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Out of the Chemistry Box ISweet Controversy

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TDEPARTMENTS]

Calendar

From the Editor

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Puzzle

MilestonesSoldier Sulfa

I lcons of ScienceMrs. Chemistry

9 lnspireProof of the lmpossibleNew Stories of Chemistry: Heritage Day

201 0

Personalized Medicine Here and NowAwarding Achievement

13 Dr¡v¡ng ForcesTelling WondrousTales

14 TreasuresA Balancing ActThe Key to Good Taste

ATale ofTwo Knights(Electro)Plat¡ng to Success

Cold War Correspondent

37 First PersonChange Reactions

38 H¡story ¡n the MakingPlastic3 Second Act

40 ExploreFeeding a War

42 ReviewsDrawing the Line Between Science and

Polit¡cs?

Myth Busters UnitedCommunicating Under WaterRoving in Roboworld

Books to Note

48 ¡n¿ Product

[oN THE COVER]A papier mâché figure of "the man w¡th the fish"made around the turn of the 20th century in Clinton,lowa, by the National Papier Mâché Works. NationalMuseum of American History Collect¡ons, Smithson-¡an lnst¡tut¡on,

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First sold in 1791 to a scientifically literate audience, chemistry sets have since occu-pied many niches-from colorful childrens toys to essential educational tools. Nowmaking a comeback after years of public neglect, modern chemistry sets are ready todeal with the issues ofthe 21st centurv.

By Jesse HicksFrom lab accident to wonder drug to chemical has-been, saccharin's history tracks therise of consumer consciousness, government regulation, and the uncertainties under-lying scientific evicience. At the same t¡me as changing food habits drove saccharin's

rise, some lamented the threat to "natural" foods.

Cod-Liver OilBy Diane Wendtln the late l9th century cod-liver oil was proclaimed the cure for many ailments. Oneproblem: the oil's foul taste. Manufacturers, including Scott and Bowne, created tastierversions and successfully shepherded the oil through medical skepticism, the discov-ery of vitamins, and the rise of artificial supplements.

CHEMICAL HERITAGE Sprìng 2010

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ou see them in almost every restaurant: those small paper packets, blue, yellow, or pink,

emblazoned Equal, Splenda, or Sweet'N Low. ln a little over 50 years artificial sweeten-

ers have become a ubiquitous part of the dining experience. Where diners once found a

sugar bowl, they're now more likely to find a multicolored collection of single-serve chemicals.One compound blazed a trail for other artificial sweeteners: saccharin. Three hundred times

sweeter than sugar, with no apparent side effects, saccharin was touted to consumers as the gate-

way to a world of sweetness wlthout consequences. Over time the saccharin story grew more com-plicated; while the substance remained unchanged, perceptions of it have undergone almost

alchemical shifts. ln its 130-year history saccharin has been a laboratory accident, a wonder drug,

a dangerous carcinogen, and a consumer cause célèbre.

The story of saccharin's rise, its long reign as king of the artificial sweeteners, and its eventual

decline illustrates a central tension within the American consumer's psyche. When a companyclaims its product improves on nature, many consumers happily declare the product an example

of scientific progress. Equally powerful, though, is the inclination toward skepticism-a wary eye

for "faster, better, more" claims. From the beginning consumers and regulators wondered whethersaccharin was too good to be true, whether its sweetness could truly be harmless. That underly-ing fear has never completely gone away despite the widespread use of artificial sweeteners to-

day. The story of saccharin is a story of chemistry outside the lab, where things get complicated.

CHEMICAL HERITAGE Spring 2010

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Saccharin (C/H.NO.S) was discovered in 1878 in theJohns Hopkins University laboratory of chemist Ira Rem-sen. At age 21 Remsen had graduated with honors fromthe College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia Uni-versity, earning an M.D. He soon abandoned his medicalcareer to pursue chemistry, first at the University of Mu-nich, then at the University of Göttingen, where he stud-ied with Rudolph Fittig and began research on theoxidation of toluene isomers.

In Fittig's lab Remsen also studied sulfobenzoic acids,eventually publishing 75 papers on these and relatedcompounds, Iaying the groundwork for the discovery ofbenzoic sulfinide-saccharin. Remsen returned to theUnited States in 1876-bringing with him influentialGerman ideas about chemistry education-and accepteda professorship atJohns Hopkins. There he continued hisresearch on the oxidation of methylated sulfobenzoicacids and their amides.

In 7877 a Russian chemist named ConstantinFahlberg was hired by the H.W. Perot Import Firm in Bal-timore. Fahlberg studied sugar, while H.W. Perot im-ported sugar. The company eniisted him to analyze a

sugar shipment impounded by the U.S. government,which questioned its purity. H.W. Perot also hired Rem-sen, asking him to provide a laboratory for Fahlberg'stests. After completing his analyses and while waiting totestify at trial, Fahlberg received Remsen's permission touse the lab for his own research, Working alongside Rem-sen's assistants, Fahlberg found the lab a friendly place.In early 1B7B Remsen granted Fahlberg's tequest to takepart in the institute's research.

One night that June, after a day of laboratory work,Iahlberg sat down to dinner. He picked up a roll with hishand and bit into a remarkably sweet crust. Fahlberg hadliterally brought his work home with him, having spilledan experimentai compound over his hands earlier thatday. He ran back to Remsen's laboratory, where he tastedeverything on his worktable-all the vials, beakers, anddishes he used for his experiments. Finally he found thesource: an overboiled beaker in which o-sulfobenzoicacid had reacted with phosphorus (V) chloride and am-monia, producing benzoic sulfinide. Though Falhberghad previously synthesized the compound by anothermethod, he had no reason to taste the result. Serendipityhad provided him with the first commercially viable al-ternative to cane sugar.

Remsen and Fahlberg published a joint article de-scribing two methods of saccharin synthesis in February1879. Though they specifically noted its taste-"evensweeter than cane sugar"-neither discoverer seemed in-terested in its commercial potential.

At least not initially. In 1884, after he had Ìeft Rem-sen's lab and without notifying his codiscoverer, Fahlbergapplied for German and American patents on a newmethod for producing saccharin more cheaply and ingreater quantities. Remsen had long disdained industrialchemistry, considering himself a man of pure science, In1886, though, Fahlberg filed another set of patents, claim-ing to be the sole discoverer of "Fahlberg's saccharin."

lra Remsen, a codiscoverer of saccharin.

Remsen, who wanted recognition rather than money, im-mediately protested to the chemistry community.

With his newly patented production methodFahlberg set up shop in New York City, where he and oneemployee produced five kllograms of saccharin a day loruse as a drink additive. Offered in pill and powder form,saccharin's popularity grew quickly. Doctors began toprescribe it to treat headaches, nausea, and corpuience.(Like sugar before it, saccharin became an all-purpose cu-rative.) Canners used it as a preservative; diabetics used itto sweeten coffee or tea.

As saccharin use rose/ consumers, regulators, andcompetitors began to question its supposed harmless-ness. Fahlberg had tested saccha¡in in late 1882. Afte¡consuming 10 grams of the chemical, he waited 24ho.usand experienced no adverse reactions. In fact, his bodybarely responded: almost the entire dose passed unme-tabolized into his urine.

But by 1906, as a resuÌt of food-industry hotror sto-ries such as Upton Sinclair's The lungle, Americans de-manded government intervention. In response Congresspassed the Pure Food and Drug Act, the first attempt toregulate the nation's food supply.

Enforcement of the new law fell to the Department ofAgriculture's Bureau of Chemistry and its head chemist,Harvey Washington Wiley. He had long crusaded to reinin what he saw as an out-of-control food industry. In1908 Wiley proposed the first saccharin ban, taking hiscase straight to President Theodore Roosevelt.

Wiley's stature as a chemist and sugar expert should

CHEMICAL HERITAGE Spnng 2010 27

be used in processed food, it could be sold directly to consumers. When WorldWar I caused a sugar shortage and consequent price spike, Monsanto, then thelargest saccharin producer, took its case to the public in full-page ads, arguingthat widespread use of saccharin could save the country millions of dollars.Price-conscious consumers responded, buying up saccharin tablets for 15C a

box at local drugstores. When the war ended, saccharin use dipped as con-

sumers returned to sugar. U.S. entry into World War II in 1941 provoked an-

other sugar shortage, and saccharin returned as a sugar substitute. Butpost-World War II, changing American eating habits meant sacchatin soonbecame more than iust an alternative sweetener.

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Had saccharin remained merely a sugar alternative, impoftant only to a rela-

tively small number of diabetics and weight watchers during peacetime, itprobably would not have caught the eye of government regulators and scien-

tists. In the aftermath of World War II, though, saccharin production re-

mained high. Fundamental changes in the American diet meant fewer peopleprepared meals at home, relying instead on preprocessed food. Presweetened

IN ruB LATE 1960s rHREE TRENDS

CONVERGED: INCREASING GOVERNMENT

R.EGUTAIION IN THE FOOD-PROCESSINC

INDUSTRY, THE zuSE OF ARTIFICIAL S\XT,ET-

ENERS, AND THE GRO\ØING COMPLEXITY

AND SOPHISTICATION OF HEALTH SCIENCE.

products, often containing inexpensive saccharin-the output of an increas-ingly large food-processing industry-alarmed nutritionists, regulators, and

health officials. While saccharin consumption increased, the debate over its

safety was never truly settled. Science, to the public, had issued too manycontradictory or inconclusive opinions, so when the decision about saccharinfell to individuals, most responded to their desire for a no-consequencessweetener.

Others, like Harvey Washington Wiley before them, were skeptical' A be-

lief in the inherent healthiness of "nattua7" food led some people to decry theincreasing artificiality of the American diet. Avis DeVoto, a friend of JuliaChild and an editor at Alfred Knopf, remained unimpressed by saccharin, es-

pecially its increasing use in cookbooks. In 1957 she wrote, "Dessetts, ofwhich there is a fat section, are incredible-sweetened with saccharine [sic]and topped with imitation whipped cream! Fantastic! And I do believe a lotof people in this country eat just like that, stuffing themselves with faked ma-terials in the fond belief that by substituting a chemical for God's good foodthey can keep themselves slim while still eating hot breads and desserts andGUNK." Devoto despaired, but also perfectly captured saccharin's appeal:

sweetness without consequences.Partly in response to growing unease among regulators and the public,

Congress passed the Food Additives Amendment in 1958. In preparing its leg-

islation Congress heard testimony from members of the scientific commu-nity. For the first time in connection with food additives, scientists used thec-word: cancer. Representative James J. Delaney, a Democrat fiom New York,

pushed hard for the addition of language specifically outlawing carcinogens.

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From the beginning Americans have had mixed feelings about

artificial sweeteners. Saccharin originally appealed to frugal

consumers. As Americans became more diet conscious, it

bec¿me the no-calorie alternative to sugar. Those weight watch-

ers wanted sweetness without consequences and manufactur-

ers obliged. Newer, sweeter compounds appeared in

saccharin's wake.

But while eagerly embracing these ¡mprovements, many re-

main susoicious about chemicals in their food. Stores like

Whole Foods Market, movies like Super Size Me, and books

like Michael Pollan's Ihe Omnivore's Dilemma exemplify the

turn away from industrialized, processed food.

The organic-food movement revives a long-held suspicion

about how our food reaches our dinner tables. lt also evokes

a suspicion of science, specifically the nightmare image of

Frankenfood. When it comes to food, Americans want the

benefits of scientific progress but without all that science: bet-

ter, faster, more-but it has to be "all natural."

That contradiction has played a major role in the history of ar-

tificial sweeteners. All three "first-generation" sweeteners-

cyclamate, saccharin, and aspartame-have been linked to

negative health effects. Cyclamate, introduced in 1951, was

banned in the United States in 1970. The cyclamate ban re-

invigorated the debate over saccharin's safety, leading to the

Saccharin Study and Labeling Act. And aspartame, intro-

duced in 1981, was linked to a supposed increase in brain

tumors.

ln all three cases researchers later declared the products

safe. But the debate over safety received much press atten-

tion, and suspicion about artificial sweeteners has seeped into

the collective consciousness. A Google search for any of the

recently developed artificial sweeteners-acesulfame-K, su-

cralose, alitame, and neotame-invariably yields Web pages

devoted to "the kuth" about these chemicals.

Some of these pages are well-intentioned, if often misin-

formed or simplistic. Others have less noble agendas. One ex-

ample, thetruthaboutsplenda.com asks, "Do you know what

your children are eating?" The site answers that "Splenda is

not natural; it is a chlorinated artificial sweetener." True, de-

pending on the definition of natural in use and certainly effec-

tive in raising consumer suspicions. And who is the unbiased

parly helping spread the truth about Splenda? The Sugar As-

sociation, representing sugar-beet and sugar-cane producers

across America.-lH

CHEMICAL HERITAGE Spring 20'10 29

Bv 1979, 44 ¡¡truoN Al"rprucRNs

USED SACCHARIN DAILY.

He helped draft a two-page ad from the Calorie ControlCouncil, the industry group he headed. The ad appearedin the Nelv York Times explaining "why the proposed banon saccharin is leaving a bad taste in a lot of people'smouths." The ad described the ban as "another exampleof BIG GOVERNMENT" and recommended action. "For-tunately, we can all conduct our own experiment in thismatter. It's called an experiment in democracy. . . . Writeor call your congressman today and let him know howyou feel about a ban on saccharin."

In the week after the 1977 saccharin ban went into ef-

fect, Congress received more than a million letters. Mar-vin Eisenstadt and other public relations-savq/ producershad turned the saccharin debate into a PR operation, andthe public had responded. The Delaney Clause, as theFDA interpreted it, required a ban on any known carcino-gen in the food supply. But the original legislation failedto account for the complexity of scientific data. Theclause's premise of scientific consensus based on objec-tive evidence and shared expertise no longer applied tothe real world, if it ever had. Scientists couldn't agree onfundamental questions: What is a carcinogen? Whatdaily dosage of a chemical might be reasonable for testingtoxicity? Did the elevated risk of cancer in rats translateto an elevated risk in humans? Health science couldn'tyet answer those questions definitively. But in the ab-

sence of incontrovertible scientific evidence, Marvin

During World War ll shortages led to rationing and long lines. Sugarrationing led many to turn to saccharin.

Eisenstadt could frame the debate as average citizens ver-

sus an encroaching big Sovernment.The FDA understood the weakness of the existing laws

and breathed a sigh of relief when, a week after the ban,

Senator Ted Kennedy of the Senate Subcommittee onHealth and Scientific Research moved to forestall the ban.The Saccharin Study and Labeling Act passed that year,

declaring that all saccharin products would carry a warn-ing label. It also imposed a tlvo-year moratorium on anygovernment action to temove saccharin f¡om the market.More studies were needed, according to Congress.

In response, Sweet'N Low sales skyrocketed. Those

sales included longtime buyers stocking up in case of a

ban, but the free publicity also brought in new customers.By 7979,44 million Americans used saccharin daily. Con-sumers voted with their dollars.

Congress renewed the moratorium every two years

until 2000, when a National Institute of EnvironmentalHealth Sciences (NIEHS) study declared the earlier re-

search invalid. The high dosages of saccharin given to therats were a poor analog for human consumption, as rat di-gestion works differently from that of humans. The

NIEHS recommended that Congress repeal the LabelingAct, officially declaring saccharin safe for human con-sumption.

Finally, though, it wasn't government regulation thattoppled saccharin from its throne as king of the artificialsweeteners-at least not directly. The threat of a saccharinban led producers to research alternatives. While saccha-

rin-300 times sweeter than sugar-languished in theshadow of a potential ban, a new generation of artificialsweeteners flourished. In 1965 aspartame, which is 200

times sweeter than sugar, was discovered; in 1976 su-

cralose-600 times sweeter; and in 2OO2 neotame-7,000to 13,000 times sweeter than sugar. Today, saccharin,

once the undisputed king of artificial sweeteners, lags be-

hind its newer counterparts, replaced by the next sweet-

est thing. r:'

Jesse Hicks teaches in the Science, Technology, and Society program atThe Pe n n sy lva n i a State U n iversity.

FOR FURTHER READING

Cohen, Rich. Sweet a n d Low : A Fa m i ly Story. New York: Picadot, 2oo7.

Kauffman, George 8., and Paul M. Priebe. "The Discovery of Saccha-

rin: A Centen n ia I Retrospecti' Am b ix 25 :3 (1 97 8), 1 91 -2O7.

Levenstein, Harvey A. Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in

Modern Americo. Berkeley: University of California, 2003.

Marcus, Alan l. "Sweets for the Sweet: Saccharin, Knowledge and the

Contem porary Regu latory Nexus." Journal of Pol icy H i sto ry (Winter

1996),33-47. Reprinted in Health Care Polìcy in Contemporory Amer-

ico (College Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1 997).

Priebe, Paul M., and George B. Kauffman. "Making Governmental

Policy under Conditions of Scientific Uncertainty: A Century of Con-

troversy about Saccharin in Congress and the Laborarory!'Minerva

18:4 (1980),556-574.

Roberts, Marc J., Stephen R. Thomas, and Michael J. Dowling. "Map-

ping Scientific Disputes That Affect Public PolicymakingJ'Science,

Technology, & Human Values 1 :9 (Winter 1984\,112-122.

CHEMICAL HERITAGE Spring 2010 31