My layman's central concern with aspartame has always been the glaring problem of the methyl ester mid part of the molecule, because it turns to methanol in the stomach. Then the liver converts methanol to formaldehyde, which is what is lodged in the RNA. How could anyone in their right mind not deduce that ingesting any form of formaldehyde would not be cumulatively detrimental to the hundreds of millions who consume it, not realizing that they are embalming themselves while still alive
To its credit, the FDA recognized this 50 years ago after the patent of aspartame by Searle was granted. FDA chemists examined the molecule, and determined that the level of aspartic acid and phenylalanine would be neurotoxic and dangerous, as well as the ingestion of formaldehyde. They, therefore, for the next 15 years, till 1981, repeatedly rejected aspartame for human consumption under FDA approval.
To sum up this regulatory history to make the testimony brief and readable, and cut to the chase:
Then along came Donald Rumsfeld, at that point President of Searle, who announced that he would get aspartame approved not by medical or scientific means, but by political means. You can easily watch him saying this in the YouTube.com video; it is less than two minutes long, but it reveals everything you need to know.
And then, in one of the dirtiest deals in the history of the checkered FDA, he got his own sympathetic ally appointed to Commissioner, Arthur Hull Hayes, M.D., who had been out in Maryland doing experiments at Fort Dietrich with mind altering drugs in prisoners. This is who Rumsfeld pressured Reagan to appoint as FDA Commissioner!
He thus put him in charge of the roughly 20% of the US Economy's regulation, because that would be the amount under Food or Drugs, in terms of dollars involved. That in itself is monstrous; and so aspartame was approved for general human consumption, thus setting the stage for the biochemical mayhem that was to come, the medical destruction that worsened even more after the approval was extended to the soft drink industry in 1983, which was bitterly fought by leaders like Coca Cola for liability reasons.
The FDA immediately began to receive complaints about aspartame. Within a year, aspartame became the #1 source of complaints from consumers, and within those complaints, headaches were #1. There were 92 symptoms attributed by the FDA to aspartame poisoning, and then in 1995, under the Clintons, the FDA was ordered to stop compiling these lists, and a complete cessation of such input occurred.
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As a dedicated and sometimes fearless consumer protectionist, I have been the source of two attempts in New Mexico to ban aspartame entirely, one vis-a-vis medications, through the New Mexico Board of Pharmacy and its statutory powers to prohibit poisonous and deleterious chemicals in medications. This would have been very important, as there are more than 5000 medications that contain, terrible for those with neurodegenerative illnesses like Parkinson's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis to be taking in medications, which would only make their symptoms much worse and more incurable, or with brain tumors, seizures, ALS, etc., all of which would become much worse and destructive.
Once the New Mexico Board of Pharmacy moved forward with considering conducting hearings and start to schedule the first one, Ajinomoto of Japan brought in a New Mexico Harvard-trained lawyer from a large firm in Albuquerque to threaten the board with being sued, both individually as members, and severally, as a Board. They immediately caved in and the hearings were scrubbed, never to occur.
I then asked the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Board to conduct hearings concerning aspartame in Food, as in NM, the EIB has statutory power over poisonous and deleterious food chemicals. This enabling statute had never been used, and it took the EIB several months of hearings to determine that, yes, it had this power. Then the same Harvard lawyer showed up, this time with another large law firm lawyer, hired by the Calorie Control Council in Atlanta, the aspartame industry's front group, and they threatened the EIB with more law suits, so they caved in
immediately too. This was between 2005 and 2006.
Thanks to one enlightened member of the New Mexico Senate, Gerald Ortiz y Pino, we then moved the struggle to the New Mexico Legislature (hard to sue 112 members, eh?). Predictably, the industries involved added a few more participants like Altria, owner of Kraft foods, and over several years, lobbied the legislature into submission and inaction. Some of their lobbyists are now in prison for other crimes related to fraud, and one in fact died in prison.
I shifted my efforts to Hawaii, primarily because of it having such a high incidence of epilepsy among the native Hawaiians, and then representing the second aspartame patent holder, the Monsanto lobbyist there leaned on a few members and that bill was killed by inaction by the Chairman of the Hawaii Senate Health Committee, David Ige, who simply refused to schedule a hearing, thus killing that bill. Mr. Ige is now Governor of Hawaii. The bill had been signed by 14 members of the Hawaii Senate who agreed to cosponsor the bill, out of 25 members, and would have passed the Senate, save for now Governor Ige's deliberate inaction.
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