Sassafras is bad for rats. Are you a rat?
Sassafras has never been tested on humans, says this site, "Your Sassafras Has Been Neutered," at chow.com/stories/10129. The FDA ban in the 1960's was based on rodents who came up with liver cancer after massive doses. But rodents and sassafras are in an allelopathic relationship, see below, with the sassafras defending itself against being decimated by little and big rodents.
There may be good reason for regulation, as chow.com and other sites
"Allelopathy" - nature's exclusionism. What grows well with what, and around whom. What creatures eat what from plants, as part of the overall food chain.
As to plants, Sassafras has this on its stay-away chart for other trees: The terpenoids, whatever those are, make elms, silvermaples and boxelder throw up.
See more on allelopathy at sustland.umn.edu/implement/trees_turf. Safrole is listed as one of the allelopathic substances, useful for keeping competitors at bay. An allelopathic substance is a plant-strengthener.
Uses include buckets, furniture, soap, perfumes, tea, soup-thickener, restoring used-up soil, repelling rats and bedbugs
Allelopathy as an internal plant strengthener. Sassafras vs elm, sassafras wins.
It is an important and telling part of the food chain for woodchucks and deer eating leaves, beavers staying with the stems. Rodents and leaves and stems.(note - not bark or trunk, where the safrole is - the rodents stay away from that in the first place, so why use them for carcinogenic testing as to people?
Just because something is natural does not mean it is safe for all uses anywhere, but it probably is safer than synthetic, says this site:
natural probably less deleterious than synthetic allochemicals
Toxicology Forum: Good long discussion at that site of natural allelochemicals. I also see alleopathic and allopathic. What is allelopathic and when may depend on the time of year that the substance is harvested. Why not use them instead of chemical weed controllers?
Consider - if a plant changes its chemistry when under stress, why couldn't poor rats increase the carcinogenity of what they eat when the substance is already allelopathic as to them, and be sure to get those tumors?
Still, what connection to people here? Stress environment skews test results?
This site, Pharmacology studies, limitation of use section, says,"...safrole and other allylbenzenes that may be mutagenic or carcinogenic (in animals), may be of limited concern for human consumption and would not cause one to avoid a herb altogether."
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