Here’s something that surprised me.  The connection of Donald Rumsfeld to aspartame’s approval:

Seriously, though: Diet Coke is a nutritional void. Human bodies evolved to make use of a variety of foods, but I doubt isolated versions of phosphoric acid, etc., are among them. And aspartame, aka Nutrasweet, may cause active damage.

Can this questionable brew be made “healthy” by adding a few isolated nutrients, quite likely conjured up in the bustling labs of Archer Daniels Midland?

No, I don’t think it works that way. Michael Pollan’s recent New York Times Magazine piece exposed the absurdity of that notion. It turns out that systematically stripping nutrition out of food, and then adding it later in isolated form, is a bust. Isolated vitamins and other nutrients just don’t pack the same benefits as when they occur in whole foods.

Then there’s the question of aspartame. Italian researchers writing in Environmental Health Perspectives recently added (PDF) to a growing body of literature pointing to aspartame’s possible role as a carcinogen.

Why would the FDA allow it? In 1981, a company called Searle owned the patent on aspartame, already known, paradoxically, as Nutrasweet. The company’s CEO? Donald Rumsfeld — not too far removed from serving as Gerald Ford’s secretary of defense. Don’t believe me? Check it out.

Then-president Ronald Reagan had appointed a man named Arthur Hull Hayes as his FDA chair. In 1981, Hayes approved aspartame over the objections of several internal panels.

http://www.grist.org/article/diet-coke-vitamins-healthy-beverage/

So I checked out the link provided on that “check it out” line:

The lemonade was free. The strawberries and the chewing gum were, too. These confections, offered at a press conference by G.D. Searle & Company yesterday, are just a few of the food items that will contain the company’s new low-calorie sweetener.

The sweetener is aspartame, a food additive approved Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration. Many believe the additive will eventually steal away much of the existing $115 million annual demand for saccharin, currently the only substitute for sugar in the United States, and possibly convert some sugar users as well.

…..(goes on about aspartame and Searle )….

The company has been under the command of Donald H. Rumsfeld, its president and chief executive, since 1977. Mr. Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense in the Ford Administration and before that had served four terms in Congress.

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/17/business/searle-s-enriching-sweetener.html?&pagewanted=1

NY Times, 1981.  Fairly reliable, I would say.

The following is the sound (meaning medically sound) article I’ve been looking for to confirm what I’ve thought about addiction:

http://www.dorway.com/tldaddic.html

Too bad I didn’t find it years ago on other occasions when I’ve looked, since it was probably there since it is dated 2000.  This time I googled HJ Roberts, the name of the author.  I wrote down his name while watching the Fox News clip that I included yesterday.

Following is simply the initial summary found in the article:

SUMMARY

 The habitual consumption of "diet" products containing the chemical
aspartame not only risks aspartame disease but also clinical addiction.
Thirty-three (5.6 percent) of 540 aspartame reactors in the author's
recent series found it difficult or impossible to discontinue them
because of severe withdrawal effects.  They or their reporting relatives
(especially parents of afflicted children) specifically used the terms
"addict" and "addiction."  Others who used comparable terms were
excluded even though they experienced similar withdrawal symptoms. The
FDA and members of Congress have been repeatedly urged by me and
thousands of outraged aspartame reactors to declare aspartame products
an "imminent public health hazard," and remove them from the market. The
mounting evidence for their causation or aggravation of headache,
seizures, depression, many neurologic disorders (most notably multiple
sclerosis), visual difficulty, allergies, diabetic complications, and a
host of other conditions — coupled with the potential for addiction —
can be ignored no longer.

  "The beginning of wisdom is to call things by the right names."
Chinese Proverb

  "I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp
of experience." Patrick Henry (Speech to the Virginia Convention, 1775)

 Over half the adult population currently consumes products containing
aspartame (NutraSweet®, Equal®).  A multibillion-dollar industry
aggressively promotes thousands of items containing this chemical
sweetener that consumers use in prodigious amounts to avoid sugar or
lose weight... even though the latter intent often proves a delusion.

 I have described many serious side effects and medical/public health
hazards attributable to aspartame products(1-4).  The neurologic,
psychologic, eye, endocrine, metabolic and pediatric ravages in my data
base of over 1,200 aspartame reactors, comprised of both patients and
correspondents, are impressive.  Additionally, it is my increasing
conviction that aspartame products can cause, aggravate or accelerate
migraine (5), seizures (6), multiple sclerosis (3), diabetes and its
complications (7), Alzheimer's disease (8,9), and even brain tumors
(10).  The clinical and scientific basis for these assertions have been
detailed previously.

 Unfortunately, another tragic problem has been neglected:  addiction to
aspartame products.  Persons consuming large amounts not only may suffer
aspartame disease, but also have difficulty stopping them because of
violent and prolonged withdrawal reactions... the hallmark of addiction.
Recovered alcoholic patients repeatedly stated that they felt worse
after avoiding aspartame than alcohol, and asserted that they had traded
one addiction for another.  My experience, coupled with more than 10,000
consumers who volunteered their complaints to the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) and manufacturers, reflects the magnitude of this
widespread unrecognized affliction.

 In view of the controversial nature and implications of this subject,
clarification of my status at the outset is relevant.  I practised many
years as a primary care internist and medical consultant prior to
encountering aspartame disease.  I continue to remain corporate neutral
— that is, no grants, monies or other inducements were received from
industry, government or other institutions.

This is not a difficult report to read. It has lots of specific case examples.