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f i Can organically grown tomatoes give you cancer? They are about as likely to as are the pesticides ~~ l b h EPA i ht 0 y so r g eous that t e ans. 4#Q% Ban plants they pollute By Leslie Spencer "I THINK the Fp.-. kills people," de- clares Bruce Ames from his over- crowded laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has served as professor of biochemistry and molecular biology since 1968. Ames' opinion may sound strange coming from the environmentalists' erstwhile favorite scientist. But there it is. He says simple scientific evidence has caused him to change his views about the much touted risk from man-made chemicals. "You can understand how it hap- pened," he says about current envi- ronmental policy. "But we really have jumped off a clifL People have com- pletely forgotten about the natural world." Ames has come to the conclusion that environmentalists have gone astray because of their insistence that man is evil and nature benign. This theology has led them to promote theories about the relationship be- tween pollution and cancer that are wildly misleading. In the process, politics has so cor- rupted science that the direct costs of pesticide and pollution-control rcgu- lations (estimated at between 2% and 6% ofGNP) are largely spent "chasing after trivia." Now, when he isn't teaching, re- searching or receiving awards OlLav- era 64), Ames is frying to "kick out'the foundations" that support most of the science guiding current environ, mental and health policy. ',,a guments.havn-bcffi- resist- ed by environmentalists and policy- 104 makers with a fury reserved for alleged turncoats. But Ames is not so much a turncoat as an unflinchingly honest man. In the 1970s Ames invented a way for companies and research labs to weed out potentially cancer-caus- ing new chemicals cheaply and easily. The "Ames Test" is now used world- wide. ("I never made a penny on it," he says ruefully-naive idealism pre- vented him trom filing a patent.) Now, however, he is not alone among scientists in his views on chemicals. More and more ofhis peers quietly agree with him. In an essay coauthored with colleague Lois Gold in a new collection, Phantom Risk Scientific Infircnct and the Law (MIT Press, 1993), Ames has boiled his analysis down to eight "misconcep- tions." Its highlights:  Cancer death rates are not increas- ~m ~n ct, c and smod'ing, they have been steady oc decreasing since 1950, except among the very old.  Injecting rats with massive doses of a chemical, the standar test or eter• muimg cancer risk of pesticides and pollutants, cannot measure risks ta humans exposed to only low doses. Tumors found in these hapless rats are: often caused simply by the hi dosc itself, which damages ce an cause:; t idivision. This result cannot bc extrapolated to low-dose risk for humans.  Most carcinogens and other knowr. toxins arc not man-made. In faci: 99.99% of the "pesticides" we con.sumc occur naturally in plants, na.. ture's attempt at protecting them from being eaten. When injected in rats in high doses, these chemicals cause cancer as frequently as do the synthetic ones. Ames explains: Our bodies don't care whether a chemical is synthetic or natural. At low doses we have these elaborate defense systems that work the same way for both. "It just doesn't make any sense that the pesti- cide residue on a tomato is doing us any more harm than the natural pesti- cide in the tomato." He has a favorite illustration: There are more "known carcinogens" in his morning cup of coffee than in the pesticide residue on food one could comfortably eat in a year. And only 26 ofover 1,000 chemicals in coffee have even been tested. In a 1992 study he found that broccoli, brussels sprouts and basil all contain rodent carcinogens by EPA risk standards, as do mangoes, mush- rooms and mustard, potatoes, pars- nips and pears. He is pressing the National Toxi- cology Program to randomly test more natural pesticides, to double- check their rate of carcinogenicity compared with that of man-made chemicals. So far, they have declined. "I guess I'm sort of rubbing their nose in it, but I want to point out the double standard." Needless to say, Washington, D.C. pretends not to hear Ames and his scientific colleagues. Last month the Clinton Administration proposed a sweeping expansion of food safety laws. The aim is to ban outright those pesticides that don't meet the govern- Forbes • October 25, 1993 89272861 14

< Bruce Mies in his hab at the University of California, Berkeley "People have completely forgotten about the natural woHd" ment "health standard." Ames says that the standards contain "enor- mous exaggerations." Thinking about that cup of coffee, Ames refers to "a handful of activist scientists," most of whom work for environmental groups dependent on creating scares. He names the Natural Resources Defense Council (author of the now discredited Alar apple- pesticide scare) as "the worst" of the professional scaremongers. However, Ames places only sec- ondary blame on the activist scientists and those who carer to them. The real problem is bureaucracy itsclf. Making oblique reference to Nobel laureate economist James Buchanan's public choice theory, he reminds his listener that organizations, once established, pursue their own interests, not some vague public good. "Environmental- ists don't want to think about that. It was the socialist fallacy-you set up a bureaucracy, and it will.vork for altru- ism. I knew lots of good guys who went to work for the Er.k because they were idealistic, but it's run by lawyers, a ad the institutional incentives take over." Ames knows whereof he speaks fiom personal experience. He is a member of a commission of the Na- tional Academy of Sciences whose t•.isk it is to write reports for govern- ment agencies. "The scientists on the committee are really top people," he says. "B ut they keep putting out lousy QD CD ~ N 4D ~ N Forbes 0 October 25, 1993 105

reports." Why? Because of the "tremendous pressure" on them to conform to institudonally lishc govcrn- / =mentrisk st tan most recent one, issued in the summer, claimed that children are especially at risk from pesticides. It was widely reported in the media and is a driving force behind the ncw proposed restrictions. Ames says that the "fine print" is modest in its claims, but notes that reports written by committees are wide open to interpretation. The end result was misleading. Environmental health regulation, Ames says, is a series of tradeoffs. Risks compete with risks, and if you exaggerate one, you divert resources from another. He says that the EPA is far past the point where it is counter- productive. But isn't he going a little far when he says that the EPA kills people? Not at all, he explains: Widespread scientific evidence, some of it from his lab, confirms the homespun wisdom about fruits and vegetables: Eating plenty of them (and only 9% of the U.S. population does) reduces incidences of most types of cancer by up to 50%. Puti- cides have provided a measurable health advance by bringing down the cost offresh produce. So ifyou restrict pesticide use, the cost of fruits and vegetables is likely to go up. And the most pricc-scnsitive shoppers, the poor, are already the most vulnerable to cancer. Which is why, Ames says, the EPA kills. Now 64, Ames credits his Italian wife, also a professor of biochemistry at Berkeley, with his own dcmonstra- bly good health. "She's a great cook. I cat Mediterranean," he says. And he lights up when the subject turns to his current research on aging: "As we undcrstand the mechanism, therc arc hundreds of ways to intervene." He adds with a wry smile,am nying to solve it before all :my~ nc, og j. . s ga, rancid. f f When it tomes to his own li,fe span, one thing thc's not it~orricd' a~oilt: chemical pesticides. "Unless you wadc around in thc _stutf,- pestici4es :~. don't cause cancer.'I`fiat'.4 the bottom line." M 108

REC EVEI MOY 0 5 1993 E1•J. TEVENS