Second Opinions

Does saccharin cause bladder cancer in human beings? This question is at the center of a debate that has raged since March 1977, when the Food and Drug Administration announced--largely on the basis of tests on rats--that it was planning to ban the artificial sweetener. Deluged with complaints from food manufacturers and consumers, Congress imposed an 18-month delay on the ban. Now come two reports that question the wisdom of any prohibition of saccharin.

In a study at Johns Hopkins University, Epidemiologists Irving I. Kessler and J. Page Clark questioned 519 patients with bladder cancer. The patients were asked about their consumption of saccharin and cyclamate (an artificial sweetener banned in 1970) in beverages and foods. Their answers to these and questions relating to smoking habits, occupation, diabetes and other factors were then compared with responses from 519 patients who were matched for sex, race, age and marital status but who did not have cancer or any bladder problems. The results, reported in last week's Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that consumption of the artificial sweeteners was not appreciably different between the two groups. Conclude Kessler and Clark: "Neither saccharin nor cyclamate is likely to be carcinogenic in man, at least at the moderate dietary ingestion levels reported by the patient sample."

Saccharin users were also heartened when Morris Cranmer, director of the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, criticized the Delaney clause, the law that requires the FDA to prohibit the use of any food additive shown to induce cancer in laboratory animals. In a 700-page report to FDA Head Donald Kennedy, Cranmer argued that the law failed to take into account that the potential risk of cancer from saccharin might be outweighed by possible benefits to diabetics or the obese.

Cranmer called for a better assessment of the risks and suggested that more research be done. Otherwise, he said, because of "current toxicological ignorance, we might act needlessly in an effort to eliminate a given carcinogen which, if the methods of quantifying risk existed, could prove less significant than a lifetime exposure from a package of cigarettes." qed

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