creatine into it as

a supplement to help build muscle mass.

 

On the way home from church on a Sunday afternoon in June, 2000, the

Flemings stopped at a store to buy a case of Gatorade and a carton of

Creatine. Fleming mixed a bottle of warm Gatorade with three times the

amount of Creatine recommended because he misread the directions which

called for a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon. Diane recalls her husband

tasted the mixture and, not liking the taste, put the bottle in the

refrigerator and took off to play basketball, as was his custom 2-3 times

per week.

 

Backing up

 

For approximately a month prior to his death, Fleming complained to his

wife about experiencing some shortness of breath and intermittent nausea.

 

Fleming also drank approximately eight 12-ounce cans of diet soft drinks

each day and every evening drank 2-4 mixed drinks of bourbon and Diet

Sprite. He drank very little water and never drank tea or coffee.

 

While Fleming was on his fitness regimen, he also ate various protein

health bars and took several pharmaceutical preparations including Prevacid

(a digestive antacid), Tetracycline (antibiotic), Naproxen (digestive

anti-inflammatory), a multivitamin w/iron and Vancenase AQ (nasal inhaler

for allergies).

 

Anatomy of mass murder

 

The process whereby the Searle Corporation (then led by current Defense

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) accomplished aspartame's U.S. Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) approval is beyond the scope of this article. However,

comments by former FDA Inspector Arthur Evangelista puts the artificial

sweetener and its government approval into proper perspective. Regardless

of how I initially felt about it [aspartame], the evidence is factual. Now

we have to do something about it because it [aspartame in our food supply]

is nothing less than MASS MURDER [emphasis original].

 

Aspartame is currently used as a sweetener in thousands of products

consumed by millions of Americans every day. The FDA lists some 200

symptoms of aspartame poisoning. Sudden death is one of them.

 

Unprecedented numbers of Americans are simply dropping dead. The Atlanta

Journal Constitution recently reported that 450,00 people have dropped dead

for no apparent reason.

 

James Bowen, MD, himself a case study in aspartame poisoning, believes the

excitotoxin is responsible for the nation's epidemic of sudden deaths. My

articles at <http://www.dorway.com>www.dorway.<http://www.dorway.com>com

and my book, 'Billions of Victims' are essential reading for a full

understanding of the sudden death issue relative to aspartame, commented

Dr. Bowen.

 

Murder by methanol

 

Upon returning home from playing basketball, Fleming ate a bowl of ice

cream and, after mixing Creatine into the remaining three bottles of

Gatorade, went to bed early.

 

The next morning he woke up feeling ill, but went to work. He took three of

the four bottles of Gatorade with him to work, but drank only a third of

one bottle before returning home feeling nauseated.

 

Originally thinking he just had a flu bug, his condition kept worsening. By

late afternoon the following day, Diane called 911 and her husband was

rushed to the hospital. He lapsed into a coma and was removed from life

support three days later and was soon after pronounced dead. An autopsy

confirmed methanol poisoning as the cause of death.

 

Investigative authorities questioned the family about Fleming and his

habits and had the Gatorade tested. The bottles of Gatorade each contained

measurable amounts of methanol.

 

Diane was not initially suspected of murdering her husband. Thirteen months

later, she was arrested and indicted. At trial it was determined that the

source of the methanol that led to Fleming's death was from a gallon of

windshield washer fluid found in the Fleming's garage. The jury believed

that Diane must have added the methanol into the Gatorade/Creatine mixture

while her husband was off playing basketball.

 

Curiously, of the four bottles of Gatorade found to contain methanol in

concentrations that ranged from 3.3 percent - 4.7 percent (weight over

volume), only one-third of one bottle had been consumed. A toxicologist at

Diane's trial testified there was not enough methanol in all four bottles

to kill Fleming. One-third of one bottle at the concentrations determined

could not have been the cause of the man's death, yet Fleming did have

lethal levels of methanol in his body at the time of his death.

 

The biochemistry of a murder

 

If Diane did not poison her husband with methanol, where did the lethal

levels in his body come from? In his article, Aspartame and Methanol

Revisited, Dr. Bowen explains aspartame's unique decomposition process. He

describes how the body metabolizes aspartame to methanol, then to

formaldehyde, to formic acid then carbon monoxide.

 

Outside of the body, aspartame decomposes to methanol then formaldehyde at

room temperature. The process is accelerated with higher temperatures. Lab

analyses have shown how aspartame levels used to sweeten diet sodas

diminish over time while methanol and formaldehyde, not present initially,

are found in measurable quantities.

 

The methanol levels found in the four Gatorade bottles is consistent with

aspartame's decomposition profile. It should also be noted that the

methanol found in the windshield wiper fluid was not matched forensically

to the methanol found in the Gatorade/Creatine mixture.

 

Aspartame is a cumulative poison, commented Betty Martini of Mission

Possible, a worldwide network of activists calling for the removal of

aspartame from foods and beverages.

 

I believe that Chuck's habit of consuming aspartame-containing diet sodas

set him up for the fatal aspartame dose, Martini stated.

 

Since Fleming's diet soda habit is not in question, we can state with

certainty that he had elevated levels of aspartame and its decomposed

products in his system. On that fateful Sunday after church, he mixed too

much Creatine into his Gatorade and did not drink any water per

manufacturer's recommendations.

 

The chemical and metabolic properties of aspartame, a combination of two

amino acids, phenylalinine and the excitotoxin aspartate, are well-known.

It is an effective rat and ant killer. Aspartame can respond

synergistically to transform other substances such as ephedra and

pharmaceutical drugs into toxic compounds. During the last year I had been

researching Creatine and Ephedra and never once thought the culprit was

aspartame, said Diane's friend Betty Rickmond.

 

Hope

 

Rickman, who has never doubted her friend's innocence, believes the

evidence indicates Diane did not murder her husband. She even passed a

polygraph, which is, of course, not admissible in court. The evidence

indicates Fleming was killed accidentally by the fitness regimen he was on,

combined with his addiction to aspartame-sweetened beverages.

 

At the time of the trial, the defense was not aware of the tendency of

aspartame to become methanol. A subsequent appeal was denied also because

the aspartame connection had not been properly presented to the court. An

appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court is pending.

 

Martini believes that this tragic case could become the one which raises

public awareness to the aspartame issue and leads to the ban of this sweet

poison.

 

 

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The Idaho Observer

P.O. Box 457

Spirit Lake, Idaho 83869

Phone: 208-255-2307

Email:

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..com>com

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