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Aaron Willmore
VanderSlik
English 100 - 15
20 November 2014
Aspartame, The Sugar Alternative
Sugar, spice, and everything nice, these are the things that make the Powerpuff Girls.
Actually those are roughly the basic ingredients for all types of food sold to the consumer in
todays marketplace. To be more specific, sugar is an ingredient used in a lot of food products.
The chemical, C12H22O11 gives everything a sweet and wonderful taste, that is highly addictive to
anyone who eats it. Since it is so addictive, people were eating it in such high quantities that it
was turning unnaturally unhealthy. Quickly people were becoming fat and getting many other
health issues from it this problem. There needed to be a way to fix it all, so scientists started
working towards healthier alternatives known as artificial sweeteners. These artificial sweeteners
were put into the food, to replace sugar.
There are many artificial sweeteners in modern times but the one that seems to cross the
tongue the most is known as aspartame. A chemical composed of aspartic acid, phenylalanine,
and methanol, (Mercola). The year was 1965, this was when a chemist named James Schlatter
discovered this marvelous sugar alternative. It was discovered in a weird way because Schlatter
was trying to make a treatment for ulcers but instead made sweetener. While investigating
peptides for use in treating ulcers, he licked his finger and found it to be intensely sweet,
(Warner 209). With proper lab procedure this should not have happened because only a small
ignorant child would stick their finger in their mouth after experimenting. Since it did happen
Schlatter discovered aspartame as a freak accident.

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Sugar is used in food products to make it sweeter and to taste better. It is natural since it
comes from sugar cane, which is a plant, but why would it be replaced by aspartame? A
substance that 180 times sweeter than sugar yet has no calories, (Rense). That is why it was and
still is used to replace sugar in food.
With any scientific discovery extensive research had to be put into aspartame to
determine the number one major key factor, is it safe for human consumption. Schlatter spent the
next year, 1966, testing Aspartame to make sure that is was safe for people. It wasnt until July
twenty-sixth, 1974 that G.D. Searle was able to get FDA approval to get Aspartame out into the
market in dry goods, (Mercola). That was an eight year long effort. It is hard to even fathom
all the paperwork, pleading, persuading, and tests that went into it all. Not to mention the sure
willpower in Schlatter to not give up and to keep on trying.
There were many people who doubted if aspartame was safe for human consumption.
The first to question were named Dr. John Olney and attorney Jim Turner. Due to an experiment
Dr. Olney conducted on lab mice three years previous, 1971, he had deduced that aspartic acid
(Rense) had caused baby mice to develop holes in their brains (Chang). The Dr. was concerned
for the safety of everyone who would be consuming aspartame so he and Turner filed the
experiment's results to the FDA. This one complaint would soon turn into something much more.
As the FDA started to look into aspartame and the way G.D. Searle discovered it they
found multiple errors. Lying about test results, their lack of proper lab procedures, and
submitting made up information to get things approved (Warner 210). Everything started to go
from bad to worse for G.D. Searle when the FDA stopped allowing them to sell aspartame. Then,
for the first time ever, the FDA sought a federal grand jury investigation of Searles practices,

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(book 210). By first time it is referred to as the first time the FDA ever sought out a criminal
investigation.
At this point in aspartames facts start to blur with conspiracies. Donald Rumsfeld, the
former Secretary of Defense, was hired by G.D. Searle just after Rumsfeld stopped being the
Secretary of Defense. At first he was hired in as a consultant but then he became the CEO of the
whole company. His primary tasks would be restructuring the business and obtaining FDA
approval for aspartame and other products in the pipeline, (book 210).
G.D. Searle, even though they were not supposed to be selling aspartame, was still selling
aspartame. Only instead of in the United States they were selling it in other countries under the
name Canderel (book 210). Through this they were able to pay everyone working for them still
and afford to give Rumsfeld a hefty sum as well. Sometime during the investigation in 1977
representatives of G.D. Searle went to talk with U.S. Attorney Samuel Skinner who was is in
charge of the whole case. They persuade him to quit his job and come work for G.D. Searle.
Everything seemed to be going fine for G.D. Searle but then Jerome Bressler released his
Bressler report.
The report finds that 98 of the 196 animals died during one of Searle's studies and
weren't autopsied until later dates, in some cases over one year after death. Many
other errors and inconsistencies are noted. For example, a rat was reported alive,
then dead, then alive, then dead again; a mass, a uterine polyp, and ovarian
neoplasms were found in animals but not reported or diagnosed in Searle's
reports.

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But this did not hurt them at all since they had convinced the U.S. Attorney to come work
for them. Since he had left his job it had caused the case to be stalled and it stalled for so long
that the criminal investigation against ended up being propped.
In 1981 Ronald Reagan became the president and since Rumsfeld was apart of the
cabinet members before he was president he is allowed to come back and help make decisions.
One of the decisions he makes is to give the job of FDA commission to Arthur Hayes. After
years of waiting Arthur Hayes approved aspartame in the year of 1981. It could only be used in
dry food, soda, and other types of drinks. With a long awaited roar of rejoice G.D. Searle was
finally able to sell aspartame in the United States again. They sold it under the brand names
NutraSweet and Equal.
Ever so slowly aspartame started to become placed in ever drink and food product that
G.D. Searle could manage. Monsanto, the inventors of Agent Orange, the chemical used to kill
people in Vietnam War, and genetically modified food enthusiasts, GMOs, purchased aspartame
from G.D. Searle in 1985 to help move the product faster. Soon after Coca-Cola started using
aspartame in their diet coke. In 1993, after Monsanto scientists developed a version of
aspartame that remained stable at high temperatures, the FDA approved it for use in baked
goods. The agency lifted all restrictions in 1996, (book 211). Aspartame is now in almost
everything artificially made.
There are many side effects to aspartame, or so people believe. Aspartame accounts for
over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. (Mercola). To
list a few of these side effects there is, depression, headaches, seizures, memory loss, breathing
problems, migraines, vision problems, heart palpitations, and quite a few others. These can also
be contributed to other problems so it is difficult when people speculate that aspartame is the

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cause of these issues. It is believed that aspartame can cause actual illnesses of make them worse
and some of those are; epilepsy, mental retardation, birth defects, diabetes, brain tumors, and
many more. Those to can be connected to other issues. That is why it is hard to prove that
aspartame is bad.
Aspartame, breakthrough of the century or a silent killer. The facts point to both, making
it hard to determine if it is truly bad for human consumption. An artificial sweetener that is one
hundred plus times sweeter than regular sugar and has no calories. Inciting the first criminal case
ever sought out by the FDA. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener filled with controversy.

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Work Cited
Warner, Deborah. Sweet stuff. Washington, D.C.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2011.
Print.
Murray, Rich. "How Aspartame Became Legal." Rense Ed. Jeff Rense. 24 Dec. 2002. Rense
Web. 1 Dec. 2014.
Mercola, Dr. Joseph. "Aspartame: By Far the Most Dangerous Substance Added to Most Foods
Today." Mercola 6 Nov. 2011. Mercola Web. 1 Dec. 2014.
Chang, Kenneth. "What we eat: doubts by the teaspoonful." New York Times 12 June 2012:
D1(L). New York Times. Web. 1 Dec. 2014.