If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Donald Rumsfeld, Diet Coke & Avian Flu
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Aspartame's Untold Story
By: Rishi Mehta
Issue date: 11/15/05 Section: Commentary
Article Tools:Email This ArticlePrint This Article Page 1 of 1
IT'S AN INGREDIENT FOUND IN OVER 5,000 CONSUMER PRODUCTS, INCLUDING GUM, DIET SODAS, CEREALS, VITAMINS, AND TABLE-TOP SWEETENERS, YET IT IS REPORTED TO CAUSE OVER 90 DIFFERENT ADVERSE HEALTH AFFECTS. IT'S CONSUMED BY 40 PERCENT OF CHILDREN AND TWO-THIRDS OF THE ADULT POPULATION, YET CAUSES MORE COMPLAINTS THAN ANY OTHER FOOD ADDITIVE RECEIVED BY THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. MARKETED IN NUTRASWEET AND EQUAL, ASPARTAME IS AN INGREDIENT WELL KNOWN TO CONSUMER AMERICA BUT HAS A CONTROVERSIAL HISTORY NOT SO WELL-KNOWN.
In 1965, aspartame was discovered by a chemist named James Schlatter working for G.D. Searle & Company. For the next 15 years Searle tried to get the FDA to approve the ingredient. It wasn't until 1981, when aspartame finally was approved by the FDA, allowing the product to be used in a variety of daily food and beverage products. It's a hisory seemingly benign, yet is inherently anything but. It is the players involved, not the actual timeline, where cronyism finds its place to lurk. The approval of such a controversial food additive is marred by the shady practices of the not so famous Arthur Hayes Hull Jr. and the very famous - if not infamous - Donald Rumsfeld.
During the Gerald Ford adminstration, Rumsfeld acted as the U.S. Secretary of Defense, only to find himself committing to the private sector once Jimmy Carter ousted Ford. It was at this point, in 1977, when Rumsfeld became the chief executive officer of a worldwide pharmaceutical company - G.D. Searle & Company. It's the same company which for years found themselves unable to get an FDA approval for aspartame, only to receive approval six months after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States.
So is it exactly "shady" that Rumsfeld couldn't get FDA approval until Reagan became president? Did it really pose a conflict of interest, when Reagan appointed Rumsfeld as his Special Envoy to the Middle East, while Rumsfeld was still in charge of Searle and lobbying for FDA approval of aspartame? A resounding yes, and yes for more than just the Reagan-Rumsfeld connection.
In 1981, after over 15 years of FDA disapproval of aspartame, Rumsfeld said in a Searle sales meeting that he will use "political rather than scientific means" to finally get FDA approval. Only 20 days later, Reagan was sworn in as 40th President of the United States, appointing Rumfeld as Special Envoy to the Middle East and Arthur Hayes Hull Jr. - a friend of Rumsfeld's - to FDA commissioner. Within one day, Rumsfeld and Searle reapplied to Hull's FDA for approval of aspartame. A few months later Hayes appointed a five-member committee to review whether or not Aspartame should be approved. When it became apparent there would be a 3-2 decision against approval of the substance, Hull appointed a sixth person. Once the vote became deadlocked, Hayes took it upon himself to make the tie-breaking vote, allowing Aspartame to receive FDA approval. Only three months later, Hayes resigned under controversy only to shortly thereafter take a senior position with Burston-Marsteller - a company which was the public relations firm for Rumsfeld's Searle.
To many, a conflict of interest of this magnitude is a common practice throughout the corrupt history of American politics, making the aspartame story nothing of significance. This would certainly be the case if the controversy stopped at the personal gain Rumsfeld and Hayes achieved through an inherent conflict of interest. Unfortunately, millions of consumers have suffered because aspartame did not go through the "normal" procedures for FDA approval.
Initially, the FDA didn't approve aspartame for years because it was thought to cause brain tumors. In 1980, after more research was done, the FDA voted against approval of the product because there were many "unanswered questions about its potential" to be a carcinogen. In 1981, the three members of Hayes' committee who voted against FDA approval noted that "Searle's tests were unreliable and not adequate to determine the safety of aspartame." To this date, studies have shown that more research is needed to completely eliminate the question of whether or not aspartame is connected to brain lesions, brain tumuors and lymphoma. While some recent research have deemed aspartame as safe, other research, such as the one conducted recently in Italy by the European Ramazzini Foundation, have found that aspartme caused kidney cancer in rats. Some would argue that the the potential danger of aspartme is even admitted by our government as it was revealed in 1987 that the Pentagon once considered it to be a prospective biochemical-warfare weapon.
If anything, aspartame needed further research and still does. It did not need to be rushed into FDA approval. Had Rumsfeld not been the president of Searle, and had Reagan not appointed Hayes to the FDA, aspartame could still very well be going through a variety of tests to measure its safety. In the end it could very well be that aspartame is not as dangerous as its critics have made it seem, but until this becomes the definitive truth, consumers should not be made to believe such a product is truly safe. Consumers would never have been put in potential risk if the conflict of interest Rumsfeld and Hayes posed never occurred.
Unfortunately for the public, Rumsfeld's shady connections do not end with the aspartame story. Indeed, even today Rumsfeld's private and public careers have crossed paths, exploiting Americans and the world for personal wealth. Lost in the doomsday predictions of the avian flu is the Rumsfeld connection. It's a connection which details his key role in the eerily similar 1976 swine flu scare as well as the current avian flu hysteria.
Source: http://www.dailycampus.com/media/paper340/news/2005/11/15/Commentary/Aspartames.Untold.Story-1057813.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.dailycampus.com
By: Rishi Mehta
Issue date: 11/15/05 Section: Commentary
Article Tools:Email This ArticlePrint This Article Page 1 of 1
IT'S AN INGREDIENT FOUND IN OVER 5,000 CONSUMER PRODUCTS, INCLUDING GUM, DIET SODAS, CEREALS, VITAMINS, AND TABLE-TOP SWEETENERS, YET IT IS REPORTED TO CAUSE OVER 90 DIFFERENT ADVERSE HEALTH AFFECTS. IT'S CONSUMED BY 40 PERCENT OF CHILDREN AND TWO-THIRDS OF THE ADULT POPULATION, YET CAUSES MORE COMPLAINTS THAN ANY OTHER FOOD ADDITIVE RECEIVED BY THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION. MARKETED IN NUTRASWEET AND EQUAL, ASPARTAME IS AN INGREDIENT WELL KNOWN TO CONSUMER AMERICA BUT HAS A CONTROVERSIAL HISTORY NOT SO WELL-KNOWN.
In 1965, aspartame was discovered by a chemist named James Schlatter working for G.D. Searle & Company. For the next 15 years Searle tried to get the FDA to approve the ingredient. It wasn't until 1981, when aspartame finally was approved by the FDA, allowing the product to be used in a variety of daily food and beverage products. It's a hisory seemingly benign, yet is inherently anything but. It is the players involved, not the actual timeline, where cronyism finds its place to lurk. The approval of such a controversial food additive is marred by the shady practices of the not so famous Arthur Hayes Hull Jr. and the very famous - if not infamous - Donald Rumsfeld.
During the Gerald Ford adminstration, Rumsfeld acted as the U.S. Secretary of Defense, only to find himself committing to the private sector once Jimmy Carter ousted Ford. It was at this point, in 1977, when Rumsfeld became the chief executive officer of a worldwide pharmaceutical company - G.D. Searle & Company. It's the same company which for years found themselves unable to get an FDA approval for aspartame, only to receive approval six months after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States.
So is it exactly "shady" that Rumsfeld couldn't get FDA approval until Reagan became president? Did it really pose a conflict of interest, when Reagan appointed Rumsfeld as his Special Envoy to the Middle East, while Rumsfeld was still in charge of Searle and lobbying for FDA approval of aspartame? A resounding yes, and yes for more than just the Reagan-Rumsfeld connection.
In 1981, after over 15 years of FDA disapproval of aspartame, Rumsfeld said in a Searle sales meeting that he will use "political rather than scientific means" to finally get FDA approval. Only 20 days later, Reagan was sworn in as 40th President of the United States, appointing Rumfeld as Special Envoy to the Middle East and Arthur Hayes Hull Jr. - a friend of Rumsfeld's - to FDA commissioner. Within one day, Rumsfeld and Searle reapplied to Hull's FDA for approval of aspartame. A few months later Hayes appointed a five-member committee to review whether or not Aspartame should be approved. When it became apparent there would be a 3-2 decision against approval of the substance, Hull appointed a sixth person. Once the vote became deadlocked, Hayes took it upon himself to make the tie-breaking vote, allowing Aspartame to receive FDA approval. Only three months later, Hayes resigned under controversy only to shortly thereafter take a senior position with Burston-Marsteller - a company which was the public relations firm for Rumsfeld's Searle.
To many, a conflict of interest of this magnitude is a common practice throughout the corrupt history of American politics, making the aspartame story nothing of significance. This would certainly be the case if the controversy stopped at the personal gain Rumsfeld and Hayes achieved through an inherent conflict of interest. Unfortunately, millions of consumers have suffered because aspartame did not go through the "normal" procedures for FDA approval.
Initially, the FDA didn't approve aspartame for years because it was thought to cause brain tumors. In 1980, after more research was done, the FDA voted against approval of the product because there were many "unanswered questions about its potential" to be a carcinogen. In 1981, the three members of Hayes' committee who voted against FDA approval noted that "Searle's tests were unreliable and not adequate to determine the safety of aspartame." To this date, studies have shown that more research is needed to completely eliminate the question of whether or not aspartame is connected to brain lesions, brain tumuors and lymphoma. While some recent research have deemed aspartame as safe, other research, such as the one conducted recently in Italy by the European Ramazzini Foundation, have found that aspartme caused kidney cancer in rats. Some would argue that the the potential danger of aspartme is even admitted by our government as it was revealed in 1987 that the Pentagon once considered it to be a prospective biochemical-warfare weapon.
If anything, aspartame needed further research and still does. It did not need to be rushed into FDA approval. Had Rumsfeld not been the president of Searle, and had Reagan not appointed Hayes to the FDA, aspartame could still very well be going through a variety of tests to measure its safety. In the end it could very well be that aspartame is not as dangerous as its critics have made it seem, but until this becomes the definitive truth, consumers should not be made to believe such a product is truly safe. Consumers would never have been put in potential risk if the conflict of interest Rumsfeld and Hayes posed never occurred.
Unfortunately for the public, Rumsfeld's shady connections do not end with the aspartame story. Indeed, even today Rumsfeld's private and public careers have crossed paths, exploiting Americans and the world for personal wealth. Lost in the doomsday predictions of the avian flu is the Rumsfeld connection. It's a connection which details his key role in the eerily similar 1976 swine flu scare as well as the current avian flu hysteria.
Source: http://www.dailycampus.com/media/paper340/news/2005/11/15/Commentary/Aspartames.Untold.Story-1057813.shtml?norewrite&sourcedomain=www.dailycampus.com
0