2005年NPR美国国家公共电台九月-Unhappy Meals? Fast-Food Chains Sued for

French fries are indeed a guilty pleasure. One medium serving has 350 calories and 16 grams of fat, but there may be a more sinister 1 ingredient lurking 2 in your fries a carcinogen, and now California's Attorney General is suing several fast-food companies. From member station KPCC Tamara Keith reports.

An employee dips a metal basket full of frozen patato strips into a vat 3 of bubbling hot grease. 30 seconds later, the crisp golden fries are done and ready to eat. College student Cameron Asemi knows he shouldn’t.

But ,you know, I felt like having some fries, it’s been a while, and they were pretty damn good. What Asemi doesn’t know is that, the danger may come from more than calories and fat. A carcinogenic substance known as acrylamide forms in the process of cooking the fries, as it does in other baked and fried products. California's Attorney General recently filed suit against 9 companies including Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Frito-Lay, asking that they warn consumers about possible cancer risks from their products. This suit has its roots in California’s Prop 4 65 , approved by voters back in 1986. That law requires warnings for products known to contain cancer-causing substances, if the risk is 1 in 100,000 over a life-time of exposure. Americans eat an average of 10 and a half pounds of French fries a year, containing far more acrylamide than what Californian deems an allowable dose. Edward Weil is overseeing the case for the Attorney General's office. He says he believes people really are getting cancer from fries. And that’s enough to require a warning under California law.

If 20 million people in the state of California use a product, then if 1 in every 100,000 of them gets cancer, that’s 200 cases of cancer, if you imagine/ those people all standing 5 in one place at one time, it would obviously be perceived as a public health tragedy.

Not surprisingly, the makers 6 of french fries and potatoe/ chips don’t wanna see their products stamped with cancer-warning labels. Kristin Power is Director of State Affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association. She questions the cancer risk, because most studies today have been conducted on animals. And Power says acrylamide is everywhere in wheat-bread, cereal, black olives,coffee even prune 7 juice. When you toast a piece of bread in your home you create acrylamide, when you toast a piece of bread at a restaurant you create acrylamide, so the issue is how that information is given to the consumers in a way that helps them to understand it and helps them to mitigate 8 risk.

The US Food and Drug Administration has raised similar concerns, saying the risk from acrylamide in food isn’t yet clear, and labels could confuse consumers. But Dale Hattis, a professor at Clark University is researching acrylamide and says the cancer risk is real though not clinically proven in people.

It’s not something that you break the bank or take serious other risks to avoid, but if you can avoid it by reasonable cheap safe measures, then it is not at all unreasonable 9 to start to do that.

But even if someday fry bags come with health warnings, it may not do much to change eating habits. As college student Cameron Asemi says there are too many warnings already.

Everything today causes cancer pretty much, you know what I’m saying? TV, going out in the sun, life is a bunch of risks. But you know, so there is a lot of things, does't mean I am gonna stop doing it.

Even Edward Weil from the Attorney General's Office says he's eaten some fries since filing the lawsuit 10. He says he just wants consumers to be able to make informed decisions. Or better yet convince industries to change their production process to reduce or remove acrylamide. For NPR news I am Tamara Keith in Sacramento.