Dorris Bookhart, 43, a legal secretary in Lodge, S. Carolina, started having what were later diagnosed as temporal lobe seizures in August of 1984. At the time, she said, she was drinking four 16-ounce bottles of Diet Coke a day, as well as diet lemonade. Both contained NutraSweet.
In January of 1985, after six months of problems, she suffered a grand mal seizure, a convulsive episode in which the victim loses consciousness, she said. Her doctors were mystified by the seizures, but they ruled out epilepsy, Bookhart said.
She said she suspected NutraSweet as the culprit when, at her husband’s suggestion, she stopped drinking Diet Coke and the problems ended.
“I’ve cried a lot of times thinking these people have destroyed my life and there isn’t a damn thing I can do,” she said. Reported by Gregory Gordon, UPI Investigative Reporter