| Show fT PUBLIC FO FORUM UTTERS TO 10 THE EDITOR A What is your opinion The rhe Express welcomes letters from its readers concerning any subject pertinent to the Ba Basin in While there are no restrictions as to contents or reasonable length ll letters must be submitted exclusively to the Express and bear the writers writer's full name signature and address Names must be printed on political letters but may be he withheld for good reasons if requested on others All I letters tellers are arc subject to condensations condensation s 's Cancer scares Dear Mr Wallis In the field o of developmental biology many years ago scientists worked long and hard to discover the true nature of the organizer This material was responsible for Initiating the development of the nervous system in embryos Answers came furiously until one scientist discovered that even a agrain agrain agrain grain cf of sand could give the desired effect As JA McKnight suggested in a letter last week cancer scares seem to be following the same pattern It almost seems that we should begin celebrating compounds shown to not cause cancer Newspaper articles and TV and radio broadcasts seldom have space for supporting research and statistics Even if these were included most people have no real basis for interpretation Studies with rats and mice and massive doses and reports on human consumption consumption consumption con con- all have problems and cannot compare with carefully controlled experiments where here the only variable is the compound compound compound com com- pound in question What we need Is a cheap rapid and reliable method for testing the carcinogenic activity activity ac ac- activity ac- ac of thousands of chemicals that humans contact during their daily dally living Recent work with bacteria conducted by Dr Bruce Ames may provide the answer It Il is possible that inthe in inthe inthe the near future some semblance semblance semblance sem sem- blance of order ran be introduced introduced in in- into the testing of chemicals for their ability to cause cancer Until that time tune we have three possible course 1 I ignore all reports of causing cancer-causing materials 2 immediately avoid any compound shown to cause cancer or 3 use some common sense and judge each material on its merits Crossing a street may result in death but this doesn't mean that we should all stop crossing streets I think we should look both ways and then do what is right and legal Sincerely Dr Marie MarieL L. L Godfrey |
