CNN's website featured the release of "How Safe is Our produce?" as
its lead story for most of the day 2/18, and a broadcast report appeared
four or more times. Their website included links to the technical report on
the CU FQPA site. As a result of this link and many other broadcast
reports, we had just over 18,000 hits that day, with over 9,000 accesses to
the 71 page technical report in about 12 hours! The ability of the web to
move large amounts of information quickly and inexpensively is amazing.
Predictably, the debate is underway on our findings, methods and
data. We are committed to responding to mis-information and unscientific
attacks on the report. If you run across items on the report in your local
papers or various list-servers, please e-mail them to me personally at
<benbrook@hillnet.com> or fax them to 208-263-7342. If anyone wants more
information on the issues and CU's response to various critics/critiques,
please e-mail me directly.
Also, the Environmental Working Group ran a full page advertisement
today Monday) on the back page of the business section of the New York Times
on Alar -- 10 Years After, and current levels of pesticides in/on apples.
They have launched a new feature on their Foodnews website called "Apple a
Day." Its accessible at <www.foodnews.org> and basically draws upon USDA
Pesticide Data Program to show the pesticide residues a person would consume
if they followed the advice to eat "an apple a day" for a year. This site
will also trigger strong responses, no doubt.
Hopefully these very data-intensive materials and resources will be
useful to those of you working with consumers and/or to change the country's
approach to pest management and pesticide regulation. They also will be a
test of whether grower groups and the ag community, in general, is really
interested in data- and science-based implementation of the FQPA. Some
groups (like the AFB) will not be able to resist the temptation to shoot the
messenger, but the data remain and as the public learns more about it, the
pressure will grow to remove the relatively few high-risk pesticides from
foods heavily consumed by children.
chuck
Charles Benbrook 208-263-5236 (voice)
Benbrook Consulting Services 208-263-7342 (fax)
5085 Upper Pack River Road benbrook@hillnet.com [e-mail]
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864 http://www.pmac.net
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