Japanese plan first European fiber plant Japan's first move into synthetic fiber making in Europe has come in Ireland's County Mayo. Asahi Chemical Industries is the leading shareholder in two joint ventures to produce acrylic fiber and yarn at Ballina. Hong Kong's Textile Alliance, Ltd., is Asahi's major partner. With approvals by both the Japanese and Irish governments in hand and a site purchased, one venture will put an 18,000 metricton-per-year fiber unit on stream about June 1976. The other will bring an adjacent spinning plant capable of making 2500 tons a year of acrylic yarn into operation at the same time. Technology will come from Asahi Chemical, Japan's number one acrylic fiber maker. At home, the company produces all three major synthetic fibers, but acrylic is its largest profit maker. Asahi has sold equipment and technology abroad in the past, but has been slower to invest overseas than have such other leading Japanese fiber firms as Teijin and Toray Industries. Last year, however, it set up Asahi Chemical International as a subsidiary to evaluate and organize foreign ventures. The company holds a 45% interest in Asahi Synthetic Fibres (Ireland); Textile Alliance owns 35% and Japan's Toray Industries 10%. Toray's interest stems from its position as the main shareholder (about 30%) in Textile Alliance. Textile Alliance, whose sales currently are about $160 million a year, markets textile products and also is engaged in dyeing and finishing, weaving and knitting, and garment production. It's now bent on integrating backward into fiber production as well. Asahi owns 60% of Asahi Spinning (Ireland), Ltd., the second Irish venture, with Textile Alliance and C. Itoh & Co., a Japanese trading firm, owning 15% each. The remaining 10% in both Irish firms is held by the Irish government's Industrial Development Authority.
Dumping okay called dangerous precedent Russell W. Peterson, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has blasted the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court's decision to allow Reserve Mining Co. to
continue dumping 67,000 tons a day of taconite tailings, which contain asbestos fibers, into Lake Superior. He warns that if the language of the opinion is allowed to stand, virtually the only way the Government could prove a case involving health hazards is by "counting dead bodies through an after-the-fact epidemiology study." In a letter to Wallace H. Johnson, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department s land and natural resources division, Mr. Peterson further alleges that the court "in essence abandoned the traditional legal test applicable in a civil case, i.e., more probable than
Artificial sweetener gets FDA approval
With one artificial sweetener off the market for five years and another under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration, a new entry into the sweetener market has just been approved by FDA. The sweetener, aspartame, a product of G. D. Searle & Co., is about 180 times as sweet as sugar. And although the caloric value of aspartame is similar to that of sugars and proteins, the caloric intake of consumers using the product will be greatly reduced, since much smaller amounts are needed to produce the same sweetening effect. Aspartame is, in fact, the condensation product of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine. To be sold under the trademark Equa, the sweetener's chemical name is L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester, and it is claimed not to produce the bitter aftertaste associated with other artificial sweeteners. Searle predicts that the individual daily consumption of 0.8 gram of aspartame will provide about 5% of the normal daily intake of aspartic acid and about 10% of that of phenylalanine. Aspartame is metabolized into its individual components in humans, and here some concern arises. FDA is requiring labeling of the comPeterson: unreasonable to expect proof pound to warn persons afflicted with phenylketonuria (PKU)—an not, and has imposed a test requir- inborn metabolic defect characterized by intolerance for normal leving scientific certainty." In its ruling the court said that els of phenylalanine—to avoid the "plaintiffs have failed to prove that product. However, Dr. Frank L. a demonstrable health hazard ex- Lyman, of White Plains, N.Y., a ists." The court added that "given physician and author of a book on the current state of medical and the disease, says that because of discientific knowledge, plaintiffs' case etary requirements, PKU sufferers is based only on medical hypothesis "would never use a product like this [artificial sweetener] in the first and is simply beyond proof.' In Mr. Peterson's view it is un- place." The new sweetener will be filling reasonable to expect such proof, especially for cancer, since the full the void, partially at least, created causes of the disease remain un- by FDA's removal of cyclamates known "after the most intensive re- from the market in 1969. At that search campaign in medical histo- time cyclamates were suspected of ry." Also, the court's approach to a being carcinogens, but new studies possible health hazard is entirely in the U.S. and overseas seem to wrong in Mr. Peterson's view. He disprove this, and Abbott Laborasays that lack of knowledge about a tories, the leading producer, filed a potential hazard should not be mis- new food additive petition with read as proof that the hazard is FDA in November 1973. But this slight or does not exist, and points review is moving slowly and probaout that "because of the latent ef- bly will drag on into 1975 (C&EN, fects of carcinogens it will be more Feb. 25, page 8). Meanwhile, sacthan 10 years before the magnitude charin is also suspect as a carcinoof the health risk to the people of gen, and FDA and the National Duluth and Silver Bay will be fully Academy of Sciences currently are realized, and unfortunately it will reviewing safety data on the widely be based upon the fate of over used artificial sweetener to determine its fate. 200,000 people." August 5, 1974 C&EN
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