FDA Ban logic: If A Fellow Chews the Pew, All Wood Must Be Barred.

This fellow on the left, biting the pew.*
If some misuse, must all be deprived?
Do we take out the wood for fear of chew?

This is a call for regulating dose,
Not total ban; how much bad in root beer.
Can adults manage info, and then choose.
For safrole, roots and twigs are out, but leaves
Can be the stuff of orgies. Eat away.
Only in file gumbo, not root beer.








See the account of the ban at www.drugdigest.org/DD/DVH/HerbsWho/0,3923,552413Sassafras,00.

If total ban not justified, because
Dosage problems are really not likely
Given diet components as the norm,
Stop Groups with power of definition
Behaving badly, expanding their sphere.
Label to fit the legislation, or
Theology to be imposed on all;
Legislate to fit the label desired,
With common good second, after power.

Simple informal support group: Sudden
Requirement, new "professional" leader.
Imposing screening, just to share with friends.
In similar line of work. A network.
No reason to suspect pathology?
Then "screening" is intrusive. LeaderKing.
The box is drawn. Now, put people in it.

The ban on sassafras followed this track:
The FDA banned safrole, 1960's.

"1961 - A scientific committee appointed by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare finds that safrole, a natural component of sassafras, is a weak hepatic (liver) carcinogen. Immediate action is taken under authority of the Delaney Clause to stop the use of safrole and oil of sassafras in root beer, sarsaparilla and other beverages and foods." See FDA ban at ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/pesticides/pest-5.cfm.

There are some sites that say it is an herb
And not food "additive." With tests suspect
In terms of application to people.
Sassafras, Safrole and Rootbeer (section of larger essay).
Traditional approaches are in siege
Against the profits of an industry,
So this site, by a Ph.D., is trumped
By any M.D. who is pulling rank.
And rank is at the root of argument
When money changes hands. And so to bed.
The point is whether total ban goes on.
Scroll down to "sassafras" as cited there.

More history on banning sassafras ban:
Find article on Sassafras, Safrole and Rootbeer (section of larger essay)
at www.itmonline.org/arts/asarum. This one notes that the high doses were overwhelming, causing the accumulation resulting in the cancers.

Poor caged creatures, overwhelmed with dose.
Too bad they can't sue.
People otherwise might
Make safrole into solids, and spoon it.
...........................................................

* Our photo from Grote Kerk, Haarlem, The Netherlands. See Netherlands Roadways.