In my paradigm, the human body is designed to withstand stuff inside and out. There are limits. I've drunk Diet Coke for 25 years, sometimes more, now much less-- and I don't show any of the 487,983 symptoms of the ubiquitous Aspartame Disease. Nor am I going to get worked up over it. I have no particular desire to live to be a leathery 155 years old. Half of that, with relative good health, is fine for me.

Things like this:
"I read in a natural journal some years ago about a guy who worked at a plant that makes aspartame...he got accidently covered with the powder without an enviro suit and later died."

-- call for specifics. This unfortunately sounds like a twice-told tale: "I guy I met once told me that he knew a guy who married a Bigfoot..." "Y'know, if you take aspirin with Coke, it gets ya high?" "Hey, if you drop a nail into a bottle of Coke, it'll rust and rot completely in four hours! Think what that's doin' to your stomach!"

I'll let others accept wat they will into their own paradigm.