Chemical Additives in Our Foods

In the more primitive stages of man’s cultural origins, it was more generally believed than not, that disease and structural malformation, congenital or of later appearance, represented forms of divine visitation–evidence in some instances of a supernatural curse, and in others, as marks of special preference or purification.

With the philosophically disturbing discovery in the late 17th century of a microscopic world of living organisms, whose existence hitherto had not been even so much as suspected, came novel interpretations of pathology based on material rather than on transcendental considerations, the former being amenable to rational testing. The activities of fermentation, putrefaction and decay were soon laid at the door of microorganisms, and a simple step of the mind suspected rightly that disease processes may be of the order of such micro-organismal functions, or at least related to and associated therewith.

In retrospect, the seeds of thought relating to symbiotic virus of facultative pathogenesis, were sown about 4000 B. C. by the European father of medicine, Imhotep, later identified as the Greek Aesculapius, when he spoke of “the intrusion of something which the flesh engenders…not entering from outside.” In the 19th century Pidoux stated that “Disease is borne of us and in us.”

Thus for the first time in history, was born a rational explanation of a disease condition or process. The principle represents nothing more than a realistic discovery of a principle laid down about 400 B. C., probably by Hippocrates II, in the Book on the Sacred Disease. This disease, considered in modern light, was very likely epilepsy. The Book set forth the cardinal scientific method or principle of assuming natural explanations for all observable events, a principle which is truly the Charter of Science. This principle was restated in the 16th century by Paracelsus in these words: “Ere the world perishes, many arts now ascribed to the work of the devil will become public, and we shall then see that the most of these effects depend upon natural forces.”

Joseph Lister (1827-1912) observed that carbolic acid solution sprayed in garbage cans would stop decay and breeding of flies. Another simple mental transfer created the material chemotherapeutic approach to diseases which, now, are largely considered to be of micro-organismal origin. Thus was born chemotherapeutics which crystallized in two schools of thought, one centering about the virtues of the massive dose (allopathic, antipathic), the other championing the cause of the minimal or homeopathic dose (Hahnemann).

Much energy soon became expended in the elaboration and application of divers[e] and sundry chemicals and compounds, designed to be effective specifics for this or that ailment, until some 30,000 or more drugs were created to cover a spectrum of some 20,000 or more of classified human ailments.

The thought that yet other important factors or agencies might be causative in pathology was not born until the latter part of the 18th century which saw the birth of heredity and genetics. One hastens to add however, that the 16th century Paracelsus had emphasized hereditary factors in disease. The newer knowledge made it possible to explain the origin and perpetuation of certain types of disease, inborn errors of metabolism and malformations as manifestations of genic combination and mutation. This continues to be a fruitful area of active and profitable investigation.

Rational explanations of disease were appearing from other quarters also. In 1911 Casimir Funk discovered the beri-beri preventive vitamin, and from this humble beginning arose a gigantic literature, still on the increase, directing attention and attesting to the fact that many diseases are purely diseases of malnutrition, and that by and large, many other pathologies are in one way or another, tied up with specialized metabolic deficiencies of nutritional origin. Writing on the “sweating sickness,” John Caius in 1552 put it this way: “Our bodies cannot…be hurt by corrupt and infective causes, except ther be in them a certein mater apt…to receive it, els if one were sick, al shuld be sick.”

The modern doctrine relating to health and disease, emphasizes that pathology and malformation have their roots in either pure genic conditions and composition, or in environmental factors operating from without, or as many would have it for nearly all instances, not in either of these alone, but in a combination of interacting genetic and environmental factors. It is self-evident, that no matter how “perfect” genes may be, their “normal” effects cannot be made manifest in the absence of those material ingredients to be gleaned by the organism from its environment, even as a master mason would fail in building without suitable brick and mortar.

Today I propose to peruse with you, a restricted set of environmental factors which relate to the nutrition and health of the human organism. I refer specifically to chemical additives in our foods.

In Sweden some 500 chemical products are added to food, in Germany over 1000 such, and in the U. S., 704 chemicals are being used in our regular food supply. Of the latter number, only 428 are known to be safe; this leaves 276 chemicals untested, unknown to be safe, or highly suspected of doing damage to health. Many chemicals synthesized from coal tar are being used. The question of the safety of chemicals in foods, arriving therein by intentional addition on the part of the processor, or by incidentally getting into food during its production, processing and storage, such as insecticides, pesticides and detergents, is of supreme importance when one reflects that civilized nations are for the most part, a captive population with respect to freedom in the selection of food. Such people as we are largely at the mercy of the foods of commerce and those who supply them; very little do we depend on foods provided entirely through our own efforts.

Chemicals are technologically introduced into six major classes of foods: cereal products, fruits and vegetables, beverages, dairy products, confections and other sweets, meat products, and fat. The chemicals are used to facilitate processing and formulation, to inhibit deterioration in storage, to enhance and maintain nutritive value (as claimed), and to improve, as is said, the appeal and acceptability of foods.

In more detail, the foreign chemicals include chemical adjuvants: insecticides, insect repellants, fungicides, herbicides, defoliants, fumigants, and plant growth regulators. In processing, food may receive antioxidants, bleaches, colors, preservatives, flavors, coatings, drying agents, moistening agents, thickening agents, sequestering agents, “aging” agents, stabilizers, emulsifiers, neutralizers, acidifiers, sweeteners–in other words, modifiers, retainers and inhibitors of practically all the properties exhibited by natural food. When foods are produced and processed, new equipment cleaners, detergents, sanitizers, lubricants, surfacing materials, and equipment alloys may get into the product. Another potential source of food additives is the food packaging, which incorporates new plastics, enamels, films, and tissues, all of which have their own plasticizers, catalysts, antioxidants, coatings, impregnants, and the like.

One should add to this list, the process of cold sterilization by exposing food to ionizing rays–gamma rays, x-rays, beta rays and fast moving electrons. Energy alone is imparted to the food, but chemical reactions occur in these foods which produce hydrogen peroxide; possibly other compounds are formed, including complex peroxides. A low input of radiant energy can prevent potato sprouting, but the sterilization of micro-organisms requires about ten times as much radiation. Such energy is used to kill trichina in pork, insects infesting grain, and to pasteurize a variety of foods to circumvent “more costly” refrigeration. As energy requirements increase, so do the unfavorable side effects. For example, energy output well below pasteurization requirements, will give milk a disagreeable flavor due to the production of compounds now partially identified.

At energy values sufficient to sterilize, nutrient values are affected. Vitamins A, thiamine, riboflavin, pyridoxine, B-12, ascorbic acid, and niacin are destroyed in varying degrees, and some reduction (8%) in the nutritive value of milk protein also occurs. Canned milk turns red, its protein coagulates, and canned beef darkens (Metta and Johnson, 1956).

Approximately 3.0 megaroentgens of sterilizing gamma radiation destroys in raw beef from 61-66% of the thiamine or B-1 vitamin (Day, Sauberlich and Alexander, 1957). While speaking of meat, synthetic nicotinic acid may be added to prevent its darkening by inhibiting the conversion of the red myoglobin to the darker metmyoglobin (the conversion involving the oxidation of the ferrous iron in the prosthetic group of myoglobin to the ferric state, the oxidation being facilitated by the succinoxidase enzyme system of the meat). There is on record an outbreak of food poisoning caused by the addition of this nicotinic acid to ground meat. Of 145 persons consuming the meat, 88 (60.7%) had typical symptoms of synthetic nicotinic acid poisoning, which included flushing of the neck and face, a sensation of heat, itching, sweating, nausea, abdominal cramps, acceleration of the pulse, and great anxiety (Petthoff and Jacobi, 1957). The preservation of perishable foods is best accomplished by sanitary processing followed by prompt refrigeration for storage.

A number of preservatives are used in processed foods, such as sodium benzoate, benzoic acid, sodium diacetate and propionate to inhibit mold and rope in breads, and sorbic acid as a fungistat. Wulffing in 1927 found that preservation of vegetable juices (without heat) by the addition of benzoic acid and sodium benzoate, results in a destruction of vitamin C. Aureomycin (chlortetracycline) is used on uncooked poultry to retard spoilage. Fresh dressed chicken cooled in ice water containing 10 parts per million of chlortetracycline antibiotic to combat development of bacteria and spoilage, will absorb not more than seven parts per million of antibiotic in any portion of the flesh. It is stated that more than 99% of this pickup will be destroyed by any type of cooking sufficient to make the chicken suitable for consumption, and that cooked treated chicken exhibits no greater antibiotic activity than that of untreated chicken. On this basis, a tolerance of 7 ppm of chlortetracycline (not to be exceeded in any part of the flesh), has been legally allowed for raw chicken. The normal store life of a chicken carcass is but seven days, but with the antibiotic the store life is extended to 14 and up to 21 days under standard commercial refrigeration.

In general, the use of antibiotics as food production adjuvants has been formally declared to be manifestly contrary to the public interest, because attending their use is the distant hazard of sensitization, varying in degree with different antibiotics. To the individual who has been sensitized, administration of an antibiotic may cause serious illness, or even death as has been the lot of many in the U. S. alone. (See, JAMA 158 (14): 1330, Aug. 6, 1955). Thus by law, antibiotics may be used industrially in food only in such a way that no residues remain in the food.

Antioxidants are widely used in fats and fat-containing foods to retard oxidation and the resulting flavor deterioration. These materials include sulfites, bisulfites, ascorbic acid, salts of ascorbic acid, lecithin, tocopherols, and derivatives of hydroxytoluene, hydroquinone and guaiaretic acid.

The oxidizing additives include chlorine, chlorine dioxide, peroxides, iodates and bromates, and are employed as bleaching and maturing agents.

A large number and variety of additives are used to influence or stabilize the texture of processed foods. Among these are the sequestrants, a class of salts functioning by inhibiting the action of ions and by emulsifying the proteins present in food. We should also include here the surface active agents like the monoglycerides, diglycerides, their derivatives, and the sorbitan and polyoxyethylene esters of fatty acids. A third group consists of stabilizers and thickeners, including natural gums, synthetic gums, pectin, agar-agar, Irish moss derivatives, alginic acid and compounds thereof.

Many common organic and inorganic acids, alkalis, salts and buffers are used by food processors to adjust or stabilize the pH of their products. For example, acids and gases have long been used in baking in a manner which through their reaction, gas is provided for leavening.

Nitrates and nitrites are used in lunch meats. Nitrates in well water form nitrite, and one molecule of this combines with two hemoglobin molecules to form methemoglobin, and this reaction may result in cyanosis in infants. Sodium nitrite poisoning was produced in a girl who swallowed machine oil, 36.5% of which was nitrite; she was treated by exchange transfusion. Sodium nitrite may produce vasodilation, syncope and methemoglobinemia. (See, JAMA 158 (7): 600, June 18, 1955; JAMA 159 (7): 1699, Dec. 24, 1955). Ingested nitrates are converted to nitrites by intestinal bacteria, and after absorption from the bowel, the nitrites may produce the methemoglobinemia (See, JAMA 150 (4): Sept. 27, 1952). Infants are especially susceptible to nitrite poisoning since during the first few weeks of life, there is a physiological hypochlorhydria permitting the growth of lower bowel organisms (Escherichia coli, Aerobacter aerogenes and E. freundii) in the upper gastro-intestinal tract; there organisms reduce ingested nitrates to nitrites, which are absorbed by the small intestine. When the nitrites oxidize hemoglobin to methemoglobin, the infant becomes cyanotic. Such cyanosis may be treated with intravenous injection of methylene blue, ½ mg/kg of body weight (JAMA 146 (14): 1356, Aug. 4, 1951). In Minnesota there were 200 odd cases of baby poisoning with 14 deaths, all due to poisoning with nitrate fertilizer leaching into well water. Well water containing excessive amounts of nitrates should not be used for drinking purposes, even by older children or adults, since just 1 ppm is dangerous (JAMA, June 3, 1950, page 476).

Afral, an extract used in corning beef and to freshen hamburgers, contains 8% nitrites, 4% nitrates and glucose. Three cc of this extract fed to adult male rats by stomach tube, caused their death in 35 minutes with quantitative conversion of their hemoglobin to methemoglobin, due to the nitrite. When by mistake, this extract was substituted for maple syrup on a dining car, an epidemic of inethemoglobinemic cyanosis occurred; methylene blue saved even the two sickest patients. (See, JAMA 146 (10): 923, July 7, 1951).

Nitrates have been added to the drink of boarding school students in the belief that such additions would inhibit excess sex interest on the part of youth. But others contrariwise have declared saltpeter may cause gastric distress, nausea, vomiting and diuresis. The nitrite is an antispasmodic and a relaxer of smooth muscle irrespective of innervation thus producing vasodilation, and a fall in blood pressure, hence its use as a hypotensive.

To increase esthetic appeal, food colors and flavoring agents are added to processed foods. Food colors include both a number of natural dyes like carotene and annatto (a red coloring from the tree fruit of the South American Bixa orellana), as well as the 16 food, drug and cosmetic certified colors. For flavoring some 300 diverse essential oils, extracts, synthetic aromatic chemicals, and other materials are used.

Nutrient supplements, like the vitamins and minerals, are classified as additives. Synthetic vitamin D (irradiated ergosterol, viosterol) can cause intoxication during childhood, lack of appetite, thirst, polyuria, vomiting, emaciation, cachexia, calcification of the placenta, precocious closure of the cranial sutures and fontanelles with mental damage, renal insufficiency which may terminate in death, osteoporosis, periosteal thickening, and abnormal calcifications. (See, JAMA 151 (8): 686, Feb. 24, 1953).

A separate group includes the non-nutritive sweeteners, saccharin, the cyclamates, and dulcin (a synthetic sweetener with a demonstrated carcinogenic action). (See, Truhaut, 1956).

A final miscellaneous group contains additives (with diverse functions): such as candy polishes, glazes, and yeast foods.

A dye, para-diniethyl-amino-azobenzene, formerly used in foods and drugs, did induce cancer in animals on less than adequate diets, and when administered as a small single dose to young animals, led to the development of cancer in them late in life.

Three dyes, FDC Orange No. 1, FDC Orange No. 2, and FDC Red No. 32 have recently been removed from the list of certifiable food colors. In addition, FDC Yellow No. 3 and FDC Yellow No. 4 are decomposed in acid solution to b-naphthylamine; this raises the question as to the possible formation of this carcinogen in the stomach–a carcinogen capable of causing cancer in man. Also, these dyes, the only oil-soluble food colors, produce cathartic action in man and experimental animals.

Diethylstilbestrol is a synthetic female hormone used to accelerate growth and fattening in steers, using 10 mg per day per animal during the last few months preceding slaughter, or using a 60 mg ear pellet of estradiol and progesterone. About one-half of the beef cattle in this country are being injected with this sex hormone to reduce greatly the cost of beef production. This material is also used on some 30,000,000 chickens annually in the form of 12-15 mg pellets, or in the form of dienestrol diacetate in broiler feeds, to cause broiler weight to increase as much as 50% within 3 weeks after the first injection. Residues of this cancer-inciting drug are commonly found in marketed poultry; data have been assembled to show that this drug is not destroyed by cooking and that marketed poultry have contained per bird up to 342,000 times the amount of this drug sufficient as a daily dose to induce cancer in mice. When given to mice, rats and guinea pigs, polyps, fibroids and tumors resulted; these animals wasted away into death.

The National Cancer Institute endorses the view that administration of this drug to food animals constitutes a hazard to consumers, since experts point out that “the introduction of estrogens (female sex hormones) into the food supply presents the problem of exposure to human beings from birth onward to cancer…” (Knight, Martin, Iglesias and Smith), and it is emphasized “that repeated intake of these hormones over a period of years increases the likelihood of cancer invection.”

Yet Briggs (1957) says that such meat animals supply from 0-1 mg of estrogen per day in the human diet with no hazards, since this is considerably less than that normally present in the body and much less than a therapeutic dose, and no greater in amount than that in an ordinary diet of milk, leafy vegetables, cereals, meat, or organs from untreated animals. Another source (JAMA, 1957) says that the muscle, fat, liver, kidneys and intestines of animals treated with estrogens are devoid of hormonal activity, and the hormonal treatment of livestock is without hazard to man (although in Canada these treatments are not yet permitted). Under experimental conditions the administration of estrogens to poultry has been such as to produce estrogenic activity in the liver, but from 12-120 pounds of poultry would be required to yield a clinical dosage in man.

The pesticide, Aramite, has been demonstrated to induce cancer in rats, more particularly tumors in their livers. It is used on human foods such as apples, blueberries, cantaloupe, celery, cucumbers, grapefruit, grapes, green beans, lemons, muskmelons, oranges, peaches, pears, plums, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelons, and SWEET CORN, but NOT the FORAGE thereof! How does it come about that man is obliged to eat this poisonous carcinogen, but not the cow?

During the last six years preceding 1952, a packaging company spent well over a half-million dollars to eliminate pesticides, DDT and other spray residues from its baby foods.

The average meal consumed in this country today contains about 0.31 ppm of the nerve poison, DDT by dry weight. A person rarely ingests more than 0.0029 mg/kg of body wt/day. A fatal dose is about 0.5 mg/kg of body weight. Volunteers who ate 0.5 mg/kg of body wt/day for long periods showed no apparent injury, but delayed effects were not studied; DDT is a delayed-action poison and accumulates in the adipose tissues. Part of it is detoxified in the already overburdened liver and excreted slowly in the urine over two weeks or more as an acetic acid derivative. A large dose would be eliminated in great part by vomiting. (See, JAMA 158 (15): 1370-71, Aug. 13, 1955).

The addition of 0.020% of DDT to the daily diet of quail resulted in a 10% mortality in 154 days; but 0.025% (an increase of only 0.005%) caused 100% mortality within 45 days. In addition, 0.20% DDT in the diet of breeding quail causes their eggs to be less hatchable and fewer chicks were able to survive quail infancy. The addition of 0.01% Aldrin to the daily diet of quail killed all birds in 5 days and killed all 5 male pheasants in 8 days, and all 5 female pheasants in 36 days. Strobane is a less rapid killer for these birds than either Aldrin or DDT. Thus pesticides also threaten wildlife; see Delos Smith, 1955. In Amsterdam, an infant was poisoned with DDT powdered on its bed clothing; it developed anorexia, vomiting, diarrhea, muscular spasm, tremor, renal and hepatic changes and adiponecrosis of the extremities following subcutaneous fat induration.

Aldrin and dieldrin are three times as toxic as DDT (inhaled) and about as toxic as parathion. Death can occur during convulsions or during periods of depression and may even be delayed 2-12 days or more. These chemicals act on the central nervous system and gastro-intestinal system when ingested. Such poisoning is treated with barbiturates and intravenous glucose. (See, JAMA 146 (4): 378, May 26, 1951).

In the Florida citrus grove operations between March 1 and October 31, 1951, there were reported 17 authenticated cases of parathion poisoning after exposure to parathion spray for more than 10 days. Red blood cell cholinesterase values may drop below 70% of normal, and the person involved must be removed immediately from exposure. Alcoholic beverages may precipitate or aggravate symptoms of this poisoning. (See, JAMA 152 (11): 1071, July 11, 1953).

Chlordane, another chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide, is fatal to man in doses of 6-60 g; daily exposure to about 2 g in solution may be dangerous. This poison causes irritation of the central nervous system, hyperexcitability, tremors, lack of muscular coordination, convulsions, partial to total blindness, degenerative changes in the liver, kidneys, heart and central nervous system, and periods of depression that may follow stimulation and death after deep depression. It is also absorbed through the skin and is a moderate skin irritant. (See, JAMA 157 (5): 485, Jan. 29, 1955).

A boy of 6 years of age at Hood River, Oregon, died from respiratory paralysis after spilling a small quantity of TEPP insecticide solution on his trouser leg from where it soaked into his skin. Tetra-ethyl-pyro-phosphate is a commercial variation of a deadly “nerve” gas developed for possible war use. Artificial respiration and the resuscitator failed to save this unconscious child. At Grants Pass, April 4, 1954, a toddler munched on a tuberous begonia bulb soaked in a related phosphate ester, but prompt pumping of the stomach, injection of atropine sulfate, and induced vomiting, saved the toddler from impairment of breathing; only drowsiness appeared following the induced vomiting.

A new method for protecting plants from insects employs chemicals fed to the roots which make the whole plant toxic to insects (for a short period long enough to kill pests, so it is said).

DDT residues used on crops also reach the soil and remain in the top 0-9 inch layer, and may range from 35-113 pounds per acre under trees (Ginsburg and Reed, 1954).

Lindane (benzene hexachloride) is used in a fashion which contaminates crops and milk supply; it was used to dust troops and prisoners in Korea, and many restaurants use it as do many homes, in special vaporizing devices. This insecticide has been demonstrated to produce abnormal cell formations or cancer-like changes.

Thus we might find ourselves with a meal containing 30 different poisons, none of which alone may be so dangerous, but all put together may well place a person in the critical zone, in jeopardy of his health, longevity and life.

Arsenic and lead salts are used as fruit and vegetable insecticide sprays. One company preparing apple powder for infant diarrhea found these tenacious poisons could not be washed from apples by high-pressure fire hoses, and that they had penetrated the apple also, so that even peeling did not remove the heavy metal to the level of tolerance. Unpeeled fruit may easily produce muscular twitching, neuritis, and other symptoms. Other poisons are EPN, HETP, Hepttachlor, Toxaphene, Lethane, Thanite, TDE, Dilan and Methoxychlor.

To confuse an otherwise clear-cut issue, Caplan, Culver and Thielen (1956) state that aerial application of the mosquito destroying organic phosphate Malathion, at the rate of 0.46 pounds per acre from an altitude of 70 feet, will expose a man working outside in the community of Planada (1500 souls) in the Central Valley of California, to inspiratory and skin exposures which would have to be multiplied by factors of 500,000 and 120,000 respectively, to approach LD 50s of experimental animals, and on the basis of these findings, conclude that the application of Malathion in these amounts constitute no hazard to the normal human population.

The House Select Committee to Investigate Chemicals in Foods issued the following report which reveals the true status of affairs:

1. “Without various chemical additives and pesticides to food production and processing, the U. S. could not produce enough food for its people.”
2. “The fact that a chemical is toxic does not mean per se that its proper use as an additive will entail a hazard.”
3. “Reliable food processors have not reduced the nutritional quality of our food or created inferior products by using chemicals in them or their preparation.”
4. “The quality of and sanitary characteristics of our foods have been improving. Likewise there is no evidence that consumption of foods resulting from the use of new chemicals in crop production or in processing of foods has created mysterious disease epidemics or endangers the health of the public.”
5. “Pesticidal chemicals are an unavoidable expense in modern agriculture, and other methods of pest control (5-year rotation of crops, soil improvement through organic matter only, and development of pest-resistant varieties) have become as much a part of farming as a tractor.”

A banker in Sacramento, California, believes what two Czech buyers of spices said of the U. S. A.–”once our dump, now has highest food-drug standards.”

Public confusion results when persons who ought to know better, make public statements to the following effects:

1. Although brown sugar and honey may have a speck more nutritional elements than white sugar, the difference is negligible. 2. Organic fertilizers make no difference in the nutritional values of fruits and vegetables. 3. The question of whether to eat whole wheat bread or enriched white bread is strictly a matter of taste preference; they are both highly nutritious products. 4. One has yet to hear of a human disease caused by a lack of trace minerals, exclusive of common goitre prevented by the use of iodized salt or the occasional use of sea foods. 5. Certain trace elements may not be present in some refined foods, but they are present in other foods which are common to the complete diet. 6. The idea that certain foods may cause cancer in man is not substantiated by facts. 7. There is no evidence that candy or any specific food causes diabetes. 8. It is urged that public health representatives work closely with nurses, dieticians and others, to combat the false ideas of diet and to help promote good health through proper eating.

Let us examine these pontifical statements, all of which are seriously faulty except the last. If disease is not caused by trace mineral deficiency, then why is organically combined cobalt, a trace element, as vitamin B-12, used to stimulate erythropoiesis in pernicious anemia and to cure it? We know that cobalt acts by increasing the formation of erythropoietin (Science 125, 31 May 1957, page 1085, Goldwasser, Jacobson, Fried and Plzak). Organic cobalt is also used to cure leukopenia produced by nitrogen mustards. This trace element promotes leukopoiesis, is leukopoietic and leuko-stimulating after three days of treatment in which it increases white cells to 6750 or even up to 7035 in six days, though its mechanism of action is still obscure. (See, JAMA, 161 (17): 1702, Aug. 25, 1956). If disease may not be caused by trace mineral deficiency, then why should copper be used to prevent and cure severe hypochromic microcytic anemia? Copper favors iron absorption from the gastrointestinal tract and is concerned with the mobilization of iron from the tissues (J. Nutr., 50 (4): 395-419, Aug. 10, 1953, Wintrobe, Cartwright and Gubler). Zinc is organically combined as part of the insulin molecule. Zinc is also needed for the carbonic anhydrase molecule in red blood cells. and for the protein of the leukocyte. It is also well known that the trace mineral manganese is important in preventing perosis and in promoting growth (Norris, 1940). Manganese is essential to alkaline phosphatase activity in the liver, kidney, heart and plasma (Reen and Pearson, 1955). Molybdenum is a necessary trace mineral since it is an essential co-factor for the activity of liver xanthine oxidase. Recently it has been shown that a protein of low molecular weight containing 2.2% cadmium has been isolated from the cortex of horse kidney, suggesting that cadmium, like zinc, could be a part of protein molecules that occur normally (JACS, 1957, Margoshes and Vellee). Iron is also a trace mineral and is essential to hemoglobin and myoglobin, and is often administered to the anemic. These then are the micronutrient trace minerals, and do not include the macronutrients like calcium, phosphorus, sulfur, sodium, potassium, chlorine and magnesium.

Contrary to baseless claims, there is much evidence clinical and scientific, which shows that excess intake of sugar can cause pancreatic islet cell exhaustion and atrophy, so that insulin production is greatly reduced or even entirely eliminated. Organized medicine has warned some time ago that if the present increase in the incidence of diabetes continues in the U. S., then within 25 years, all the population will be diabetic. Experimental evidence also exists that flour bleaches convert xanthine into alloxan, the latter chemical being destructive to pancreatic islet cells and producing an irreversible diabetic condition (alloxan diabetes).

There is much evidence that certain nutrient deficiencies can and do cause cancer directly and indirectly. As a case in point, pernicious anemia has traditionally been called blood cancer. It is due to a deficiency of the trace element cobalt in the diet, and this pernicious anemia cancer can be, and is cured by organic cobalt (vitamin B-12). Along the same lines we now see investigations under way to find a possible dietary deficiency underlying other blood cancer like leukemia and polycythemia vera rubra. Much evidence exists that B-vitamin deficiency in the human female prevents liver detoxication of estrogens; the levels of estrogen then accumulate and due to the high concentration in the blood, cancerous changes are produced in the breast and uterine epithelium.

Allegations to the effect that white enriched bread is on a nutritional par with whole grain bread are also patently false. In 1946 Sir Edward Mallanby, a nutritionist, tried a popular bread whitener on a dog which then went into convulsions and electroencephalographically manifested symptoms similar to those of epilepsy in man. Agnes Fay Morgan tested the nutritional value of “enriching” vitamins and found that her test animals became “sedate,” “senile” and that on this diet, dropped dead long before the ones on the “unenriched” control diet became disabled. When synthetic thiamine hydrochloride (Vitamin B-1) is medically administered in the amounts of 10 mg intravenously or subcutaneously, serious reactions may occur, anaphylactic shock, and two fatalities in 203 cases are documented. Intravenous nicotinamide, another synthetic B vitamin, may react similarly. (See, JAMA 157(3): 302-303, Jan. 15, 1955; JAMA 157 (14): 1265, Apr. 2, 1955).

As a matter of fact, certain human foodstuffs we use are toxic when fed to experimental animals. Ratnoff, Koletsky and Patek in 1955 reported on hepatic damage in rats fed human foodstuffs. When rats were fed diets of spaghetti, olive oil and wine or glucose in solution, they developed parenchymal necrosis, fibrosis and fatty infiltration of the liver. When rats were fed heat-processed whole-milk powder, there was marked decay and caries formation on the occlusal surfaces of their teeth. Milk must contain a heat-labile anticariogenic factor operating by way of the systemic circulation (Muhler, 1955; J. Nutr., 61 (2); 281-287, 1957). Little wonder is it then that dental decay has so greatly increased following a change from natural diet by the Aleuts (Moorrees, 1957).

When self-styled authorities on the human dietary, ignorant of basic facts, presume to superior knowledge and leadership, little else can be expected than that both the blind and their blind leaders should fall into the ditch of misery and distress. It would be well that nurses and dieticians, well armed with the latest scientific findings, would combat the false ideas of diet promulgated by such persons. Thus may we help to promote health through proper eating, since the most important single factor in the preservation of health and recovery from illness, is whole and wholesome nutrition.

We should not be amazed when the president’s personal physician, with the current perennial epidemic of coronary thrombosis and atherosclerosis, labels the U. S. as the most unhealthy country in the world. Heart disease is number one killer in this country; this disease is yet largely unknown in some countries.

As a pitiful commentary on the state of affairs, we can refer to those organized groups who, when putting on a drive for more and better hospitals, say in justification that they are needed since 98.6% of all people in the U. S. are either sick or defective or both; accordingly we have more hospitals per capita than any country in the world–and who needs them more? Yet, when under criticism and pressed to account, these same individuals allege equivocally from the other side of their mouths–”this is the healthiest nation on earth.” Perhaps it would not be too incorrect to say that most Americans are dead at 30 and buried at 60, the time interval sustained by a variety of crutches.

Those who are convinced of the need for Fluorine in the human body should pause with attention to the recent work of Richard Launt Maurer and Harry Gilbert Day, who published in the August, 1957, issue of the Journal of Nutrition, volume 62, number 4, an article entitled “The Non-Essentiality of Fluorine in Nutrition.” Their research findings are summarized in their own words: “By means of exhaustive purification procedures it was possible to prepare a diet which proved to be nutritionally adequate for the maintenance of experimental rats through three generations and the beginning of the 4th generation when the experiment was terminated. The diet was estimated to contain no more than 0.007 ppm of utilizable fluorine. Rats maintained on this diet, but receiving 2 ppm of fluoride in their drinking water, did not show significant improvements in health or weight gain over similar animals receiving the same diet and redistilled water to drink. Alkaline and acid phosphatase determinations on the kidneys, livers and bones of deficient and supplemented animals showed no differences which could be attributed to the fluorine supplementation. The teeth of both supplemented and deficient animals appeared to be sound and without gross evidences of decay or defects. The investigation has demonstrated that under the rigorous experimental conditions employed, fluorine is not a dietary essential.”

By all and every means, we must not permit to develop in this country a medical system like that in England, which Bernard Shaw on his own responsibility called a “murderous absurdity,” and stated categorically that “…until the medical profession becomes a body of men trained and paid by the country to keep the country in health it will remain what it is at present: a conspiracy to exploit popular credulity and human suffering.”

A large segment of our population does not raise its own food; it is dependent on commercial and processed foods, and is largely helpless with respect to what it may eat and what food adulterants it must accept. The health and strength and future of our nation depends in greatest measure on wholesome food and we shall be in dire peril if the human alimentary canal is forced, by legislative default, to consume chemicals affording only commercial advantage. The human digestive tract and body proper must not be exploited by biologically foreign food adulterants. It is morally and otherwise incumbent upon food industries to perform to the best of a truly scientific ability, an honorable and leading role in the provision of wholesome food for the nation. It is now entirely possible, easy, economically and financially practicable, to provide an abundant amount of high quality, fresh, wholesome and nutritious food without the use of food abusives of any kind, in growing, production, processing, storage or shipment, and to hold and/or distribute it fresh to any part of the world from any other part of the world. The technology and commercial arrangements for this are already developed, known, and operable on a basis not only highly profitable to producer and industry, but inexpensive and health-vitalizing for consumers. We must act more concertedly on this program to recreate our people, maintain their physical and mental integrity and prowess, and to pass these qualities to posterity. So then may we maintain a stalwart and enduring civilization in a world of barbaric threat.

Representative Harris, Democrat of Arkansas, in HR 8390 proposes to amend the FDC act to prohibit the use in food of additives which have not been adequately tested to establish their safety (the pre-testing data on such additives must have been fully submitted to the Secretary for evaluation before ever the additive could be used in food, and the use of the additive could be stopped by court injunction). Representative Miller, Republican of Nebraska, in HR 8112 has introduced a very similar measure, and both were referred to the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. (See, JAMA 164 (18): 2058, 1957). It is a hopeful sign when it seems likely that the views of certain processors, “adamantly opposed to having any Federal agency determine what the American consumer likes or dislikes, or what serves a useful purpose in any food,” will NOT prevail. (See, Science 126 (3274): 597, Sept. 27, 1957).

The American people have it in their power to correct abuses and to restrain any questionable acts of industry. They can exercise their constitutional rights of petition as provided in Article 1 of the Bill of Rights and effect congressional investigations directed at appropriate corrections. And we need the best in legal and legislative brains to attain our goal, men of moral and mental maturity, bearded or unbearded.

Speaking of beards brings to mind an anecdote about Clarence Darrow, who as a fledgling lawyer beginning his career, was opposed in court by a veteran attorney. This attorney, during the course of the trial, repeatedly and insultingly referred to Darrow as that “beardless youth.” At length Darrow answered, “My opponent seems to condemn me for not having a beard. Let me reply with a story. A King of Spain once dispatched a youthful nobleman to the court of a neighboring King, who received the visitor with outraged complaints. ‘Does the King of Spain lack men that he sends me a beardless boy?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the youth, ‘if my King had supposed that you imputed wisdom to a beard, he would have sent you a goat!’”–Darrow won the case.

It is now time for me to bring this subject to a close, since already it exceeds in length the essay which Wm. Lyons Phelps asked his class to submit on the subject of the beauty of Southern young women. One youth in the class submitted an essay in which the following sentence was included: “As this beautiful creature entered the room, she tripped on a rug and lay prostituted on the floor.” Phelps made this criticism: “Young man, you should learn to distinguish between a fallen woman, and one who has merely lost her balance.”

At all events, one thing a speaker should remember for sure: The mind can absorb only what the seat can endure.