Talk:G.D. Searle, LLC/Archives/2013

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This page needs better grammar, syntax.
 * It could also benefit from less tin foil and more substantiated facts. --Dachannien 14:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Many things wrong here, but the thing that jumps out at me is the unsourced assertion that "In 1977...The FDA did not want to legalize aspartame"

The account at the FDA website is quite different; while I wouldn't say that disproves the statement, it does indicate that we need more than the assertions of the article's author, so I have changed some of the wording.

Similarly, according to his Forbes profile, Arthur Hull Hayes did not work for Searle. He was clinical professor of medicine and pharmacology at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, from 1981 to 2004. From 1986 to 1990, Dr. Hayes was President and Chief Executive Officer of E.M. Pharmaceuticals, a unit of E. Merck AG.

Anti-aspartame websites vary their story about Hull and Searle post-FDA. One site says he took a job with Searle, another says he went to work for their PR firm (Burson Marsteller), and a third says that he was paid $1000 a day as a consuultant for the PR firm...this in turns sounds likely to have derived from this:

"The employee said Burson Marsteller has hired numerous scientists and physicians, often at $1,000 a day, to defend the sweetener in media interviews and other public forums. Burson Marsteller declines to discuss such matters."

(see http://www.wnho.net/upi_1987_aspartame1.htm)

It strikes me as a conflation of myths. I'm not saying that aspartame isn't dangerous...just that there is no documentation for the particular deletia.

Much of the questionable aspartame content comes from a critic named Mark Gold, who claims as source documents that he received from the FDA under the Freedom of Information Act. If Gold has not publicly archived these documents so that his claims can be verified, there's more aspartame content here that still wants gutting.

Anyone who wishes to restore the deletia should take care to cite appropriate sources. Bustter 11:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)