‘Acceptable Risks’ With Pesticides Used on Fruits and Vegetables

To eat apples, or not to eat apples; that is the question. Each time a carcinogen is publicly identified, the immediate response by government agencies, is, “It’s only a little bit,” and if you stop using the product “the economy will be adversely affected.” The cost to victims is never considered, nor is the “quality of life” (“Acceptable Risks,” editorial, March 19).

As a victim of cancer, who has spent years fighting this disease, I am painfully aware of the medical costs to victims, as well as the loss in productivity due to the malady.

Scientists have yet to discover the threshold at which a cancer-causing agent triggers cancer, so it is impossible to say how much of a product can be consumed safely. Is it not better to eliminate the culprit and avoid the problem? The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration were set up to protect the public, not the producers of toxins. Let them err on the side of overprotection. Greed is not good.

GWEN KOZMAN

Irvine