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American Morning

Food Fears

Aired July 15, 2003 - 07:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is a substance known to cause cancer in rats and is found in abundance in many fried and baked foods. It's known as acrylamide. It's a chemical in french fries, potato chips, bread, cereal, even coffee. But the cancer risk to humans is far less certain. It's now being studied by scientists and public health officials. Should you be worried? That's the question when it comes to acrylamide.
Michael Jacobson is the head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He's with us today. And Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold is director of the Carcinogenic Potency Project at U.C.-Berkeley. Dr. Gold is with us live this morning, early this morning in San Francisco.

Good morning to both of you, and thanks for your time on this issue here.

MICHAEL JACOBSON, CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: Good morning.

HEMMER: I'll tell you, I didn't know a whole lot about this, so I started reading about it last night. It really got my attention.

Michael, why do you think we need to be concerned about this?

JACOBSON: This is a chemical that has been known to cause cancer for many years. It's called a probable human carcinogen. It hasn't been proven to cause cancer in humans, but government regulatory agencies around the world treat such chemicals with great seriousness and try to minimize human exposure to them, usually.

In this case, though, the Food and Drug Administration has not taken any action other than sponsoring more research. We think the FDA should set limits on acrylamide. And it should be able to do that, because it turns out that in a given food category, like breakfast cereals, Cheerios has five times as much as acrylamide as Rice Krispies. We've asked the FDA to set a limit so that the most contaminated foods are improved and processed in a way so they contain less acrylamide.

HEMMER: Let me stop you a second there. Researchers and doctors who disagree with that position will say if there is such a high level and a high risk to humans that acrylamide should be found in so many of the foods we eat and ingest every day, then the cancer rates would skyrocket. That hasn't been the case, though. Back that up.

JACOBSON: No, it hasn't been the case, because we've been consuming acrylamide for a long time. You know, it's not that it should have skyrocketed, but it's adding perhaps 1,000 or several thousand cancers per year. That's out of 500,000. We wouldn't see -- it's very difficult to do human research on such a chemical, and we wouldn't see -- it's not like tobacco where you can separate smokers from nonsmokers and see a much greater incidence of smokers.

HEMMER: OK, I get your point there. Dr. Gold, is this a major concern to use and to you?

LOIS SWIRSKY GOLD, CARCINOGENIC POTENCY PROJECT, U.C.-BERKELEY: I think the public shouldn't be too worried. I don't expect it to be one of the major causes of cancer. I think it needs to be seen in a broad perspective. Acrylamide is one of many chemicals that are formed as a by-product of cooking that are rodent carcinogens. The other ones are things like in nitrosamines or heteracyclacamines (ph) that are formed from grilling meat at high temperatures.

I think people need to understand that the research indicates that there -- two studies done in Italy and Switzerland and in Sweden indicate that there is no human cancer risk thus far in the studies.

HEMMER: Let me pause you there just for a minute, because we're going into areas that I need dictionary.com to figure this out to be quite honest with you. The industry is being proactive. Is that common? And how common is it?

GOLD: I think the industry is being proactive, because this was an unexpected natural product and because rightly they should be, because the levels are higher than for many other chemicals that people are exposed to in the diet, and because it's also a genotoxic chemical, meaning it can damage DNA. And so, for those reasons it's reasonable to be paying this attention now.

There's an enormous worldwide reaction. There are committees and meetings and millions of dollars are being spent on this, and I think will come with a solution. And we should understand that it's going to be -- able to be used by the consumer for their own cooking methods, because whatever is going on in processed foods, this is a naturally-occurring chemical.

HEMMER: Well, we appreciate both of you for bringing a greater awareness to us on this issue this morning. It's a good thing Dr. Gupta is in today, too, though, because he'll define it all for us. Thanks, Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold in San Francisco and Michael Jacobson down there in D.C. Many thanks. Good to talk to you.

JACOBSON: Thank you.

GOLD: You're welcome.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired July 15, 2003 - 07:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is a substance known to cause cancer in rats and is found in abundance in many fried and baked foods. It's known as acrylamide. It's a chemical in french fries, potato chips, bread, cereal, even coffee. But the cancer risk to humans is far less certain. It's now being studied by scientists and public health officials. Should you be worried? That's the question when it comes to acrylamide.
Michael Jacobson is the head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He's with us today. And Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold is director of the Carcinogenic Potency Project at U.C.-Berkeley. Dr. Gold is with us live this morning, early this morning in San Francisco.

Good morning to both of you, and thanks for your time on this issue here.

MICHAEL JACOBSON, CENTER FOR SCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST: Good morning.

HEMMER: I'll tell you, I didn't know a whole lot about this, so I started reading about it last night. It really got my attention.

Michael, why do you think we need to be concerned about this?

JACOBSON: This is a chemical that has been known to cause cancer for many years. It's called a probable human carcinogen. It hasn't been proven to cause cancer in humans, but government regulatory agencies around the world treat such chemicals with great seriousness and try to minimize human exposure to them, usually.

In this case, though, the Food and Drug Administration has not taken any action other than sponsoring more research. We think the FDA should set limits on acrylamide. And it should be able to do that, because it turns out that in a given food category, like breakfast cereals, Cheerios has five times as much as acrylamide as Rice Krispies. We've asked the FDA to set a limit so that the most contaminated foods are improved and processed in a way so they contain less acrylamide.

HEMMER: Let me stop you a second there. Researchers and doctors who disagree with that position will say if there is such a high level and a high risk to humans that acrylamide should be found in so many of the foods we eat and ingest every day, then the cancer rates would skyrocket. That hasn't been the case, though. Back that up.

JACOBSON: No, it hasn't been the case, because we've been consuming acrylamide for a long time. You know, it's not that it should have skyrocketed, but it's adding perhaps 1,000 or several thousand cancers per year. That's out of 500,000. We wouldn't see -- it's very difficult to do human research on such a chemical, and we wouldn't see -- it's not like tobacco where you can separate smokers from nonsmokers and see a much greater incidence of smokers.

HEMMER: OK, I get your point there. Dr. Gold, is this a major concern to use and to you?

LOIS SWIRSKY GOLD, CARCINOGENIC POTENCY PROJECT, U.C.-BERKELEY: I think the public shouldn't be too worried. I don't expect it to be one of the major causes of cancer. I think it needs to be seen in a broad perspective. Acrylamide is one of many chemicals that are formed as a by-product of cooking that are rodent carcinogens. The other ones are things like in nitrosamines or heteracyclacamines (ph) that are formed from grilling meat at high temperatures.

I think people need to understand that the research indicates that there -- two studies done in Italy and Switzerland and in Sweden indicate that there is no human cancer risk thus far in the studies.

HEMMER: Let me pause you there just for a minute, because we're going into areas that I need dictionary.com to figure this out to be quite honest with you. The industry is being proactive. Is that common? And how common is it?

GOLD: I think the industry is being proactive, because this was an unexpected natural product and because rightly they should be, because the levels are higher than for many other chemicals that people are exposed to in the diet, and because it's also a genotoxic chemical, meaning it can damage DNA. And so, for those reasons it's reasonable to be paying this attention now.

There's an enormous worldwide reaction. There are committees and meetings and millions of dollars are being spent on this, and I think will come with a solution. And we should understand that it's going to be -- able to be used by the consumer for their own cooking methods, because whatever is going on in processed foods, this is a naturally-occurring chemical.

HEMMER: Well, we appreciate both of you for bringing a greater awareness to us on this issue this morning. It's a good thing Dr. Gupta is in today, too, though, because he'll define it all for us. Thanks, Dr. Lois Swirsky Gold in San Francisco and Michael Jacobson down there in D.C. Many thanks. Good to talk to you.

JACOBSON: Thank you.

GOLD: You're welcome.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.