Here’s a situation we’ve all been in… you’re working in a lab on an anti-ulcer drug, but you create a methyl ester of a phenylalanine/aspartic acid dipeptide.  You accidently spill some of it, but instead of cleaning it up with the lab’s biohazard kit you inexplicably wipe it up with your hand and lick your finger instead.  “Hmmm… kinda sweet”, you think.  If you’re a typical scientist, you wash your finger and consider brushing up on your lab safety procedures.  If you’re GD Searle, the pharmaceutical conglomerate, you decide to market it as an artificial sweetener, conduct shoddy tests, doctor the results, and fight the FDA for years to approve the product.

Now, if you’re you again, you might be consuming aspartame every day in everything from breath mints to iced tea to candy.   For our contribution to your health this month we’d like to bring you the story of aspartame’s approval, where it is, and how you can avoid it….

The Shocking Story Of How Aspartame Became Legal- by Joe Martino on Collective Evolution

Open Letter To Ajinomoto, Aspartame Manufacturer- by Dr. Betty Martini

Internal Searle memo on Aspartame approval strategy- by Herbert Helling, GD Searle

List of Aspartame products by category- Drugsdb.com

List of Aspartame products by name- Supersweet blog