Reply #12: Actually, I did some research on them as well.....

[PatGund]

And found the people slandering those sites were - surprise surprise! - the very same "quacks" in question. Like the smear that quackwatch.org's founder, Dr. Stephen Barrett, M.D., lost his licence. Actually he placed his licence on inactive status once he retired, which a great many retired doctors do.

Details here:

http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/bolen.html

Null is questionable at best. Actually, I'd go so far to say he's completely without merit. Certainly the journals he's published in are.

The "documentation" you cite really seems to have a major flaw - which is it's self-referencial, if not incestual. All the anti-aspertame advocates cite each other as if it was holy writ, or stick to outside research that has since been withdrawn or disproven.

I'm not saying aspertame is as pure as the driven snow. But when some of the advocates you quoted are calling something created in 1965 as a "nazi biochemicalwarfare agent", I have major problems believing that what they have to say is anything other than questionable at best