Aspartame and Donald Rumsfeld

Aspartame, better known as NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, and Equal-Measure, is an artificial sweetener 200 hundred times sweeter than sugar is made from aspartic acid. It is used as a sugar substitute in over 6000 foods, beverages, drugs, and medicine such as soft drinks, diet sodas, cereals, sugar-free chewing gum, juices, laxatives, and yogurt. Methanol or wood alcohol, which is classified as a severe metabolic poison and narcotic, constitutes one third of the aspartame molecule. Aspartame is a deadly neurotoxin drug portrayed as a food additive. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claim aspartame is safe for human consumption, and approved it as a food additive. However, scientists dispute the safety of the chemical food additive as it is dangerous for people’s health such as for people who suffer from obesity. Aspartame should be banned from the market.

Donald Rumsfeld was the CEO of G.D.Searle, the company that manufactured aspartame. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve Aspartame until Donald Rumsfeld took office as secretary of defense in the Reagan’s administration where he appointed an FDA commissioner who would approve aspartame. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., was the new FDA commissioner who approved aspartame in 1981. The FDA set up a Board of Inquiry of the best scientists who said aspartame is not safe and causes brain tumors, and revoked the approval for aspartame. The new FDA Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., over-ruled that Board of Inquiry and approved aspartame, and therefore violated the Delaney Amendment which forbids putting anything in food that is known to cause cancer; Rumsfeld clearly has abused his power for personal profit.

Dr. Erik Millstone, a food safety expert at the University of Sussex of England, says that G.D. Searle’s laboratories experiments and other companies working under contract to G.D. Searle have not been conducted thoroughly. Dr. Millstone explains for example how a rat dies during an experiment but was not dissected to define the reason why it dies; also tumors were cut out from animals but it was not reported. Because of the investigation’s results in 1974 and before Aspartame was on the market the FDA put the approval on hold and the commissioner at that time said: “the tests are at best sloppy” and “the pattern of conduct which compromises the scientific integrity of the studies”. According to the FDA, G.D. Searle omitted relevant facts that could jeopardize the approval of aspartame, said Howard Metzenbaum former senator and chairman of the Consumer Federation of America.

John Olney, a professor of psychiatry as well as James Turner, a public-interest lawyer filed a petition for a public hearing about safety which leads to an FDA investigation of the laboratory practices of aspartame’s manufacturer, G.D. Searle. The investigation found Searle’s testing procedures faulty, full of inaccuracies and manipulated data. James S. Turner, the consumer attorney, stated that a study was done by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) had shown that 30% of six hundred and fifty, of those who complained about NutraSweet to the FDA at that time, have had a reaction after consuming NutraSweet. It has been proven that these same consumers, who avoided the consumption of NutraSweet for a time, had the same reaction either by taking it accidentally or purposely. Professor Ralph Walton, chairman of the psychiatry department at Northwestern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, said: "I dispute Monsanto's assertion that there are no health risks. I believe aspartame increases risk of cancer. Virtually all the studies attesting to its safety have been funded by the industry. Aspartame approval was one of the most controversial in the FDA history. It is shocking that all these information about NutraSweet’s side effects had been hidden from the public.

Binge Eating Disorder or (BED) is a psychiatric disorder in which subjects does not control their frenetic way of eating. In fact they eat an unusually large amount of food at one time. Dr Ralph Walton, professor at the department of psychiatry at the North East Ohio Universities College of Medicine, and chairman of the U.S. Centre for Behavioral Medicine, lead an independent research on aspartame. He concluded that sweeteners used in low-calorie drinks could lead to binge eating disorders (BED) and therefore obesity.

Many people consumes aspartame on a daily basis and do not know it might be the cause of their illnesses. Aspartame accounts for many adverse reactions reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious such as Multiple Sclerosis; brain cancer, breathing difficulties, headaches, weight gain and anxiety. Aspartame was disguised by its manufacturer by the name of NutraSweet to make it less evident to consumers that in fact it is aspartame that they are ingesting. We, as consumers, have the obligation to buy product that does not harm our health such as Aspartame. As parents, we are in charge of the little ones who are defenseless against big corporations, which have the audacity to make profit disregarding the future generation’s health. Enough is enough- we have to stop the irresponsible corporation’s behavior by educating ourselves and have a better understanding of what is going down our throat. Sugar cannot be replaced by some chemical experience as a magical potion and be approved by high authorities that are supposed to defend us. Scientists, doctors, psychiatrists, believe there are safety questions; and medical data relating to health risks of aspartame identified safety concerns, Therefore, we have to listen to our common sense that says- we are human not machines, and our body was designed to be exposed to natural products not artificial ones. And that is how we will win the battle against those whom are supposedly protecting us as consumers, but are in fact dictating what is in our plate.

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