Gordon's UPI story reported that Dr. Wurtman said: "Dr. Gerald Gaull, a Searle vice president, visited his laboratory in l985 and threatened to veto funding by ILSI, the Washington-based tax-exempt foundation, for his planned study into whether NutraSweet changes brain chemistry, lowering some humans seizure thresholds." Gaull didn't deny making the threat. Dr. William Partridge told Gordon that after he raised questions about the sweetener's effects on children, ILSI rejected his two grant proposals in l985.

Additional revelations from the UPI investigation put the aspartame picture in perspective:

"Drs. Louis Elsas of Emory University and William Pardridge of the UCLA Medical School charged that the diet food and drink industry has engaged in a ‘whitewash' by rejecting health concerns, manipulating research studies and wining and dining scientific critics.

"These and other researchers describe a world of subtle, high-stakes strategy in which the availability of corporate funds and the design of research protocols may have influenced the course of a multibillion-dollar industry and potentially affected the safety of millions of people.

"Elsas, who publicly assailed NutraSweet in l985, said he was put off for a year before ILSI rejected his proposal without stating a reason.

"While denying funding for these aspartame skeptics, the company (G. D. Searle/NutraSweet Co.) and ILSI have financed researchers with whom they have long-running relationships. A number of industry-funded scientists acknowledge that company and ILSI officials originated ideas for their studies or participated in the research design. These studies generally have reported the sweetener is safe.

"In the summer of l985 the firm flew Wurtman, Elsas, Matalon, Pardridge, several of their wives and other NutraSweet critics to a two-day meeting at a luxurious home in Northeast harbor, Maine. An afternoon was spent on a yacht, participants said. 'This was industry wooing the concerned to shut up,' Elsas said.

"Dr. Richard Wurtman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist, says heavy NutraSweet consumption may so flood the bloodstream with phenylalanine that other essential amino acids are blocked from reaching the brain, causing chemical changes that can affect behavior and lower the threshold at which many suffer epileptic seizures.

"Dr. Sidney Wolfe, executive director of the Washington-based Health Research Group said, 'The thing that's really worrisome is that it clearly affects brain metabolism in animals, and anyone who disputes that is irresponsible.'

"Dr. Richard Matalon of the University of Illinois has reported that heavy consumption of NutraSweet's main component—the amino acid phenylalanine—may cause neurological problems such as loss of memory and concentration."

"Consumer lawyer Jim Turner said, 'The notion that an industrial company would take large sums of money and parcel it out to scientific consulting firms and university departments, who they consider to be personal and commercial allies, is an unconscionable way to ensure the safety of the American food supply.' He said the NutraSweet experience shows that 'the entire system of the way scientific research is done needs to be carefully investigated, evaluated and revamped.'

"Matalon said, 'Let us say cigarettes were invented today and you give 20 people two packs a day and after six weeks, no one has cancer, would you say that it was safe? That's what they did with NutraSweet.'" [11]

Though the FDA originally wanted the manufacturer indicted, eventually their loyalty transferred to the manufacturer. They distributed Monsanto's propaganda with a paper from the International Food Information Council Foundation which is rebutted by Mark Gold of the Aspartame Toxicity Center on the Dorway Web site. This disinformation is also distributed by trade organizations funded by the industry. The American Dietetics Association is often called Monsanto's media flack, and in the January l993 issue of the ADA Courier is a picture of smiling dietitians receiving a check for $75,000 from NutraSweet, admitting they write ADA's material.

James Bowen, M.D., writes of NutraSweet:

Toxic Mechanisms:
Abortifacient: Abortion causation
Terotogen: Birth defect production
Adjuvant: Forms antigenic tissue, triggering immunologic attack, fetal wastage
Chelation: Chelates metals, promoting heavy metal poisoning [12]

Diabetic specialist H.J. Roberts, M.D., has a position paper on aspartame and diabetes on Dorway in which explains how aspartame can precipitate diabetes, keep blood sugar out of control, destroy the optic nerve, and even cause diabetic convulsions.[13] Yet the American Diabetes Association, funded by NutraSweet, distributes NutraSweet propaganda recommending the poison.

When Dr. H. J. Roberts wrote Aspartame (NutraSweet): Is It Safe?, he added an epilogue quoting comments at his first press conference: "I think it would be a tragedy if this issue is ignored since we could be inviting disastrous medical, psychological and neurological problems. I hope I'm wrong. But lets look at the problem NOW instead of in five or ten years when we might be having a medical plague on our hands."

In l996, FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler granted blanket approval of this neurotoxin to be used like sugar. I had asked then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich for help. On August 26, l996 (p 20-21) the Food Chemical News reported, "Gingrich told FDA in a July 26 letter that he would appreciate any information the agency could provide him on aspartame. Aspartame—commercially known as 'NutraSweet'—was recently approved for all food and beverages uses by the FDA." I had provided 26 questions for the FDA to answer that could remove aspartame from the market if FDA would answer them honestly. To this day (August 4, 2000) the FDA has refused to answer them, even though given to them by a man who at that time was considered one of the most important men in the world.

In December l996 John Olney, M.D., the famed neuroscientist who founded the branch of neuroscience known as excitotoxicity, made world news when he published Increasing Brain Tumor Rates: Is There a Link to Aspartame? in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology. [14] He was accompanied on 60 Minutes by Dr. Ralph Walton, who provided peer-reviewed research on aspartame showing that 83 of 90 independent studies (i.e. not funded by the industry) revealed problems. Six studies from the FDA had to be disqualified because of their controversial role regarding aspartame. One literature review almost exclusively reflected the industry-sponsored research. With these studies excluded, 100 percent of the truly independently-funded research demonstrated some type of adverse reaction to NutraSweet.