Media Myth: Nine Worst Business Stories
(of the Last 50 Years)

2. Alar-ming Apples
 

     Spurred by a study from the leftist Natural Resources Defense Council, CBS’s Ed Bradley reported a Feb. 26, 1989, “60 Minutes” segment on daminozide, a pesticide used to keep apples attractive that Bradley dubbed “the most cancer-causing agent in the food supply.”

     Calling the NRDC report “the most careful study yet on daminozide and seven other cancer-causing agents,” Bradley parroted its finding that “we know that they do cause cancer.” Daminozide, sold under the brand name Alar, metabolized into unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), which had caused cancer in lab mice.

     A cancer risk in the food supply would be cause enough for panic. But Bradley took it a step further, claiming that “kids are at a high risk because they drink so much apple juice” and adding that there was no way to prevent consumption of the deadly toxin. “It’s supermarket roulette,” one expert said in the report. “You don’t know.”

     For “60 Minutes,” the story had the potential to be a ratings monster. For NRDC, it was a fundraising boon. A Sept. 13, 1998, article in The Washington Times quoted NRDC’s media consultant David Fenton saying, “A modest investment by NRDC re-paid itself many-fold in tremendous media exposure (and substantial, immediate revenue …).” The article also reported that Fenton “expressed delight in watching as farmers and manufacturers wound up trampled in the NRDC gold rush.”

     Meanwhile, the hammer fell hard on apple growers, while scientists later determined that the threat wasn’t as grave as the report had implied.

     Apple growers were rebounding from a bad year in 1987. Before the report aired, analysts were expecting apples to reach $15 a bushel in 1989, which an industry spokesman told the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 5, 1989, would be “an excellent year.”

     But when school districts quit serving apples during lunch and families stopped buying apples and apple products at the grocery store after Bradley’s report, sales and prices plummeted. They dropped to $12.62 a bushel on average. Red Delicious apples dropped from $18.67 per bushel in September 1988 to $8.40 per bushel in June 1989.

     Sales dropped so rapidly that the United States Department of Agriculture bought out $9.5 million worth of unsold apples to help farmers stay in business.

     Eleven apple growers sued CBS, NRDC and the public relations firm Fenton Communications for product disparagement in November 1990. That case ended in a decision for CBS because the courts decided the growers didn’t prove the report had lied.

     On April 7, 1989, three years after the report aired, Science Magazine published an editorial by Daniel Koshland comparing the “60 Minutes” segment to “the fable of the boy who cried wolf.” He described the public’s reaction as “predictable: school districts quickly canceled apple distribution and the fruit piled up on grocery shelves.”

     “The facts came more slowly,” he added. “Only 5 percent of apples are treated with Alar, and in that 5 percent the levels of Alar are well below conservative Environmental Protection Agency tolerances. Even in the worst case scenario the probability of cancer among the affected group would change from 25 percent to 25.025 percent.” A risk that might increase by only 25/1000ths of 1 percent – far from the widespread cancer scare the report had portrayed.

     The EPA didn’t even issue a firm conclusion on whether or not the chemical was actually harmful because Uniroyal, the company that manufactured Alar, pulled it off the market after the report. EPA’s analysis concluded that there is “evidence that UMDH causes tumors in laboratory animals and that lifetime dietary exposure to this product may result in an unacceptable risk to public health.”

     Bradley had claimed kids were at a higher risk because they consumed more apple products than adults, but according to The Heartland Institute, “the amount fed to mice before any effect was noted is equivalent to an average adult eating 28,000 pounds of Alar-treated apples each year for 70 years, or a 10-pound infant eating 1,750 pounds per year.”

     Other media coverage showed the impact of the Alar controversy:

• The LA Times later referred to the scare as “overblown” (June 5, 1990, and again on Sept. 1, 1993)
• In 1993, the LA Times reported that demand for organic apples rose so rapidly after the scare that they went from $25 a bushel to $75. (July 8, 1993)
• The Washington Post noted in 1993 that “no one wants another Alar scare.” (July 5)
• USA Today referred to the scare as “trial by press release,” noting that such reporting “does not mean that the truth has been revealed.” (June 24, 1993)

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