Studies Say
A Story about the Pursuit of Knowledge
Doctor Sangra sat back in his maroon chair. He wondered why the studio liked this color. Perhaps it looked better on the television screen than it did right here. The interviewer crossed his legs. There must have been some sort of signal, or maybe the doctor wasn't paying attention and it was obvious that they were live. In any case, the host suddenly started talking.
"Good evening, America," he said. "You're watching the John Conklin show. I'm John Conklin. I'm joined tonight by Doctor Tony Sangra, whose lab has just uncovered a shocking discovery about everyone's favorite soft drink. Doctor, tell us what you found."
Sangra gave a relaxed smile. He kept reminding himself to stay relaxed. At least he remembered to start by thanking his host.
"Thank you, John," he began. "Yes, you have said it well. Our latest findings, which have just been published in the New England Review of Science, may cause lots of people to reconsider their beverage habits. You see, we found evidence that black-6, a compound used by Loca-Cola in their flagship cola to create their signature color, is potentially cancerous."
Conklin stopped him. "That's a shocking finding," he said. "How did your lab determine that? How did you go about it?"
"Well," said Dr. Sangra. "It wouldn't be safe to test this sort of thing in human beings, so we used mice, as is common practice in our field."
"Really?" asked Conklin. "How many mice?"
"We had twenty mice in the experiment and another ten in the control arm," replied Sangra. He smiled again. This was going very well.
"And what did you do? You had them drink Loca-Cola and they developed cancer?"
"Not exactly," said Sangra. "No, instead we gave them black-6. We gave them a pure concentration of it every day for a year..."
Conklin interrupted him. "Exactly how much did you give them?" he asked Sangra.
"We gave them one hundred grams every day," said Sangra. "And after a year, nearly all of the mice drinking the formula – that is the mixture we gave them of black-6 and sugar, which we had to add to make it taste good enough for them to eat – developed some form of cancer. Two had succumbed already. Only one mouse in the control arm developed any sort of cancer, and that was pancreatic cancer."
Conklin grimaced. "One hundred grams – is that the amount in one twelve-ounce can of Loca-Cola?" he asked.
"Well, no, not exactly," replied Sangra. He frowned. He wondered whether Conklin would be hung up on the amount. He knew it didn't matter for his results. He had known going into the study that artificial coloring could cause a host of health problems and that Loca-Cola was one of the worst substances people could introduce into their bodies. "You would have to drink a lot of cola to get to one hundred grams."
"How many, to be precise? Ballpark?"
"Well, one hundred grams of black-6 is a lot. You only need a small amount of it to turn the soda black, given that it's already dark in color from the..."
"How many?" asked Conklin.
"Well," said Sangra, "There are only ten milligrams of black-6 in one soft drink, so you would have to drink a very large number of..."
"How many would you have to drink?"
"Ten thousand."
"Ten thousand?"
"Yes."
"But you would die if you drank ten-thousand Loca-Colas in a day. Your stomach would burst long before you got to ten thousand. And you're saying you'd have to consume that number every day for a year?"
"Well," said Sangra, aware the interview had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. "We think that black-6 poses a health risk at much lower doses..."
"Then why didn't you test those doses? Nobody is going to consume it in anything like the quantity in your study."
"Well," mumbled Sangra. "We wanted to get a strong-enough signal."
"You wanted to get a strong-enough signal? What do you think would happen if someone drank one soda a day? Wouldn't they have to do that for ten-thousand years to get to the amount your mice consumed?"
"Well," said Sangra. "Yes. But some people drink more than one in a day."
Conklin glanced at the clock to make sure they had some time before the commercial break. "But even if they drank ten a day, they'd have to do that for a thousand years."
"We think the cancer would show up well before that."
"Well before that? They would be dead well before that."
Sangra sighed. "I don't think we should get hung up on..."
"Get hung up on what?" retorted Conklin, "The fact that you tested amounts well above what anybody could possibly drink?"
"Well, as I said, some people drink a lot. Some people can fit more fluid in their stomachs than others."
Conklin stared at him. He appeared to be fighting the urge to gape.
“Are you serious?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know about you,” replied Sangra, “But I’ve seen plenty of people walk out of 11-7 with two-gallon containers of Loca-Cola.”
“And they’d have to drink what? Two of those a day for eight hundred years?” asked Conklin. “Do you realize how difficult it is to be a guest on this show? You know we have to turn down eight people for every person we book? You’ve just wasted a quarter of an hour on a finding which any fool could have told you was going to look bad for Loca-Cola.”
“Yes,” said Sangra, then realized he shouldn’t have agreed. “Well, no. In fact, I didn’t waste it. In fact, I have to say that it should look bad for Loca-Cola.”
“What exactly did you think was going to happen to these mice when you gave them black-6 in a dose ten-thousand times higher than in a single cola?” asked Conklin. He had taken to waving his arms, but he regained composure at that moment, looking off at someone off set.
“Well,” said Sangra. “We were pretty sure it wasn’t going to be good.”
Conklin stared at him for a full ten seconds. Then he looked straight at the camera and said, “And that’s all we have time for tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, Doctor Tony Sangra.”
As he was ushering Sangra out during the commercial break, Conklin heard something over his head set.
“Oh no. Oh. Oh. Oh no. Really? Well then. I guess. Yes. I guess you’re right. I guess it is sort of funny.”
Sangra waited until Conklin looked like he was done listening to the other person.
“What was that about?” he asked.
Conklin laughed. “So it goes in this business,” he said. “My show is actually sponsored by Prisco, the group which holds Loca-Cola. So they had us set to run an ad tonight. Nobody checked, or if anybody did they didn’t notice.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sangra.
“When it cut to ads,” Conklin said, “the first ad was for Loca-Cola.”