Delaney's foley.

JAMES DELANEY, a deceased Democratic congressman from New York, is remembered for little except a mischievous clause he managed to make U.S. law late one night in August 1958. Called the Delaney clause, section 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act forbids government approval of any additive to food, or any pesticide residue, that has produced cancer in laboratory animals. The trouble is that over half the substances tested, natural and manmade, induce cancer in test animals of one type or another (rats test differently from mice, and mice from guinea pigs), at some dose or another. It is far from clear that these results mean anything at all for humans.

Since detection technology has become so refined that parts per trillion can now be measured, we are rapidly approaching the point where the testing labs can find something virtually anywhere they look.

The Delaney clause, then, has become a powerful weapon of the greens in their war on American industry, since it means they can use the courts to ban whatever they dislike. It provides the legal basis for phasing out modern science-based agriculture in the United States in favor of organic farming. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups last year won a major court victory when the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "the language of the Delaney clause is clear and mandatory ... once a finding of carcinogenicity is made the EPA has no discretion." It must ban the offending chemical.

The EPA has now begun banning common agricultural pesticides to conform with the court ruling--although with a heartening caveat from Mr. Clinton's new EPA chief. In announcing the ban Carol Browner said the 35 pesticides are in fact "safe," but are being banned because Delaney requires it. She also provoked howls of protest from Washington's greens when she said the law must be modified to reflect current scientific knowledge i.e., that life exists in a sea of carcinogens and anti-carcinogens, the vast bulk of both being of natural origin. Table sugar, for example, has been found to induce tumors in laboratory mice when fed to them in large doses, but is clearly safe and nutritious as normally used. The very same substances that show up as being carcinogenic at one dose can be non-carcinogens at other doses, and actual cancer inhibitors (or anti-carcinogens) at other doses again. Vitamins A and D2 are examples.

Bruce Ames, the Berkeley biochemist who pioneered carcinogen testing, has pointed out that most foods naturally contain a range of poisons and carcinogens, because they are the plants' defense against being eaten in excess by insects, birds, and animals. He notes that plants selectively bred to survive without use of artificial pesticides contain far higher levels of natural pesticides. A new strain of celery now being pushed by health faddists because it has natural resistance to insect predators, and can therefore be grown without the use of artificial sprays, contains 6,200 parts per billion (ppb) of carcinogenic psoralens, instead of the 800 ppb normally found in celery; 0.005 ppb of psoralens as an additive or residue would provoke a Delaney ban!

The American Council on Science and Health says that cancer is best inhibited by a diet heavy in fruits, vegetables, and fibers. Bans on pesticides threaten public health since they would diminish the supply and quality of fresh fruits and vegetables. Moreover since natural pesticides in food outweigh the artificial by around 10,000 to 1, such measures would have no effect on the total amount of carcinogens ingested. Indeed, if celery is typical of organic strains of vegetables, the quantity of cancer-causing chemicals being eaten would shoot up.