Villejuif leaflet

The Villejuif leaflet , also known as the Villejuif flyer and the Villejuif list, was a pamphlet which enjoyed wide distribution. The leaflet listed a number of safe food additives with their E numbers as alleged carcinogens. The leaflet caused mass panic in Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s. One of the entries on the list was citric acid (E330).
Its name derives from its false claim to have been produced at the hospital in Villejuif.
The earliest known sighting of the leaflet was in February 1976, in the form of a single typewritten page in France. Homemade copies were spread across Europe for a decade in the form of a leaflet or flyer pamphlet that was distributed between friends and apart from citric acid included 16 other chemicals in a list of substances that it called dangerous toxins and carcinogens.
More information on the Wikipedia page - which lists the various E-numbers mentioned on the leaflets; the French Wikipedia page has images of the document.
The Wikipedia page on E numbers is .
Category:hoaxes
Category:20th century