A shorter version of this article appeared on TCSDaily.com on March 9, 2007:
Thirty years ago this week -- on March 9, 1977 -- the Food and Drug Administration announced its intention to ban what was then the only artificial sweetener, saccharin. The ban was prompted by a Canadian study suggesting that saccharin caused bladder cancer in rats. The FDA was following the dictates of the so-called "Delaney Clause," which prohibits the use of food additives that cause cancer in laboratory animals.
There have been many food-chemical cancer scares over the years -- including the Great Cranberry Scare of 1959, the Red Dye #2 kerfuffle of 1979, and the Alar extravaganza of 1989 (with many others in between). But the saccharin scare and proposed ban was unique -- and had an unprecedented outcome.
First, some background on saccharin: this non-caloric, crystalline powder, which is 300 times sweeter than sugar, was first synthesized in 1879. The sweetener first ran into trouble in 1908 when the then FDA Commissioner Harvey W. Wiley announced he was concerned that saccharin was unsafe. President Theodore Roosevelt (who was a great fan of saccharin, mixing it into his chewing tobacco) was furious, declaring, "anyone who thinks saccharin is injurious to health must be an idiot."
Saccharin was the first artificial sweetener marketed in the U.S. and had been produced commercially for decades before the proposed ban in 1977. The evidence precipitating the FDA's ban came from a Canadian study in which fourteen saccharin-fed rats developed bladder tumors while only two control (no saccharin) rats did. The administered dose of saccharin has been compared to the equivalent of human consumption of 800 diet sodas a day for a lifetime.
Over the years, as rodent-based cancer scares made headlines, consumers reacted with fear and outrage and supported the bans on whatever the carcinogen du jour happened to be. They threw out cranberries at Thanksgiving in 1959, Maraschino cherries in 1979, and apples in 1989.
But with saccharin, it was very different. The public response to the proposed action on saccharin was overwhelmingly negative. Consumers voted first with their wallets, sweeping the stores clean of the little pink packets. (I was on a late flight home the night of March 9th and made a point of stopping by our local A&P to pick up a lifetime supply of Sweet'N Low. I was extremely disappointed to find there was not one package left on the shelves.) Diabetics lobbied Congress to reverse the ban, and they were joined by many weight-conscious members of the general public. During 1977, Congress received more mail on the saccharin issue than any other topic. Under public pressure, Congress imposed a moratorium on the ban, instead requiring only that saccharin carry a warning label. The moratorium on the ban was extended for years. Finally, in 2000, Congress voted to remove the warning label from saccharin packs altogether.
So why would the American people panic over one chemical linked to cancer in rodents -- Alar, for example -- and become outraged when the government tried to "protect" them from another chemical, which had also been shown to cause cancer in rodents?
The answer is that people fear unfamiliar things to which they attribute no personal value -- an agricultural chemical used to delay ripening on applies is quite alien to most consumers. But people do not fear what is familiar, and they are willing to ignore cancer claims if the item in question offers to them a perceived benefit. The majority of Americans in March of 1977 would agree with President Roosevelt that anyone who wanted to ban saccharin was "an idiot" because Americans liked having the choice of low-calorie foods and beverage -- rodent data be damned.
What can we learn from the near-ban of saccharin thirty years ago? The take-home messages are:
a) High dose rodent cancer data do not reliably predict human cancer risk; saccharin caused cancer in the laboratory, but the prevailing consensus is that saccharin does not pose a human cancer risk.
b) The widespread panics that often result from warnings about "cancer-causing agents" in food, plastic toys, cosmetics, hair dyes, and a long list of other products are more emotion-based than science-based. Psychiatrists have long postulated that consumers are much more likely to fear what they perceive as unfamiliar, hostile, invisible agents (pesticides, food additives, trace contaminates in soil, etc.) than they are to fear everyday items that enhance their lives.
c) Irrational bans on chemicals -- just because in high exposures they cause cancer in rodents -- are expensive and unproductive.
When the next cancer scare comes our way, remember thirty years ago -- when saccharin proved to be the "carcinogen" we loved.
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
See also: ACSH's full report on Sugar Substitutes and Your Health.
