Word: alar
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...likelihood, causes cancer and even in trace amounts it may put the immune, reproductive and developmental systems at risk. "We've gone through a period in which the public has pooh-poohed other potential dangers," says TIME senior editor Charles Alexander. "People have said we've over-reacted to alar and radon and asbestos. This report goes against that trend. It says that dioxin really is dangerous...
There was a similar pattern of uncertainty in judgments about Alar, radon and even some forms of PCBs and asbestos. Citing government studies, environmentalists sounded the alarm about toxicity and cancer. The public fretted. Officials issued warnings and regulations. But then skeptical scientists re-evaluated the threat and began to argue that the risks had been exaggerated. After this series of debates, people are wondering if they have been unduly frightened by overzealous, if well-meaning, regulators...
...amount just below the lethal level. In the case of the artificial sweetener saccharin, mice were given the equivalent of hundreds of cans of diet soda a day; similarly, a person would have had to eat thousands of apples a day to get the maximum tolerated dose of Alar, a fruit-ripening chemical used by growers until it was withdrawn from the market because of a cancer scare. If as few as five mice out of 200 given these megadoses develop tumors over two years, the substance is usually labeled a carcinogen...
...problem if he visits Colorado. The state's house of representatives passed a bill on Feb. 4 to prohibit anyone from making disparaging comments about perishable fruit, vegetables and dairy products. Supporters of the bill, who contend it won't curtail First Amendment rights, believe the 1989 controversy over Alar-sprayed apples proves that agricultural goods need special protection from defamatory comments. The measure, which awaits a vote by the Colorado senate, was drafted by Representative Steve Acquafresca, who moonlights as a consultant to fruit growers...
...haven't been this disillusioned since my senior year of high school when I heard on the news that the pesticide Alar, when sprayed on apples and made into apple juice, causes cancer. What comforts a person who has just found out that she had been consuming heavy doses of carcinogens for the past 17 years...