In the FDA We Trust – Really?

My own personal moment of doubt about the FDA came, surprisingly, not after my father told me about aspartame, because, well, he’s my father, after all, and his epiphany was his. Mine had to be earned, and so my disillusionment with the FDA came while while I was the managing editor at a local Dallas magazine, while I was writing an article about Domperidone, a drug that helps to produce breast milk in adoptive mothers. Despite that other countries have determined it to be safe, and even the FDA had yet to find a health risk, they were attempting to ban it from the U.S. – why? Very simply, money. We weren’t marketing it locally, and my personal opinion is that the baby formula lobbyists “got to them.” So we can’t find a health risk for this one drug, yet the FDA works hard to ban it. The FDA itself finds myriad health risks for aspartame, and yet they’ve joined the fight to keep it on the market. Money can be such an evil motivator, don’t you think?

After you’d had a chance to read the articles in the archive concerning aspartame (including the actual FDA report first flagging aspartame as a health risk), check out the following articles:

• 1996 Recall
• 1997 Recall
• 26 Questions
• 1998 FDA E-mail
• DHHS No Answer
• FDA Cop-out
• FDA No Answer