Could not see if this has been pasted here before (tried searching)(cant see an appropriate category either)
Found this to be fascinating
But then G.D. Searle, producer of aspartame, made Donald Rumsfeld its CEO-yes, that Donald Rumsfeld. When Ronald Reagan took office and brought Rumsfeld with him as part of his transition team, a new FDA commissioner was appointed immediately. In one of his first acts as head of the federal agency, the new FDA commissioner approved aspartame, the artificial sweetener made by the company that Donald Rumsfeld was now the head of, over the objections of the FDA scientific board.
To recap once again, a nationally recognized expert on nutrition who says, in his extraordinarily frequent public appearances, that aspartame is safe, is paid by Ajinomoto and NutraSweet, the two largest producers of aspartame, to say that aspartame is safe. (And, this may be helpful for some of you, he’s also spoken about the safety of Olestra. Just, you know, fyi.) I said earlier that we were being misled in the name of corporate profits. Where do the profits come in? It is projected that the U.S. market for artificial sweeteners, with aspartame leading the charge, will be about $1.1 billion by 2010. That’s in this country, only; worldwide, it’s projected to be over $3 billion. That’s a lot of money for an easily concoted chemical.