The Other Side of The Story
The most interesting part of the MSG story never made the news reports
Feingold Association of the United States (FAUS) - October 1995- Pure Facts Vol. 19. No.8
FAUS has followed the conflict between the FDA and consumer groups over the safety of MSG. It provides a description of "how the game is played" when benefits of the public clash with those of industry.
In June of 1993 Pure Facts reported the FASEB hearings on the safety of MSG. Consumer group, called the Truth in Labeling Campaign (TLC), participated in the hearings; they note that the panel was composed in part of scientists with ties to the glutamate industry. TLC further charges that the committee's preliminary report was "leaked" to the industry, but denied to independent scientists and consumers. They say that delays were deliberately designed to allow the glutamate interests to design new studies to defend the use of the additive.
It was a surprise to learn that the committee's final report was quite different from the FDA press release. The scientific committee acknowledges there is a subset of the population which really does react to MSG, but the panel noted they don't have enough evidence to determine the mechanism of an adverse reaction.
Kathleen Schwartz, of the consumer organization NO_MSG, told Pure Facts that the report advises further research needs to be done with an oversight committee which includes physicians and consumer representatives. Hopefully, this would prevent the sort of errors which have been reported in the past.
In his book Excitotoxins : The Taste That Kills, Dr. Russell Blaylock describes several blatant errors in past studies that FDA cited to defend the continued use of MSG. He points out the technique of a vested interest conducting many questionable studies so that when challenged they can point to the tall stack of industry-designed studies placed beside the smaller stack of independent studies and states that "The overwhelming number of studies demonstrate no such toxicity."
Another serious error in MSG research was discovered by Jack Samuels of the Truth in Labeling Campaign. In one study aspartame was added to both the MSG sample and to the placebo (inactive substance). When subjects reacted to the MSG and placebo as well, this was interpreted as evidence that MSG was not the trigger. But aspartame is similar to glutamate, and many sensitive people will react adversely to both. The contamination of a placebo with an active ingredient is not defensible science.
Blaylock points out another example: "Dr. George Schwartz discovered that a pamphlet put out by the FDA outlining the consumer "facts" concerning the safety of MSG as a food additive had in truth been compiled and published by The Glutamate Association, which describes itself as an "organization of manufacturers, national marketers, and processed food users of glutamic acid and its salts, including monosodium glutamate." When Dr. Schwartz pointed this out to the FDA authorities they quietly removed the pamphlet from circulation."
MSG is not eliminated by the Feingold Program because it is less likely to bring about the fast, dramatic change in behavior/learning/health in most of our members that is seen with some other additives. We have, however, received reports of children experiencing episodes of "shuddering" after consuming this additive. A letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1975 documents several cases of children experiencing what the writers consider to be a childhood form of "Chinese restaurant syndrome". Challenge testing confirmed MSG as the cause of the shuddering or shivering in the younger children, and migraine-like symptoms in an older child. NEJ 293: 1204-05
Public pressure and media coverage has forced the Food and Drug Administration to deal with MSG. But food additives which produce even more dramatic and rapid effects - synthetic colors, flavors and preservatives - and which are far easier to test, are virtually ignored by the press and government agencies.
Click on the title of Russell Blaylock's book Excitotoxins : The Taste That Kills to order through Amazon.com. Click here to read a review by the Feingold Association.
Further information on MSG: