The gist: What seems like a reputable study has finally proved that aspartame (like saccharine) can increase cancer rates in rats. <\/p>\n
This, however, is not really the bit that interests me, because, frankly, it’s not that much of a surprise. I really think that most any chemical consumed to excess is likely to cause something wonky to happen in your body, and if such things are taken in moderation, the risk is probably not too high. Though I think I’ll still turn down that plutonium sandwich.<\/p>\n
Others have also challenged Searle’s studies. Documents from the F.D.A. and records from the Federal Register indicate that, in the years before the F.D.A. approved aspartame, the agency had serious concerns about the accuracy and credibility of Searle’s aspartame studies. From 1977 to 1985 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d during much of the approval process \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Searle was headed by Donald H. Rumsfeld<\/b>, who is now the secretary of defense; Searle was acquired by Monsanto in 1985. Monsanto later spun Searle’s assets out into two companies: Merisant, which owns the brands Equal and Canderel, and NutraSweet, which is owned by J. W. Childs Equity Partners, an investment firm in Boston.<\/p>\n
A 1976 report from an F.D.A. task force, for example, found that Searle’s studies on aspartame and several of the company’s pharmaceutical drugs were “poorly conceived, carelessly executed, or inaccurately analyzed or reported.” It cited what it called a lack of training by the scientists analyzing tissue samples, a “substantial” loss of information because of tissue decomposition and inadequate monitoring of feeding doses.<\/p>\n
In response to the report, the F.D.A. asked the Justice Department to open a grand jury investigation into whether two of Searle’s aspartame studies had been falsified or were incomplete.<\/b> In a 33-page letter in 1977, Richard A. Merrill, the F.D.A.’s chief counsel at the time, recommended to Samuel K. Skinner, then the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, that a grand jury investigate the company, <\/b> which was based in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, for “concealing material facts and making false statements in reports of animal studies conducted to establish the safety of the drug Aldactone and the food additive aspartame.”<\/p>\n
A grand jury was never convened, however. <\/b> Shortly after the letter was sent, Mr. Skinner left the Justice Department to join Sidley & Austin, a law firm that represented Searle. After 12 years at that firm, now Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood, Mr. Skinner was appointed to be President George H. W. Bush’s transportation secretary; later he became his chief of staff<\/b>. In 1978, a year and half after Mr. Skinner left the United States attorney’s office in Chicago, his deputy, William F. Conlon, also left to work at Sidley & Austin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Could these people POSSIBLY be MORE corrupt? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m running a bit behind on my book reviews; I’ve now got 4 in the queue. I’ll try to knock some of them off over the next few days. But for right now, I draw attention to this article from the NY Times. The gist: What seems like a reputable study has finally proved that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}