By Don Harkins Last spring actor Michael J. Fox, a victim of Parkinson's disease, announced that he was quitting acting and was going to dedicate his efforts and energies to finding a "cure" for the degenerative disease. Since that time, The Idaho Observer has tried repeatedly to supply the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) with medical proof that there is hope for Parkinson's victims. We have contacted MJFF offices in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Santa Monica, California and New York City via telephone, FAX and email. Unless a person pledges to endorse a check to MJFF that will be turned over to pharmaceutical company researchers, so far it would appear that the MJFF has no interest in "curing" Parkinson's disease. Suspicions that Fox's name is being used to advance a phoney crusade against Parkinson's increased once the former actor's ties to Pepsi products were understood. According to Betty Martini, one of the world's leading authorities on aspartame and the toll it has had on society in terms of human misery, "Michael Fox has also been a Diet Pepsi spokesman and informants say he is addicted, drinking many a day." Diet Pepsi contains the FDA-approved artificial sweetener aspartame. Aspartame is an extremely volatile substance that, under ordinary storage conditions, breaks down quickly into methanol, a known neurotoxin. The methanol then breaks down into formaldehyde.

The FDA has never established a safe level of formaldehyde that can be consumed by humans. According to The Consumer's Dictionary of Medicines, formaldehyde is, ".a highly reactive chemical that is damaging to the hereditary substances in the cells of several animal species."The aspartame that is used to sweeten Diet Pepsi, NutraSweet, ".is a neurotoxin that triggers neurodegenerative diseases and can precipitate Parkinson's," Martini explained. Dr. James Bowen explained that the methyl alcohol of aspartame is arranged in such a fashion that it is "500 to 5,000 times more active in producing toxicity" than the methyl alcohol that is commonly found in alcoholic beverages. The path aspartame has taken to participate in Fox's degeneration is very complex, yet supported by peer-reviewed science. In essence, aspartame inhibits the body's ability to produce dopamine. Dopamine is essential for the proper functioning of the brain which in turn controls the body's many systems. Dr. Bowen explained that Fox has apparently recognised his decreased capacity to produce dopamine and has reportedly taken therapeutic levels of pharmaceutical dopamine to combat his degenerative condition. According to Dr. Bowen, "The use of aspartame completely defeats this therapeutic endeavour." At the MJFF website it is listed that one of the companies the foundation is funding for Parkinson's research is Somerset Pharmaceuticals, the company that produces Eldepryl, or selegeline hydrochloride.

Eldepryl, another FDA-approved drug, was found by the U.S. Pharmacological Conference to be contaminated with methamphetamine and a publicly unidentified neurotoxin. Annetta Freeman of Hollywood, California, was a Parkinson's victim confined to a wheelchair who was continuing to deteriorate while using Eldepryl. She got off Eldepryl and began taking Liquid Deprenyl Citrate (LDC), a clean selegeline developed by Jay Kimball of Discovery Experimental and Development, Inc. (DEDI). Today Freeman, 64, is leading an active and productive life as an advocate for Parkinson's victims and LDC. Unfortunately, the result of a 10-year conspiracy that involved Somerset Pharmaceuticals, the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), LDC is temporarily unavailable in the U.S. The FDA has admitted that there has never been, after thousands of applications, even one reported incident of LDC harming people. The FDA has admitted that there has never been one reported consumer complaint about LDC. Thousands of LDC users who have had quality of life restored to them have been denied access to the natural and comparatively inexpensive nutritive plant product that controlled their Parkinson's symptoms.