Myrl Jeffcoat and Coleah Penley Ayers ... have recently claimed they
have no idea about ACSH ... the frontgroup Barrett has been part of
since the 1970's ...

So here girls ...

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q4/panic.html

Panic Attack: ACSH Fears Nothing but Fear Itself

Although the American Council on Science and Health styles itself as a
"scientific" organization, it does not carry out any independent
primary research. Instead, it specializes in generating media
advisories that criticize or praise scientists depending on whether
they agree with ACSH's philosophy. It has mastered the modern media
sound byte, issuing a regular stream of news releases with catchy,
quotable phrases responding to hot-button environmental issues.

USA Today cites ACSH as one of its most frequently-quoted sources for
information on public health issues. ACSH itself carefully tabulates
its media successes in a periodic "ACSH Media Update" provided to the
corporations and other funders that support its work. A look at its
media update for the period from July 1997 through January 1998
provides a revealing list of headlines:

"A Global Scare: The Environmental Doomsday Machine is in High Gear"
(one of six stories cited that dismisses dangers of global warming)
"Irradiation Only Sure Method to Protect U.S. Food Supply"
"Safe Meat: There Is a Better Way" (a Wall Street Journal editorial in
which Whelan criticizes the USDA's August 1997 recall of E. coli
contaminated beef from Hudson Foods)
"Evidence Lacking that PCB Levels Harm Health"
"The Fuzzy Science Behind New Clean-Air Rules"
"Screaming About Breast Cancer"
"Environmental Alarmists Can't Explain Progress in Public Health"
"Eat Beef, America" and "Salad Days are Over"
"Alcohol's Good Side: Moderate Use"
"At Christmas Dinner, Let Us Be Thankful for Pesticides and Safe Food"
ACSH calls the U.S. ban on DDT one of the 20 worst unfounded health
scares of the 20th century. It ridicules the risks that chemical
"endocrine disruptors" pose to human health and fertility. In addition
to pesticides and chemical food additives, it has defended asbestos,
Agent Orange and nuclear power. Whelan's nutritional advice has also
raised eyebrows among health experts, many of whom take exception to
her claims that there is "no such thing as 'junk food,' " and that
"There is insufficient evidence of a relationship between diet and any
disease."

Whelan is the author of books titled Panic in the Pantry and Toxic
Terror. An ACSH-published magazine called Priorities features articles
with titles like "Toxic Terror on the Golf Course," which defends the
use of pesticides and chemicals on golf courses; "The Media's War on
Essential Chemicals"; "Inflated Fear on the Magazine Rack," which
criticizes women's magazines for suggesting that there are health
risks from silicone breast implants; and "The Consumer Rights Movement
Exposed," which takes on Consumer's Union (the publisher of Consumer
Reports), along with the Center for Science in the Public Interest and
the Consumer Federation of America.

The notion that environmentalists and consumer groups are "terrorists"
is a recurring theme in ACSH publications. For example, ACSH uses the
term "mouse terrorism," which it defines as "the indiscriminate use of
a single animal cancer test to determine human cancer risks," to
dismiss the results of toxicology tests based on animal tests. "'Mouse
terrorism' is becoming the single most influential research method
used to control the availability of or even to ban useful
pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals and technologies," argued a
1995 ACSH newsletter. The same issue carried a brief review by Whelan
of The Safe Shopper's Bible, a new book by David Steinman and Dr.
Samuel Epstein. "Those specializing in terrorizing consumers about
alleged toxins in food must be running out of ideas," Whelan declared.

Whelan used similar language in 1990, when she participated in a PR
campaign by Ketchum Communications against Steinman's earlier book,
Diet for a Poisoned Planet. (See related story in this issue.)

In Panic in the Pantry and other publications, Whelan argues that
public concerns about food safety are simply irrational fears fed by
unscientific manipulators of emotion.
 

Fear not Facts
In 1997, ACSH released a "special report" in pamphlet form titled
"Facts Versus Fears: A Review of the 20 Greatest Unfounded Health
Scares of Recent Times." Compiled by ACSH Director of Media and
Development Adam Lieberman, the list included DDT, cyclamates, the
hormone DES in beef, the chemical contamination of Love Canal, dioxin
at Times Beach, and asbestos. Lieberman's "study" devoted
approximately one and a half pages to each "scare," including
footnotes (which draw heavily on Whelan's writings).

A mass mailing of "Facts Versus Fears" to journalists generated
countless uncritical stories in which reporters, ranging from Jane
Brody of the New York Times to William Wineke of the Wisconsin State
Journal, repeated Lieberman's conclusions or simply quoted them
verbatim. Paul Harvey described it as "meticulously documented." An
editorial in the Kentucky Enquirer used arguments from "Facts Versus
Fears" to conclude that "we have plenty of reason and experience to be
wary of overreacting to issues driven by ideology rather than sound
science."

Not long after its publication, however, Lieberman himself underwent a
political change of heart and published a confessional in Mother Jones
in which he admitted that his own work was motivated primarily by
conservative ideology. Morever, he noted, ACSH itself was engaged in
fear-mongering. "I was placed in the position of suggesting that the
future of society was in jeopardy if consumers rejected the use of the
fat substitute olestra or the milk-producing growth hormone rBST in
cows," he stated.

Do Environmentalists Cause Malaria?
It is impossible to find a report anywhere in the mass media in which
a journalist actually attempted to independently verify or critique
the arguments in "Facts Versus Fears." If they had, they would have
immediately noted serious problems.

Lieberman's verdict on DDT, for example, is a straight rehash of
Whelan's arguments in Toxic Terror, in which she claims that
environmentalist opposition to the pesticide is responsible for a
worldwide resurgence of mosquito-borne malaria.

"The scientific evidence for banning DDT were purely based on mice
studies. There's no evidence of human health problems," Lieberman
added, citing "ACSH scientists and physicians" who claim that DDT has
prevented hundreds of millions of malaria deaths.

Outside of ACSH, however, most scientists today credit the DDT ban for
rescuing the bald eagle and other endangered species from the brink of
extinction. "And there's no question that helping save them has helped
save us," adds Louis Guillette, a University of Florida biologist.
"Because if something is affecting wildlife, it's affecting humans,
too." Indeed, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today lists DDT
as a suspected carcinogen.



"I was placed in the position
of suggesting that the future
of society was in jeopardy
if consumers rejected the use
of the fat substitute olestra
or the milk-producing growth
hormone rBST in cows,"
Lieberman admitted.



To build her case regarding malaria, Whelan points to the case of Sri
Lanka, where use of DDT to control mosquitoes brought the number of
malaria cases down from 1 million in 1955 to just 18 in 1963.
Following the cessation of DDT use, the mosquitoes (and malaria)
returned to their previous levels.

The U.S. ban on DDT, however, was not enacted until 1972, and spraying
in Sri Lanka was discontinued in 1963 for budgetary reasons, not
environmental concerns. In fact, DDT is still used today in many parts
of the world to control malaria--including India, China, South
America, Africa and Malaysia. "Widespread continuing usage of DDT is
evident across a wide range of environmental samples (air, water,
soil, sediment, fish, biota, foodstuffs, breast milk, blood serum,
human fat, and more) that are routinely reported in scientific
journals," notes Byron Bodo, a Canadian scientist and university
professor who has worked extensively on water quality and other
environmental issues.

One of the major problems with using pesticides, however, is that
insect populations rapidly evolve to develop resistance to the
chemicals. In fact, heavy use of DDT for agricultural purposes (as
distinct from public health uses) is one of the major factors which
are enabling the disease to make a comeback.

"At the very time malaria control efforts were splintering or
collapsing, the agricultural use of DDT and its sister compounds was
soaring. Almost overnight resistant mosquito populations appeared all
over the world," notes author Laurie Garrett in her 1994 book, The
Coming Plague. At about the same time, antibiotic-resistant strains of
malaria began to emerge.

"To make matters worse, some Asian strains of the malaria parasite
have developed resistance to available anti-malarial drugs," Bodo
observes. "The combination of pesticide resistance in the transmission
vector, the resistance of the parasite to anti-malarial drugs, and the
virtual impossibility of mounting an effective quarantine in a modern
world where 500 million+ people annually move relatively freely across
borders, has knowledgeable public health officials fearful that a
major global resurgence of malaria may be in the offing."

Ironically, writer Rachel Carson, whom Lieberman and Whelan blame for
creating the "DDT scare," was one of the first people to warn that
widespread agricultural use of insecticides could undermine efforts to
control disease.

"No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be
ignored," Carson wrote in her 1962 book, Silent Spring, before adding
prophetically, "The question that has now urgently presented itself is
whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by
methods that are rapidly making it worse. . . . The insect enemy has
been made stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed
our very means of fighting."

Is Vegetarianism an Eating Disorder?
Sometimes ACSH's analysis of public health issues is built around
manipulations of emphasis rather than wholesale rejection of the
facts. In a 1997 booklet titled "Vegetarianism," for example, ACSH
staffer Kathleen Meister performs an artful dance around the facts
which acknowledges the healthy potential of a meatless diet while
simultaneously providing intellectual ammunition for ACSH's
meat-industry patrons.

Of course, meat in moderate quantities can be part of a healthy diet,
but the typical American diet today involves a much higher level of
meat consumption than even ACSH can defend. Meister's study therefore
ignores the consequences of the typical high-fat, low-fiber Western
diet, while dramatizing hypothetical health risks to that small
portion of the American population which not only avoids meat entirely
but avoids dairy products and eggs as well. By Meister's own estimate,
less than 2 percent of the U.S. population falls into this category.

"Many people choose a vegetarian diet because they believe that
vegetarianism is associated with good health," Meister admits. "A
substantial body of scientific literature supports this belief.
Several large epidemiologic studies have indicated that vegetarians
(primarily lacto- or lacto-ovo-vegetarians) have lower mortality rates
and lower rates of chronic diseases than do meat eaters."

She then attempts, however, to explain away these studies by arguing
that "Vegetarians may be healthy for reasons not related to their
dietary choices. Many vegetarians are health conscious; they exercise
regularly, maintain a desirable body weight, don't smoke, don't abuse
illegal drugs, and don't abuse alcohol."



"Vegetarianism may represent
a 'politically correct' way to
rationalize an eating disorder
. . . to explain away bizarre
eating practices such as
eating mainly salads and vegetables."
--ACSH's Kathleen Meister



After quickly disposing of the evidence in favor of vegetarianism,
Meister warms to the attack, warning about what she calls the "danger
of extremism. . . . There have been tragic cases in which parents who
were attracted to 'alternative' medical practices and philosophies
have irreversibly damaged their children's health by feeding them
inappropriate diets, relying on unproved health practices, and
avoiding scientifically based medical care. Often, vegetarianism has
been involved in such situations, usually in combination with other
unconventional practices. . . . The result, in several reported cases,
has been serious--even fatal--illness."

Moreover, Meister adds, these dangers may increase when kids go off to
school: "Animal-rights groups and environmental organizations that
discourage meat consumption are active on college campuses and even at
some high schools. These organizations are often very aggressive in
presenting their messages, and some young people are strongly
attracted by their emotional appeals. . . . Some health professionals
who treat young people with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa
and bulimia report that they are seeing increasing numbers of young
vegetarians who avoid eating meat because they fear that it will make
them fat."

The point of the whole exercise is clear from the headline of the news
release that comes packaged with the pamphlet: "You don't have to give
up meat to enjoy the benefits of a healthy diet."

Notwithstanding Meister's admission that a meatless diet can be
healthy, the pamphlet provides a ready source of
authoritative-sounding sound bytes that Mary Young of the National
Cattlemen's Beef Association uses to warn the public against giving in
to vegetarian impulses.

In response to a newspaper story about vegetarian actress Jennie
Garth, for example, Young cites Meister's opinion that "some teen-age
and college-age women who describe themselves as vegetarians may
actually be practicing unhealthy forms of weight control or suffering
from an eating disorder."