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Test finds toxic salt in lettuce
By Miguel Bustillo,
28th April 2003
The Boston Globe
Original article ran in Los Angeles Times – 28 April 2003
A laboratory test of 22 types of lettuce bought at northern California supermarkets found that four were contaminated with perchlorate, a toxic rocket-fuel ingredient that has polluted the Colorado River, the source of the water used to grow most of the nation's winter vegetables.
The environmental group that paid for the testing by Texas Tech University acknowledged that the sample was far too small to draw any definite conclusions about how much perchlorate is in the lettuce that Americans eat. But the organization, the Environmental Working Group, said the results were alarming enough to warrant a broad examination by the Food and Drug Administration.
''It appears perchlorate in produce is reaching consumers, which should be a wake-up call for the FDA,'' said Bill Walker, a representative in the group's Oakland, Calif., office. ''A lot of people might look at this and say it was only 4 out of 22 - what is the problem? Well, when nearly 1 in 5 samples of a common produce item are contaminated with a chemical component of rocket fuel, that's significant.''
In response, FDA officials said they had been planning to begin testing foods for perchlorate at a number of sites around the United States, but still were developing the scientific methods to do it.
''We do understand that there is a potential for perchlorate from irrigation water to end up in food,'' said Terry Troxell, the director of the FDA's office of plant and dairy foods and beverages. ''We have already been moving in this area. We will certainly take their results into account.''
The four lettuce samples contained substantial quantities of perchlorate. One, a prepackaged variety of organic mixed baby greens, had a level of perchlorate contamination at least 20 times as high as the amount California considers safe for drinking water. The other three were packaged butter lettuce and radicchio, romaine lettuce and radicchio, and a head of iceberg lettuce. All had at least five times as much perchlorate as California considers safe for water.
State and federal environmental officials believe that perchlorate, a salt used to help power missiles and the space shuttle, may cause health problems, even in trace amounts. Because it is known to affect thyroid hormone production, which is critical to early brain development, perchlorate exposure may be especially dangerous for pregnant women and young children.
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