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The FDA's list of GRAS items classifies hundreds of additives by their principal purposes. Among them are anti-caking agents, which keep such things as salt, sugar and milk powder from clumping; preservatives (31 listed); emulsifying agents, used to help homogenize substances that do not normally mix (like fat in milk); sequestrants, which keep trace minerals from turning fats and oils rancid, and are also used to prevent some soft drinks from turning cloudy. In addition, the FDA has 80 "miscellaneous" GRAS substances from alfalfa to zedoary (an aromatic East Indian herb), from pipsissewa leaves to ylang-ylang, used as flavoring.
In all, there are thousands of permitted additives, and few have ever been tested thoroughly for possible long-term harmful effects in man. No one can be really certain that any particular substance may not induce cancer over a 50-year period, or cause thalidomide-like deformities in the unborn. Although there is only the remotest chance that even a minority might be hazardous, further testing of many additives, by chromatographic techniques that did not exist when the substances were first introduced, is clearly indicated. The FDA has already arranged with the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council to supervise such studies of saccharin and MSG.
Saccharin has been known since 1879, and widely used since the early 1900s. Entirely synthetic and unknown in nature, saccharin provides no calories and nothing to elevate the diabetic's blood sugar. Its one drawback is that in many users' mouths it leaves a bitter, aftertaste. The cyclamates, also synthetic, are effective sweeteners with the advantage of no aftertaste. Extensively tested in the 1940s and '50s, cyclamates slipped onto the GRAS list just before Congress closed the books in 1958 and before it adopted an amendment, named for Representative James J. Delaney of New York City, that forbade the inclusion in foodstuffs of any substance known to cause cancer in man or any species of animal. Whether the Delaney Amendment is a wise provision or is too simplistic is debatable. It is possible that many otherwise safe substances, if given to animals in grossly excessive doses and by unnatural routes (for example, injected under the skin of newborn mice), might cause cancer in some species.
Crude Guillotine. Cyclamates, given in doses 50 times greater than any likely human consumption, have caused bladder cancer in mice and rats, as well as the birth of deformed chicks. This was duly reported to the FDA by Abbott Laboratories, major producer of cyclamates. Within a week, Secretary Robert Finch of Health, Education and Welfare ordered cyclamates off the market, save for fruit already packed for distribution or foods prescribed for health reasons, for diabetes, say, or obesity.