Read this quotation at the end: “fortunately for our patient, follow-up at six months and one year showed no long-term toxicity. However, she has had outbreaks of her herpes.”

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The comments here about aspartame forming “toxic” formaldehyde and that both are the root of all evil are absolutely bogus. Formaldehyde is a natural substance required for the proper methylation of DNA and biomolecules (specifically, formyltetrahydrofolate is converted to a methyltetrahydrofolate and used in conjunction with vitamin B12 to methylate homocysteine and form the vital amino acid methionine, which methylates many molecules including DNA). Many seemingly innocuous drugs and chemicals produce formaldehyde (science has had a test for formaldehyde for 30 years!); in fact, one caffeine molecule is degraded to three molecules of formaldehyde, which is three times more formaldehyde than from the same number of molecules of aspartame. The government is right. Don’t believe the profiteering MDs behind this conspiracy theory, who evidently couldn’t read a biochemistry or toxicology text if their life depended on it.

John E. Garst, Ph.D.
(Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology, and Toxicology)