>>In article <1qnns0$4l3@agate.berkeley.edu> spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes: >>The mass of anectdotal evidence, combined with the lack of >>a properly constructed scientific experiment disproving >>the hypothesis, makes the MSG reaction hypothesis the >>most likely explanation for events.     The following is from a critique of a "60 Minutes" presentation on MSG    which was aired on November 3rd, 1991.  The critique comes from THE TUFTS    DIET AND NUTRITION LETTER, February 1992.  [...edited for brevity...]  	"Chances are good that if you watched '60 Minutes' last November 	3rd [1991], you came away feeling MSG is bad for you. [...] In 	the segment entitled 'No MSG,' for instance, show host Ed Bradley 	makes alarming statements without adequately substantiating them 	('millions are suffering a host of symptoms, and some get violently 	sick'); peppers his report with sensational but clinically unproven 	personal testimony...; and speaks of studies on MSG that make the 	substance seem harmful without explaining just how inconclusive  	those studies are.  	Consider his making reference at the beginning of the program to 	a study conducted at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in order 	to back up his comment that there is 'a lot of evidence' that MSG, 	a flavor enhancer in Chinese and other Asian cuisines as well as 	in many supermarket items, causes headaches.  What he does NOT 	make reference to is the fact that the study was performed not on 	humans but on rabbits.  	One of the researchers who conducted the study, pharmacologist 	Patricia Williams, Ph.D., says it certainly is conceivable that 	a small minority of people are sensitive enough to MSG to get  	headaches from it.  'But,' she explains, 'the show probably  	overemphasized the extent of the problem.'  	A second lapse comes with mention of Dr. John Olney, a professor 	at the Washington University School of Medicine who, Mr. Bradley 	remarks, 'says that his 20 years of research with laboratory 	animals shows MSG is a hazard for developing youngsters' because 	it poses a threat of irreversible brain damage.  Dr. Olney's 	research with lab animals does not 'show' anything about human 	youngsters.  	In fact, only under extreme circumsrtances did Dr. Olney's  	experiments ever bring about any brain damage: when he injected 	extremely high doses of MSG into rodents, completely bypassing  	their digestive tracts and entering their bloodstreams more directly, 	and when he used tubes to force-feed huge amounts of the substance 	to very young animals on an empty stomach.  Of course, neither 	of those procedures occurs with humans; they simply take in MSG  	with food.  And most of what they take in is broken down by 	enzymes in the wall of the small intestine, so that very little 	reaches the bloodstream -- much to little, in fact, for human 	blood levels of MSG to come anywhere near the high concentrations 	found in Dr. Olney's lab animals.....  	The World Health Organization appears to be very much aware of 	that fact.  And so does the European Communities' Scientific 	Committee for Food....Both, after examining numerous studies, 	have concluded that MSG is safe.  	Their determination makes sense, considering that MSG has never 	been proven to cause all the symptoms that have been attributed 	to it -- headaches, swelling, a tightness in the chest, and a 	burning sensation, among others.  In fact, the most fail-safe 	of clinical studies, the double-blind study..., has consistently 	exonerated the much-maligned substance.  	That's quite fortunate since the alleged hazardous component of 	monosodium glutamate, glutamate, enters our systems whenever 	we eat any food that contains protein.  The reason is that one 	of the amino acids that make up protein, glutamic acid, is broken 	down into glutamate during digestion.  	It's a breakdown that occurs frequently.  Glutamic acid is the 	most abundant of the 20 or so amino acids in the diet.  It makes 	up about 15 percent of the protein in flesh foods, 20 percent in 	milk, 25 percent in corn, and 29 percent in whole wheat.  	That doesn't mean it's entirely unimaginable that a small number 	of people have trouble metabolizing MSG properly and are therefore 	sensitive to it...The consensus reached by large, international 	professional organizations [is that MSG is safe], the same consensus 	reached by the FDA and the biomedical community at large."