From: Bob Padgett 
Subject: NutraSweet(tm) [aspartame] (fwd)
Message-ID: 
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 09:22:57 -0500 (EST)

SWEET POISON
The Story of Aspartame

by Alex Constantine


The Food and Drug Administration [FDA] refers to aspartame--the 
chemical widely known as NutraSweet--as a "food additive," not a 
"drug."  Adverse reactions to a substance classified as a food 
additive need not be reported to a federal agency, nor is continued 
safety monitoring required by law. 

Food additives are not noted to be causative agents in the development 
of brain lesions, headaches, mood alterations, skin polyps, blindness, 
brain tumors, insomnia or depression, nor are they known to erode 
inteligence or short-term memory.  NutraSweet, according to some of 
the most capable scientists in the country, is.  In 1991, the National 
Institute of Health--a branch of the Department of Health and Human 
Services--published Adverse Effects of Aspartame, listing the 
aforementioned side effects among approximately 167 reasons to avoid 
the substance. 

Aspartame is an RDNA derivative, a combination of two amino acids.  
The U.S. Pentagon once listed it in an inventory of prospective 
biochemical-warfare weapons submitted to Congress.  Instead of 
poisoning enemy populations, though, the formula is currently marketed 
as a sweetening agent in some 1,200 food products 

G.D. Searle--the pharmaceutical firm that introduced NutraSweet--
vigorously lobbied federal and Congressional officials to move 
aspartame to market, despite substantial evidence of the chemical's 
detrimental side effects. 

According to NutraSweet's publications depiction, the origin of 
aspartame can be traced to a scientist developing an ulcer drug (not a 
"food additive") in 1966.  Purportedly, the man discovered upon 
carelessly licking his fingers the substance under scrutiny tasted 
extraordinarily sweet.  Thus was born the successor to saccharin, 
which is a coal derivative that was popular as an artificial sweetener 
until reports of cancer-causing properties surfaced. 

Established in 1888 on the North Side of Chicago, G. D. Searle 
manufactures everything from prescription drugs to nuclear-imaging 
optical equipment.  At the time of the company's acquisition by 
commodities colossus Monsanto Corporation in 1985, the firm's chairman 
was Harvard graduate William L. Searle, who was an officer in the Army 
Chemical Corps in the early 1950s, a time when the division was 
testing LSD on human subjects in concert with the CIA. 

The Center for Disease Control [CDC] in Atlanta, Georgia, reports 
receiving stacks of letters complaining of NutraSweet's adverse 
effects.  According to the National Soft Drink Association [NSDA]: 
"There have been hundreds of reports from aroundthe country suggesting 
a possible relationship between consumption of NutraSweet and 
subsequent symptoms including headaches, aberrational behavior and 
slurred speech." 

FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes, appointed by Ronald Reagan in 
April of 1981, discounts such complaints as merely anecdotal.  Despite 
what one FDA scientist described as "very serious" questions 
concerning pivotal brain tumor tests, Hayes eagerly approved aspartame 
for use in dry foods in July 1981.  Three FDA scientists advised 
against such approval, citing G.D. Searle's own brain tumor tests, 
which contained no proof that aspartame was safe for consumption as a 
food additive under its intended conditions of use. 

Commissioner Hayes ignored the recommendations of the FDA's own board 
of inquiry, relying instead on a study conducted by Japan's Ajinomoto, 
Inc.--a licensee of G.D. Searle.  In so doing, Hayes based his 
approval of aspartame on the Japanese test, although the testing 
procedures had not been reviewed by the FDA board, as is required by 
federal law. 

Not only did Hayes approve a product based on studies that were 
"scientifically lacking in design and execution," according to a 
report issued by Science Times in February of 1985, but upon leaving 
the FDA, Hayes took the post of senior medical consultant for Burson-
Marsteller, the public relations firm retained by G. D. Searle. 

Aspartame found early opposition in consumer attorney James Turner, 
author of The Chemical Feast.  At his own expense, Turner fought FDA 
approval of the sweetener for ten years, basing his argument on 
aspartame's potential side effects, particularly on children.  Sharing 
Turner's concerns, Dr. John Olney, professor of neuropathology and 
psychiatry at the Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, 
Missouri, reported that clinical tests indicated that aspartame, 
combined with monosodium glutamate (MSG)--a common seasoning--
increased the likelihood of certain forms of brain damage occurring in 
children. 

Internally, aspartame breaks down into not only its constitent amino 
acids, but into methanol as well, a poisonous liquid alcohol that 
degrades into formaldehyde.  The FDA announced in 1984 that no 
evidence has been found to establish that aspartame's methanol by-
product reaches toxic levels, claiming that "many fruit juices contain 
higher levels of the natural compound." 
 However, the Medical World News reported in 1978 that the methanol 
content of aspartame is 1,000 times greater than most foods under FDA 
control. 

   According to independent tests, aspartame intake is shown by animal 
studies to alter brain chemicals affecting behavior.  Aspartame's 
effects on the brain led Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] 
neuroscientist Richard Wurtman to discover that the sweetener defeats 
its purpose as a diet aid, since high doses of aspartame apparently 
instill a craving for calorie-laden carbohydrates.  In addition, 
Wurtman's pilot studies found that the NutraSweet/carbohydrate 
combination increases the sweetener's effect on brain composition. 

Searle officials denigrated Wurtman's findings, but the American 
Cancer Society has since confirmed--after tracking weight fluctuations 
in 80,000 women for six years--that "among women who gained weight, 
artificial-sweetener users gained more than those who didn't use the 
products." 

According to findings by Dr. Paul Spiers, a neuropsychologist at 
Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, aspartame can depress intelligence.  In 
clinical tests, Spiers analyzed subjects with a history of consuming 
NutraSweet, who were unaware that they might be suffering ill effects 
from the sweetener.  The subjects were given NutraSweet in capsules 
containing the FDA's allowable daily limit. 

Spiers was alarmed to discover that the test subjects developed 
cognitive deficits.  One of Spiers's tests required mental recall of 
pattern arrangements and alphabetical sequences.  The quiz is 
challenging, but most people improve as they learn how it is done.  
Aspartame users, discovered Spiers, did not improve. 

"Some showed a reverse pattern," states Spiers. 

"I hav received a letter recently from a person who is well known to 
me, whose word is impeccable, as far as I am concerned," testified 
Senator Russell Long, (D-Louisiana) at the May 1985 FDA hearings 
instigated by Senator Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) to require stricter 
labeling of NutraSweet in food products.  "This person told me that, 
while dieting, she had been using soft drinks containing NutraSweet.  
She said she found her memory slipping.  She could not recall a good 
bit of that which was going on about her, to the extent that she was 
afraid she was losing her mind.  In due course, someone suggested that 
the problem might be due to NutraSweet; so she stopped using it, and 
her memory came back and her mind was restored." 

"There have been hundreds of incidences of people who have suffered 
loss of memory, headaches, dizziness and other neurological symptoms, 
which they feel are related to aspartame," noted Metzenbaum, siting 
Long's concern. 

As far back as March 1976, an FDA task force brought into question all 
of G.D. Searle's aspartame-testing procedures conducted between 1967 
and 1975. 
 The final FDA report noted faulty and fraudulent product testing, 
knowingly misrepresented findings and instances of irrelevant or 
unproductive animal research where experiments had been poorly 
conceived, carelessly executed or inaccurately analyzed. 

The FDA's chief counsel, Richard Merrill, petitioned Samuel K. 
Skinner, U.S. Attorney for the northern district of Illinois, for a 
grand jury investigation of Searle's willful and knowing failure to 
submit required test reports, the concealment of material facts and 
the company's false statements in reports on aspartame submitted to 
the agency. 

Searle company officials turned to longtime Washington politico Donald 
Rumsfeld, a former Nixon and Ford Administration operative, electing 
him the chairman of the Searle organization.  Industry analysts, 
interviewed by the Wall Street Journal six months after Rumsfeld's 
appointment as chairman, noted a rapid turnabout in Searle's fortunes 
s a result of Rumsfeld's direction. 

Reported the Wall Street Journal in 1977, Rumsfeld "has been mending 
fences with the FDA by personally asking top agency officials what 
Searle should do to straighten out its reputation (regarding 
falsifying and withholding aspartame test data].' 

In January of 1977, the FDA formally requested that U.S. Attorney 
Samuel Skinner be hired to investigate G.D. Searle's aspartame-testing 
procedures. 
 A month later, Skinner met with attorneys from Searle's Chicago law 
firm, Sidley & Austin.  When newly elected President Jimmy Carter 
announced that same year that Skinner would not be asked to remain in 
office, Skinner informed reporters that he would be hired by Sidley & 
Austin. 

Skinner recused himself from the Searle prosecution.  Senior Assistant 
U.S. Attorney William Conlon inherited the case.  Conlon eased off the 
investigation, citing caseload pressures, and gave a deaf ear to 
complaints of delays from the Justice Department, which urged that a 
grand jury be convened to prosecute Searle for falsifying NutraSweet 
test data.  In January 1979, Conlon too joined Searle's law firm, 
Sidley & Austin. 

In its bid to obtain FDA approval of aspartame in 1975, G.D. Searle 
submitted a battery of cancer-test results, titled the Willigan 
Report, which contained a statistical table that wrongly excluded four 
malignant, aspartame-related mammary tumors detected by Dr. Willigan 
and incorporated in his initial data. 
 Somehow, the malignancies were made to appear benign.  Searle 
dismissed the misrepresentation as a computer error, claiming that the 
unfavorable mammary malignancy data were innocently omitted from the 
summary table four separate times by three different individuals. 

One pivotal safety study involved fetal damage.  The FDA task force 
found that the medical researcher in charge at Searle was 
inexperienced in conducting studies of this nature.  The researcher's 
sole credential was a field study of the cottontail rabbit for the 
Illinois Wildlife Service; yet at Searle he'd been assignd to 
laboratory training and supervision.  When asked about his curriculum 
vitae in fetal research, the researcher replied that he'd once 
attended a seminar on the subject, and the Searle company had provided 
him with a library of reference works. 

The Willigan report was prepared by Searle Labs.  Although two members 
of the 1975 federal task force considered the mishandled Willigan 
tests to be fraudulent, FDA Commissioner Hayes and Searle 
representatives declared the results valid. 

Dr. Gross, the chief scientist on the FDA task force investigating 
Searle, told the CBS Nightly News staff in January of 1984 that Searle 
company officials made "deliberate decisions" to cloak aspartame's 
toxic effects. 

"Searle took great pains to camouflage the shortcomings of the study," 
claimed Gross.  "And they did other terrible things.  For instance, 
animals would develop tumors while they were under study.  Well, 
Searle would remove these tumors from the animals [surgically masking 
possible cancerous effects of aspartame]." 

In November of 1984, the CDC announced that no "serious, widespread" 
side effects of aspartame had been found.  It was "unlikely," said CDC 
officials, that "complainers" could establish a link between 
NutraSweet and their maladies.  The reported side effects of aspartame 
fell into two distinct categories: central nervous system (65%) and 
gastrointestinal disorders (24%).  Yet the CDC claimed erroneously 
that no consistent reaction pattern had been found. 

Based on the assurances of the November 1984 CDC report, soft drink 
colossus PepsiCo announced that it was dropping saccharin and adopting 
aspartame as the sweetener in all its diet drinks.  When soda bottlers 
petitioned the FDA in 1983 for a delay in approval of NutraSweet for 
soft drinks until further evaluation verified its safety, he move was 
interpreted by market analysts as a ploy to drive down the price of 
the sweetener.  The cola companies soon abandoned the effort to block 
approval and seemingly dropped all health concerns they might have had 
as well. 

Senator Metzenbaum berated Searle's apparently flawed aspartame tests 
at Senate hearings on August 1, 1985. 

"The FDA," said Metzenbaum, "is content to have the manufacturer of 
aspartame, G.D. Searle, conduct [all necessary safety] studies of the 
substance.  That's absurd." 

The Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported--
with significant disclaimers--that the consumption of aspartame poses 
no health risk for most people.  However, the report is based on FDA 
findings relying solely on the tests conducted by G.D. Searle. 

Executives of G.D. Searle argue that the use of aspartame as an 
artificial sweetener has been officially approved not only by the FDA 
but by foreign regulatory agencies and the World Health Organization.  
Reviewing the foreign studies on aspartame safety, however, Dr. H.J. 
Roberts, an internal medicine specialist in West Palm Beach, Florida, 
found that the approval of the majority of foreign agencies was based 
on contestable Searle-sponsored aspartame research, not independently 
conducted tests. 

In. August of 1987, the University of Illinois, a recipient of funding 
from Monsanto (Searle's parent corporation), issued a study 
exonerating aspartame of causing seizures in laboratory animals. 

FDA safety regulator Dave Hattan believes that the study only 
confirmed the need for testing on humans.  In independent tests, 
insists Hattan, aspartame provoked seizures in laboratory animals. 

In 1985, a coalition of consumer groups were handed a ruling by the 
Federal Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stating 
that, in the opinion of the Court, the FDA had followed proper 
procedures in approving aspartame for use in foods and soft drinks.  A 
year later, the Washington Post reported that the Supreme Court 
refused to consider arguments to the conrary "despite critics' 
arguments that the product, sold under the brand name NutraSweet, may 
cause brain damage." 

Recently denied publication of his short brief Aspartame-Associated 
Confusion and Memory Loss: A Possible Human Model for Early 
Alzheimer's Disease in a peer-review medical journal, Dr. H.J. Roberts 
wonders at the cause of the rejection. 

"For a report on this issue to be refused publication seems peculiar," 
says Roberts, author of Aspartame (NutraSweet): Is It Safe? (Charles 
Press, Philadelphia. 1990).  "considering the increasing magnitude of 
the problems of Alzheimer's disease and the relevance of my 
observations to newer biochemical findings and avenues of research." 

According to Roberts, researchers seeking to publish articles 
concerning problematic, health-related reactions to products 
containing NutraSweet are generally limited to burying their findings 
in small-circulation journals such as the bulletins of county medical 
societies, reporting their research results in the form of a letter to 
a magazine or newspaper, or, most often, they must simply discard the 
project. 

Should a researcher's findings happen to favor the benign 
characteristics of aspartame, however, professional prospects may be 
brighter.  Reportedly, Monsanto granted one such NutraSweet research 
facility a $1.3-million honorarium. 

--- GEcho 1.02+
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