1977 was the year in which the American diet-food way of life was threatened by some disturbing scientific evidence. Since the banning of cyclamates in 1969, most sweetened diet foods and soft drinks have relied heavily on the chemical saccharin. But a new Canadian study revealed that large daily doses of saccharin produced a large number of cancers of the bladder in rats. Under the 1958 Delaney Amendment to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, such results would inevitably lead to the outlawing of saccharin as a food additive—a danger both to the sales of the diet food industry and to the waistlines of its customers—and a ban was duly proposed in March.
Risks from toxic substances are nothing new, but the level of controversy reached in the saccharin brouhaha was reminiscent of such passion-filled issues as the health and environmental risks of nuclear power plants. In one respect the kind of problem is the same: the risks are uncertain, and the chances of occurrence are very small at worst. Should the public be exposed to these small, uncertain risks—even if, unlike nuclear risks, exposure is voluntary—in order to gain uncertain but, to judge from the public outcry, dearly held benefits?
How great are the benefits? One of the benefits of using saccharin could be to prevent overweight, and overweight is statistically connected to some extent to higher mortality rates. A very crude calculation can be made—and has, in fact, been carried out at Resources for the Future—to compare possible benefits of avoiding overweight with the help of saccharin-sweetened foods, with the possible risks of getting bladder cancer. It is easy enough to show that the competing risks could well balance out, meaning that saccharin use could still be justified. That conclusion follows even without taking into account what is probably the most important benefit of dieting to the average overweight person: feeling better and looking better.
Of course, we know too little about either risk to do truly reliable calculations. Rats get bladder cancer on high doses of saccharin, but will people taking low doses also get cancer? We also know very little about the effectiveness of diets, the importance of sweeteners in diets, and the connection between obesity and disease and death.
On the political scene, however, some policy reassessments have taken place: the proposed regulation by the federal Food and Drug Administration banning saccharin as a food additive has been held up, and Congress has extended the deadline on action on saccharin for another 18 months. Perhaps more will be learned about the attendant scientific and social problems in the meantime.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January 1978 issue of Resources magazine.
