Dese Doses Do Good. Dose Doses Do Bad. So, Inform About Da Dose. A family Bronx slant for Sassafras.

Have You Ever Seen a Foodstuff
A Foodstuff, A Foodstuff.

Have you ever seen a foodstuff
That couldn't make you sick.

Take this dose and that dose,
Take this dose and that dose.

Have you ever seen a foodstuff
That couldn't make you sick.

Sassafras, fall color for some

If the topic of reviews on the initial 1970's -1970's sassafras testing on rodents is new to you, see the overview, and the results, at  ://www.planetherbs.com/theory/notes-on-herb-drug-and-herb-herb-contraindications.html/. 

It explains why we want a recount.If safrole oil is the problem, safrole is also in mace, nutmeg, basil, black pepper, rosemary, dill, black tea, dang gui, tamarind, cinnamon, witch hazel, and Asian wild ginger, see this list at Planet Herbs. And a cup of sassafras tea is 1/14 (one-fourteenth) as carcinogenic as a cup of beer. Also Planet Herbs. Good reason to re-look.

History tells of many uses of sassafras parts (leaf, root, bark) and in various doses and preparations. Use this part for that remedy, that part for that other one. Safrole, the oil from the bark, seems to be the main issue for claims of carcinogenic qualities, but that came from rat testing, and it appears that rats are naturally averse to safrole. Is that a reasonable test to apply to humans? FN 1

And can the safrole issue, if there really is one, be approached with dosing information - as we do with alcohol and cigarettes. If there is that connection, and it is only claimed - nothing like the cause and effect we already have with the booze and tobacco.

The historic uses include, as summary:

• healing,
  
• hospitality (a nice relaxer, think happy thoughts) - take too much and maybe you hallucinate, or use it toward that end with something else.
  
• flavoring,
  
• aromas,
  
• digestion issues, flatulence
  
• an emetic - take too much and you get vomiting
  
• even for family planning - take too much at the wrong time, and you may not have wanted that result. An abortifacient. Or maybe you did. What did Great-Granny do? Or even Eve - she had those first two, then waited until they were grown before having her third. How did she do that? See other essential oils that are characterized as abortifacients at ://www.essentialoils.co.za/abortifacient-oils.htm/  A matter of degree, and the objective.
  

No, stay away, says drugs.com. Sassafras produces vomiting, hallucinations, etc. ://www.drugs.com/npp/sassafras.html. Obviously the total ban desription at that site is false, because we use file in cooking, and file gumbo, ground sassafras, is delicious as a thickening agent. Dose control.

Why not just inform and warn about what does is needed for what purpose. Improper dosing of anything makes you sick. Alcohol, cigarettes, sugar.

Here is why, so far, we think

• Sassafras grows all over. It is too accessible, too cheap, no profit to industry. So is it really industry pressure to preserve its own profits, combined with cultural issues (the family planning, the relaxer-nice thoughts part) that drive the FDA?

• Nobody likes to admit an error. So say there is new information, and then you don't have to. Can we move beyond that and just review the testing done here, the test animals and their relationship to the substance.

Then, if other species are used, with reasonable doses (again, anything will make anybody sick if taken in unreasonable quentities), then the issue becomes this:

Sassafras Police - Watching Your Woods

Does warning and information about dosing suffice. Why a total ban? Have we no heads? If quantity is a problem in case someone wants to make another substance out of it, put it behnd the counter, like Sudafed. Big deal.

Avoid the sloppy generalizing. Separate out the uses of leaves from uses of root and bark.

......................................................

FN 1. Monitor the FDA testing.

If it is true, as other posts offered here with specific site references suggest,

• that rodents were used in the testing; and
• that huge and constant ingestion of the substance was forced on the rodents with the predictable result of sickness and death; and, in addition,
  
• that rodents (including rats, mice, beavers) have a naturally allelopathic relationship to sassafras - the plant makes them sick as a defensive mechanism of the plant itself against being eaten, as for beaver dams, for example); and
• that the testing method was influenced by industry who sought broader use of patentable and profitable lab substances, not the everywhere sassafras, and
• that the FDA assumes (there is legislation creating that assumption, of sorts) that any carcinogenic property as to rodents, even in that allelopathic relationship to the plant being tested, means danger to humans; and
• that the FDA then fully bans the substance, while permitting similarly health-endangering substances such as alcohol and cigarettes to be marketed with usual warnings as to dosage and ordinary use at table ir in bottle continuing uninterrupted; and
  
• nobody tests the testing done in the first place; and
• our root beer tastes bad; then

On what ground is the drug industry site so positive about its statements about safrole as carcinogenic, dangerous.

We want that recount. Maybe the FDA is right; the ill effect is repeated in test animals that are not rodents.  We prefer no animal testing, but if that is what we have, at least steer clear of the rodents with sassafras. . And maybe the safrole hype is hype.