NATION Possible carcinogen in fries, other foods raises some concern

California's Proposition 65 has led to public notices on potential dangers.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Golden, greasy and oh-so good, french fries are the guilty staple of the American diet. But in California, a strict right-to-know law could soon force fast-food restaurants to tell customers that the ubiquitous fries may pack something worse than fat and cholesterol: a potential carcinogen.
Health officials from Europe to Asia have wrestled with how to warn the public ever since Swedish scientists discovered that french fries contained acrylamide, a chemical known to cause cancer in laboratory rats.
Scientists don't want to stir up a super-size food scare that might later prove unwarranted. Yet, they are alarmed by tests that are finding acrylamide in hundreds of cooked foods -- from bread and potato chips to almonds and coffee.
The dilemma is heightened in California, where voter-approved Proposition 65 is supposed to trigger public notices on substances "known to the state to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm." State officials deemed acrylamide such a substance in 1990, long before it was found in food. At the time, it was known mainly as a chemical useful in treating sewage water. Concerns about human exposure were minor.
Now that it has been discovered in the food supply, California scientists are reassessing the risks of acrylamide. The attorney general's office has urged caution, saying too little is known about the dangers to people.
Slew of lawsuits
Nonetheless, private attorneys have filed a flurry of lawsuits, alleging that food vendors from McDonald's and Burger King to KFC and Wendy's should be warning the public about acrylamide. If the lawyers prevail, California could end up with warnings in countless restaurants and grocery stores saying that french fries and other foods with acrylamide might cause cancer.
"You know the thick paper containers in which they give you fries over the counter, where McDonald's has the arches and the pictures of Ronald McDonald? To me, the warnings should be right there," said Raphael Metzger, a Long Beach, Calif., lawyer who sued McDonald's and Burger King. The lawsuit is pending in California Superior Court.
Since the discovery of acrylamide in food two years ago, researchers around the world have detected it in dozens of foods. By some estimates, it might be present in as much as 40 percent of the food people eat.
But it is particularly prevalent in starchy foods such as potato chips and french fries, which are so popular that the average American gulps down 28 pounds a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The simple act of cooking, scientists have found, causes acrylamide to develop naturally in carbohydrate-rich foods. Frying, baking, roasting or otherwise cooking at high temperatures releases the organic chemical.
California officials say some warnings might be inevitable.
"We are trying to move responsibly, but we have to work within the requirements of this law," said Joan E. Denton, director of California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. "Some businesses who have acrylamide in their food may be required to notify customers."
Lots of warning signs
Proposition 65 is the reason California has so many warning signs -- in bars, hotels and parking garages, in the packaging of products such as video game joysticks and fishing rods -- that advise of possible cancer risks.
State and local prosecutors have sued numerous companies to enforce the law. More often, private lawyers have done so.
Indeed, the law, which has sparked an estimated 20,000 legal claims, has given birth to a cottage industry of toxic-lawsuit experts. There are newsletters and conferences dedicated solely to the law's arcane details.
The many critics of Proposition 65 predict that the pending decision on acrylamide will finally make a mockery of environmental health labeling, resulting in warnings so common that they will be rendered meaningless.
To make that point, a skeptics' organization, the American Council on Science and Health, announced plans to sue Whole Foods Market, saying the supermarket chain should post warnings because some of the organic bread it sells contains acrylamide.