Potassium Bromate

This is used to obtain a fine, spongelike quality in the bread. Legal allowance is 50 ppb (ppb = parts per billion). It is very toxic when taken internally. Between two and four ounces of a 2% bromine solution can poison a child. Burns and skin irritation have been reported from its industrial uses. In 1980 the Ames test found potassium bromate to be a mutagen. Dr. Bruce Ames, a biochemist at the University of California in the early 1970s, developed the Ames test. He used bacteria that reveal whether a chemical is a mutagen. A mutagen is a chemical that causes genetic changes in the bacteria. Almost all chemicals that are known carcinogens have also shown to be mutagenic on the Ames test. Whether the test can identify carcinogens is still controversial (much the same way the “Flat Earth Society” finds the idea that the world is round, controversial, or that the tobacco industry finds the link between smoking and lung cancer, controversial).