My conclusion is that the cells must have been injured, but I had no demonstration of it, because I would not kill the young men and examine the kidneys. Today, nearly a century later, scientists are still trying to refine methods of assessing risk to humans without endangering human life. Adding to the confusion is frequent disagreement among experts. He explains that everyone outside his or her own field prefers simplicity, precision and certainty to complexity, approximation and tentativeness. The complexity of assessing and managing risk can be illustrated by last year's Alar scare.
Alar is a growth-regulating chemical that was used on apples.
The environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council charged that children exposed to Alar were at increased risk for cancer. After much media attention, the chemical was pulled from the market. Its manufacturer stopped selling it, and the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to phase out all allowable residue levels. When FDA assesses a cancer risk at less than one in a million, it means that at most, there will be one cancer in a million. The risk, in fact, may be closer to zero, causing no additional cancers.