Read Online Your Next-Door Neighbor Is a Dragon by Zack Parsons - Free Book Online Page A

includes information relating to Diana’s problems (mood, bolemia[sic] and more) that may have been caused (or made worse) by the substance called aspartame.”
    I looked up and re-clipped the stack of papers.
    “You couldn’t have read all that,” Leslie said.
    “You believe aspartame killed Princess Diana?” I asked.
    “She died in a car accident, don’t be ridiculous,” Dr. Schwab scolded.
    “She could have died from aspartame eventually,” Leslie added.
    It took prodding to get Dr. Schwab to answer my original question about the dangerous effects of aspartame. She finally caved when Vic stopped by the table and asked if I needed another Diet Coke. I waved away the question, but Dr. Schwab was incensed.
    “You know,” she began with an imperious tone, “that Diet Coke you love so much is more toxic than paint.”
    “Acrylic or oil?”
    “Wall paint, stupid,” Leslie interjected. “Don’t be stupid.”
    I doubted I could survive drinking a can of paint, but I was pretty sure I could endure the same volume of Diet Coke. I said as much and Dr. Schwab shook her head.
    “You would vomit from drinking that much paint; your body knows it’s poison and gets rid of it. Your body thinks Diet Coke is something good. It processes it as something good. But it isn’t.”
    “It isn’t good?”
    “No!” She slapped her palms on the table. “Aspartame is a poison. They use it to kill ants just like they’re using it to kill you.”
    “So what does it do? How is it killing me? What are the ill effects of aspartame?”
    “Death,” Dr. Schwab said. “Death if you’re lucky. Death eventually. Before you die though it rots your whole body. Diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure; it turns to formaldehyde in the eyeballs and causes blindness, headaches, cancer—they have found tumors of aspartame in people’s brains. Phenylalanine causes tumors. Multiple sclerosis, lupus—”
    “Lupus?” I interrupted.
    “Yes,” Dr. Schwab said. “Memory loss, seizures, chronic joint pain, birth defects, Gulf War disease.”
    “I thought depleted uranium caused Gulf War disease,” I said, indicating the popular rumor about the mysterious illness.
    “Those soldiers drank Diet Cokes and Diet Pepsis all day long in Iraq and it gets very hot. All of the symptoms they describe fit in perfectly. Thousands of them. Monsanto knew about this; they know it will break down into methanol in the heat and that it’s a poison and they continued to ship it overseas.”
    “They made Agent Orange,” Leslie interjected. “Look at how that worked.”
    “Why isn’t there a Gulf War syndrome for the current Iraq war?” I asked. “They’ve got to be drinking tons of Diet Coke over in Iraq now, and it’s been going on for years.”
    “There will be,” Leslie interjected. “There will be a Gulf War syndrome. We already see it. I got an e-mail from a woman whose son is in Iraq and she said he gets these painful headaches and can’t sleep every night.”
    “He’s in a war zone,” I said.
    “Exactly,” Leslie said. “Exactly. He is in a war zone with Diet Coke.”
    “There is no enemy more deadly than artificial sweetener,” Dr. Schwab agreed.
    “What about the Nazis?”
    “There has been more than one Holocaust,” Dr. Schwab said. “One Holocaust is going on right now from aspartame.”
    She had just doubled down and upgraded aspartame’s crimes from mass murder to genocide.
    “How many people have actually died from aspartame?”
    “Countless,” replied Dr. Schwab.
    I pressed her for an estimate.
    “Ten million,” she said. “Maybe more or less by a million. It’s incredible. There are thousands dying all over the world from it and doctors won’t even acknowledge it. They assume it’s natural causes or other things.”
    “Like depleted uranium,” I suggested.
    “Other things. Whatever. Environmental factors. The symptoms resemble a variety of serious illnesses. Or they’re covering it up for