Wednesday, April 11, 2007

What Did Sassafras Do To Deserve the Ban

What Did Sassafras Do to Deserve the Ban

Less Carcinogenic,
Or at least,
No More Than

Your Common Kitchen Herbs and Spices

And less carcinogenic than beer beer.


Bans: Why do some substances simply get placed behind the counter, like sudafed, while others, like sassafras, get banned entirely? www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070320191048.

Sassafras is not unique.

Food substances do have high-dose problems.
Safrole, even the darling of pumpkin pie and eggnot, nutmeg.
See www.erowid.org/plants/nutmeg/nutmeg_info3 for plant doses.

But people have been sensible and benefiting anyway for years from access to plant materials.

Sassafras remedies may show promise - see www.heart-disease-bypass-surgery.com/data/articles/104

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Summary of the ban:
Safrole in sassafras was banned (the 60's),
See www.roundrockjournal.com for a photo and rootbeer blog.
The FDA labeling this food
As an "additive" instead of a food,
So it could regulate it through the back door.
Get it both ways -
Label it as a "drug" if it claims cures,
Because supposedly only a drug can claim a cure;
And so it could regulate even more.
Next thing: chicken soup a drug.

Find a label back again - the Label Wars.
Highly selective, lobby-sycophants.
For sycophant, see dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2004/01/04.

Squelch info so corps can continue making cash
On their concocted -raising prescriptions, if any?
.....................................................................................
* Counter argument: See some notes on the contraindications of herbs at www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley%20contraindications."Within Sassafras there is a chemical called safrole. Safrole is a very common plant chemical, found in Mace, Nutmeg, basil, black pepper, Rosemary, Dill, Black tea, Dang Gui, Tamarind, Cinnamon, witch hazel, Asian wild ginger, and many other plants.

"Someone did a study demonstrating that this substance was carcinogenic in rats. Dr. James Duke reports that even if this same carcinogenicity were applicable to humans, a cup of sassafras tea would be 1/14 as carcinogenic as a cup of beer."







6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sassafras is banned because of its association with the drug MDMA. Some may say that this drug is deemed a threat to the status quo because it is a very sociable/empathic drug which when available in its pure form had fundamental changes on society in the early 1990's, particularly in the UK. Football violence was replaced by people 'coming together'. Alcohol consumption was vastly reduced and social stereotypes & class/social divides were broken down. Unfortunately Governments prefer the death & violence associated with alcohol.

Anonymous said...

Like everything else in this world that can't be patented, the FDA loves to ban it. Why? Because they won't make money off they can't patent. They'd rather sell something that's an artificial version OR something that contains the original product but put their own twist on it so they can patent it hence make a profit. Ugh, I went camping and learned about sassafras and I'm going to try it because I believe in natural remedies more than medicine from the pharmaceutical industries. Yay for sassafras!

zogness said...

Natural remedies are good for many ailments. Science (modern medicine) has been very good at preventing and curing contagious diseases like polio and smallpox. I don't expect to see any natural cures for dengue fever, for example. Holistic and scientific medicine have their places and both deserve respect.

Carol Widing said...

Agree - all routes to be explored for possible health benefits. Even-stevens objective testing.

David Spector said...

An example of an over-the-counter drug being banned for insufficient reason is Kaopectate, a harmless mixture of fruit pectin and a common form of clay called kaolin that was used to stop diarrhea. It was banned because a single doctor wrote a monograph condemning it as ineffective. The FDA believed the paper and banned the drug. The truth is that its effectiveness, like with most natural remedies, depends on the individual taking it. For me, it was 100% effective within minutes. The two subsequent synthetic chemical formulations by the company manufacturing Kaopectate had no rationale, and the current formulation, for me, has no effect at all, only obnoxious side effects.

David Spector said...
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