Word: carcinogenic
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Even in the smallest samples, the odds of EDB molecules making contact with cells "are odds we'd all like in a lottery but not odds we'd want in adjusting to a carcinogen," said Dr. David Ozonoff, president of the Massachusetts Public Health Association...
David E. Schotz, a spokesman for the department, said that the state placed the strict ban on products containing EDB because it "doesn't want any avoidable exposure to a carcinogen on the market...
...shelves, and in Massachusetts, the public health commissioner recommended that consumers return 46 different cake mixes and grain products to the store. The cause of the panicked shelf cleaning was a chemical called ethylene dibromide, or EDB. A highly effective pesticide similar to DDT, it is also a dangerous carcinogen. Farmers have used EDB to keep bugs off grain and citrus fruit for more than 30 years, and scientists have known the cancer risk for the past ten years. But the Federal Government has been slow to act, prompting nervous state authorities to begin testing and in some cases banning...
...state and federal regulators, the real question is what level of risk is acceptable. "Any amount is a risk," says Olaf Leifson, environmental monitoring chief for the California department of food and agriculture. "It's how much society wants to tolerate." Though federal law technically bans any carcinogen in food, in practice the Government allows small levels if the cost of eliminating the cancer-causing substance is too high. The difficulty is weighing possible future lives lost against immediate economic cost. Consumers who fear any EDB at all can return to an old but forsaken faithful: plain white bread...
...contaminated water came from two wells which were shut down in 1979 when organic wastes, including a known carcinogen, were discovered in the water...