Microwave Popcorn: The Next Asbestos

We keep finding reasons for eating real, proper food that you make yourself. Last week it was adulterated food; this week it is perfectly legal diacetyl that is the artificial butter flavouring in microwave popcorn. It appears that workers making the stuff are coming down with bronchiolitis obliterans, a disease that causes the smaller bronchi to be filled up with masses of fibrous tissue. Says the Angrey Toxicologist, "It’s like sticking marbles into the networks of tubes in your lung that connect fresh air to the alveoli, the little sacs where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged with the blood."

OSHA has been looking at this since 1999 and done little; David Michaels, assistant secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, accuses OSHA of "regulatory paralysis." "It's not some carcinogen where you get cancer 30 years from now or something. The people are dying right in front of you," Michaels said. "You can't wait until you have all the evidence. You have to regulate it." ::Angry Toxicologist and ::Washington Post