Hawaii

Dear Chairman Ige, Vice Chair Fukunaga, Senator Baker, Senator Menor, and
Senator Whalen:

As a fellow legislator and member of the New Mexico State Senate, I
write to you now to say that I support your efforts to ban aspartame. I am
concerned that there is incontrovertible medical evidence that ingesting
aspartame, which includes methanol and formaldehyde, is doing entirely
avoidable, terrible, medical damage, particularly in causing
neurodegenerative illnesses. An ordinary precautionary principle would
strongly indicate that it should be off the market until proven completely
safe, and not just by studies paid for by industry supporters.

Unfortunately, the FDA has shown no interest in rescinding its
approval thus far. Hawaii, though, is in a strong position to limit or
entirely prevent it from being imported in products coming from the U.S.
mainland and foreign countries. Please do not give in to the corporate
lobbyists theories of federal pre-emption; they were advanced by
corporations in New Mexicos legislature in 2006 and in 2007 and succeeded in
killing the bills which I carried.

I hope you will give your bill a do pass in your Health Committee.
This will also send a very strong message to the FDA Commissioner that
corporate theories and corporate misrepresentations are not going to prevail
in Honolulu, even if they have temporarily succeeded in Santa Fe!

Thank you for your time and consideration, and please let me know if you have
any questions.

Truly,

Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino
505 250-1280