By OcJim

There are many apt nicknames for Donald Rumsfeld. Of course, the media affectionately calls him Rummy, seeing a practiced smile like the photo on the bottom, an image of mirth at press conferences. Others find him malevolent, as characterized by the top two photos. They compare him to a snake, a cobra, or an animal which eats its young.

To those who abhor what he stands for, he is associated with mayhem and death in a “criminal” Iraqi War. Hundreds of thousands of torn bodies, torn minds, and deaths are attributed to him and the Bush administration. Saad Ali of We Are Change Chicago confronted Rumsfeld at a Chicago speech last May: “Some of your greatest accomplishments have been cause to some of the most horrible human suffering… One million dead in Iraq, thousands of dead Americans, legalizing Aspartame, How do you live with that sir?” Ali was thrown out.

For most, his aspartame infamy is not known. As the CEO of G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, he used his past political influence (as Secretary of Defense in the Gerald Ford administration) while seducing incoming President Ronald Reagan with his polish and guile to acquire FDA approval for aspartame. In 1981 Reagan was a somewhat naïve, easy target for the wily Rumsfeld.

Rummy cajoled a business-courted, anti-government Reagan to help force the FDA approval of aspartame (NutraSweet and Equal) as an artificial sweetener. It is a substance felt to be responsible for many side effects and illnesses among adults and children over many years, linked by some doctors to autism in children.

The Searle Company had millions to spend to assure that the FDA would approve aspartame, which one of its chemists accidentally discovered in 1965. It is a substance 180 times sweeter than sugar, yet has no calories. Testimony to Searle’s resolve was a long history of conflict of interest, coercion within the FDA, influence peddling, manipulation of data, even including criminal conduct, unprosecuted due to delays after Rumsfeld’s appointment in 1977, and finally the statute of limitations.

In 1967, real university scientists, including biochemist, Dr. Harold Waisman, did studies that left 1 monkey fed aspartame dead and five others with grand mal seizures. By 1970 somehow Cyclamate got pulled off the market, leaving only saccharin, but with questions. In 1971, neuroscientist Dr. John Olney informed Searle that one of the ingredients of aspartame, aspartic acid, caused holes in the brains of infant mice.

Nevertheless, after spending tens of millions of dollars, in 1973, Searle applied for FDA approval, submitted a selection of 100 studies. Limited approval came in 1974 but was taken away after Dr. Olney’s objections.

In 1976, An FDA investigation of the Searle lab found its testing procedures shoddy, full of inaccuracies with test data actually manipulated. The investigator’s report said, “They had never seen anything as bad as Searle’s testing.”

A criminal investigation ensued in 1977 with a grand jury indictment. On March 8, 1977, G.D. Searle hired prominent Washington insider Donald Rumsfeld as the new CEO. A former member of Congress and Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration, Rummy brought in several of his Washington cronies as top management. He got chief prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s office, Samuel Skinner hired out to a lucrative job with Searle’s law firm. Because the statute of limitations ran out, the case was dropped.

Subsequently, the Bressler Report, compiled by FDA investigators and headed by Jerome Bressler, showed  that 98 of the 196 animals died during one of Searle’s studies and weren’t autopsied until later dates, some over one year after death. A rat was reported alive, then dead, then alive, then dead again; a uterine polyp, and ovarian growths were found in animals but not reported or diagnosed in Searle’s reports.

In 1979, the FDA established a Public Board of Inquiry (PBOI) to rule on safety issues surrounding NutraSweet. FDA cited lack of proof that aspartame was safe. Nevertheless, Donald Rumsfeld announced a big push for approval within a year at his sales meeting.

Sworn in as President, Reagan appointed Rumsfeld as a member of Reagan’s transition team. With a free rein, Rumsfeld, then the CEO for Searle, handpicked Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. to be the new FDA Commissioner.

Dr. Hayes promptly pushed through approval over objections of FDA scientists and the Public Board of Inquiry. Though aspartame was approved as a sweetener in carbonated beverages and other liquids in October of 1982, the National Soft Drink Association (NSDA) urged the FDA to delay because it was very unstable in liquid form. If the liquid aspartame reached 85 degrees Fahrenheit, it broke down into DKP and formaldehyde, both known toxins, scientists concurred.

It wasn’t until the fall of 1983 that the first carbonated beverages containing aspartame was sold to the public.

Now aspartame is consumed by over 200 million people around the world and is found in more than 6,000 products, including carbonated soft drinks, chewing gum, ice cream toppings, confections, gelatins, medicines and vitamins. Most parents being unaware of its dangers, children often ingest aspartame in soft drinks, teas, hot cocoa mixes, puddings, yogurts, chewing gum, and breath mints, putting them at risk.

Some doctors link it to autism, but no real studies have been done. Under the Freedom of Information Act, in 1995 the FDA had to release a list of ninety-two aspartame symptoms reported by victims. They included blindness, ringing in the ears, fuzzy thinking, migraines, hyperactivity, anxiety, and diarrhea — only to name a few.

Contrary to declarations by independent scientists and the plethora of products containing aspartame, the FDA still proclaims that 25 cans of diet soda daily for the average man is safe.

Meanwhile Rummy writes self-congratulatory memoirs (Known and Unknown: A Memoir) that show himself totally detached from the specter of suffering that still follows him. Accountability for crime seems to be a province for the poor.

Many, however, know what hides behind his arrogant smile: macabre ghostly apparitions of his casualties: hundreds of thousands of them – phantasms of the dead and maimed in decimated cities in Iraq, broken survivors bent over gravestones, and the tragedies of the walking wounded. Added to this legion are more parades of victims, many unaware – past, present, and future – victims of a substance he pushed for profit.

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-side-effects.html

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-case-histories.html

http://aspartame.mercola.com/

http://www.321recipes.com/aspartame.html