Chemical world This ' In remarks prepared for the ACS many years, but now the emphasis Northeastern Section meeting at has gone beyond enrichment to for MIT, she faults the lack of federal tification—additions including vita manpower planning. She says the mins, minerals, proteins, and amino Government has consistently failed acids that attempt to upgrade the to plan ahead and to set future pri nutritional content of a particular orities. food to a level that fulfills a major Mrs. Vetter sees potential overre- portion of a person's daily require action to the current situation as ments. more serious than joblessness, be Speaking to the Williamsburg cause it affects the chemical man meeting as a representative of the power supply entering the educa food industry, Mr. McFarland de tional pipeline. scribed some of the fortified foods Similarly fearful of overreaction, that have become available on at Robert Silber, director of member least a test basis since the 1969 ship activities for ACS, says that White House conference. One com rather than turning people away pany (National Biscuit Co.) now from chemistry, education pro enriches all of its 230 wheat-based grams can be worked on. "We food products—including snack might find that it needn't take so foods—with vitamins Blf B 2 , niacin, long to educate a chemist and that and iron. Another food producer they can be educated in different (Ralston Purina Co.) has developed ways for a broader background and a potato chiplike product fortified more flexibility so that they can with soy protein. move into new areas without under A product in the form of a cake going a traumatic experience/' he (from ITT Continental Baking Co.), said in an interview prior to the when served with 8 ounces of milk, ACS Northeastern Section meeting. will provide one fourth the recom More immediately, he recommends mended daily requirement of all that local sections emulate the un nutrients for a 12-year-old boy. employed chemists club set up by Two cakelike squares that are pres the Southern California Section. ently being test marketed (by Gen eral Mills) contain vitamins A, Blf B 2 , B 12 , C, D, and Ε in addition to NUTRITION: calcium, niacin, phosphorus, and Foods being fortified iron. Numerous fortified foods have been Fortification can be overdone, developed in recent years as part however, if food products are for of U.S. aid to underdeveloped na tified indiscriminately, Mr. McFar tions. Hunger and malnutrition land cautions. As limiting factors, are problems in the U.S. as well, he suggests that health should not but fortified foods generally haven't be endangered or the cost of foods been available to the public in this increased. country. High-nutrition foods are finally being developed and intro PLASTICIZERS: duced in the U.S., however, as Gen eral Mills chairman and chief exec Getting into blood utive officer James P. McFarland Last October, Dr. Robert" J. Rubin, told the followup meeting of the associate professor of environmen White House Conference on Food, tal medicine at Johns Hopkins' Nutrition and Health, held earlier school of hygiene and public health, this month in Williamsburg, Va. and one of his graduate students, Hunger and malnutrition were Rudolph J. Jaeger, now at Harvard's identified as national problems at school of public health, reported the December 1969 White House findings that aroused keen interest food conference, which brought to among scientists concerned with po gether consumer representatives tentially harmful chemicals that in and representatives of the poor advertently enter the human body. with people from industry, univer Specifically, the Hopkins research sities, and Government. Recom workers reported (Science, 170, 460, mendations from various confer Oct. 23, 1970) that two phthalate ence panels pointed to a need to plasticizers often used in the poly improve nutritional levels of foods vinyl chloride used in bags to store consumed by the general public, as human blood and also in tubing well as by specific groups such as through which blood is passed in the poor, pregnant women, infants, heart-lung machines and kidney ma and the aged. Foods such as bread chines are leached out of the plasand milk have been enriched for I tic and into the blood. These plas 12
C&EN FEB. 15, 1971
ticizers, they have suggested, may cause human disorders—although this is still only speculation. The two plasticizers studied are di ( 2-ethylhexyl ) phthalate ( D EHP ) and butyl glycolylbutyl phthalate (BGBP). Studies by Mr. Jaeger have shown that, when blood is stored in bags made of PVC plasticized with DEHP or BGBP, these compounds are extracted by the blood in amounts directly propor tional to time. The central question is: Are DEHP and BGBP really harmful to the body in their existing concen trations? The answer, Dr. Rubin emphasizes, is not known. How ever, he believes that, since these contaminants accumulate in the body and since so little is known about their long-range effects on the body, much more research should be done on their potentially damag ing effects. In the past few months, evidence has been accumulating to suggest that some phthalate plasticizers used in PVC may be harmful in man. For example: • Dr. Rubin, working with Dr. Robert L. DeHaan, an embryologist at Carnegie Institution of Washing ton, has found that DEHP is lethal to chick embryo heart cells grown in tissue culture. • Physicians are reporting an in creasing incidence? in the U.S. of C&EN: Howard Sanders
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Johns Hopkins' Rubin
