RISK OF GETTING CANCER

(Relative to Drinking Tap Water)

Over RR’s

Water
Relative Risk 1	Source/Daily Human Exposure	Carcinogen
1.0	Tap Water – one liter	Chloroform
4.0	Well Water – one liter (worst well in Silicon Valley)	Trichloroethylene
Risks Created by Mother Nature
Relative Risk	Source/Daily Human Exposure	Carcinogen
30.0	Peanut butter — one sandwich	Aflatoxin
100.0	Mushroom – one, raw	Hydrazines, etc.
2,800.0	Beer — 12 oz.	Ethyl alcohol
4,700.0	Wine — one glass	Ethyl alcohol
0.3	Coffee — one cup	Hydrogen peroxide
30.0	Comfrey herbal tea — one cup	Symphytine
400.0	Bread — two slices	Formaldehyde
2,700.0	Cola — one	Formaldehyde
90.0	Shrimp — 100 g.	Formaldehyde
9.0	Cooked bacon — 100 g.	Dimethylnitrosamine, Diethylnitrosamine
60.0	Cooked fish or squid, broiled in a gas oven — 54 g	. Dimethylnitrosamine
70.0	Brown mustard — 5 g	Allyl isothiocyanate
100.0	Basil — 1g of dried leaf	Estragole
20.0	All cooked food — average U. S. diet	Heterocyclic amines
200.0	Natural root beer — 12 oz. (now banned)	Safrole
Food Additives and Pesticides
Relative Risks	Source/Daily Human ExposureRisk	Carcinogen
60.0	Diet Cola — 12 oz	. Saccharin
0.4	Bread and grain products — average U.S. diet	Ethylene dibromide
0.5	Other food with pesticides — average U.S. diet	PCBs, DDE/DDT
Risks Around the Home
Relative Risks	Source/Daily Human Exposure	Carcinogen
604.0	Breathing air in a conventional home — 14 hours	Formaldehyde, Benzene
2,100.0	Breathing air in a mobile home — 14 hours	Formaldehyde
8.0	Swimming pool — one hour (for a child)	Chloroform
Risks At Work
Relative Risks	Source/Daily Human Exposure	Carcinogen
5,800.0	Breathing air at work — U. S. average	Formaldehyde
Commonly Used Drugs
Relative Risks	Source/Daily Human Exposure	Carcinogen
16,000.0	Sleeping pill (Phenobarbital) — 60 mg.	Phenobarbital
300.0	Pain Relief pill (Phenacetin) — 300 mg.	Phenacetin

Note: The items listed above are for illustrative purposes only, and are not intended as a guide for safe behavior. Relative risk is based on experiments subjecting rodents to very high dosages. The risk of these items to humans, in the quantities given above, is thought to be trivial. Source:
Bruce N. Ames, Renae Magaw, Lois Swirsky Gold, “Ranking Possible Carcinogenic
Hazards,” Science, Vol. 236, April 17, 1987, pp. 271-236.

1 The underlying measure of risk used here is a HERP value: Human Exposure dose divided by Rodent Potency dose. The measure of rodent potency is the milligrams of substance per kilogram of rodent body weight necessary to produce cancer in one-half the rodents, given daily exposure over the rodents’ lifetime. Human exposure is measured by the daily consumption indicated in the table per kilogram of human body weight. In the table above, the HERP values have been normalized with respect to the HERP value for water. A value of 100,000 means that the human exposure dose per kilogram of weight is exactly equal to the amount of the substance per kilogram of weight necessary to produce cancer in one-half of the rodents.