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172   A Good Try Poses Problem
      The Washington Post  October 11, 1969

     Besides radiation, our environment is laced with many chemicals
suspected by geneticists of causing genetic damage.  Many of these are
synthetics, which the radical ecologist may insist on condemning out
of hand without further thought of the economic consequences -- and
perhaps this is proper.

     But our policy dilemmas may be brought into sharper focus when
we think about natural products to which we have been accustomed for
many years although we have no deeper understanding of their
biological effects than we have about many synthetic additives.

     Some weeks ago, I read that the manufacturers of glue for
hobbyists had determined to take some responsible initiatives to help
control the glue-sniffing habit, even at the expense of their sales
and profits.  The Testor Corp. announced that it had perfected a
denaturing additive, allyl isothiocyanate, that would not interfere
with the proper use of plastic glues but would make sniffing
intolerably spicy.

     They also recommended that solvent manufacturers consider using
the same material in a variety of other products with which disturbed
youngsters have learned to poison themselves.

     The safety of the denaturant was not brought into question.
Under the common name of "mustard oil", it is (I learned on further
inquiry) a food additive "generally regarded as safe" and so certified
by the Food and Drug Administration on the basis of common-sense
experience with mustard and horseradish, in which it is the active
ingredient.

     I have a vivid recollection about a paper on mustard oil
published in Nature magazine in 1944 by Prof. Charlotte Auerbach of
the University of Edinburgh.  That report 25 years ago was a small
landmark in the history of genetics -- the first authentic discovery
of the production of mutations by a chemical substance.

     Mustard oil caused a five-fold increase over the natural rate of
occurrence of lethal mutations in the sperm cells of fruit flies.
Dr. Auerbach commented on the significance of naturally occurring
mutagens for biological evolution but not on their relationship to
public health -- perhaps for reasons of concern about civic alarm.

     As far as I know, there has been no further genetic study of
mustard oil, for many synthetic substances are more striking in their
activity.  The only work on its toxicology is a controversial claim
that mustard in the diet causes high blood pressure.

     On balance, I would not inveigh against the use of mustard oil
as a substance to discourage sniffing.  The very nature of its use
will discourage its being taken in.  Nor can one seriously propose
an anti-horseradish campaign without attracting an unwarranted
ridicule for more obviously serious concerns about additives.

     But there is still a serious problem, for example, in the
handling of mustard oil in quantity.  Furthermore, we have to ponder
whether a government agency can ever certify a compound as "safe"
outside the context of actual experience and testing of it.

     A proper test of mustard oil (and therefore of horseradish) for
mutagenic effects in mice and in human cells will cost tens or even
hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even that may not resolve all
of our uncertainties.  Other environmental insults need even more
urgent attention.  But we will be plagued by serious and inescapable
doubts -- even about horseradish -- until we can properly attend to
the thousands of products that we encounter in our daily life about
whose biological effects we know next to nothing.
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