The 1958 Delaney Amendment

The 1958 Delaney Amendment prevented the use of any food additive shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals, regardless of the dose. By the 1970s, cyclamate was suggested to be a carcinogen by some rat studies. In response to the 1958 Delaney Amendment all sweeteners containing cyclamate were banned. This left saccharin as the only artificial sweetener on the market. Saccharin was mostly used by white, middle class women. Since it was the only no calorie artificial sweetener on the market, these women used it mostly to watch their weight and for their diets. A rat study showed saccharin to be carcinogenic and so the FDA banned it, because of the 1958 Delaney Amendment. The ban of saccharin was not well received by the public. In just fourteen days 300,000 …show more content…
One reason why these women were not afraid of saccharin was because the true risk was extremely low. In the study they gave the mice “mega-doses” of the equivalent of 800 cans of soda per day. The study assumed a linear trend of the chance to get cancer and did not consider an exponential curve or a threshold effect. A threshold effect would have been true if there was a minimum amount of sodas one needed to drink before a risk would begin to appear. Not only was the true risk extremely low, but the desire for these women to have saccharin was great. This is because saccharin was the only no calorie sweetener still on the market. There was no substitute for saccharin because the bans created by the 1958 Delaney Amendment. For these women, losing weight was more important than the theoretical risk of getting cancer. They made many arguments ranging from why they didn’t regulate known toxins like tobacco, to the fact that these women never had any ill effects from the product. Eventually saccharin was put back on the market and was officially deemed safe in the year 2000. Saccharin is the perfect example of what the government worries about v. what the public worries about.