Irony..

Among the many ironies of our modern world is that Gerald Ford
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom-America,s highest civilian
honor-to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on January 19, 1977. Just
a few weeks later on March 8, Rumsfeld became the CEO of G.D. Searle
to take point on a mission to force the Food and Drug Administration
to approve for human consumption a known carcinogen and neurotoxic poison.

Mission accomplished: Today some 9,000 commonly consumed products are
laced with this weapon of mass misery and millions of people live
with chronic illnesses linked to the artificial sweetener aspartame.
It is our belief at The Idaho Observer that if some guy named
Parkinson can have a disease named after him, then Donald Rumsfeld
ought to have his own disease, too. Hence the term Rumsfeld disease A.

Rumsfeld's Disease

A Politically-Induced Biochemical
Disaster Of Global Proportions
By Don Harkins
The Idaho Observer
8-15-5

Today, Donald Rumsfeld is known throughout the world as the zealous
U.S. Secretary of Defense who is waging a global "war on terror" in
search of "terrorists" and "weapons of mass destruction." Most
people, however, are not aware that Rumsfeld himself unleashed a
chemical weapon of mass destruction upon the world in 1981-and it,s
still out there destroying people all over the world. That "WMD" is
aspartame and it has been scientifically and anecdotally linked to
millions of chronic illnesses and deaths.

The evidence shows that, with full knowledge of aspartame,s
neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity, Rumsfeld, as the CEO of G.D.

Searle, Co., "called in his markers" to achieve U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approval for the artificial sweetener aspartame,
better known by its trade name "NutraSweet."

Consumer advocate attorney Jim Turner, who was instrumental in the
1969 banning of cyclamate in the U.S. for its link to various forms
of cancer, met with representatives of aspartame approval petitioner
Searle in 1974. The main topic of discussion was neuroscientist Dr.
John Olney,s 1971 study which showed that aspartic acid caused
lesions in the brains of infant mice. According to Turner, arguably
the world,s foremost authority on aspartame,s dubious legal history,
Rumsfeld was apparently hired by Searle for one specific purpose: To
obtain FDA approval for aspartame.

Betty Martini is the director of Mission Possible, a worldwide
consumer advocacy organization formed in 1992 as a voice for those
demanding that the FDA reverse its approval of aspartame and order
its removal from foods, beverages and medical preparations. Martini
is even more bold in her charges against Rumsfeld. Martini believes
the Washington insider, former three-term U.S. Rep. From Illinois
(1962-1968), secretary of defense (1975-1977) and executive assistant
to President Gerald Ford, was hired by Searle because, "He was
willing to get a deadly chemical poison, aspartame, approved for
human consumption"

Background

In December, 1965 Searle chemist James Schlatter discovered aspartame
while working on an ulcer drug. The substance, comprised of 50
percent synthetic phenylalanine, 40 percent synthetic aspartic acid
and 10 percent methanol, was about 200 times sweeter than sugar by
weight and had no calories. By spring, 1967, Searle began conducting
safety trials in preparation for petitioning the FDA for product approval.

Soon after the trials began, lab animals (monkeys and mice) began
experiencing adverse effects ranging from brain lesions and tumors to
seizures and death. Yet Searle petitioned the FDA for aspartame
approval in February, 1973. According to Turner, Searle provided the
FDA with over 100 studies claiming they proved aspartame was "safe."
Independent analyses of these studies, however, proves conclusively
that aspartame is actually a dangerous, neurotoxic, carcinogenic and
highly-addictive drug.

Trusting Searle,s promise that aspartame was safe, the FDA approved
the limited use of aspartame in dry goods on July 26, 1974. Turner
and Dr. Olney formally objected to the approval. Their petition
triggered an FDA investigation of Searle,s lab practices which proved
that Searle had provided the FDA with inaccurate conclusions
resulting from manipulated data derived from poorly-designed studies.
The FDA reversed its decision to approve aspartame in dry goods.

On January 10, 1977, the FDA formally requested that the U.S.
Department of Justice convene a federal grand jury to determine if
Searle should be criminally indicted for "concealing material facts
and making false statements" with regard to its petition for
aspartame approval.

Among the many charges FDA investigators made about Searle,s shoddy
lab practices was how rats that developed tumors would undergo
surgical removal of the tumors and then be placed back into the study
as if nothing had happened to them.

The grand jury investigation was led by U.S. Attorney Samuel Skinner.
In July 1, 1977, while the investigation was being conducted, Skinner
left the Justice Department and took a job with Sidley & Austin-the
law firm representing Searle. The statute of limitations eventually
ran out and the grand jury disbanded without reaching any conclusions
regarding Searle and its lab practices.

Amid this controversy, Rumsfeld was hired as Searle CEO on March 8,
1977 and immediately began cleaning house. Rumsfeld, who had no
previous business executive experience before becoming CEO of Searle,
reorganized several departments in the company and fired many of its
high-level managers, replacing them with other politically-connected
Washington, D.C., insiders.

Though the controversies deepened and the evidence proving the
poisonous nature of his company,s product continued to accumulate,
Rumsfeld and his team continued to push for FDA approval of aspartame.

A team of FDA investigators headed by Jerome Bressler attempted to
block Rumsfeld, et. al, by publishing what has become known as the
"Bressler Report" on August 1, 1977. The report cited several
instances where Searle intentionally mislead the FDA in its petition
for marketplace approval of aspartame. The FDA then formed a public
board of inquiry (PBOI) in 1979 to rule on the myriad safety issues
surrounding aspartame.

By this time, FDA investigators and independent scientists had
exhaustively reviewed the Searle studies and additional studies had
been conducted. There was no doubt, based upon objective analyses of
evidence that had accumulated for over a decade, that aspartame was
deathly poisonous to lab animals and caused a statistically
significant number of them to develop tumors.

On September 30, 1980, the PBOI concluded that aspartame should not
be approved pending further investigation of its link to the
formation of brain tumors and that the FDA "has not been presented
with proof of reasonable certainty that aspartame is safe for use as
a food additive."

The coup

Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president January 21, 1981. Rumsfeld,
while still CEO at Searle, was part of Reagan,s transition team. This
team hand-picked Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes, Jr., to be the new FDA
commissioner. Dr. Hayes, a pharmacologist, had no previous experience
with food additives before being appointed director of the FDA. He,
like Rumsfeld, did, however, have experience with chemical warfare
studies while connected to the Department of Defense. According to
The Washington Post, Hayes was, "one of a number of doctors who
conducted drugs tests for the Army on volunteers.to determine the
effect of a mind-disorienting drug called CAR 301,060," at Fort
Detrick, Maryland.

The Post further explained why Hayes was the perfect choice to
politically force the approval of aspartame: "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."

The report, detailing Hayes activities beginning in 1972, further
indicated that Hayes was involved in similar biochemical mind control
research studies until being named FDA director.

One of Hayes, first official acts as FDA chief was to approve the use
of aspartame as an artificial sweetener in dry goods July 18, 1981.
In order to accomplish this feat, Hayes had to overlook the scuttled
grand jury investigation of Searle, overcome the Bressler Report,
ignore the PBOI,s recommendations and pretend aspartame did not
chronically sicken and kill thousands of lab animals. Hayes, left his
post at the FDA in November, 1983, amid accusations that he was
accepting corporate gifts for political favors. Just before leaving
office in scandal, Hayes approved the use of aspartame in beverages.
According to The Post, Hayes, next job was in the private sector
where he served as a high-paid senior medical advisor for Searle,s
public relations firm.

The aftermath

Within weeks of aspartame,s approval for use in beverages, cans of
diet sodas and other sweet drinks were on the market. To help sell
Americans on using the artificial sweetener, intense advertising
campaigns began programming the public to believe that sugar has lots
of calories; calories make us fat and NutraSweet has no
calories-therefore it won,t make us fat.

Based upon this almost universally-accepted oversimplification of
biochemical reality, aspartame has enjoyed 22 years of marketplace
success and is now in an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 commonly-consumed
products in at least 100 countries. When Searle was absorbed by
Monsanto in 1985, Rumsfeld reportedly received a $12 million bonus.

Not surprisingly, the same adverse reactions seen in lab animals in
the 60s and 70s are now being seen in the general population. In his
first book on aspartame (1990), Dr. H.J. Roberts stated that in five
or 10 years we would have a worldwide plague on our hands if we do
not remove aspartame from our food supply. With the printing of
"Aspartame Disease: An Ignored Epidemic (2001), Dr. Roberts declared
that the world is, indeed, plagued by a global epidemic of symptoms
associated with aspartame use.

* Aspartame is being identified by a growing number of researchers
and physicians as an underlying cause of chronic ill health in
America and other countries throughout the world.

* It interacts with other substances such as pharmaceutical drugs to
produce adverse reactions.

* All metabolites of aspartame (formaldehyde, methanol,
diketopiperazine and formic acid) are toxic to the human body and are
especially toxic to the brain.

* Aspartame comprises over 80 percent of consumer complaints filed
with the FDA.

* The FDA has generated a list of 92 symptoms associated with
aspartame consumption that include nausea, dizziness, irritability,
insanity, blindness, deafness, weight gain and death.

* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that 500,000
people each year simply "drop dead" for no apparent reason from what
it labels "sudden cardiac death."

* Dementia among all ages (especially the elderly) and learning
disabilities among children, in the U.S. and abroad, have been
skyrocketing since 1981.

As of today, the number of scientific and studies showing that
aspartame is, indeed, an underlying cause of chronic physical and
mental illness and death out number studies proving its safety by at
least 400 to zero. Proof of this fact can also be determined by what
happens in many cases when people stop using aspartame: Their chronic
symptoms disappear.

The legacy

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was awarded the Presidential Medal of
Freedom by President Gerald Ford-the highest civilian honor in
America-on January 19, 1977. A few months later, Rumsfeld became the
CEO of Searle to secure political approval for a product that science
had proven to be a highly-addictive neurotoxic drug that causes
chronic ill health, brain tumors and death. The evidence indicates
that FDA approval for aspartame was a high-level political priority
undoubtedly connected to its capacity to adversely effect the minds
and bodies of those consuming it.

Because Rumsfeld placed politics above public health and safety,
hundreds of millions of people throughout the world cannot think
clearly and suffer from a variety of chronic illnesses. It is,
therefore, fitting that symptoms associated with aspartame use be
known as "Rumsfeld,s disease."


Caption: The search of a suitable picture of Donald Rumsfeld turned
up this image from Portland Indy Media. Though it may seem satirical,
is it? What goes through the mind of a man who knowingly poisons his
own people?