DR. ROBERT D. KRosS
2506 FLORIN COURT
BELLMORE, N. Y, 11710

 

CA 1-7e59

 

December 11, 1969

Mr. Patrick P, McCurdy, Editor
Chemical and Engineering News
1155 Sixteenth St., N, Ww.
Washington, D, C, 20036

Dear Mr, McCurdy:

Joshua Lederberg (Editorial 12/8/69) has presented some.
sound arguments for maintaining the Delaney amendment which bans
cancer-inducing materials from human food. Basically, he is saying,
why take a chance with suspicious materials when dealing with the
very broad spectrum of human physiologies in our population, It would
be a catastrophe, he states, "if a hundred innocent U.S, consumers a

year were carcinogenized by a food additive they could live happily
without," There lies the rub!

. Without cyclamates (and conceivably without saccharine, which
several studies have raised some questions about) what would be the
Overall effect of going back to sucrose? Perhaps no one could point a
finger at 100 specific death per year resulting from the known physi-
ologic danger of excess sucrose, However assume that reversion to
natural sweeteners depresses the life span (as it does in rats) of some
one million adults (by atherosclerosis, adult obese diabetes, etc, ) by
the average of one year, This is equivalent to 15, 000 lifetimes,

Cyclamates, of course, represent only one specific case, It
helps focus, however, on the main problem facing the federal author-
ities, that of sufficient power to decide which is the most appropriate
course of action for the average good of Americans,

Cordially,

Robert D, Kross, Ph, D,