The Lessons Of The Alar Scare

June 14, 1989 Chicago Tribune


The maker of the pesticide alar bowed to the inevitable by pulling it off the market. The decision has been applauded by everyone worried by the alar scare. But far from making our food supply safer, it only shows how vulnerable we are to unfounded panic.

The scare started when the CBS News program ``60 Minutes`` aired a segment publicizing claims that 6,000 preschoolers may eventually get cancer from residues of the pesticide in apples and apple juice. It got help from Meryl Streep, who showed up on Capitol Hill and on TV talk shows to lobby against alar.

The stampede was on. Schools yanked apples off their menus; parents threw out their apple juice. The EPA began the process of banning alar. Finally, Uniroyal Chemical Co. simply stopped selling it.

Will Americans be safer? Probably not. Biochemist Bruce Ames of the University of California at Berkeley, an expert in the field, writes in Science magazine that the risk of cancer from the alar residue in a glass of apple juice is less than the risk from the natural carcinogens in a single mushroom or peanut butter sandwich.

``It is possible,`` he says, ``that almost every plant product in the supermarket contains natural carcinogens.`` Apple juice contains 137 natural volatile chemicals, and only 5 have been tested for cancer-causing properties. Ames points out that farmers deprived of alar will have to use more pesticides of other kinds. Alar prevents apples from falling prematurely; more premature falling will permit more unhealthy mold toxins in apple juice.

Never mind the scientific evidence, says Consumers Union: ``It is not the size of the risk but its moral offensiveness that makes the public respond so strongly.`` In fact, what makes the public respond so strongly is that it gets information about one risk without getting the information needed to make sense of it.

The result is exaggerated fears leading to hasty actions that may leave us in greater peril, not less. Coping with risk is one of the endless government tasks of the modern age. Alar is a case study in how not to do it.