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Japanese and French ambitions apart, the fast reactor business is in the doldrums. But it would be a mistake to suppose that it will never have a future.
The Delaney clause, embodied in US legislation in 1958, prohibits the addition to food of any level of any carcinogen. This position cannot be sustained in the face of progress in understanding chemically induced cancer.
A global scientific programme using a sweeping range of techniques to tackle some of the most daunting problems in biology ought to be impossible. But it works.
