The Nation - News from June 5, 1986

Two consumer groups asked a federal judge in Washington to order the Food and Drug Administration to ban a possibly cancer-causing chemical that is used to take the caffeine out of coffee. Public Citizen and the Consumer Federation of America, in a suit filed in U.S. District Court, accused the FDA and the Health and Human Services Department of violating a law that requires a ban on chemicals that cause cancer in animals. The suit said several scientific studies found that the chemical methylene chloride causes cancer in the livers and lungs of mice.