Rant: The truth about Sudan 1
26 Feb 2005 by Paul Davies
Britons found themselves in the clutches of fear again this week as Sudan 1, a red dye used in polish, waxes and solvents cropped up unannounced in a batch of Worcester sauce.Just when you thought it was safe to step into the supermarket, over 400 offending products were flying off the shelves in what the press were quick to dub “the biggest food scare since BSE”.
Now floor polish may sound scary, and consuming it conjures up all sorts of wonderful images of the permanently sotted Father Jack, but in order to actually be at risk from the treacherous Sudan 1, you'd have to gulp down the Worcester sauce like the comedy priest drowns bottles of Jack Daniels.
The scare-mongering so gleefully aggrandized by cheap tabloid hacks refers, (by the ones who’ve done their research) to a study in America, some 20 years ago. Some unfortunate laboratory rodents - rats and mice to be exact - were given a small dose of Sudan 1 every day for two years. The mice were fine, but the rats underwent changes indicating they were on the way to getting tumours.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer had a look at the study and decided it wasn’t worth acting on. Indeed, Alan Boobis, a toxicologist at London’s Imperial College, claimed the risk posed by the infected food products was similar to the risks associated with smoking one cigarette in a lifetime.
Scaling the tests up from rat to human, your average man would need to polish off 800 litres of Worcester sauce every day for two years in order to put himself at risk of cancer. Anyone attempting such a feat would surely have more to worry about than the possibility of tumours. But, amusing as it might be, it wouldn’t make nearly as good a story.
