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This NY Times article on MSG seems to be floating around the Internets recently. The article is mostly about how MSG is used in Asian cooking, and it pretty much downplays the health effects.

I have no idea how many people get a reaction from eating MSG, but I am definitely one of them. Heart palpitations, headache, sometimes zoning out for 20 minutes or so following a MSG-heavy meal. Not pleasant at all. Probably not dangerous, but not fun.

The article also mentions that a lot of food in the U.S. is laced with MSG, which is used under a variety of names. I can also attest to that. I spent most of 2004 and 2005 living in D.C., and eating perhaps too much prepared supermarket food. That shit is loaded with MSG – eating certain brands of frozen pizza almost sent me running for a defibrillator. I probably get the same number of MSG "incidents" here in China that I did in the U.S., although here it is the restaurant food that is the problem. (I usually ask for no wei jing when I order – once in a while, they actually oblige.)