The California Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is the lead agency for the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65). As the lead agency, OEHHA is removing saccharin from the list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer, for purposes of Proposition 65.
Saccharin [CAS No. 81-07-2] was originally added to the Proposition 65 list on October 1, 1989. This chemical was added to the Proposition 65 list as a result of the issuance of a judicial decision enforcing Labor Code Section 6382(b)(1) and (d) which are incorporated by reference as Proposition 65 listing provisions pursuant to Health and Safety Code Section 25249.8(b). Labor Code Section 6382(b)(1) requires inclusion of substances listed as human or animal carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Labor Code Section 6382(d) requires the inclusion of chemicals identified as carcinogens or potential carcinogens by IARC or the National Toxicology Program (NTP). Saccharin was identified by IARC and NTP as causing cancer.
In 2000, NTP released its Ninth Report on Carcinogens in which it removed saccharin [CAS No. 81 07-2] from the list of substances "reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen." In 1999, IARC issued a monograph on "Saccharin and its Salts", Volume 73, in which it reclassified saccharin and its salts as "not classifiable as to their carcinogenicity to humans (Group 3)" and concluded that there was "inadequate evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of saccharin (acid form)." Since saccharin was added to the Proposition 65 list by operation of law based on the Labor Code Section incorporation by reference of chemicals identified as known or potential carcinogens by IARC or NTP, the removal of saccharin from designation as such by both of these entities means that saccharin should be removed from the Proposition 65 list. Therefore, saccharin will be delisted as a chemical known to the state to cause cancer effective April 6, 2001.
A complete, updated chemical list denoting saccharin
in strikeout is published elsewhere in
this issue of the California Regulatory Notice Register.
The chemical delisted as known to the state to cause cancer effective April 6, 2001 is:
Chemical |
CAS No. |
Saccharin |
81-07-2 |
Follow this link to download a copy of this notice
Download the April 6, 2001 list in PDF format
View the April 6, 2001 Proposition 65 List.
Download the April 6, 2001 list as a MS Excel spreadsheet
