Word: saccharin
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Cleveland-based Sherwin-Williams Co., the sole U.S. producer of saccharin, at first considered closing its saccharin plant in Cincinnati after the ban was declared. Last week it decided to keep the plant open to meet demand. Currently, the plant is operating day and night to fill a sudden accumulation of orders-enough, says Plant Manager Kenneth H. Wilkinson, "to go another 30 days...
...Most saccharin users think the FDA's action is silly, a gratuitous Government act reminiscent of the cyclamate ban more than seven years ago, which left saccharin as the only FDA-approved artificial sweetener. In recent Canadian tests, some rats that were fed enormous doses of saccharin developed bladder cancer. To take in an equivalent amount of saccharin, a human would have to drink at least 800 cans of diet soda every day. Under the law, however, the FDA had no choice: the so-called Delaney amendment of 1958 to the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act forces...
...animals to massive megadoses of the substance in question, which would kill an elephant, and then triumphantly -almost gleefully-announce that they have discovered cancer or other ailments developing in the test victims." Representative Andrew Jacobs Jr., an Indiana Democrat, sarcastically introduced a bill that would allow sales of saccharin-sweetened products under the label, "Warning: the Canadians have determined that saccharin is dangerous to your rats' health...
Public Outrage. More seriously, at least half a dozen bills were introduced into the House last week either to override the ban on saccharin or, more generally, to amend the Delaney amendment so that the FDA can apply some sort of "reasonableness test" to the results of experiments like those on the saccharin-stuffed rats. There is little sentiment to repeal the Delaney amendment outright or to write detailed standards for the FDA to follow. Congressmen, says one Senate aide, dread being put in the position "of voting how much cancer is to be allowed in food." But public outrage...
Long before then, industry will step up the search for saccharin alternatives. One clearly in sight, called Neo-DHC (neohesperidine dihydrochalcone-one trade name, SUKOR), has a lingering aftertaste with menthol overtones. It sweetens grapefruit juice or grapefruit-flavored soda; it is made from grapefruit and orange rinds. So far, it has had no adverse effect on rats or journalists who have sampled...