The Center for Consumer Freedom puts the risk into perspective:

Recent science indicates that this naturally-occurring chemical — also found in asparagus, beets, spinach, olives, prune juice, breakfast cereal, and toast — isn’t a threat to anyone’s health in the tiny amounts contained in the food we eat. And using data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a person of average weight would have to eat over 62 pounds of potato chips or 182 pounds of French fries — every day, for his or her entire life — in order to have the same cancer risk found in lab rats.

Yes, CCF represents the food industry. But it’s tough to argue with the government’s own data when it’s the government attempting to pass the stupid regulation.

Of course, perhaps if people see warning labels on the potato chips, they’ll opt for something healthier, and that poses no cancer risk whatsoever, like apples.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2005 at 5:48 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.