Document 5b2wmjaO50ZKpzOxg6pqkXrGV
Night Phone: Westfield, N. J. 1152
HOWARD W. AMBRUSTER
Ambruschem, New York
V
'V
261 Broadway
New York City
July 23 1 9 3 0'
Dr. ^obt. A. Kehoe University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Cincinnati, Ohio
Dear Dr. Kehoe: Your card to the Franklin Institute requesting copy of reprint
received and I am pleased to send you same herewith. I assume that your interest is due to the affect of these resi
dues on the human system, particularly with reference to cancer. And I am wondering whether you are famiUar with the report that was issued last year by the Research Department of the New York Skin & Cancer Hospital, in dicating that 30$ of the c ases of exzeraa studied over a three year period were due wholly or in part to arsenic poisoning which was most frequently causes by the spray residue contamination of food.
I note in my reference file on the subject your article In the Journal.of the American Medical Association of April 27, 1929 regarding the excrescence of lead. And would advise that in my own efforts to seek a remedy for this condition on spray re&dues and to cause federal Food & Drug Authorities to fix a tolerance on stomach poisons used in spray purposes, I have repeatedly cabled attention to the fact that while they are flounder ing around on an arsenic tolerence,they ignore lead altogether.
I am also advised that the group of toxicologists who were called In to advise the Department of Agriculture in the earlier part of 1927 on this subject due to my appeal to President Coolidgejfihave it solved,that these eminent medical authorities informed the Federal officials that in the ordin-.ary types of lead arsenate used for spray purposes, the normal proportion of lead which would be present with the so called un-official tentative tol erence on arsenic which the officials were considering,was at least four times the amount of lead which these Toxicologists would even consider ap proving.
Meanwhile the Food & Drug officials have continued to flounder along and last year induced the new Secretary of Agriculture^who was total ly un-informed on the subject, to issue a remarkable public statement to the food growers advising them that the Department would not prosecute for contamination of food stuffs with arsenic spray residue unless the percent age was 70$ in excess of this so called tentative tolerence,which the Sec retary naively states was the desirable one from the public health stand point.
We are therefore confronted with the remarkable situation that food stuffs are being permitted to be shipped for American consumption con taining 70$ more poisoning than those same food stuffs are permitted to carry in this country on an export bill of lading for consumption in Eng land. And meanwhile the proportion of lead is utterly ignored.
The matter will never be solved until the medical profession takes a positive stand and any information which I may be able to supply to yourself or your colleagues based on the spray residue aspects of it will
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