Everything Gives You Cancer

According to some Swedish scientists, we can now add to the pantheon of homespun wisdom, alongside such notables as "Look both ways before crossing the street" and "Don't go out in the cold with wet hair," a new admonition -- "Bread kills."

We're not even talking some supposedly scary, Franken-food, genetically modified bread. No, according to research made public Wednesday by Sweden's National Food Administration, the starch present in dough, when it is heated to bake the bread, turns into a "probable human carcinogen."

And not just up north, either. Leif Busk, chief researcher with the Swedish food regulator, put it this way: "I am quite sure that this is a problem everywhere and we need to do something about it."

"A problem everywhere." Something to consider as you go to eat that sandwich at the lunch cart today.

So, now that we know that bread kills, what next? For the EU at least, the way ahead seems clear. The precautionary principle, enshrined in EU law as the governing doctrine in cases of scientific uncertainty, surely indicates that a bread ban is in order, at least until more evidence about its real risks can be gathered. Perhaps a bakery quarantine, pending expensive "bread abatement" procedures, should be considered.

We know what you're thinking -- this is nonsense. If you are, you're right -- it is. But the precautionary principle (or more aptly, the paranoid principle) always was nonsense, on stilts. The Swedish bread research helps explain why.

The precautionary principle takes a maxim -- better safe than sorry -- radicalizes it, and turns it into a public-policy mandate. The result is an official standard -- that nothing is considered safe until it is incontrovertibly proved safe -- that is impossible to meet.

Even for bread.

Such thinking violates our understanding of the way science works. Science does not proceed from uncertainty to certainty. Instead, scientists offer hypotheses, which are accepted or rejected based on the best evidence available at the time. As more evidence becomes available, the theories are re-evaluated. This process doesn't have an end-point called "knowledge," it just proceeds, with good theories sticking around and less good ones dropping out.

Today, bread may give us cancer. Tomorrow, we'll probably learn that it saves us from heart disease. It is not for our politicians to tell us whether to risk cancer to save our hearts, or vice versa. Those are risks individuals must make on their own. In other words, let them eat bread!

Updated April 26, 2002