Thursday, June 29, 2023

Early 1980s, Donald Rumsfeld, CEO of Monsanto and part of the Reagan transition team, got to appoint the new head of the FDA, who then went on to cast the deciding vote in favor of allowing Aspartame into the American food supply.

Take propionic acid (PPA), for instance. This common antifungal, used to extend the shelf life of processed food, is found in highly elevated levels in the stool of autistic children. Many cases of autism appear to be linked to gut dysfunction and microbial overgrowth, which PPA probably encourages by "nuking" the good microbes in the gut, allowing aggressive strains to invade and take hold.

Scientists, on the basis of early testing, were saying aspartame was a carcinogen in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but Donald Rumsfeld, who was CEO of the company that owned Aspartame [Searle], became part of the Reagan transition team and got to appoint the new head of the FDA, who then went on to cast the deciding vote in favor of allowing Aspartame into the American food supply. When Monsanto acquired the company that owned Aspartame soon after, Rumsfeld was paid $12 million by Monsanto as a golden handshake, almost certainly for his direct intervention to get Aspartame past the safety board.

This isn't an isolated story of corruption, of corporate profits being put before the health of the nation. This is how the system works. It's why the American food supply is loaded with ingredients whose effects on human health are totally unknown. It's why we regularly discover that common food ingredients are extremely harmful.

Take propionic acid (PPA), for instance. This common antifungal, used to extend the shelf life of processed food, is found in highly elevated levels in the stool of autistic children. Many cases of autism appear to be linked to gut dysfunction and microbial overgrowth, which PPA probably encourages by "nuking" the good microbes in the gut, allowing aggressive strains to invade and take hold.

The whole system needs to change. We need an independent system that doesn't allow corporate influence to override the basic rights of the people to eat food that really is safe.  

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