Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, December 3, 1968 Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Tuesday, December 3, 1968 theatre FDA warns diet foods Czech will see his PTP premiere may be health hazard Ivan Klima, Czech liberal leader and playwright whose work, The Castle, opens tonight at Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre, arrived in Ann Arbor Friday and will attend the American premiere of his play. Klima, a reform leader in the Czech Writers' Union, was in- vited to the University by Robert C. Schnitzer, executive director of the Professional Theatre Program, to participate in the premiere under a special grant. He will return to Prague following the close of The Castle's Ann Arbor run, Dec. 8. The play was first produced in 1964 during the Stalinist reign of ousted Czech premier Antonin Novotny. It was immediately hailed as a daring, powerful contribution to traditional Czech drama and became a key factor in the early stages of the struggle for cultural liberalization. Following The Castle's success in Prague, it was produced widely in West Germany. Kenneth Tynan, literary editor of the British National Theatre, praised the Czech production, and it also earned mention in dispatches in the New York Times and the New Yorker as a factor in the drive for cultural reform. Klima, 37, began his literary career after attending Charles University in Prague. Unique among his Czech contemporaries, his work has dealt with current social problems. A major influence on Klima's work was the official "rehabilitation" of Frank Kafka, whose work was long banned in his native Czechoslovakia. He has also been influenced by western absurdists like Harold Pinter, Eu- gene Ionesco, and Samuel Beckett. Klima's second play, The Master, continued to examine the Stalinist socialist system in terms of dramatic parable. His other important works include Klara, The Jury, Sweet-Shoppe Myriam (all dramas), and a collection of short stories, A Faultless Day. WASHINGTON 0P-The Food' and Drug Administration, con- cerned by a new finding that ar- tificial sweeteners may have harmful effects, is pressing ahead with a research project to settle the issue. The finding is that a substance widely used in det foods and drinks may cause genetic dam- age that could lead to birth de- fects. FDA scientists emphasize that the finding, which became known to them in recent weeks, is pre- liminary. And they noted that the evidence so far has been found only in laboratory and ani-. mal studies - not in humans. Dr. John J. Schroge, acting director of the FDA's division of research and liaison, said the agency is moving quickly to set up tests with human volunteers. Once the tests begin, he said, the; results should be available in about three months. "We are not alarmed about it - we are concerned," Dr. Schro- gie said in an interview "We aret in contact with most of the in- vestigators and are doing work on' our own." The finding, made by the FDA's Dr. Marvin Legator, was that a substance produced by sweeten-G ers causes significant breaks in animal chromosomes when it is! given n moderate amounts. Chromosomes are the heredi- tary carriers that determine what offspring are going to be like. If chromosomes break and get put back together improperly, birth defects can result. The substance involved is call- ed cyclohexylamine. It is form- ed in the bodies of about one- third of the people who use the, sweeteners, other studies have in- dicated. The sweeteners involved are called cyclamates. Ten parts of cyclamates are usually mixed with one part of another sweet- ener, sacharine, in diet foods and drinks. Schrogie said another concern is that cyclohexylamine, which he described as a toxic substance, is sometimes used to produce cycla- mates and that it can revert to its original form. He said FDA researchers are sampling various artifically sweetened products to see whe- ther cyclohexylamine is present in significant amount. So far, the FDA's official posi- tion on the sweeteners remains unchanged since it was last stat- ed in 1965: "There is no evidence that cyclamates, ,at present use levels, are a hazard to health." But use of diet foods - espe- cially diet soda pop - has in- creased many times in recent years and FDA officials say con- elusive new evidence could lead to a new federal position,pos- sibly including- labeling require- ments. m: Richard Clarke and Henderson Forsythe, in "The Castle" NEW PREMIER SUBTLE CHANGES: Portugal may enter the 20th Century By DAVID MAZZARELLA LISBON (IP)-Portugal has be-' gun to stir after 40 years of dic- tatorship. A mood of change and excitement has taken hold in a country that somehow had gotten through most of the 20th Century without sampling many of its thrills or frustrations. In two months Prime Minister Marcello CGaetano has cautiously projected the possibility of great- er political freedom, and of the kind of economic expansion the rest of Western Europe has seen since World War II. But he has by no means re- versed the past. Portugal today is in a sense two Portugals, the old and the new, uneasily coexisting side by side. There is much uncertainty as to how the new times will end. Little of this is evident on the surface. If Portugal is living through a revolution it is doing it as tranquilly as it lived through four decades of one-man rule by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. Nothing was changed outward- ly in this city with its curiously mixed European-Arabic-African flavor, but ghost Portuguese seem to sense that an era has ended. Salazar had not named a suc- cessor, perhaps characteristically in this partriarchal society where even in family businesses fath- ers tend to remain in charge until they die. With Salazar's condi- tion hopeless, President Americo Thomaz, a tough, 72-year-old re- tired admiral, finally announced he was naming a new prime min- ister. Into office next day, Sept. 27, came Caetano, 62, an educator and lawyer. A drafter of the Port- Fall and winter. subscription rate: $4.50 'per term by carrier ($5 by mail); $8.00 for regular academic school year .9 by mall). uguese "corporate state" consti- tution, he was once Salazar's ap- parent protege but in recent years had established his inde- pendence from the regime. Overnight, the strictly censor- ed press became more free. It be- gan asking for a better life in a more dynamic society aligned with the rest of Europe, for poli- tical amnesties, for less govern- ment secrecy. Days after entering office, Cae- tano promised a press law abol- ishing most forms of censorship. He increased the flow of inform- ation from the government to the press. He has returned exiled opposi- tion leader Mario Soares from an equatorial island where Salazar sent him. This seemed to herald a freer role for the opposition, possibly the right to unobstruct- ed campaigning in next year's National Assembly elections. The business community is op- timistic that Caetano will mean modernization and more empha- sis on economic growth. The gov- ernment already has promised more public investments to off- set a serious lag in private invest- ment. It also promised to implement a six-year development plan that nominally came into force Jan. 1. Indeed, some Portuguese f e e 1 that the Salazar-Caetano transi- tion has somehow begun an evo- lution that will bring the kind of economic boom and free-wheeling society seen elsewhere in Wes- tern Europe. But economists agree it is not time to talk of boom yet, with co- lonial wars in Africa still drain- ing the economy and defense ac- counting for 40 per cent or more of the budget. On the home front, Caetano has courted labor with promises of a national minimum wage and denouncing a conservative hier- freedom for unions to elect their archy they associate with Sala- own officers. zar's time, Their faction may be He has launched an investiga- the making of a powerful politi- tion into the educational system cal instrument. covering everything from cramp- But the old Portugal is still ed grammar schools to inade- here, too. quately staffed universities. Two Hard-liners did not hide their important student associations bitterness over Salazar's removal were given the right to chose their from office, even though he was leaders. Under Salazar these were incapacitated. appointed by the government. Censorship itself has become er- Evolving along with civil life is ratic. The over-all effect is of the religious community in this a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't predominantly Roman Catholic kind of liberalization. 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