U.S. Attorney Samuel Skinner went to work for Sidley & Austin, G.D. Searle’s law firm.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Conlon went to work for Sidley & Austin.

H.R. Roberts, director of the FDA’s Bureau of Food took a job as vice president of the National Soft Drink Assoc.

After an unsuccessful bid in the late ’70s, G.D. Searle reapplied for FDA approval of aspartame the day after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. G.D. Searle CEO Donald Rumsfeld served as a key member of Reagan’s transition team.

Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. FDA commissioner left the FDA to take on a reported $1,000-a-day consulting arrangement with G.D. Searle’s public relations firm, Burston Marsteller.

Between 1979 and 1982 four FDA officials involved in aspartame’s approval were hired by NutraSweet or organizations closely affiliated with NutraSweet:

• Mike Taylor, the FDA lawyer who represented the agency in public hearings on aspartame in 1977;
• acting FDA Commissioner Sherwin Gardner;
• Albert Kolbye, associate director of the FDA’s Bureau of Foods; and
• Stuart Pape, chief counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services from 1976 to ’79.*

Deputy FDA Commissioner Michael Friedman went to work as senior vice president of clinical affairs for G.D. Searle.

From Sweetheart Deal