Nice nitrate?

LETTER
In his article about cancer and nitrates (New Scientist, Science, 26 August), David Bradley reveals that he is not much given to reading back numbers of the magazine. If he had looked back to 8 October 1988, he could have avoided repeating the hoary old chestnut that he dragged up when he referred to “nitrate, from drinking water contaminated with fertilisers”.

It was well established even back in 1988 that, although a small amount of the nitrate in drinking water comes from fertilisers, the bulk of it is produced as the ever-busy microbes go about their business in the soil. Not much has changed in the past seven years.

The title of the article, “Iron clue to cancer from nitrates”, was dubious too. Nitrate does not cause cancer, certainly not in the stomach as used to be widely assumed. At least two epidemiological studies tested for a link between nitrate and stomach cancer and found none. Also, workers in fertiliser factories absorb far more nitrate than comparable workers – you can taste the fertiliser as it dissolves in your saliva – but their death rate from stomach cancer was found to be almost exactly the same as that of the other workers. The most likely reason is simply that nitrate is not reduced to nitrite in the adult stomach because of the acidity.

Finally, can we please have “nitrate” in the singular and not in the plural as in that title. Nitrate becomes of interest when it dissolves in water – that is what the fuss is all about – and all salts containing nitrate dissociate in water. So, as Gertrude Stein might have said, a nitrate is a nitrate is a nitrate. End of letter