FOOD INGREDIENTS AS CONTAMINANTS

The 1958 Delaney Clause, an amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, originally said that the FDA could not approve any additives known to cause cancer in lab animals or in humans and that no carcinogenic agents could be allowed in food whatsoever. This all changed in 1988 when Michael R. Taylor, a former Monsanto vice president for public policy and current FDA deputy commissioner for foods, wrote his de minimis interpretation of the clause published in the International Journal of Toxicology, stating that if the risk of the carcinogen was “de minimis,” or too minor to warrant consideration, then the food should be able to be sold anyway.⁴⁹⁶

Allowing for de minimis amounts of carcinogens only takes into account acute poisoning and does not consider the chronic, long-term effects of small amounts of cancer-causing agents here and there over time. And it throws the door wide open for additives.

As Dr. Jacqueline Verrett, former FDA member–turned–whistleblower who oversaw the approval of aspartame, wrote in her book Eating May Be Hazardous to Your Health, “Under the guise of basic research the FDA is using your tax money—quite a bit of it—to try to prove a pet theory that carcinogens can be used safely in food, and to subvert the Delaney clause. The experiments will be used, then, to decide not which chemicals are carcinogens and unsafe for you to eat, but how much of a carcinogen you should be allowed to eat.”⁴⁹⁷

Until the FDA changes its regulatory decisions, foods purchased every day by American consumers will continue to be formulated with small quantities of carcinogenic chemicals the FDA insists are “safe” in the quantities consumed.