Comforted with Apples

November/December 1996 | Contents

Letters

COMFORTED WITH APPLES

All that really needs to be said about Elliott Negin's article attempting to justify the Alar hoax ("The Alar Scare Was For Real," cjr,September/October) is to ask what planet he has been inhabiting for the last seven-and-a-half years. Since that time, virtually every reputable scientific body and leading scientist -- ranging from the National Cancer Institute to the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, and C. Everett Koop -- has gone on record as saying that the use of Alar on apples never posed any risk to the health of either children or adults. Are we to dismiss all of these testimonies as a "concerted disinformation campaign by industry trade groups"?

Virtually the only scientists who still regard the Alar scare as genuine are those associated with the EPA -- who, in doing so, are merely carrying out the agency's protocol that any substance that causes cancer in high doses in even a single rodent is therefore a "probable human carcinogen" (a standard that, if applied to natural substances, would lead to the banning of peanuts, honey, mushrooms, and tap water). And even within the EPA this standard is on the way out, as witness the bipartisan repeal of the Delaney Clause (the law which first institutionalized this standard in 1958) this past summer, and the announcement by the EPA last spring that it would be drawing up new guidelines for the assessment of cancer risk, which would no longer rely on high-dose, single-species animal tests.

Elizabeth M. Whelan
President
American Council on Science and Health
New York, N.Y.

Elliot Negin replies: The planet I live on has a long tradition of fact-checking, and most of Elizabeth Whelan's "facts" don't check out. While she's right about C. Everett Koop, she's wrong about the groups she cites. Neither the American Medical Association nor the National Cancer Institute has issued an official statement on Alar. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer and its Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues both concluded that UDMH -- the major breakdown product created when Alar-treated apples are processed or eaten -- is a carcinogen.

Other prominent organizations (besides EPA) regard UDMH as carcinogenic, including the National Toxicology Program of the U.S. Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics, which urged the EPA to ban Alar.

Whelan also misstates the EPA's "protocol" for assessing cancer risk -- despite the fact that the agency sent her a letter in March 1992 detailing its guidelines. The letter pointed out that chemicals have to cause cancer in two animal species and in both sexes to be designated "probable human carcinogens." And it added that the agency is required by law to consider benefits as well as risks before banning a pesticide. In the case of Alar, the EPA obviously determined its risks outweighed its benefits.

Journalists should be wary of quoting Whelan without noting that her organization represents the interests of the food, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries (see "Dr. Whelan's Media Operation," cjr March/April 1990). Although Whelan has a doctorate in public health, she seems more concerned about the health of her benefactors, which include American Cyanamid, Archer Daniels Midland, Chevron, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Exxon, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, Pfizer, Union Carbide, and Uniroyal -- the company that manufactured Alar.