Aspartame breaks down in your body releasing methanol, that is wood alcohol, that is toxic and if you drink this alcohol directly the most likely result if you get to hospital immediately the best outcome can vary anywhere between blindness and death. With sodas you get daily smaller doses and with that the blindness and death are not your problems but problems you will have.
Aspartame is not the only sweetener, and most all of them have similar end results. However, a 2009 FoodNavigator article cites the current global market for aspartame as being less than 37.5 million pounds and worth $637 million. According to aspartame.org, diet soda accounts for 70 percent of the aspartame consumed. A 12 ounce can of diet soda contains 180 mg of aspartame, and aspartame users ingest an average of 200 mg per day. Here is the relative distribution of artificial sweeteners as found from the literature.
Aspartame gained FDA approval in 1981, and was perhaps the most hotly contested FDA approval in history, for good reason. This toxic additive has been silently destroying people's health ever since. Concerned scientists and researchers fought and were successful in keeping aspartame out of the food supply for over ten years, ever since it was first considered as a potential food additive, and many of those still alive continue to speak out against it today.
Many have long forgotten what the 60-Minutes' correspondent Mike Wallace stated in his 1996 report on aspartame that the approval of aspartame was "the most contested in FDA history." At the time, independent studies had found it caused brain cancer in lab animals, and the studies submitted by G.D. Searle to the FDA for the approval were quickly suspected of being sloppy at best.
In the 60-Minutes video (below) former Senator Howard Metzenbaum states:
"According to the FDA themselves, Searle, when making their presentation to the FDA, had willfully misrepresented the facts, and withheld some of the facts that they knew would possibly jeopardize the approval. FDA officials were so upset they sent the file to the US Attorney's office in Chicago for the purposes of presenting it to the grand jury as to whether or not there should be indictments. But it wasn't presented. It was delayed."
Samuel Skinner, the US attorney who led the grand jury probe ended up withdrawing from the case when he entered into job discussions with Searle's Chicago law firm, Sidley & Austin – a job he later accepted. Subsequently, the investigation stalled until the statute of limitation ran out, at which point the investigation against Searle was dropped.
For more details on the story of how aspartame made it through the FDA approval process despite warning signs of potential health hazards and alleged scientific. Mr. Mike Wallace summarizes the long story well in the video clip:
Dr. Mercola who has analyzed the story in depth has published a lengthy summary in form of the video report, below: