Chuck Renaud asked about the possible added risk of cancer--albeit, still unproved--from ethoxyquin, the food preservative often used in kibbled pet food. This started when Chuck quoted some literature from L'Avian pet food stating that their food didn't contain ethoxyquin and that "while there isn't 100% proof that ethoxyquin causes cancer, why take the chance?" I responded that I thought the company's logic was highly specious and said that it comes close to "that other famous leading question, 'When did you stop beating your wife?'" And Chuck asked how I paired the two questions. Here's the deal...(I feel like Ross Perot, suddenly--where are my flip charts?)...cancer is an amazingly complex subject. L'Avian's statement vastly oversimplifies the subject by presupposing that ethoxyquin *is* carcinogenic. Nice of them to make that decision for you, no? That famous quote about wife beating also presupposes that the wife beating is already fact, although it's worse in other respects...at least the L'Avian quote isn't patronizing. Taken to extremes, the attitude expressed by L'Avian would probably leave you little choice but to starve to death since almost *everything* we consume has some hazard associated with it, although for many things, the risk is infinitisimally small. Did you know that basil and black paper have carcinogens in them? Innocuous white mushrooms from the grocery store have hydrazine (rocket fuel) in them? And a fungus that infects grains that produces a poison called aflatoxin which is a cumulative liver toxin that causes liver cancer. If you've eaten corn, peanuts, pistachios and many other grains or nuts, you almost certainly have some aflatoxin damage in your liver. The risk of liver cancer goes up in alcoholics and those with hepatitis B. Oh, and chlorinated compounds in tap water have a low carcinogenic potential, too. In fact, several friends of mine are botanists who tell me that most plants have toxins or other chemical means to keep animals from eating them. Following the line of thinking L'Avian uses, we should never eat another peanut again, or corn, or basil, or water...because while it's not 100% certain that it'll cause cancer in you, why take the chance? Take a look at a book at the library called the Merck Index (NOT the Merck "Manual"). It lists virtually every chemical commonly used in food processing, drugs, and many of those in industry. The toxicity, carcinogenicity, teratogenicity and all of those other "icities" are listed for each compound. Virtually everything in there is toxic to some degree or another. But it's a matter of *how* toxic and to whom (alcoholics, people with kidney failure, etc.) "Why take the chance?" L'Avian asks. What they're really asking is "Why take *any* chance?" And they don't have the right to ask you that. EVERYTHING is a chance. And wouldn't it be ironic if ethoxyquin keeps aflatoxin from forming in stored food and prevents liver cancer? We all have the right to make informed choices about your chances, but I am personally offended to have a company try to scare me into using their product by making the risk for cancer so black and white and by keeping me from making an informed choice. I wonder if they mention in their literature whether their suppliers of raw products use ethoxyquin or other preservatives before L'Avian gets it? I don't have any vested interest in ethoxyquin, and I, too, worry about the possible risk ethoxyquin might pose. But I'm also in infectious disease epidemiology and I worry about risk of fungal or other contamination of improperly preserved food. If a company wants to educate me about why their product is better and why it has expended more effort to provide me with a safer product I'll be happy to hear them out and probably be more inclined to buy those products. But companies that use half-truths and fear-mongering don't deserve my patronage. --Jeff (swimming-in-a-sea-of-environmental-carcinogens) Johnston [Posted in FML issue 1657]