Is this just another instance of The Peoples’ Republic of California and any organization, person, or thing involved with them being hopelessly extremist and thus out-of-touch with Reality?
OR: Is this just another instance of a Malicious, Soulless, Big Industry lobbying group trying to ensure cheap inputs of manufacture and infinite frictionless profits through opposing any and all regulation?
The jury of Actual Scientists seems to skew on the side of the cancer risk from 4-MEI in Caramel Color being WILDLY overblown.
AND the CSPI has been accused by other medical professionals of getting the science wrong in the past.
From everything I’ve read, it seems like the CSPI, which has previously been party-pooper enough to sue McDonald’s to take the toys out of Happy Meals because it encourages children to have too much fun, is just entering a ***k-measuring contest with little regard for real-life scenarios;
-or you know, “Science”,
Dosage,
Concentration,
Frequency,
Likely Countervailing Agents via Diet, etc.
For Example, [and maybe dive-boarding-off-of-it] California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, aka. Proposition 65 says, “No person in the course of doing business shall knowingly and intentionally expose any individual to a chemical known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first giving a clear and reasonable warning …”
-Where is the reference to “Dosage of Likely or Probable Exposure”??? -The statute just implies, “-At All-“.
And to Caramel Coloring’s favor, btw there is a fairly-reasonable trend that almost every single food item that is brown but not burnt +/- has some Anti-Oxidant properties,
and there might even be a possibility, proved contrary to the CSPI,
that a Small Amount of Caramel Color per Day per pound of Body-Weight, not exceeding a certain Concentration, may actually be GOOD for you, and might even PREVENT some Cancers.
And honestly, if they’re worried about a little Caramel Color, clearly the CSPI haven’t looked at THE FREAKING REST OF WHAT IS IN SODAS and the effects it has on your health!
A wee pinch of 4-MEI might end up being the LEAST of your problems!
More than 1 scientist has been quoted as saying to reach the level of effects on the lab animals, the average person would have to drink somewhere near 1,000+ cans of cola a day.
And if they Really want to go crazy over trace amounts of carcinogens in their teapot, someone should inform the entire state of California, where the current battle is raging, that there are both NitrItes and Nitrosamines in Cut Vegetables.
-OOPS! -Can’t eat vegetables anymore, because there’s a teeny-tiny risk of cancer!!!
And then after that, they’ll ban toilet paper, because dioxin is used to bleach the pulp during manufacturing; hurling all of CA back to the future to use “The 3 Shells” from the movie ‘Demolition Man’.
And then Water, because you actually CAN overdose on it, get Hyponatremia and DIE, if you try, etc. etc. etc.
Footnote:
Just to give you a Reference-Picture +++what I meant by, “WILDLY out-of-touch, Chicken-Little, Party-Poopers, and ‘Wrong on the science'”:
Based on the Numbers in a 2008 study on the chemical, the most sensitive lab mice (females) developed cancer [but lived just as long as the control mice] from taking in 40,000 ug/kg body weight of 4-MEI per day, every single day, for their entire lifespan.
-Which would mean, for a 110 lb. +/-Human Woman, she would have to take in 2,000,000 ug of 4-MEI each day, every single day of her ENTIRE Life.
-Given that there are about 130 ug of 4-MEI in a 12 Ounce can of cola, that would mean she’d have to drink 15,385 cans per day, every day of her Entire Life to develop [not-proven-fatal-by-EOL] cancer from 4-MEI exposure.
-m’kay?
Oh, and the CSPI was started/is helmed by a couple of “Party-Pooper-In-Chief, Ralph Nader“‘s pals. -Just fyi.
Photo Credits:
“Aranjuez Walkway”, by D Cubillas
“Young Fern”, by COFFY | MOTIONDESIGN
“Onion – microscopic view 3”, by Kriss Szkurlatowski, 12frames.eu
Links:
• Source: TIME
• via: Geekosystem
• More Coverage: PubMed-Toxicity and carcinogenicity studies of 4-methylimidazole in F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice. (2008) | NPR | TIME (after time) | CSPI | Wikipedia-4-MEI | Daily News-CSPI Sues McDonald’s
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