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NUTRA-SWEET THE ASPARTAM PENTAGON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE WEAPON

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Nutrapoison Part One

by Alex Constantine


"I recognized my two selves: a crusading idealist
and a cold, granitic believer in the law of the jungle.
Edgar Monsanto Queeny, Monsanto chairman, 1943-63,
"The Spirit of Enterprise", 1934."


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The FDA is ever mindful to refer to aspartame, widely known as
NutraSweet, as a "food additive"-never a "drug." A "drug" on the
label of a Diet Coke might discourage the consumer. And because
aspartame is classified a food additive, adverse reactions are
not reported to a federal agency, nor is continued safety
monitoring required by law.1 NutraSweet is a non-nutritive
sweetener. The brand name is misnomer. Try Non-NutraSweet.

Food additives seldom cause brain lesions, headaches, mood
alterations, skin polyps, blindness, brain tumors, insomnia and
depression, or erode intelligence and short-term memory.
Aspartame, according to some of the most capable scientists in
the country, does. In 1991 the National Institutes of Health, a
branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, published
a bibliography, *Adverse Effects of Aspartame*, listing not less
than 167 reasons to avoid it.2

Aspartame is an rDNA derivative, a combination of two amino acids
(long supplied by a pair of Maryland biotechnology firms: Genex
Corp. of Rockville and Purification Engineering in Baltimore.)3
The Pentagon once listed it in an inventory of prospective
biochemical warfare weapons submitted to Congress.4 But instead
of poisoning enemy populations, the "food additive" is currently
marketed as a sweetening agent in some 1200 food products.

In light of the chemo-warfare implications, the pasts of G.D.
Searle and aspartame are ominous. Established in 1888 on the
north side of Chicago, G.D. Searle has long been a fixture of the
medical establishment. The company manufactures everything from
prescription drugs to nuclear imaging optical equipment.5

Directors of G.D. Searle include such geopolitical heavy-hitters
as Andre M. de Staercke, Reagan's ambassador to Belgium and
Reuben Richards, an executive vice president at Citibank. Also
Arthur Wood, the retired CEO of Sears, Roebuck & C disgorged by
the clan of General Robert E. Wood, wartime chairman of the
America First Committee.6 America Firsters, organized by native
Nazis cloaked as isolationists, were quietly financed by the
likes of Sullivan & Cromwell's Allen Dulles and Edwin Webster of
Kidder, Peabody.7

Until the acquisition by Monsanto in 1985, the firm's chairman
was William L. Searle, a Harvard graduate, Naval reservist and-a
grim irony in view of aspartame's adverse effects-an officer in
the Army Chemical Corps in the early 1950s, when the same
division tested LSD on groups of human subjects in concert with
the CIA.8 The chief of the Chemical Warfare Division at this time
was Dr. Laurence Laird Layton, whose son Larry was convicted for
the murder of Congressman Leo Ryan at Jonestown ("Come to the
pavilion! What a legacy! "). Jonestown, of course, bore a
remarkable likeness to a concentration camp, and kept a full
store of pharmaceutical drugs. (The Jonestown pharmacy was
stocked with a variety of behavior control drugs: qualudes,
valium, morphine, demerol and 11,000 doses of thorazine-a better
supply, in fact, than the Guyanese government's own, not to
mention a surfeit of cyanide.9)

Dr. Layton was married to the daughter of Hugo Phillip, a German
banker and stockbroker representing the likes of Siemens &
Halske, the makers of cyanide for the Final Solution, and I.G.
Farben, the manufacturer of a lethal nerve gas put to the same
purpose.10 Dr. Layton,a Quaker, developed a form of purified
uranium used to set off the Manhattan Project's first
self-sustaining chain reaction at the University of Chicago in
1942 by his wife's German-born Uncle, Dr. James Franck. At Dugway
Proving Ground in Utah, Dr. Layton concentrated his efforts, as
did I.G. Farben, on the development of nerve gasses.11

Dr. Layton later defended his participation in the Army's
chemical warfare section: "You can blow people to bits with
bombs, you can shoot them with shells, you can atomize them with
atomic bombs, but the same people think there's something
terrible about poisoning the air and letting people breath it.
Anything having to do with gas warfare, chemical warfare, has
this taint of horror on it, even if you only make people
vomit."12

Nazis and chemical warfare are recurring themes in the aspartame
story. Currently, the chief patent holder of the sweetener is the
Monsanto Co., based in St. Louis. In 1967, Monsanto entered into
a joint venture with I.G. Farbenfabriken, the aforementioned
financial core of the Hitler regime and the key supplier of
poison gas to the Nazi racial extermination program. After the
Holocaust, the German chemical firm joined with American
counterparts in the development of chemical warfare agents and
founded the "Chemagrow Corporation" in Kansas City, Missouri, a
front that employed German and American specialists on behalf of
the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.13

Dr. Otto Bayer, I.G.'s research director, had a binding
relationship with Monsanto chemists.14 In the post-war period,
Dr. Bayer developed and tested chemical warfare agents with Dr.
Gerhard Schrader, the Nazi concocter of Tabun, the preferred
nerve gas of the SS. Schrader was also an organophosphate
pioneer, and tested the poison on populated areas of West Germany
under the guise of killing insects.15 Schrader's experiments reek
suspiciously of the ongoing aerial application of
malathion-developed by Dr. Schrader, a recruit of the U.S.
Chemical Warfare Service when Germany surrendered-in present-day
Southern Califonia.16

Another bridge to I.G. Farben was Monsanto's acquisition of
American Viscose, long owned by the England's Courtauld family.
As early as 1928, the U.S. Commerce Department issued a report
critical of the Courtauld's ties to I.G. Farben and the Nazi
party.17 Incredibly, George Courtauld was handed an appointment
as director of personnel for England's Special Operations
Executive, the wartime intelligence service, in 1940.18 A year
later, with the exhaustion of British military financial
reserves, American Viscose, worth $120 million was put on the
block in New York. The desperate British treasury received less
than half that amount from the sale, brokered by Siegmund
Warburg, among others. 19 Monsanto acquired the company in
1949.20

The Nazi connection to Monsanto crops up again on the board of
directors with John Reed, a former crony of "Putzi" Hanfstangl, a
Harvard-bred emigre to Germany who talked Hitler out of
committing suicide in 1924 and contributed to the financing of
*Mein Kampf*. 21 Reed is also chairman of Citibank and long a
confederate of the CIA. According to a lawsuit filed by San
Francisco attorney Melvin Belli, Reed was an instigator, with
Ronald Reagan, James Baker and Margaret Thatcher, of the "Purple
Ink Document," a plan to finance CIA covert operations with
wartime Japanese gold stolen from a buried Philippine hoard.22

Other covert military connections to Monsanto include Dr. Charles
Allen Thomas, chairman of the Monsanto Board, 1965[?]. Dr. Thomas
directed a group of scientists during WW Il in the refinement of
plutonium for use in the atomic bomb. In the postwar period
Monsanto operated Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratories for
the Manhattan Project.23 (Manhattan gestated with the Oak Ridge
Institute for Nuclear Studies, where Lethal doses of radiation
were tested on 200 unwary cancer patients, turning them into
"nuclear calibration devices" gratis the AEC and NASA, until
1974. 24) Nazi scientists and a 7,000 ton stockpile of uranium
were delivered to the Project by its security and
counter-intelligence director, Col. Boris Pash, a G2 designate to
the CIA's Bloodstone program-and the *eminence grise* of PB/7, a
clandestine Nazi unit that, according to State Department
records, conducted a regimen of political assassinations and
kidnappings in Europe and the Eastern bloc.25

Monsanto Director William Ruckelshaus was an acting director of
the FBI under Richard Nixon, a period in the Bureau s history
marred by COINTELPRO outrages, including assassinations. Nixon
subsequently appointed Ruckelshaus to the position of EPA
director, a nagging irony given his ties to industry (Browning
Ferris and Cummins Engine Co.). CIA counterintelligentsia on the
Monsanto board include Stansfield Turner, a former Director of
Central Intelligence, and Earle H. Harbison, an Agency
information specialist for nineteen years.

Harbison is also a director of Merrill Lynch, and thus raises the
spectre of CIA drug dealing. ln 1984 President Ronald Reagan's
Commission on Organized Crime concluded that Merrill Lynch
employed couriers "observed transferring enormous amounts of cash
through investment houses and banks in New York City to Italy and
Switzerland. Tens of millions of dollars in heroin sales in this
country were transferred over seas." Merrill Lynch invested the
drug proceeds in the New bullion market before making the
offshore transfers. 26

As might be expected in view of Monsanto's Nazi, chemical w are
and CIA ties, NutraSweet is a can of worms unprecedented in the
American food industry. The history of the product is laden with
flawed and fabricated research findings and, when necessary to
further the product along, blatant lies-the basis of FDA approval
and the incredulity of independent medical researchers.

Senator Metzenbaum described the FDA as "the handmaiden'' of the
drug industry in 1985, but she comports under all regimes. In the
Clinton administration for example, Mike Taylor was graced with
the position of deputy director of the FDA. Taylor is a cousin of
Tipper Gore, Vice President Albert Gore's wife, and once an
outside counsel to Monsanto. (Gore voted with Senate
conservatives in 1985 against aspartame labelling.)

Under the tutelage of the Clinton administration, one Chicago
reporter quipped, the FDA strictly enforces one "unwritten"
violation of law-failure to bribe.

Granitic Believers

G.D. Sear!e, the pharmaceutical firm that introduced NutraSweet,
worked symbiotically with federal and congressional officials,
bribed investigators when violations of law were exposed,
*anything* to move aspartame to market. As far back as 1969, an
internal Searle "strategy memo" concluded the company must obtain
FDA approval to outpace firms competing for the artificial
sweetener market. Another memo in December 1970 urged that FDA
officials were to be "brought into a subconscious spirit of
participation" with Searle.27 To that end, with enormous profits
at stake, the pharmaceutical house set out on a long struggle to
transform the Pentagon's biochemical warfare agent into "the
taste Mother Nature intended.

The official story is that aspartame was discovered in 1966 by a
scientist developing an ulcer drug (not a "food additive").
Supposedly he discovered, upon carelessly licking his fingers
that they tasted sweet. Thus was the chemicals industry blessed
with a successor to saccharine, the coal-tar derivative that
foundered eight years later under the pressure of cancer
concerns.

Aspartame found early opposition in consumer attorney James
Turner, author of *The Chemical Feast* and a former Nader's
Raider. At his own expense, Turner fought approval for ten years,
basing his argument on aspartame's potential side effects,
particularly on children. His concern was shared by Dr. John
Olney, Professor of neuropathology and psychiatry at Washington
School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Olney found that aspartame,
combined with MSG seasoning, increased the odds of brain damage
in children.

Other studies have found that children are especially vulnerable
to its toxic effects, a measure of the relation between
consumption and body weight. The FDA determined in 1981, when the
sweetener was approved, that the maximum projected intake of
Aspartame is 50 milligrams a day per kilogram of body weight. A
child of 66 pounds would consume about 23 milligrams by imbibing
four cans of Diet Coke. The child might also conceivably down an
aspartame-flavored snack or two, nearing the FDA's projected
maximum daily intake.29 Dr. William Partridge, a professor of
neuroendocrine regulation at MIT, told *Common Cause* in August
1984 that it wouldn't be surprising if a child-"confronted with
aspartame contained in iced tea chocolate milk, milk shakes,
chocolate pudding pie, Jello, ice cream and numerous other
products" -consumed 50 milligrams per kilogram in a day.

Internally, aspartame breaks down into its constituent amino
acids and methanol, which degrades into formaldehyde. The FDA
announced in 1984 that "no evidence" has been found to establish
that the methanol byproduct reaches toxic levels, claiming that
"many fruit juices contain higher levels of the natural
compound."30 But the _Medical World News_ had already reported in
1978 that the methanol content of aspartame is 1,000 times
greater than most foods under FDA control.31

NutraSweet, the "good stuff" of sentimental adverts, is a truly
insidious product. According to independent trials, aspartame
intake is shown by animal studies to alter brain chemicals
affecting behavior. Aspartame's effects on the brain led Richard
Wurtman, an MIT neuroscientist, to the discovery, as recorded in
_The New England Journal of Medicine_ (No. 309, 1983), that the
sweetener defeats its purpose as a diet aid, since high doses may
instill a craving for calorie-laden carbohydrates. One of his
pilot studies found that the NutraSweet-carbohydrate combination
increases the "sweetener's effect on brain composition." Searle
officials denigrated Wurtman 's findings, but the American Cancer
Society has since confirmed the irony-after tracking 80,000 women
for six years-that "among women who gained weight, artificial
sweetener users gained more than those who didn't use the
products," as reported in _Medical Self-Care_ (387). (Since his
battle with G.D. Searle, Wurtman founded Interneuron
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the producer of a sports drink that
enhances athletic performance, and a weight loss drug marketed in
over 40 countries. Wurtman's share of the company, established in
1989, was worth $10 million by 1992. 32

Even more daunting are the findings of Dr. Paul Spiers, a
neuropsychologist at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, that
aspartame use can depress intelligence. For this reason, he
selected experimental subjects with a history of consuming it but
unaware that they might be suffering ill effects. The subjects
were given NutraSweet in capsules of the FDA's allowable limit.
Spiers was alarmed to discover that they developed "cognitive
deficits.'' One of the tests required recall of square patterns
and alphabetical sequences, becoming increasingly more difficult.
The test is challenging, but most people improve as they learn
how it is done. The aspartame users, however, did not improve.
"Some frankly showed a reverse pattern," said Spiers."33

Aspartame has been shown to erode short-term memory. At the May,
1985 hearings on NutraSweet, Louisiana Senator Russell Long
related a bizarre anecdote: SENATOR LONG: I have received a
letter recently from a person who is well known to me and whose
word is impeccable, as far as I am concerned. This person told me
that she had been dieting and she had been using diet drinks with
aspartame in it. She said she found her memory was going. She
seemed to be completely losing her memory. When she would meet
people whom she knew intimately, she could not recall what their
name was, or even who they were. She could not recall a good bit
of that which was going on about her to the extent that she was
afraid she was losing her mind. . . In due course, someone
suggested that it might be this NutraSweet, so she stopped using
it and her memory came back and her mind was restored. Senator
Howard Metzenbaum replied that he had received "a number of
letters from doctors reporting similar developments. . . There
have been hundreds of incidents of people who have suffered loss
of memory, headaches, dizziness, and other neurological symptoms
which they feel are related to aspartame."34 Senator Orrin Hatch,
a hidebound archconservative and NutraSweet advocate, downplayed
criticism of the sugar substitute. "Some people have lost their
memory after drinking a variety of things," he argued. ''The
bottom line is this: The studies supporting aspartame's approval
have been examined and reexamined. More than enough sound, valid
studies exist to demonstrate aspartame's safety."

Hatch of Utah, reports the _Wall Street Journal_, has "given his
strong support of the pharmaceutical industries."35 So have the
"Hatchlings." David Kessler, FDA Commissioner under presidents
Bush and Clinton, was once an aide to Orrin Hatch. Hatch's former
campaign manager and aide, C. McClain Haddow, was sentenced to
prison for conflict-of-interest charges arising from his work as
a Reagan administration health official. And Thomas Parry,
Hatch's former chief of staff, has carved a sumptuous life for
himself as a Republican fund-raiser and lobbyist with clients in
the pharmaceutical industry. All told, Parry represents 30
clients, including Eli Lilly, Warner-Lambert, and Johnson &
Johnson, not to mention ranking defense firms and the Bahamas
government. Parry's pharmaceutical clients have enriched Senator
Hatch's campaign coffers, and in turn Hatch lavishes his
attentions on them.

By the time Orrin Hatch was stumping for NutraSweet in the U.S.
Senate, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta had received
600 letters complaining of NutraSweet's adverse effects. The
National Soft Drink Association (NSDA) had them too. "There have
been hundreds of reports from around the country suggesting a
possible relationship between their consumption of NutraSweet and
subsequent symptoms including headaches, aberrational behavior,
slurred speech, etc." FDA Commissioner Arthur Hull Hayes,
appointed by Ronald Reagan in April, 1981 (moving the _New York
Times_ to observe that "some industry officials consider Dr.
Hayes more sympathetic to their viewpoints than past holders of
the office"), considered such complaints "anecdotal.''

Of course, like scores of other conservatives roaming the
executive branch in the 1980s, the ethics of Arthur Hull Hayes
were entirely malleable-not only did he approve a product based
on studies that were "scientifically lacking in design and
execution," according to a report issued by _Science Times_ in
February 1985, but upon leaving the FDA he took the post of
senior medical consultant for Burson-Marsteller, the public
relations firm retained by G.D. Searle.37

Burson-Marsteller, a huge public relations conglomerate, swelled
in the 1980s by leveraging smaller competitors -including Black,
Manafort, Stone & Kelley, a lobbying firm best known for
influence peddling along the Beltway-presently outsizing even the
Hill & Knowlton empire. Typical in the aspartame story are
Burson-Marsteller's links to the intelligence community and
rightwing operatives of the GOP. Thomas Devereaux Bell, Jr., an
executive officer of the firm, is the former chairman of the
Center for naval Analysis in Alexandria, Virginia. Bell was also
the executive director of Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Ball
Committee (in which capacity he ushered in the likes of Licio
Gelli, head of P2, the notorious Italian secret society). Bell's
career in Washington began in 1971 as a deputy director of
Richard Nixon's Committee to ReElect the President. He went on to
serve as an administrative aide to Senator William Brock and the
Reagan transition team.38

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Nutrapoison Part Two

by Alex Constantine

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At the FDA, Hayes used aspartame as a political statement that
the Reagan administration was embarking on a grand voyage of
conservative "regulatory reform," sluicing through treasonous
liberal constraints on "free enterprise." Despite what one FDA
scientist described as 'very serious' questions concerning
pivotal brain tumor tests, Hayes eagerly approved aspartame for
use in dry foods in July 1981.39 Three FDA scientists advised
against the approval of aspartame, citing G.D. Searle's own brain
tumor tests, because there was no proof that "aspartame is safe
for use as a food additive under its intended conditions of use.
"40

Hayes has since declined to answer any questions about his
decision, which ignored the recommendations of the FDA's own
board of inquiry. He relied instead on a study conducted by
Japan's Ajinomoto, Inc.-a licensee of G.D. Searle. Hayes
acknowledged in his 1981 decision that he had only consulted a
preliminary report of the Japanese evaluation, and only *skimmed*
it. More serious, Hayes violated federal law by basing approval
on the test, as it had not been reviewed by the FDA board.41

Who is Arthur Hull Hayes? He was no disinterested bureaucrat.
True to the biochemical theme of the aspartame story, Dr. Hayes
served in the Army Medical Corps in the 1960s. According to the
_Washington Post_, Hayes was assigned to Edgewood Arsenal at Fort
Detrick, Maryland, the Army's chemical warfare base of
operations, "one of a number of doctors who conducted drug tests
for the Army on volunteers . . . to determine the effect of a
mind-disorienting drug called CAR 301,060." According to a
declassified 1976 report prepared by the Army Inspector General,
Hayes had planned a research study to develop the mind-altering
CAR 301,060 as a *crowd control agent.* In 1972, Hayes left
Edgewood Arsenal, and a new plan for the experiments was drawn up
by Edgewood physicians. The 1976 report notes that similar tests
had been conducted before Hayes took charge. 42

Also at the center of the effort to land FDA approval of
NutraSweet stood Donald Rumsfeld-"Rummy" to his friends -chairman
of G.D. Searle upon leaving the Ford administration in 1977.
Rumsfeld, the product of a wealthy Chicago suburb, was a
Princeton graduate and a Navy pilot during the Korean conflict.
He entered politics as a Congressional House aide attending night
classes at Georgetown University Law School, which is closely
aligned with the CIA.43

Rumsfeld campaigned ambitiously for Richard Nixon, who drafted
him to direct the Office of Equal Opportunity on May 26,1969. He
quickly established an office to spy on his employees in a holy
crusade to flush out "revolutionaries" said to be granting
federal funds to politically subversive organizations-a throwback
to McCarthy's tantrums.44 Rumsfeld also figured in Nixon's
notorious Power Control Group, spearheaded by Charles Colson and
John Ehrlichman.45 Gerald Ford named Rumsfeld executive chief of
staff upon the resignation of Al Haig. In 1986 he was named
chairman of the Institute for Contemporary Studies, a
neoconservative "think tank" (read: propaganda mill) established
in 1972 by Edwin Meese and Caspar Weinberger. ICS has sponsored
such opinion-shaping projects as a study of expansions in
"entitlement programs" and their erosive effects on the economy,
and a book on the uses of coercion by Communist regimes.46
Rumsfeld, at 43, became the county's youngest secretary of
defense. For many years he has been a vocal proponent of chemical
weapons.47 He is chairman of the Rand Corp.48 In 1988, he dropped
a presidential bid, and was named a v.p. of Westmark Systems, led
by past NSA Director Bobby Ray Inman. Rumsfeld was one of
Westmark's founding directors, sharing the board with Joseph
Amato, a former vice president at TRW (and a colleague of Inman's
at the National Security Agency), and Dale Frey, chairman of the
General Electric Investment Corp.49

Rumsfeld, a veteran political operative, was an adept at the
vulgar art of public relations. He was recruited by G.D. Searle
because he had "a Boy Scout image," according to one company
official.50 A house politician was precisely what Searle needed
to compensate for the damage done by independent researchers
concerned about the toxic effects of aspartame. In March 1976, an
FDA task force brought into question *all* of the company's
testing procedures between 1967 and 1975. The task force
described "serious deficiencies in Searle's operations and
practices which undermine the basis for reliance on Searle's
integrity." The final report of the FDA task force noted faulty
and fraudulent product testing, knowingly misrepresented
findings, and instances of "irrelevant or unproductive animal
research where experiments have been poorly conceived, carelessly
executed or inaccurately analyzed."51

Richard Merrill, the FDA's chief counsel, petitioned Samuel K.
Skinner U.S. Attorney for the northern district of Illinois, for
a grand jury investigation of Searle's "willful and knowing
failure" to submit required test reports, and for "concealing
material facts and making false statements" in reports on
aspartame submitted to the agency.52 Yet industry analysts,
interviewed by the _Wall Street Journal_ six months after
Rumsfeld's appointment as chairman, noted a rapid turnabout in
Searle's fortunes as a result of his direction.53

Searle denies that Chairman Rumsfeld ever had any contact with
the FDA, or the Carter and Reagan administrations, to lobby for
aspartame.54 But the _Wall Street Journal_ article reported in
1977 that Rumsfeld "keenly understands the importance of a public
image. So he has been mending fences with the FDA by personally
asking top agency officials what Searle should do to straighten
out its reputation." Westley M. Dixon, Searle's vice chairman,
told the _Journal_ that without Rumsfeld "we wouldn't have gotten
approval for Norpace," a drug investigated by the FDA in 1975.55

The grand jury investigation of Searle disintegrated in January,
1977 when the FDA formally requested that Samuel Skinner, U.S.
attorney and a protege of Illinois Governor James Thompson,
investigate the firm for falsifying and withholding aspartame
test data. A month later, Skinner met with attorneys from
Searle's Chicago law firm, Sidley & Austin. Jimmy Carter ascended
to The presidency a few weeks later. He announced that Skinner
would not be asked to remain in office, but the outgoing
Republican wasn't found wanting for employment. He informed
reporters that he had already begun "preliminary discussions"
with Sidley & Austin.56

G.D. Searle and Sidley & Austin are Siamese Twins. Edwin Austin,
a senior partner in the law firm, was appointed to the Illinois
Supreme Court in 1969. The Searle family drew upon his services
extensively, and he taught Sunday school in Wilmette, a Chicago
suburb, as did Dr. Claude Howard Searle, whose father cofounded
the pharmaceutical house.

The firm is grafted to the beating heart of the Republican party.
Morris Leibman of Sidley & Austin was for many years chairman of
the American Bar Association's "Standing Committee on Law and
National Security," a position that won him Reagan's Medal of
Freedom in 1981.57

John E. Robson, head of Sidley & Austin's Washington office, was
appointed executive vice-president of Searle & Co. in 1977, the
same year Skinner was named a partner in the law firm. Robson,
too, was active in Republican politics. He was the first General
Counsel of the Department of Transportation, and at the behest of
Gerald Ford in 1975, chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board.58
He moved on to Searle, and stayed with the company until it was
bought outright by Monsanto in 1985. Howard Trienens, a law clerk
to the late chief Justice Vinson in the early 1950s, was a G.D.
Searle director and worked for Sidley & Austin since 1949.59
Archconservative California Governor George Deukmejian joined
Sidley & Austin's Los Angeles branch upon leaving office in 1991,
and is reportedly making a "very comfortable" living. He has a
keen "sense" for bringing in corporate clients, a partner in the
firm told the Los Angeles Times, many of them past contributors
to his campaign fund. Deukmejian's business connections have
given him a reputation as a Sidley & Austin "rainmaker," but the
L.A. City Council has questioned his ethics in promoting a
contract with Sumitomo Corp. on a metropolitan railway project.60
Searle aside, Sidley & Austin has served some of the most
notorious special interests in the country. The firm lobbied
overtime, for instance, on behalf of Charles Keating's Lincoln
Savings & Loan, and provided counsel on tax issues and dealing
with federal authorities. The firm assisted Keating when Lincoln
was foundering, and curried political favor to keep the S&L
operating despite massive debts. As a result, the firm was forced
to settle with Lincoln depositors in 1991, agreeing to cover an
excess of $40 million in claims.6l Sidley & Austin also
represented the AMA when a group of drugstore chains sued seven
drug makers-including Searle-for price fixing and antitrust
violations. The lawsuit, filed in October 1993, amounts to
billions of dollars in compensation.62

Skinner recused himself from the Searle prosecution four months
before leaving offtce-asking, in a memo to subordinates, that the
matter be kept "confidential to avoid any undo embarrassment"-a
stall that nearly allowed the statute of limitations to expire.
William Conlon, a senior U.S. attorney, inherited the case. He
eased off, citing case load pressures, and gave a deaf ear to
complaints of delays from the Justice Department, which urged
that a grand jury be convened to prosecute Searle for falsifying
NutraSweet test data. In January, 1979, Conlon too joined Sidley
& Austin.63

The 33-page letter from Merrill to Skinner charged Searle with
criminal fraud in its animal test results. In 1984 Common Cause
asked Dan Reidy of the U. S. attorney's office how the
investigation had stalled. Reidy replied that because it was a
grand jury investigation, he was "bound by law to secrecy." A
Searle spokesman exploited the demise of the grand July claim
that there was "no validity to the charges, that the company had
been "exonerated." Philip Brodsky, an investigator for the FDA,
expressed surprise that Searle hadn't been indicted. "I thought
surely they would prosecute them," he said.64

Eleven years later Senator Metzenbaum issued a press release
charging Skinner with stalling the criminal investigation as he
prepared to decamp from office. Metzenbaum and his staff demanded
an FBI investigation of Skinner's mishandling of the case. In
December 1988, the conflict-of-interest bombshell blew up in the
face of newly elected George Bush, who was about to appoint
Skinner to the position of Transportation Secretary.65

Like most of the Machiavellians in the NutraSweet story, Samuel
Knox Skinner kept company with hardright Republicans. He entered
politics as a campaign volunteer for Barry Goldwater. 66 In 1975,
he was appointed to Federal Prosecutor in Chicago by President
Ford. Sidley & Austin promoted him to senior partner after only
one year with the firm. Skinner was the director of George Bush's
presidential campaign in Illinois. On occasion he was berated for
his involvement with the state's Republican apparatus: In 1987,
for instance, the Chicago SunTimes linked him with a clutch of
lawyers close to Governor Thompson, who were awarded lucrative
assignments handling the affairs of financially crippled
insurance companies. Skinner was a leading light of the Illinois
Fraud Prevention Commission -he targeted welfare cheats (as
opposed to white-collar criminals in the drug industry)-and
President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime. In December
1991, he left Transportation to take the position of President
Bush's Chief of Staff.67

"A Shocking Story"

Had Skinner pressed on with the investigation, aspartame's
manufacturer would have been forced to explain a long history of
fabricated laboratory tests and slippery dealings with federal
regulators, not to mention the public.

Dr. Alexander Schmidt, a former FDA commissioner, said of the
original Aspartame Task Force investigation: "What was discovered
was reprehensible. . .incredibly sloppy science." A 1980 public
board of inquiry opined that the company's testing procedures
were "bizarre."68

Searle's decision to market aspartame culminated with the
falsification of test results to obtain FDA approval . In
November 1969, officials of the firm hired Dr. Harry Waisman, a
researcher for the University of Wisconsin, to test for brain
damage in rhesus monkeys. Seven monkeys were fed aspartame for
periods up to one year. In the end, though, the evaluation
flopped because the technicians failed to perform the
intelligence tests and autopsies required to determine brain
damage. When questioned about the false data by the FDA, Searle
officials claimed to have had no direct control over the study.
But the protocol for the study was written by a Searle
pathologist *after* it had begun. And, according to Dr. Gross,
"Frequent high-level communications took place between Searle
executives and Dr. Waisman prior to and during the study." 69

To make matters worse, Dr. Waisman died in March, 1971, in
mid-study.

Searle submitted the toxicity test to the FDA on October 12,
1972. It bore Dr. Waisman's name as coauthor. Richard Merrill
noted: "Dr. Waisman was the expert in the field and his name
would carry great weight," but complained to Skinner that Searle
took "great literary license" in drafting the report, "which
*covers up* the admitted inadequacy of the design, control and
documentation of this study." 70

Searle submitted some 150 test reports, yet Dr. Martha Freeman of
the FDA Bureau of Drugs noted in a 1973 memo, "the information
provided is inadequate to permit an evaluation of the potential
toxicity of aspartame." 71 The FDA task force set up by Dr.
Schmidt in 1975 reviewed 25 studies on seven products
manufactured by G.D. Searle, a total of 500 pages and 15,000
exhibits.72 Searle was held to be the author of "reports that the
FDA believes contain false information" and "concealed facts
resulting from having drafted Dr. Waisman's 'pilot' monkey study
so that it would *appear* to be a valid, thorough scientific
study," and not a forgery.

In 1975 Searle submitted a battery of cancer test results
entitled "The Willigan Report, which contained a statistical
table that excluded four malignant mammary tumors detected by Dr.
Willigan and incorporated in his data. The malignancies were made
to appear benign. Searle dismissed the misrepresentation as a
computer "programming error" undetected by supervising
statisticians. Dr. Gross interviewed all concerned with the
tests. He concluded in a statement to Metzenbaum's committee in
August, 1985, that "to accept the Searle explanation is to
believe that the unfavorable mammary malignancy data were
innocently omitted from the summary table four separate times by
three different individuals."74

The Waisman and Willigan Reports were prepared by Searle Labs, as
were 88% of the safety evaluations conducted by 1981.75 They are
typical of the shoddy documentation upon which FDA Commissioner
Hayes based his decision that aspartame does not constitute a
public health risk. Although two members of the 1975 task force
considered the tests to be criminal frauds, Hayes and Searle
declared the results valid. In an appeal to Hayes' decision,
James Turner said: "The entire argument that since the studies
are no longer considered fraudulent *by FDA* they are therefore
scientifically valid is an example of a rhetorical shell game
that, if successful, can only bring discredit and ridicule on the
FDA."76

Dr. Gross, the chief scientist on the FDA task force, told the
CBS *Nightly News* staff in January, 1984, that Searle made
"*deliberate* decisions" to cloak the toxic effects of aspartame.
"They took great pains to camouflage these shortcomings of the
study,'' Gross said, "as I say, filter and just present to the
FDA what they wished the FDA to know. And they did other
*terrible* things. For instance, animals would develop tumors
while they were under study-well, G.D. Searle would *remove these
tumors from the animals*," surgically masking the cancerous
effects of aspartame.77 Yet one 1986 _New England Journal of
Medicine_ article claimed that noncompulsive aspartame intake has
"no sinister effects."

Dr. Woodrow Monte told CBS, "Every time a truly impartial team of
scientists have looked at NutraSweet, it has been turned down."
Dr. Monte, director of the nutrition laboratory at Arizona State
University, held that these studies "show *extreme* dangers over
the long term."78

Dr. Monte was rewarded for his comments by a fusillade from the
press. On February 23, Dan Dorfman, a business news reporter for
WCBS in New York, broke a story that several CBS employees had
invested in options on NutraSweet that pay off if the stock price
drops.79 Dr. Monte and his attorney had purchased the options as
well. It emerged that the CBS staffers had purchased the options
on the advice of stock market newsletters printed prior to the
nightly news report. The investments were not illegal, nor did
they reap a profit. Searle's stock was not affected by the
publicity, and the investors took a loss.

Nevertheless, the _Wall Street Journal_ ran a front-page story
condemning the "inside trading." Reed Irvine's Accuracy in Media
picked up the cudgel against Dr. Monte and the CBS employees as
if they'd committed a shocking Wall Street swindle.80 Accuracy in
Media, formed in 1969, is an intelligence operation abetted by
the CIA. The rabidly right-wing organization was co-founded by
Bernard Yoh, a counter-insurgency adviser under the notorious
Edward Landsdale in Vietnam, and a fount of CIA funds to military
intelligence units in the Delta region. Board member Elbridge
Durbrow was once a foreign service "diplomat," and advised
commanders of Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. Another AIM
board member, Frank Trager, has conducted research for the
Pentagon and CIA, and churns out pamphlets on international
business and intelligence operations. Major financial
contributors to AIM include Richard Nixon, "Bebe" Rebozo, Edward
Scripps, the wretched Dr. Edward Teller and former Treasury
Secretary William E. Simon.81

Accuracy in Media is a strident advocate of the chemical
industry, which provides it with generous funding. The media
"watchdog" has long waged a campaign on behalf of dioxin,
denouncing the "Agent Orange scare" as the creation of delirious,
anti-business liberals. Among the leading manufacturers of Agent
Orange for the Vietnam war effort was Monsanto, preparing-at the
very moment AIM took aim at detractors of NutraSweet[TM]- to buy
G.D. Searle.

The Good Stuff

Dr. Monte cautioned in 1987 that he didn't want to sound like a
"conspiracy theory" hound, but the aspartame chronology clarifies
its commercial emergence. The FDA Board of Inquiry advised
against the sweetener on September 30, 1980. On January21,
1981-the day after Reagan's inauguration-Searle submitted "ten
new studies." Dr. Monte was skeptical. "It is impossib1e that
they could have conducted those studies in four months," he said.
"Obviously they'd previously done those studies but hadn't
officially submitted them, although much of the information in
those studies was informally presented to the board of inquiry."
With the "new tests" in hand, Hayes acted as though critical,
overriding evi dence had proven the safety of aspartame.82

James Turner, representing thc Community Nutrition Institute in
Washington, D.C., said that Arthur Hull Hayes, to arrive at his
decision that aspartame is safe, firewalked apath "through a mass
of scientific mismanagement, improper procedures, wrong
conclusions and general scientific inexactness." Two FDA
officials declared in 1985 that Hayes was determined to clear all
obstacles to NutraSweet approval. One FDA bureaucrat reported
that "people at the top" were closed to questions concerning the
quality of the tests submitted by Searle.83

In July, 1984 a broad investigation of NutraSweet's adverse
effects was conducted by the FDA and the Centers for Disease
Control. Federal health officials said at the outset that they
believed no harm would emerge from the data to indict aspartame.
Robert McQuate, Ph.D., science director of the National Soft
Drink Association, predicted with mystical confidence that the
study would "provide further evidence that aspartame is a safe
ingredient."84

Dr. McQuate didn't fret the goring of his biochemical ox. In
November the CDC announced that no "serious, widespread" side
effects had been found.85 It was "unlikely," said CDC officials,
that "complainers" could establish a link between NutraSweet and
their maladies-the same bromide once tossed to victims of
radiation experiments. The reported side-effects of aspartame
fell into two distinct categories: central nervous system (65%)
and gastrointestinal disorders (24%).86 Yet the CDC claimed
erroneously that no consistent reaction pattern had been found.
87 Robert Shapiro, then president of Nutrasweet, used the
occasion to enthuse that the survey "clearly established the
safety" of the sugar substitute.88 Nevertheless, the CDC
recommended a new set of studies because aspartame users
continued to complain of ill effects.


-----------------------------------------------------------------

Nutrapoison Part Three

by Alex Constantine


-----------------------------------------------------------------

Based on the ersatz assurances of the CDC report, PepsiCo
announced that it would drop saccharine and begin sweetening its
diet drinks entirely with aspartame. The decision would have been
approved by Wayne Calloway, then CEO of PepsiCo and director of
the multinationals Citicorp, General Electric and Exxon. In 1983
soda bottlers, organized around Pepsi had petitioned the FDA for
a delay in approval of NutraSweet for soft drinks until further
evaluation verified its safety-interpreted by market analysts as
a ploy to drive down the price of the sweetener. They soon
abandoned the effort to block approval (and all health concerns
they might have had). "We believe saccharine is safe," Pepsi USA
President Roger Enrico lied, but "we wanted the taste
improvement." PepsiCo, already drawing on a tenth of Searle's 7.5
million pound annual production of aspartame, signed an agreement
with G.D. Searle to boost purchases 500 percent.89 (Like other
corporate pushers of aspartame, Pepsi has long maintained ties to
the intelligence community. One product of the relationship was a
Pepsi plant in Vientiane, Laos with a laboratory outfitted for
heroin production. Alfred McCoy, in *The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia* documents the efforts of Richard Nixon to promote
the plant's construction in 1965, and the CIA's continuing
subsidization of the plant. McCoy complained to Pepsi officials
that the facilities were but a cover for the importation and
refinement of morphine, but it continued to operate unhindered.)

Yet another report was filed by Reagan's General Accounting
Office in July 1987, this one on the FDA's handling of aspartame.
The GAO concluded that the agency had followed proper procedures
and conducted valid studies. But the report noted that the FDA
had followed guidelines for food -not drug- testing, despite the
recommendation of the agency's own biologists favoring *drug*
tests, which are considerably more stringent. This recommendation
was overruled by FDA officials.90

Another blemish in the study was bared by Dr. Louis Elsas,
director of medical genetics at Emory University in Atlanta.
"They never asked the right questions about what it does to brain
function in humans," he told the _Washington Post_. Half of the
scientists polled expressed reservations about the safety of
NutraSweet. One-fifth reported "major concerns." Monsanto
quibbled in a press release that these critics had themselves
never conducted aspartame research. A score of independent
scientists have. They found side effects.

Senator Metzenbaum berated Searle's flawed and fabricated tests
at the August 1, 1985 Senate hearings. "The FDA," he said, "is
content to have the manufacturer of aspartame, G.D. Searle,
conduct these studies. How *absurd*."

He also faulted the AMA:

The _Journal of the American Medical Association_ recently
published a report on aspartame which, with some significant
disclaimers, stated it was safe for most people. I wish that this
report could ease my concerns. It does not. It merely restates
the FDA position which relies solely on the tests conducted by
G.D. Searle. As I have indicated these tests are under a cloud.
In addition, the concerns raised recently by the scientists ...
were not even included in the report.

In defense of the tests, executives of G.D. Searle argued that
the sweetener has been approved by foreign regulatory agencies
and the World Health Organization. But H.J. Roberts, an internal
medicine specialist in West Palm Beach, Florida, reviewed the
foreign studies and found that "the vast majority of these
agencies accepted company-sponsored research without ever having
done independent confirmatory studies.''91

Deficiencies in testing were aggravated by a lack of laboratory
training at Searle. One of the pivotal safety studies involved
fetal damage, but the FDA task force found that the medical
researcher in charge was "inexperienced in conducting studies of
this nature and yet given full responsibility." They were
appalled to discover that his sole credential was a field study
of the cottontail rabbit for the Illinois Wildlife Service, yet
at Searle he'd been assigned to laboratory training and
supervision. When asked about his *curriculum vitae* in fetal
research, he replied that he'd once attended a seminar on the
subject, and the company had provided him with a stack of
reference works.92 (Yet J.D. Searle, in its 1981 Annual Report,
billed itself as "a research based pharmaceutical company.")

Corporate control of NutraSweet testing continues at Monsanto,
torturing the ethics of academic medicine. In August 1987 the
University of Illinois, a recipient of Monsanto's largess, issued
a study exonerating aspartame of causing seizures in laboratory
animals. Dave Hattan, a safety regulator for the FDA, responded
that the study only confirmed the need for testing on humans. At
independent labs, he insisted, aspartame provoked seizures.

Industrial support tends to contaminate test data. Dr. Elsas, in
a 1988 letter to the _New England Journal of Medicine_, advocates
unbiased review of clinical research. "The NutraSweet Co.," he
said, "may have had an interest in protocols that would find that
their product had no untoward effects." 94 Monsanto reportedly
granted one NutraSweet researcher a $1.3 million honorarium.95
The same hired gun willing to manipulate lab results will have no
qualms publicly defending a tainted pharmaceutical, like the
diabetic specialist who objected that a Senate hearing on
aspartame, which called him as a witness, might arouse groundless
public anxiety.96

Victims and health activists have attempted in the courts to put
a stop to the marketing of NutraSweet, to no avail. In 1985 a
coalition of consumer groups were handed a ruling by the federal
Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the
FDA had followed proper procedures in approving aspartame for
soft drinks. A year later the _Washington Post_ reported that the
Supreme Court again refused to consider the case "despite
critics' arguments that the product, sold under the brand name
NutraSweet, may cause brain damage."97

Likewise, the medical establishment has thrown up an impenetrable
wall to aspartame critics. Dr. Roberts, author of a brief study,
"Aspartame-Associated Confusion and Memory Loss: A Possible Human
Model for Early Alzheimer's Disease," found it impossible to
publish the article in a peer review medical journal. This was
peculiar, he thought, "considering the increasing magnitude of
Alzheimer's disease, and the relevance of my observations to
newer biochemical findings and avenues of research." He can
"personally vouch for the *enormous* difficulty in getting
published articles concerning reactions to aspartame products," a
trend in censorship with "ominous overtones." The options, Dr.
Roberts says, are "generally limited to 'burying' the findings in
a small-circulation journal (such as the bulletin of a county
medical society), reporting the results as a letter to the
editor, or (unfortunately, most often) discarding the project."98

Silence surrounds the most odious conspiracies.

1. "Sweet Talk," Science and the Citizen column, _Scientific
American_, July, 1987, p. 15.
2. "Adverse Effects of Aspartame-January '86 through December
'90," Current Bibliography series, National Library of
Medicine pamphlet, National Institutes of Health, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, 1991.
3. "Pepsi Switches Sweeteners-Aspartame Winning Diet Cola
Market," _Washington Post_, November 2, 1984, p. A-1.
4. Mae Brussell, World Watchers #842, KAZU-FM, Monterey, CA.,
January 25, 1988.
5. _Moody 's Industrial Manual_, 1975, p 2606
6. G.D. Searle's 1981 _Annual Report_. Also, Arnold Foster and
Benjamin R. Epstein, *Cross-Currents*, Doubleday & Co. (New
York: 1956), p. 153.
7. Nancy Lisagor and Frank Lipsius, *A Law Unto Itself: The
Untold Story of the Law Firm of Sullivan & Cromwell*,
William Morrow (New York: 1988), pp. 13738, 163.
8. John Marks, *The Search for "The Manchurian Candidate ": The
CIA and Mind Control*, Times Books (New York: 1979),
pp.58,67 & 212. Marks writes that incapacitating "large
numbers of people fell to the Army Chemical Corps, which
also tested LSD and even stronger hallucinogens. The CIA
concentrated on individuals."
9. John Peer Nugent, *White Night.- The Untold Story of What
Happened Before-and Beyond-Jonestown*, Rawson, Wade (New
York: 1979), pp. 143, 177.
10. Michael Meiers, *Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment?A
Review of the Evidence*, Mellen House (Lampeter, UK: 1988)
p. 42.
11. Ibid., p. 43.
12. Ibid., pp. 42-43. For a sanitized account of Dr. Layton's
career, see Min S. Yee and Thomas N. Layton, *In My Father
's House: The Story of the Layton Family and the Reverend
Jim Jones*, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (New York, 1981).
13. National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany
and the Committee of Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters of the
German Democratic Republic, *The Brown Book: War and Nazi
Criminals in West Germany*, Verlag Zeit im Bild, 1965, pp.
33-34.
14. Dan J. Forrestal, *Faith, Hope & $5,000: The Story of
Monsanto*, Simon and Schuster (New York: 1977), p. 159.
15. *Brown Book*, p. 34.
16. Tom Bower, *The Paperclip Conspiracy: The Hunt for the Nazi
Scientists*, Little, Brown & Co. (Boston 1987), pp. 93, 95.
17. Howard W. Ambruster, *Treason's Peace: German Dyes and
American Dupes*, Beechhurst Press (New York: 1947), p.144
18. Nigel West, *MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service
Operations, 1909-1945*, Random House (New York: 1983), p.92
19. Jaques Attali, *A Man of Influence: The Extraordinary Career
of S. G. Warburg*, Adler & Adler (Bethesda, Maryland:
1987),p. 167.
20. Forrestal, p. 121ff.
21. Anthony Cave Brown, *The Last Hero, Wild Bill Donovan*,
Vintage (New York: 1982), pp. 210211. Also: Ernst
Hanfstangl, _Unheard Witness_, J.R. Lippincott (New York:
1957)
22. "Search for the Tiger's Treasure," _Las Vegas Sun_, December
26, 1993, p.1.
23. _Moody 's Industrial Manual_, 1968, p. 4080.
24. "Radiation and the Guinea Pigs," _Guardian_, March 3, 1994,
p. 3. Also see, "Nuclear Scientists Irradiated People in
Secret Research," _New York Times_, December 17, 1993, p.
Al.
25. Christopher Simpson, *Blowback: America's Recruitment of
Nazis and Its Effects On the Cold War*, Wiedenfeld &
Nicholson (New York: 1988), pp.26, 152-53. Col. Pash, a
former high school gym teacher, was an officer of the Office
of Policy coordination under Frank Wisner. His unit, writes
Simpson, "known as PB/7, was given a written charter that
read in part that 'PB/7 will be responsible for
assassinations, kidnaping, and such other functions as from
time to time may be given it... by higher authority."' Pash
was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, a veteran of
the Russian Civil War. Monsanto's Clinton Engineering Works
in Oak Ridge became the Manhattan Project's headquarters in
1943, and was "manned almost entirely by experienced
officers and agents of the CIC." See lan Sayer and Douglas
Botting, *America's Secret Army: The Untold Story of the
Counter intelligence Corps*, Franklin Watts (New York:
1989), pp. 71ff.,346.
26. Robin Thomas Naylor, *Hot Money and the Politics of Debt*,
Simon & Schuster (New York, 1987), p.289.
27. "Statement from Adrian Gross, Former FDA Investigator and
Scientist," _Congressional Record_, August 1, 1985, p.
S10835.
28. Florence Graves, "How Safe is Your Diet Soft Drink?" _Common
Cause_, July/August,1984.
29. Ibid.
30. "FDA Finding on Aspartame," _New York Times_, January
14,1984, p. 28.
31. Article in Medical World News,1978, cited in I .N. Love
"NutraSweet Isn't that Sweet," _Gentle Strength Times_,
October 1987, p. 3.
32. "Dick Wurtman's Ideas Aren't So Crazy After All," _Business
Week_, December 14, 1992, p. 60.
33. "A Sour View of Aspartame ," _San Francisco Chronicle_,
August 25, 1987.
34. "Amendment No. 60" (debate), _Congressional Record_, May 7,
l985, p. S5516.
35. "Lobbyist's Cozy Ties with Ex-Boss Sen. Hatch Include Client
Referrals, Political Fund-Raising," _Wall Street Journal_,
February 18, 1993. Eli Lilly contributed $17,500 to Hatch's
campaign chest between 1985 and 1988. Sen. Hatch filed a of
friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Eli Lilly in a 1989
patent case. Other pharmaceutical houses enjoy his political
favors. Lobbyist Thomas Parry remains a key adviser to Sen.
Hatch:- "Nobody gets better care than his former chief of
staff," reports the _Journal_.
36. Ibid.
37. Jane E. Brody, "Sweetener Worries Some Scientists," _Science
Times_, February 5, 1985.
38. _Who 's Who in Industry and Finance_, 97th ed., Macmillian
(Wilmette, IL.) p. 583.
39. "Food and Drug Administration Food Additive Approval Process
Followed for Aspartame," GAO Report B223552, June 18,1987.
40. "GAO Investigating NutraSweet Approval," UPI, reprinted in
_Congressional Record_, August 1, 1985,p. S10823.
41. Graves.
42. "Head of FDA Tested Drugs on Volunteers," _Washington Post_,
June 26, 1983, p. A4.
43. Austin H. Kiplinger, *Washington Now*, Harper & Row (New
York: 1975), pp. 36-37.
44. Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner, *The Shadow Government:
The Government's Multimillion Dollar Giveaway of its
Decision-Making Powers to Private Management Consultants,
''Experts, " and Think Tanks*, Pantheon, (New
York:1989),p.173.
45. Bruce Oudes, ed., *From: The President-Richard Nixon 's
Secret Files*, Harper & Row (New York: 1989), p. 173.
46. James A Smith, *The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise
of the New Policy Elite*, Free Press (New York: 1991),
p.282.
47. Sterling Seagrave, *Yellow Rain: A Journey Through The
Terror of Chemical Warfare*, M. Evans and Co. (New York:
1981), pp. 258 "After a meeting with President Nixon,
Representative Gerald Ford attacks politicians who criticize
the Pentagon CBW efforts, saying the critics seem to favor
'unilateral disarmament."'
48. Christopher Palmeri, "Act Three," _Forbes_, October 26,
1992, p. 88
49. "Westmark Systems Expands Board, Hires 3 New Vice
Presidents," _Wall Street Journal_, February 11,1988, p.33.
50. Graves.
51. Ibid.
52. "Hon. Samuel K. Skinner," _Congressional Record_,
Congressional Printing Office, Washington, D.C., August 1,
1985, pp. S10827, S10835.
53. Graves.
54. _Congressional Record_, August 1,1985, p. S10823.
55. Graves.
56. "Critics Cause Bush Cabinet Search to Stumble," _Los Angeles
Times_, December 22,1988.
57. Herman Rogan, *Traditions and Challenges: The Story of
Sidley & Austin*, R.R. Donelly & Sons (Chicago: 1983),
p.266.
58. *Who's Who in America*, 48th ed., 1994.
59. Ibid.
60. "Deukmejian Thrives in Private Life, Law Work," _Los Angeles
Times_, January 3, 1992, p. Al.
61. "Chicago Law Firm Agrees to Pay Up to $34 Million in Lincoln
S&L Case," _Los Angeles Times_, May 21, 1991, p. D5;and
"Sidley & Austin RTC Said to Reach Pact," _Wall Street
Journal_, October 31, 1991, p. B4. The basis of the suit was
a memo written on May 10, 1988 by Margery Waxman, a partner
in Sidley & Austin's Washington office, to Charles Keating.
In it, she said "pressure" had been applied to M. Danny
Wall, then chairman of the Home Loan Bank Board, "to work
toward meeting your demands and he has so instructed his
staff."
62. "Suit Accuses 7 Drug Makers of Price-Fixing," _Los Angeles
Times_, October 15, 1993, p. Dl. Other pharmaceutical houses
accused of conspiring to fix prescription drug prices
included Smith-Kline-Beecham, Ciba-Geigy Corp., American
Home Products, Schering-Plough and Glaxo.
63. Ida Honorof, "FDA Coverup of Hazards of Nutra-Sweet,"
_Report to Consumers_, Vol. XVIII, No.401, December, 1987.
Also, "Two Ex-U.S. Prosecutors' Roles in Case Against Searle
are Questioned in Probe," _Wall Street Journal_, February
7,1986, p. 4. Ironically, William Conlon won an appointment
to the Illinois State Board of Ethics in 1982 (Kogan,
p.359).
64. Graves
65. _Los Angeles Times_, December 22, 1988.
66. "Sam Skinner: A Pragmatist in a Storm," _Wall Street
Journal_, December 6, 1991.
67. "Samuel Knox Skinner," _New York Times_, December 23, 1988.
68. Graves.
69. "Statement from Adrian Gross, Former FDA Investigator and
Scientist," _Congressional Record_, August 1, 1985, p.
S10835.
70. _Congressional Record_, August 1, 1985, p. S 10831, and
"Statements from Adrian Gross," p. S10838.
71. "FDA Handling of Research on NutraSweet is Defended," _New
York Times_, July 18, 1987, p. 50
72. H.J. Roberts, M.D.,*Aspartame (NutraSweet): Is it Safe?*,
Charles Press (Philadelphia: 1990), p. 10.
73. _Congressional Record_, August 1, 1985, p. S108-28.
74. Ibid., p. S108-34.
75. Ibid.
76. Graves.
77. "Sweet Suspicions," three-part CBS Nightly News series,
January 1984. Transcript reprinted in the _Congressional
Record_, August 1, 1985, p. S108-26.
78. Ibid.
79. Raymond Bonner, "Searle Stock Query Held 'Smokescreen,"'
_New York Times_, February 29, 1984, p. D5
80. William Safire, "Sweet and Sour," _New York Times_, June 1,
1984, p. A31.
81. Louis Wolf, "Accuracy in Media Rewrites the News and
History," _Covert Action Information Bulletin_, Number 21
(Spring 1984), pp. 24-37.
82. I.N. Love, "NutraSweet Isn't that 'Sweet,"' in _Gentle
Strength Times_, October 1987, p.3.
83. Graves.
84. "Complaints on Aspartame Lead to Nationwide Investigation,"
_Los Angeles Times_, July 5, 1984, p. Hl.
85. "Federal Agency Sees Little Risk in Sweetener," _New York
Times_, November 2, 1984, p. A22.
86. _Los Angeles Times_, July 5, 1984.
87. _New York Times_, November 2, 1984.
88. "U.S. Study of Aspartame Finds no Serious Effects,"
_Washington Post_, November 2, 1984, p. A18
89. "Pepsi Switches Sweeteners," _Washington Post_, November 2,
1984, p. AI.
90. "Most Scientists in Poll Doubt NutraSweet's Safety,"
_Washington Post_, August 17, 1987, p. A23.
91. Roberts, p. 238.
92. _Congressional Report_, May 7, 1987, p. S5500.
93. "New Findings Back Use of Sweetener," _New York Times_,
August 1987, p. 30.
94. "Researchers Differ Over Long Range Effects of Sweetener,"
_Los Angeles Times_, November 3, 1988, p. Hl.
95. Roberts, p. 244.
96. Roberts, p. 248.
97. "High Court Rejects Sweetener Review," _Washington Post_,
April 23, 1986, p. C.
98. . Roberts,p. 246-47.