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.
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
........................................................
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."