Tobacco Documents Online

-~4= MAP A 1QU Chica_go,_Tribune, Is there any room for reality in our pesticide policy? Camxr is e major health risk, killing onc out of evcry four Ame[tcans, and notlttug ereates moro atarm than findin that something weButr~e ' cxposcd in every connoisseurs daY c~ indua malignancies of irony will be pleased by this patYdox: The C7inton admtnistration is doinp a favor to public health by prop,wing that we discard one weapon against canai'. Since 1958, a federal law known as the Delaney clause has stood for the proposition that the only aeceptable canocr risk is zero. It bans any additives in processed food that have been found to cause canecr in people or laboratory animals. 1'he law has been used to knock lots of agricultural testicidcs off tho market, whtch doesn't ~ Stephen Chapman ~ mean it has been an ally of human welfare. When the law was passod, scientists could measure rwtde restdues in foods in t.+er[a per thousand or, ey were lucky, parts per million.'f'oday, they can sometimes detect concentrations as low as parts per qnintillion-"rougbly the same as a tables,poon of liquid in all the Ureat hdcca eombinep;' Time magazine notes. A consumer is about as likely to get cancer from a part per quintillion of a Pesticide in her food as a Chicagoan is to dic from a spoonful of arsenic poured into the middle of Lake Superior. But the law is oblivious to the hints made by rcality. The Environmental Protection Agency tried to relax its application of the Delaney clause to incorporate some respect for common scnse. But environmentalists, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council sued to stop it and won. Thc federal courts ruQ in eRcct that when a law is ridiculous, its still a law. The etfon to wwkcn the Ddenty clause, however, happened under.the sinister Republican EPA, which was presumed to be a puppet of Amalgamated Poisons Inc. Now we have a benign Democratic EPA, headed by a former aide to environmcntalist darling Al Core. And what dous Carol Browner think or the Delaney clause? She thinks it's bunk. Releasing a list of 35 rgricultural cftentiieel.c thar could be prohibited as a rauh of the court decisions, she wid the agency °doea not believe that the pcs[icides ... po.u an unreasonable ri.k to public health, based on available data." March 4, 1993- Browner apparen[ly prcfers somcthing like the previous EPA position, which wa~ to rcplace the zcm risk s[andard with a'negtigiblo risk", policy. lt would pcrmit a pcsticide if, based on the most cautioua assumptions it would cause no mor+C than one additional casc o~ canccr in every mllion - . peoplo if they were exposed to it for a lifotime. That was also the policy recommaded in 1997 by an expert panel convcnod by the National Research Council, an arm of the Nanonal Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Enginartng~and the Institute of Maficinc, ]t said a zan-tisk pobey forces the EPA to waste tinte on insiphttifiant hazards and, if consistently followed, would cauae sevete adjustments in agriaittural practicea„ . particularly in control of plant diseases." Allowing any ~cer dangcr may sound like a.., dangerous departure. But the fatt is we pay no' attention at all to 99.9 peraent of Ihep~pd in our food--those toxins produoed not yb peopk but by plants, In ward off fungi and animds, "Americans eat an estimated 1,5p11 ntilligrants of namral Pesticidespcr person per day, says University of Californsa at Berkeley biologist Bruce Ames, "whtch is about 10,000 times more than they consume of syothetic Pesticide residues," Contrary to myth, moreovu, man-made chemicals aro no more hazardous than natural ones. Apples acquainted with Alar wrxe pulkdout of produce bins, but Ames notes that even the moat pristine apples_contain at kust three carcinogens and 132 chemu;als that have never been tested for cancer-causing properties. Everything from carrots to cocoa, from peanul butter to pepper, carrla substances that could, in sufficient dosa, ki8 you. Considering the risks inflicted by ttat[tre, it's silly to worry so muc8 about the ones contributed by man. In fact, bantdng pesticides in the attempt to . d~ i~ f~miu kely to have perverse results. A 'ut rich in vcgctables and greins is one of the bcxt ways to reduce the risk of cancer. But when farmers arc prevented from using valuable pesticides on their crops, yiclds of these foods are totver thon they would be otherwise and prices are higher, . - discouraging their consumption. Fewer pesticides, morc cancer. This is the legacy of the Ik1an..y clauu, a reminder that benevolent motivex are no guarantee of sound policy. Carol Browncr has learned something frotn the experience, even if a lot of her fellow environmentalivts havc not. COMG A9~