How Big Is the Acrylamide Risk?
By MARIAN BURROS

[A] DISCLOSURE in April that starchy foods cooked at high temperatures contain acrylamide, a potential carcinogen, has produced strange bedfellows.

Several food companies have been notified that lawsuits are to be filed against them in California. Four fast-food chains selling French fries will be sued by two small California consumer groups; another company, a large natural-foods supermarket chain selling organic whole-wheat bread, is to be sued by the American Council on Science and Health, which is financed in part by the food industry.

Each intended plaintiff is trying to make a point. Any lawsuits against the fast-food chains ? Wendy's, McDonald's , Burger King and KFC ? would cite Proposition 65, a California law requiring manufacturers to warn consumers of toxic chemicals in their products. The California attorney general's office says it will not join suits against the fast-food chains because it does not believe the consumer groups have provided enough supporting information.

The suit against the supermarket chain, Whole Foods, will also cite Proposition 65, but for a very different reason, according to the American Council on Science and Health: its aim is to call attention to the "absurdity of Proposition 65."

Amid the sound and fury, the importance of the discovery that a possible carcinogen exists in commonly eaten foods has been lost. There is no longer much debate, even in the food industry, that acrylamide exists in certain foods.

And the National Institutes of Health has said that it can be "reasonably anticipated" that acrylamide is a human carcinogen.

But how much acrylamide? The earliest reports have been confusing, making no distinction between the levels of acrylamide in bread and in French fries or potato chips. This sort of vague fear mongering makes people throw up their hands: if bread is as hazardous as fries, why eat at all? But, as it turns out, it isn't.

As a result of testing in several countries, especially Sweden, bread has been shown to have low levels of acrylamide, while French fries have high levels and potato chips even higher levels. The higher the heat at which the starches are cooked, the greater the level of acrylamide in the food. How acrylamide, previously known as an industrial chemical, forms in the cooking process remains a mystery.

The Environmental Protection Agency, considers acrylamide, which causes cancer in test animals, a probable human carcinogen.

According to Swedish tests conducted for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group in Washington, a large order of fast-food French fries has been found to contain 39 to 82 micrograms of acrylamide, several hundred times the amount that the E.P.A. says is allowable in a glass of water. The E.P.A. limit for eight ounces of water is 0.12 micrograms.

In the original Swedish research, a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of potato chips was shown to contain an average of 1,212 micrograms of acrylamide. The equivalent weight in boiled potatoes held fewer than three micrograms, while a kilogram of soft bread held an average of 50, and breakfast cereals had 298. The scientists have not published a paper on their study, involving only 100 foods. Instead, they announced their findings at a news conference in April.

But who eats two pounds of cereal for breakfast?

Elizabeth Whelan, a critic of the acrylamide studies and president of the American Council on Science and Health, which is based in New York, said: "The claim that acrylamide ? found in common foods such as potatoes and bread after cooking ? poses a human cancer risk is based exclusively on high-dose studies in laboratory animals. There is no evidence whatever that humans who eat the observed levels of acrylamide are exposed to any risk of any type of cancer." The council will file suit against Whole Foods, said Jeff Stier, its associate director, "to illustrate the absurdity of Proposition 65." He added: "The whole law is flawed. It is ill-advised."

Kate Lowery, a Whole Foods spokeswoman, said her company agreed that the law was flawed, but said that as a chain selling organic whole-wheat bread, it had no wish to label goods as possibly carcinogenic. Referring to the intended suit, she said: "We told them that we agreed with the point they were trying to make, but don't use Whole Foods in this. It was just a publicity stunt." She said the company thought the study was "ridiculous."

Mr. Stier said it was "inappropriate for Whole Foods to comment on what we are doing" and rejected the term "publicity stunt."

Whenever a substance has been shown to cause cancer in test animals, the food industry, including the American Council on Science and Health, has argued that high-dose studies in animals do not predict risk of human cancer. This argument was made 30 years ago when animal testing showed the presence of potent carcinogens called nitrosamines in cured meats.

But regulations governing carcinogens in food are not based on human experiments. For most chemical carcinogens, it is impossible to conduct human epidemiological studies, for obvious ethical reasons.

The Swedish National Food Administration, which first discovered the compound in food, said that "acrylamide is formed at higher temperatures and longer cooking times during frying, deep-frying, broiling and grilling." The administration advised diners to "reduce consumption of fat-rich products." It said: "Avoid burning food during frying, deep-frying, broiler and grilling, and do not eat burned food." (The administration also noted that cigarettes were a source of acrylamide.)

The World Health Organization said that the Swedish findings, though preliminary and limited, indicated a serious problem and offered interim advice. "The information available on acrylamide so far reinforces general advice on healthy eating," it said. "People should eat a balanced and varied diet, which includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, and should moderate their consumption of fried and fatty foods."

Dr. Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said, "This problem should be dealt with, not forgotten." He added that there was much to discover about acrylamide and how to block chemical reactions that led to its creation, just as the addition of ascorbic acid to meats cured with nitrites greatly reduces the formation of nitrosamines. Dr. Jacobson said, "People should reduce their consumption of the most contaminated, least nutritious foods ? and, in a nutshell, that's French fries." Potato chips, too.


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Debate Is Shifting on Chemical Commonly Found in Food
By GREG WINTER

[W] eeks remain before the publication of the first study showing that starchy foods contain acrylamide, a potential carcinogen, yet much of the once-acrimonious debate over its appearance in staples like French fries, bread and potato chips has already been quelled.

No longer is there much doubt that the chemical, long known as an industrial agent in the manufacture of plastics and adhesives, somehow forms in certain carbohydrates after they are baked or fried at high temperatures, the food industry acknowledges.

"There may be some fine tuning here and there but, yes, acrylamide is in food," said Timothy Willard, spokesman for the National Food Processors Association, a trade group. "This is something of scientific significance."

It is a considerable concession from the food industry, which initially greeted the discovery with almost as much suspicion and resentment as concern.

Ever since Sweden's national food administration said three months ago that it had found high levels of acrylamide in fried foods, and was followed with similar announcements by Britain, Norway and Switzerland, the food industry has been criticizing the agencies for engaging in "science by press release" ? that is, broadcasting the results before they had been vetted for accuracy by scientific journals.

And though the Swedish study will not be published for two weeks, electronic copies of it are flitting across the Internet and being devoured by food industry researchers, who now acknowledge that the science is sound.

But while the debate has shifted, it has grown more complex. It will probably take scientists years to figure out how much danger, if any, acrylamide poses in food, leaving an absence of consensus about what steps should be taken in the meantime.

Scientists for the food industry say they are conducting their own studies, not to contradict the findings of other researchers so much as to see if anything can be done about the chemical's surprising appearance in food.

Little is known about how acrylamide forms in the cooking process, except that higher temperatures appear to encourage its formation. Perhaps, industry scientists speculate, if simple factors like time and heat are adjusted, the chemical's concentration could be diminished somewhat, just in case acrylamide ultimately proves to be a danger.

"Are there really human health implications? Obviously, that's a very long-term question, so we're not waiting around for the answers," said Susan Ferenc, senior scientific adviser to the Grocery Manufacturers of America, another trade group. "In the interim, we're acting as though this is of concern."

In large enough doses, acrylamide can damage the human nervous system, causing drowsiness, hallucinations or numbness in the extremities. But because it has been shown to cause cancer only in rats, it is deemed a "probable" human carcinogen by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The difficulties of ever knowing for certain may be obvious enough. Human tests would be deemed unethical, and pinning particular cancer cases on acrylamide could ignore all the other potential carcinogens people encounter over the course of a lifetime.

In the absence of certainty, public health advocates say that the Food and Drug Administration should advise consumers to scale back on French fries, potato chips and crispy breads, which contain the highest levels of acrylamide. Without more evidence of risk, however, the agency says it is unwilling to issue such warnings, instead advising consumers to follow the guidance of health groups the world over: eat a balanced diet.

"Government regulatory agencies throughout the world accept reliable animal evidence to indicate that a chemical poses a risk to humans," said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "It seems obvious that governments should come up with a more serious recommendation than, `Oh, just eat a balanced diet.' "

Both the World Health Organization and the Norwegian food agency advised consumers to moderate their consumption of fried food but refrained from suggesting that they swear off them altogether or steer clear of any particular brands.

Fears of a more stringent warning, particularly from the F.D.A., have consumed the food industry since the topic arose in April. Yet for all the media attention the issue has received across the globe, by some accounts shoppers seem largely untouched.

In an industry-sponsored poll this month, only 13 percent of respondents said they had ever heard the word "acrylamide." Of those, fewer than one in three knew it might be a carcinogen. Even after a brief, albeit understated, description of the chemical and the controversy surrounding it, more than 70 percent of those polled said they had no intention of changing their diet based on the findings.


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