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JUL 13 1970
R. C. Adams

Ohl’s Lane, R.D. 2
Coopersburg, Pa. 18036

July 3, 1970

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

Dear Dr. Ledernerg,

The June 15 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, page 60,
carries a curious quote from you which I am at a loss to
interpret. Can you help me?

It's about penicillin and guinea pigs and whether or not the
FDA would have to take food off the market which contains
penicillin. You are quoted as saying that the Delaney Amend-
ment wouldn't apply, since this deals only with food additives.
And you go on to propose a "time-saving" solution to the
problem of testing food additives: "Feed the compound to 39
mice for 3 months. Look out the window while the pathological
slides are under the microscope. Tnis will prove beyond doubt
that the compound is safe for 200 million people for a life-
time's worth of consumption."

I have been writing about food additives for 20 years and I
presume that your time-saving solution is ironical. But these
days, with everybody and his uncle making pontifical pronounce-
ments about food additives, it's hard to tell. For instance,

in the current issue of Nutrition Today, Julius M. Coon, Chair-
man of the panel on Food Safety at the White House Conference on
Nutrition, states positively that no harm has ever been done to
anyone from food additives and that present methods of testing
are all we need to guarantee the absolute safety of our food.

In a recent issue of FDA Papers one of the officials most

closely involved in the problem states that the American food
supply contains, at present, as a conservative estimate, about
10,000 chemicals, that we know almost nothing about the potential
for harm in any one of these, let alone any combination of two or
three or, God forbid, 10,000.

Penicillin is, of course, an additive in many foods. Why would
the Delaney Amendment not apply? I will be very grateful for
any enlightenment you can give me.

Sincerely yours,
Cet h C Chet. LV
RCA:mfs (Miss) Ruth C. Adams