Critics Say Media Fed Food Scare

Consumer groups and the news media have irresponsibly raised public fears about pesticide residues, according to numerous supermarket executives who spoke recently at a grocery industry convention.

The retailers charged that advocacy organizations misinterpreted research data in order to alarm the public about farm chemicals. News organizations were also faulted for providing unbalanced coverage of the subsequent controversy.

These complaints were aired repeatedly at the Food Marketing Institute’s annual convention in Chicago last week. The institute’s 1,600 members operate 17,000 supermarkets and generate $180 billion in annual sales.

In particular, the industry representatives cited “alarmist” news coverage of a study indicating pesticide residues in produce pose a higher cancer risk to children than adults. The Natural Resources Defense Council’s report was, among other things, critical of growers’ continued use of Alar, a suspected carcinogen, on apples.

Robin Whyatt, an NRDC senior staff scientist, defended her groups’ report in an appearance before the convention.

In fact, she said, the study used the federal government’s data in determining the pesticide residue risk to children.

“This was not a worse-case assessment,” said Whyatt, who co-authored the group’s pesticide report. “The NRDC is not saying stop feeding children fruit and vegetables. (Produce) provides invaluable fiber and vitamins and is an essential component of young childrens’ diets. However, (it) is also likely to contain pesticide residue.”

Whyatt, and others at NRDC, have emphasized that their research was not designed to single out the problem of Alar on apples alone. Instead, the group hoped to influence the nation’s oveball pesticide policy.

“(We) looked at eight carcinogenic pesticides out of the 66 potential carcinogens that the Environmental Protection Agency estimates are currently being used on food,” she said. “We estimate that as many as 5,500 to 6,200 of the nation’s current preschoolers may get cancer sometime during their lives as a result of exposures to these carcinogens from birth to age 6.”

Whyatt also disputed claims that most cancer rates are declining or stable.

“These statements about declines in the rate of tumor incidence are simply not true,” she said. “There are a lot of different assessments. The National Cancer Institute’s data indicates that breast, lung and childhood cancers are increasing. . . . There is no consensus on this.”

(In a related development, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that it will begin the regulatory proceedings necessary to ban Alar.)

“In one fell swoop, the NRDC study pushed all the ‘hot buttons,’ ” said David Jenkins, chairman and CEO of Shaw Supermarkets in East Bridgewater, Mass. “It targeted produce, the number one category customers look to in choosing a supermarket; zeroed in on residues, the number one food safety concern and played to the public concern over our children.”

The report was designed to yield maximum media coverage and, thus, bring pressure to bear on the government to limit pesticide usage, another industry executive said.

“This is a deliberate shift in strategy, with more to come,” said Tim Hammonds, FMI’s senior vice president. “The environmental groups, having followed the legal route with our federal agencies, have concluded this strategy produces little or no results. They have now turned to a high profile media strategy to bring public opinion to bear on the government.”

The reports and headlines that resulted from the NRDC study, Hammonds said, created a “fear of feeding.”

The supermarket industry become involved in the pesticide debate even though the consumer groups’ goal is to reduce growers’ usage of chemicals on crops.

“Environmentalists have shifted public debate on food issues from the floors of Congress to the floors of the local supermarket,” said Cathy Jeffris of Associated Grocers Inc. in Seattle. “We experienced the widespread consumer panic.”

However, a former, high-ranking U.S. Food and Drug Administration official said the public’s fears about pesticides are misplaced.

“This is a situation that has gotten out of hand. . . . It’s panic time,” said Sanford Miller, dean of the University of Texas’ graduate school of biomedical sciences. “There is no public health problem as far as pesticides are concerned.”

Miller said that available data yield little evidence that farm chemicals have increased overall cancer rates in the last 20 to 30 years. During that period, he said, only lung cancer has increased, but mostly as a result of cigarette smoking.

“If pesticides are a problem then you’d be seeing that reflected in the health statistics. If children are more sensitive to these compounds then you would see an increase in the incidence of childhood tumors. We don’t see that,” he said.

Food-borne illnesses, such as bacteria and viruses, pose a much greater threat to consumers than do farm chemicals, Miller said.

Lost in the furor over pesticide residues is the role fruit and vegetable consumption can play in preventing cancer, said Paul A. Bernish, spokesman for the Kroger Co., a large Cincinnati-based supermarket chain.

Children are much more likely to be harmed by high-fat diets than the accumulated pesticide residues in food, he said.

“Simply observe the incredible number of overweight, obese kids you’ll see lined up at the fast food emporiums (in shopping malls),” said Bernish. “America is doing a terrific job of raising an entire new generation of cardiac patients.”

While consumer groups and the media concentrate on the theoretical risk posed by chemical residue in food, little has been reported on how a diet rich in fruit and vegetables may prevent certain cancers, he said. For instance, a recent National Research Council report recommended five servings a day of fruit and vegetables as an anti-cancer dietary guideline, but the study received scant news coverage.

“To boil down food safety to the issue of Alar on apples seems to me to be bordering on the irresponsible,” said Bernish. “The way the NRDC report was played in the media, we truly had a situation in which the baby was thrown out with the bath water.”

‘Consumers Are Scared’

Bernish further complained that the food industry is being held to an impossible standard by the media.

“The media takes it for granted that anything more than zero risk poses a public health hazard,” he said. “It is little wonder that consumers are scared.”

As for the media coverage of the recent pesticide controversy, one industry observer said that the reporting was generally “very responsible.”

Media’s ‘Credible Job’

“When a story breaks then there is little time to do anything but report on the research . . . or government-related action,” said Joe Saltzman, broadcast professor in the USC School of Journalism. “The media did as credible a job as you can do under those circumstances.”

Most news organizations, however, conducted more thorough investigations of the pesticide claims after the initial wave of stories on Alar and apples appeared, Saltzman said.

“When an industry or company is hurt because of something they did, then the idea usually is to blame the media and not the people who caused the problem,” he said. “The media didn’t put Alar on the apples.”

Despite the criticism of NRDC and the subsequent media coverage, most of the retailers acknowledged that the nation’s pesticide usage now needs to be re-evaluated. Most also called for a more aggressive federal regulation of the chemicals.

“Food processors and distributors have a moral as well as a legal responsibility to ensure the safety of the food supply at the points they control,” said Jeffris of Associate Grocers. “People have placed their trust . . . and well-being in the hands of this industry.”

Despite stating that farm chemicals were only a perceived risk, Miller also said that pesticide usage should be reduced.

“Pesticides are toxic because they have to be to kill insects and other organisms,” he said. “But there is always the problem of chemical misuse and worker exposure to these compounds. Another reason (to limit the substances) is their impact on the environment. . . . We need alternative methods of controlling pests.”

Growing Consensus

Even with the growing consensus for reducing residues in food, Miller said there was little effort by Congress to fund the research necessary to achieve this goal. Nor is the money likely to be forthcoming to increase government monitoring for potentially harmful residues in produce, he said.

“People are not ready for an FDA the size of the Pentagon,” he said. “Everybody talks about this issue, but Congress rarely appropriates more money to do the job.”