-
Cancer & Chemicals
-Are We Going
Too Far?
Marla Cone
Last
year,
California
governor
George
Deukmejian
called together many of the state's
best scientific minds to
begin
implementing
Proposition
65,
the
state's
Safe
Drinking Water and
Toxic Enforcement Act. This new law
bans
industries
from
discharging
chemical
suspected
of
causing
cancer
(carcinogens)
or
birth
defects
into
water
supplies. Some claim it will also
require warning labels on
everything
that might cause cancer.
去年，
加利福尼亚州州长乔治
·
德米加召集本州许多优秀
的科学家开会，开始执行第
65
号提案，即州安全饮
用水和
毒品实施法案。这一新法令禁止各工业部门向水源中排放被
怀疑致癌和引起先天缺陷的化学物质。有些人宣称，新法律
还要求在一切可能致癌的物
品上贴上警告标签。
A
day
of
esotericscience
and
incomprehensible
jargonwas
predicted.
But
Bruce
Ames,
chairman
of
the
department of biochemistry
at the University of California
at Berkeley, had plans to liven the
proceedings.
原来预计，开会那天将全是些玄妙的科学和难懂的术
语，
但加州大学伯克利分校生物化学系系主任布鲁斯
< br>·
爱姆兹
却打算使会议开得更有生气。
< br>
Walking
into
the
room,
Ames
looked
like
the
quintessential scientist: wire-
rimmedbifocals, rumpled suit,
tousled
hair and a sallow complexion that showed he spent
more
time
in
his
laboratory
than
in
the
California
someone
intoned
about
the
mechanisms
of
carcinogenesis, Ames began to interject
his own views.
当爱姆兹走入会议室时，他看上去完全是一个典型的科
学家形象：金丝边双光眼镜，皱褶的西服，蓬乱的头发，菜
色的
面庞，显示出他总是呆在实验室里而很少享受加州的阳
光。
当某
人振振有词地大谈致痛机理时，
爱姆兹开始打断他，
插进来陈述
自己的观点。
declared.“
A
beer,
with
its
700
parts
per
billion
of
formaldehyde
and
five
parts
per
100
of
alcohol
is
a
thousand
times more hazardous than anything in the water.
If you have beer on your breath, does
that mean you have
to warn everyone who
comes within ten feet of you?
“
整个世界都充满了致癌物
”
，爱
姆兹宣称。
“
啤酒中有十
亿分之七百的
甲醛和百分之五的乙醇，比水中的任何物质都
要危险
1 000
倍。如果你呼出的气息中有啤酒味，那是否意
味着你必须向你周
围
10
英尺以内的所有人发出警告
?”
In
an
era
when
headlines
shout
about
the
latest
cancer scare, Ames has a different
message: the levels of
most man-made
carcinogens are generally so low that any
danger
is
trivial
compared
with
the
levels
of
natural
carcinogens.
在大肆宣传最新癌症恐怖的时代里
，爱姆兹带来了不同
的信息：大多数人造致癌物的含量一般来说都很低。与天然
致癌物含量相比其危险微乎其微。
Ames
is
not
a
quack.
At
age
59,
he
is
one
of
the
nation's most respected authorities on
carcinogenesis. His
resume is packed
with honors, including the Charles. Mott
Prize
from
the
General
Motors
Cancer
Research
Foundation, one of the most prestigious
awards in cancer
research,
and
membership
in
the
National
Academy
of
his
critics
say
the
Ames
test
—
his
simple,
inexpensive
laboratory
procedure
that
helps
determine
whether a
substance might cause
cancer
—
is a remarkable
achievement.
爱姆兹不是个冒充内行的人。他<
/p>
59
岁，是全国最受人
尊敬的研究致癌问
题的权威之一。他的简历中尽是各种荣
誉，包括通用汽车癌症研究基金会颁发的查尔斯<
/p>
·
莫特奖
(
这<
/p>
是痛症研究中最富声誉的嘉奖之一
)
。<
/p>
他还是国家科学院的院
士。甚至他的批评者们也承认，爱姆兹试验
是一项突出的成
就。这种试验是在实验室里进行的一种简单廉价的操作方
法，它有助于检测一种物质是否能引起癌症。
But
Ames slaughters sacred cows. He's taking on the
environmental
movement,
which
some
have
called
the
single
most important social movement of the 20th
century.
In April 1987, for instance,
he and two colleagues, Renae
Magaw
and
Lois
Swirsky
Gold,
published
a
report
in
Science
magazine
that
ranked
various
possible
cancer
on animal tests of nearly 1,000 chemicals, the
data
show
that
daily
consumption
of
the
average
peanut-butter sandwich, which contains
traces of aflatoxin
(a
naturally occurring mold carcinogen in peanuts),
is 100
times more dangerous than
our
daily intake of DDT from
food, and that a glass of the most
polluted well water in the
Silicon
Valley
is
1,000
times
less
of
cancer
risk
than
a
glass
of
wine
or
beer
's
not
advising
people
to
stop
consuming
peanut-butter, beer and wine. What he's saying
is
that
most
cancer
risks
created
by
man
are
trivial
compared
with
everyday
natural
risks,
and
it's
not
clear
how
many
of
these
are
real
risks.
Both
types
distract
attention from such enormous risk
factors as tobacco.
但是爱姆兹藐视一切貌似神圣不可冒犯的东
曲。他对环
境保护运动的观点提出不同看法，
有些人把这一运动
称为
20
世纪最重要的运动。例如，
1
987
年
4
月，他和两位同事雷
纳
·
玛格和露易
·<
/p>
斯沃斯基
·
戈尔德，在《科学》杂志上发
表了
一篇报告，列举了各种各样可能引起癌症的危险。以将近
1
000
种化学物质作的动物试验所得到的数据表明，每日所消<
/p>
耗的普通花生酱三明治中含有的微量黄曲霉素
(
< br>花生中天然
存在的一种霉菌致癌物
)
比我们每同从食物中摄取
DDT
的危
险大
100
倍。
一杯硅谷污染最严重
的井水比一杯葡萄酒或啤
酒致癌的危险要小
1 000
倍。他并不是建议人们停止消费花
生酱、葡萄酒和啤酒。他所说的是，大
多数人造致癌物的危
险比起日常天然物的致癌危险是微不足道的。现在不清楚它
们中有多少有真正的危险。这曲种危险都转移了人们对于诸
如烟草之类的
巨人危险的注意力。
Ames's
cancer
research
began
about
25
years
ago
over
a
bag
of
potato
chips.
Ames,
then
conducting
research for the
National Institutes of Health in Maryland,
was reading the ingredients
on the bag. It struck him that
no
one
knew
what
each
chemical
did
to
human
genes
,
and there was no easy way to find out.
爱姆兹的癌症研究是
25
年前以一袋炸
薯条开始的。当
时他在马里兰全国健康研究所从事研究工作。在看到袋上列
出的成分时，他突然想到还没有人知道每种化学物质对人的
基因有什么影响，
而要了解这些还没有简易的方法。
At that
time, scientists testing for carcinogenicity had
to
set
up
time
consuming
and
costly
lab
experiments
on
rats and mice. Armed with the knowledge
that bacteria are
sensitive
to
substances
that
cause
mutation,
and
that
carcinogens were likely
to be mutagens, Ames developed
a
carcinogen test using bacteria. The Ames test was
hailed
as
a
major
scientific
development
and
is
now
used
worldwide.
那
时，科学家为了测试致癌性，不得不在老鼠身上做耗
时费钱的实验室试验。细菌对引起突
变的物质很敏感，而致
痛物很可能就是引起突变的物质。爱姆兹凭借这些知识，研
究出了一种利用细菌检测致癌性的试验。爱姆兹试验被公认
是一项主要
的科学成果。现在在世界上已被广泛应用。
One
day
in
1974
Ames,
now
teaching
at
Berkeley,
suggested
that
some
students
test
various
household
products. To his surprise, many common
hair dyes tested
positive,
as
did
a
flame
retardant
used
in
children's
pajamas.
Almost
overnight,
Ames
became
a
hero
of
environmentalists when his findings led
to new regulations
and bans on certain
chemicals.
1974
年的一天，当时在伯克利任教
的爱姆兹建议一些
学生对各种各样家用产品进行检测。使他惊异的是，像用于
儿童睡衣中的一种阻燃剂一样，许多普通染发剂经测试都呈
阳性。当爱姆兹
的测试结果导致对某些化学品实行新的规定
和禁令时几乎一夜之间，他就成了环保界的英
雄。
For the next decade
public concern over carcinogens
continued
to
rise.
Ames
says,
started
realizing
something wasn't
right.
tested
positive
as
carcinogens
or
mutagens:
fruit
juices,
brown mustard ,
celery , parsley .In fact, about half of all
chemicals
tested
by
Ames
—
both
natural
and
man-
made
—
turned
out
to
be
potentially
carcinogenic
when given in
enormous doses to rats and mice.
随后
10
年间，公众对致癌物越来越关注。爱姆兹说
“
于
是我开始意识到有些不对头。
”<
/p>
同样也被检测为致癌物或致突
变物而呈阳性的天然物数量太多了：
水果汁，芥菜，芹菜，
欧芹等。实际上，爱姆兹测试的大约一半的化学物，当用老
鼠进行大剂量实验时，无论是天然或人造的都证明有潜在的
致癌作用。
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