By James Donahue

Americans today know Donald Rumsfeld as the former Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration who helped lead the nation into the disastrous and unnecessary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those wars, which still rage, have left over 4,000 American military personnel dead, hundreds of thousands maimed and handicapped for life, and an unknown number of innocent civilians dead because they got in the line of fire.

What most Americans don’t know is that Rumsfeld also unleashed a chemical weapon of death and destruction on the world in 1981 that is still out there, destroying hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in industrially prepared foods freely sold in our neighborhood grocery stores. It is the artificial sweetener known as aspartame, best known under the brand name NutraSweet.

A story by Dr. Betty Martini, which appeared in the Idaho Observer, noted that Rumsfeld, who had served as a congressman from Illinois, the US Ambassador to NATO under President Richard M. Nixon, and the Secretary of Defense under President Gerald Ford, accepted the post of CEO of G. D. Searle Co. in 1977 “to take point on a mission to force the Food and Drug Administration to approve for human consumption a known carcinogen and neurotoxic poison.”

Martini wrote that Rumsfeld “called in his markers” and persuaded the FDA to approve the produce, which today is found in an estimated 9,000 processed foods including diet drinks, “health” and “power” foods, canned soups and foods, and even chewing gum. Aspartame when mixed with the chemical “flavor enhancer” and “meat tenderizer” monosodium glutamate (MSG) is even more deadly in the way the chemicals attack the brain. The combination is not only known to cause cancer, but destroys brain cells through excess stimulation and is highly addictive.

When people appear unable to stop drinking a diet soda, take it seriously. They are truly addicted to the aspartame and MSG that gives them a mental “high” as it kills brain cells.

(There is an odd synchronicity linking this writer to this story. I grew up at Harbor Beach, Michigan, where the former Huron Milling Company for a while became the world’s largest producer of monosodium glutamate. My father worked as a chemist for this company. When Japan managed to produce a less costly product and flood the market with it, there was a major shift. The Huron Milling Company was sold to Hercules Powder Co., which eventually sold the plant off in sections. One of the new owners was the G. D. Searle Co. Thus the same plant became a maker of aspartame.)

Even though test trials have proven that aspartame caused a variety of adverse effects including brain lesions and tumors to seizures and death in lab mice and monkeys, Searle successfully petitioned the FDA to market the product as “safe” for public consumption in 1973.

Working against this decision were James Turner, a consumer advocate attorney and neuroscientist Dr. John Olney, who in 1971 conducted an independent study that proved the sweetener was not safe. Their petition triggered an investigation of Searle’s lab research which proved that the lab gave the FDA inaccurate conclusions from manipulated data. By January, 1977, the FDA was asking the US Department of Justice to convene a grand jury to determine possible criminally indictment against the company over the aspartame controversy.

The grand jury began its work, but then mysteriously disbanded after its leader, U.S. Attorney Samuel Skinner quit his post to take a job with Sidley & Austin, a law firm representing Searle. At about the same time, Rumsfeld was hired as Searle’s CEO. According to Martini’s report, he “immediately began cleaning house,” firing many of the company’s high-level managers and replacing them with politically-connected Washington D.C. insiders.”

The battle raged behind closed doors until Ronald Reagan took office as President in January, 1981. Rumsfeld, while still CEO at Searle, served as part of Reagan’s transition team. This team hand-picked Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. to be the new FDA commissioner. While he lacked knowledge of food additives, Hayes was experienced with chemical warfare agents while previously connected to the Department of Defense.

A story in the Washington Post said Hayes was “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.” Martini noted that the Post story “explained why Hayes was the perfect choice to politically force the approval of aspartame. It quoted the newspaper as saying that a declassified 1976 military report revealed that “Hayes had planned a research study to develop the mind-altering CAR 301,060 as a crowd control agent.”

Hayes didn’t last long on his FDA post. Before resigning amid accusations that he was accepting corporate gifts for political favors, Hayes approved the use of aspartame as an artificial sweetener in dry goods, and later in beverages. His next move was to a post as a high-paid senior medical advisor for Searle’s public relations department.

After a massive public relations campaign aspartame became an added ingredient in an estimated 10,000 products sold in at least 100 countries around the world.  The medical implications of what Rumsfeld and Hayes did for big profits have ravaged hundreds of thousands, if not millions of victims around the world. The product is now blamed for:

--An underlying cause of chronic ill health in millions.

--It interacts with pharmaceutical drugs and produces adverse reactions.

--Brain tumors, cancers and a variety of other neurological problems.

--A list of 92 symptoms associated with aspartame include nausea, dizziness, irritability, insanity, blindness, deafness, weight gain and death.

--Sudden cardiac death that hits about 500,000 people a year.

--Dementia among  people of all ages and learning disabilities among children.

Rumsfeld profited from his involvement with Searle. During his tenure there he earned the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry. He is believed to have been paid about $12 million when Searle was sold.

And guess who bought Searle. It was none other than the even more evil food giant, The Monsanto Corporation.