The chemical industry dumped money into its "independent"
"scientific" propaganda organization, Elizabeth Whelan's American
Council on Science and Health (ACSH) (see REHW #534). The ACSH
issued 3 reports on Alar during 1990 to 1995, each report
accompanied by great hoopla to attract press attention, including
"press briefings" at the National Press Club in Washington,
D.C.[7] Each report retold the Alar story the way the chemical
industry wants it to be remembered: a small environmental group
using unsound science frightened the public out of its wits and
forced the government to ban a chemical that never harmed anyone.
ACSH's propaganda campaign included paying Walter Cronkite
--arguably the most famous and prestigious news "personality" in
America --$25,000 to narrate a TV documentary about Alar called
BIG FEARS, LITTLE RISKS, in which only chemical industry
supporters appeared on camera. Cronkite himself said of the
documentary, "It was meant to be propaganda."[8]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science likewise
began a propaganda campaign to discredit the public's action
against Alar. The editorial staff of SCIENCE magazine had long
been dominated by Phil Abelson and Dan Koshland, who brought a
strong Libertarian bias to their work. Time after time, these
men lashed out at the public for forcing an end to Alar. Their
editorials have titles like, "Scare of the Week," "The Great
Overcoat Scare," and "Toxic Terror; Phantom 1890Risks."[9]
People who know the work of Abelson and Koshland know them as
Libertarian extremists and take their editorial rants with a
guffaw of astonished disbelief. However, for Alar, SCIENCE went
beyond editorials and opened its inside columns to the
propagandists. For example, here is how the Alar Rebellion was
described in SCIENCE in 1994: "In the late 1980s, in response to
a widespread media campaign waged primarily by the Natural
Resources Defense Council, the EPA pressured apple growers to
abandon the use of the plant growth regulator Alar, an
agricultural chemical that permits apples to ripen uniformly and
increases yield. EPA's capitulation to environmentalists'
demands conflicted with the agency's own scientific findings."[10]
Every part of every sentence of this retelling is wrong. In sum,
SCIENCE printed a pack of lies about Alar, but they appeared
under the imprimatur of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, so reporter after reporter has told and
retold these lies until they have become "the truth" in the
national consciousness.
The Alar Rebellion showed that science (and SCIENCE) in the late
20th century can be turned into effective propaganda tools when
the powers-that-be feel threatened by the public taking action to
curb corporate poisonings. The mass media--dominated by fewer
than 25 huge corporations--are easily (even willingly) misled by
a chorus of old, white men in lab coats chanting, "Alar is
completely safe, the people are hysterical. Housewives should
stay in their place --Alar is a miracle." Cheerleader Elizabeth
Whelan is prancing with baton.
But the people are not fooled. Partly as a result of the Alar
Rebellion, people now know that corporate chemicals of all kinds
are making them and their children sick in numerous ways, and
that the government is playing along.
No, people are not fooled. They may not yet see a way to erase
from the face of the earth the institution that is responsible
for their distress: the huge, publicly-traded corporation. But
that time will come. Indeed, if the human species is to survive,
that time must come.
--Peter Montague
(National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO)
===============
[1] For example, see the final chapter in Lawrence Goodwyn, THE
POPULIST MOMENT (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
[2] Eileen O. van Ravenswaay and John P. Hoehn, STAFF PAPER: THE
IMPACT OF HEALTH RISK ON FOOD DEMAND [NO. 90-31] (East Lansing,
Michigan: Department of Agricultural Economics, East Lansing,
Michigan, June 1990).
[3] Al Heier, "EPA Accelerates Process to Cancel Daminozide
[Alar] Uses on Apples; Extends Tolerance," EPA ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
[press release] February 1, 1989. Heier can be reached at (202)
260-4374.
[4] Beth Rosenberg, "The Story of the Alar Ban: Politics and
Unforeseen Consequences," NEW SOLUTIONS (Winter, 1996), pg. 39.
[5] Beth Rosenberg, cited above, pgs. 40, 46.
[6] Adam Finkel, "Toward Less Misleading Comparisons of Uncertain
Risks: The Example of Aflatoxin and Alar," ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
PERSPECTIVES Vol. 103, No. 4 (April 1995), pgs. 376-385.
[7] Kenneth Smith, ALAR: ONE YEAR LATER (New York: American
Council on Science and Health, March, 1990). And: Kenneth Smith,
ALAR: THREE YEARS LATER (New York: American Council on Science
and Health, February, 1992). And: Kenneth Smith, ALAR: FIVE YEARS
LATER (New York: American Council on Science and Health,
February, 1994).
[8] Cronkite quoted in Howard Kurtz, "Dr. Whelan's Media
Operation," COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW Vol. 8, No. 6 (March
1990), pgs. 43-47.
[9] See SCIENCE Vol. 244 (April 7, 1989), pg. 9; SCIENCE Vol. 259
(March 26, 1993), pg. 1807; SCIENCE Vol. 261 (July 23, 1993), pg.
407.
[10] Henry I. Miller, "A Need to Reinvent Biotechnology
Regulation at EPA," SCIENCE Vol. 266 (December 16, 1994), pg.
1815.
Descriptor terms: alar; apples; pesticides; american council on
science and health; elizabeth whelan; philip abelson; daniel
koshland; daminozide; udmh; carcinogens; science magazine;
propaganda; alar rebellion; uniroyal; corporations; regulation;
national toxicology program; acsh; libertarianism; epa; nrdc;
natural resources defense council; walter cronkite; american
association for the advancement of science;
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