liter tapwater, 0.001 (containing 83 micrograms of chloroform), 6 ounces of apple juice containing UDMH, 0.0017, 1 peanut butter sandwich, 0.03 (0.064 microgram aflatoxin), 1 raw mushroom, 0.1 (hydrazines), 1 gram dried basil leaf 0.1 (3.8 milligrams estragole). ·

I regard the threshold principle as being a "law of nature." Consequently, below a certain level of intake, socalled carcinogens will not produce cancer, because of reasons given by Dinman explained earlier and also because of the presence of anticarcinogens and DNA repair mechanisms that cope with small amounts of carcinogens.

Ames's new approach was greeted with hostility by environmental activists and militant consumerists such as Sierra Club employee Carl Pope, who said that the

appointment of Ames to the California Governor's scientific
advisory panel on toxic substances was an "act of sabotage."
It seemed that environmentalists regarded carcinogenicity as
a lucrative political issue rather than as one to be
evaluated scientifically. A similar viewpoint was blatantly
stated by Consumers Union in Consumer Reports (May 1989):

"The risk from UDMH has many features that make it
less acceptable to consumers than other far larger
risks that we live with daily
It's not like

radon gas seeping through the basement floor or
aflatoxin in peanuts, since UDMH is in foods by
human hands, not Nature's ... and unlike many
risks, this one falls disproportionately on

children. For all these reasons, not because it's

a big risk [emphasis added] we find Alar in food

intolerable."

Radon gas and aflatoxin can both be lowered by human intervention, but according to Consumers Union, it is not the magnitude of a risk, it is whether or not it is socially acceptable, that decides whether it is tolerable.

Ames's approach has been not to alarm consumers with accounts of "natural" carcinogens in foods, but rather to point out that these have far higher carcinogenic potency in the amounts commonly consumer than do the traces of pesticide residues actually present in foods. He lists anticarcinogens such as carotene, selenium and glutathione in foods that protect against carcinogens., His recommendation is to set priorities on the major hazards such as tobacco (350,000 deaths per year) and alcohol. Organic Food

The term "organic farming" was introduced in 1942 by a New York electrical contractor, J.I. Rodale, to describe farming in which manure was used instead of inorganic chemical fertilizers, thus reviving a superstition that had been destroyed in the early 1800s by the German chemist Justus von Liebig. Liebig showed that inorganic fertilizer and barnyard manure both furnish inorganic ions, especially potassium, phosphate, and nitrogen as nitrates or ammonia, and that these ions are the major essential elements for plant growth.

Rodale's superstitious pleading for manure

and compost in his Prevention magazine appealed to many of the urban public, who knew nothing about farming, and he

added more color to his definition of organic farming by excluding chemical pesticides and other scientific

procedures from it., Organic food, of course, is produced only by organic farming.

In March, the NRDC recommended organic food as a "healthy" substitute for apples and other foods that had been treated with Alar or fungicides.

Some years ago, in

The

hearings on organic foods by the New York State Attorney General, a report by the state chemist revealed t hat organic foods contained, on average, higher pesticide residues than foods purchased randomly at supermarkets. state chemist also found that organic foods contained residues of seven different pesticides and cost an average of 113 percent more than their "regular" counterparts. Organic produce tends to be of low quality (although highly priced) because of pest infestation, and the NRDC paid homage to this in March 1989 by advising consumers to reject fruit that looked "too perfect." It also advised parents to supply their children with "organic apple juice," which has been reported in one survey to contain up to 45 ppm of patulin, produced by molds, and suspected of being a carcinogen. The superior quality of conventionally produced fruits and vegetables is termed a "cosmetic effect" by

promoters of organic food and by the NRDC.

"Cosmetic

effect" includes the absence of insects and molds and the

presence of fruit.

Health food stores are an adjunct of the

organic food industry.

In an April 1989 article in the Washington Post, M. Gladwell pointed out that the complicated scientific issue of Alar was decided "not by officials charged with

protecting the public on the basis of hard evidence, but by a frightened public acting on incomplete and often erroneous press reports." He also noted that food companies had proclaimed that their products were Alar-free, thus dealing "with the Alar issue as a marketing problem rather than a scientific one." As a result, "the prospects of winning any future battles over the use of pesticides will be much slimmer." This statement was reiterated in an April 1989 Wall Street Journal article: "We're dealing with perceptions here, we're not dealing with reality."

Yet, facts alone are not enough. In The Coercive Utopians, Rael Jean and Erich Isaac wrote about those environmentalist groups who seek to impose their notions on others "because they assume that man is perfectible and the evils that exist are the products of a corrupt social system."

Such groups admit that carcinogens occur in nature but these don't concern them. It's man-made chemistry that really bothers them.

The food supply in the U.S. is the best, the safest and the most varied in the history of the world. A visit to the Soviet Union, for example, is a salutary experience for

"food appreciation."

We should do our best to help the

ever-increasing food needs of other countries, especially

less developed countries.