Consumer Forum

Skaters Need Helmets

I work for a county health department and find FDA Consumer quite good and often very timely in my work. Because of its general exceptional quality, I am sorry to have to write about a serious unsafe practice portrayed on the cover of the July-August 1997 issue.

The lady pushing the stroller is shown on in-line skates without a helmet. Although other personal protective gear is in place, the omission of the head protection is very serious. Just last week, a nurse died in Pittsburgh after a spill on a road while in-line skating the night before. It seems it is an uphill battle to educate the media to depict skaters [in helmets] the same way as bicyclists.

Mary T. Jones, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15237

Keep Eating Those Fruits and Veggies

In the article "Bulking Up Fiber's Healthful Reputation" (July-August 1997) you recommend skins of fruits and vegetables as an important source of fiber, particularly the insoluble form.

Yet the Center for Science in the Public Interest lists strawberries, cherries, apples, apricots, grapes, blackberries, pears, and raspberries, to name a few, as posing a health risk from pesticide residues (Nutrition Action Health Letter, June 1997). According to the center, washing the fruits reduces the risk and removing peels helps even more.

My concern is how can the consumer increase fiber intake, particularly insoluble, without increasing the risk of pesticide residue intake? It appears we are in a double bind.

S.C. Schmittle, D.V.M., Ph.D.
Sun City West, Arizona 85375-5970

There is really no double bind at all, says Carole Schiffman, director of the consumer education staff in FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Pesticide levels are set to ensure that there is a hundredfold level of protection for the consumer. In other words, a person could not really eat enough fruits and vegetables, even in a high-fiber diet, to put them at risk for exceeding safe limits for consumption of pesticide residues. Also, according to our pesticide report, pesticide residue levels do not even come close in the American food supply to what is allowed.
Finally, the benefits of cancer reduction from increasing fiber is greater and more clear than the impact of the corresponding increase in pesticide residues and any potential increase in cancer.

FDA Consumer magazine (November-December 1997)