The Swirl & the Swastika: NutraSweet, the NutraPoison

[Guest guest]

The Swirl & the Swastika: NutraSweet, the

NutraPoison

via Alex

Constantine's Blacklist by Alex Constantine on 22/10/08

 

 

 

 

 

By Alex Constantine

(From Psychic Dictatorship in the USA; reprinted by permission, LFP,

Inc., 1994)

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.

 

 

 

 

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 a 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 no 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.

 

 

Gideon Daniel Searle

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

 

 

General Robert E. Wood, American Nazi collaborators 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 & Co., 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 breathe 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 California.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, 196-65. Dr. Thomas directed

a group of scientists during WW II 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. In 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

overseas. " Merrill Lynch invested the drug proceeds in the New York

bullion market before making the offshore transfers.26

 

 

As might be expected in view of Monsanto's Nazi, chemical warfare 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. Searle, 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.

 

 

Turner

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.28

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 formaldahyde. 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 Enqland 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. "

 

 

David Kessler

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 Centers 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. "

 

 

Arthur Hull Hayes

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

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

 

 

Ajinomoto's corporate headquarters

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 aqent. 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 country'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 politcian 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

 

 

Skinner

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

& Autin.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.61 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 office - asking, in a memo to subordinates, that the matter be

kept " confidential to avoid any undue 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

 

 

Dan Reidy

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 jury to 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 Sun-Times 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 Enqland

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

 

 

Reed Irvine

 

 

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 NutraSweetTM - 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 January 21, 1981 - the

day after Reagan's inauguration - Searle submitted " ten new

studies. " Dr. Monte was skeptical. " It is impossible 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

evidence 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 a path " 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.

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 a 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.93

 

 

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

Footnotes

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 amd 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. l.

23. Moody's Industrial Manual, 1968, p. 4080.

24. " Radiation and the Guinea Pigs, " Guardian, March 3, 1994,

p. 3. Also see, " Nuclear Scientients 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, kidnapping, and

such other functions as from time to time may be given itby 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 Ian 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,

1985, 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 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, 198S.

38. Who's Who in Industry and Finance, 97th ed., MacMillan (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: 1976), pp. 63-90.

45. Bruce Oudes, ed., 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: l991), p. 282.

47. Sterling Seagrave, Yellow Rain: A Journey Throuqh 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.

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 NutraSweet, " 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, lg 86, 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. S10831, 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.

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. Al.

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 Sweetner, " 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. C7.

98. Roberts, p. 246-47.r

 

 

 

 

 

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