Reed Irvine - Editor
CBS reportedly pays Bill Moyers around $1 million a year to produce documentaries and commentary for the CBS Evening News. In previous reports we have called attention to the serious flaws in two of Moyers' documentaries, "Central America in Revolt," and "People Like Us," as well as to the flaws in his character. (See the AIM Reports of April-I, "CBS Aids America's Enemies," May-II, "Pimping for Poverty," and June-II, "A Little Moyers Goes a Long Way"].
On the CBS Evening News on August 5 and 6, Moyers struck again, and once again he struck out as far as factual accuracy was concerned. This time he performed a lobbying service for those who were interested in passing certain amendments to the Pesticide Control Bill that was voted on in the House of Representatives on August 11. Moyers, of course, cast himself in the role of the honest crusader for the public interest. There is evidence that he was actually carrying water for a radical group called "Science for the People," whose goals include "exposing the close cuntrol of science and technology."
The target of Moyers' attack was a giant corporation, Union Carbide, and a highly successful product that it produces called "Temik." Temik is a pesticide, which has proven to be very effective in controlling microscopic, worm-like creatures called nematodes, which feed on the roots of fruit trees and seriously undermine their health. It is also used on other crops, greatly increasing productivity. It has proven invaluable to citrus growers in Florida. Temik is a systemic pesticide, meaning that it is applied to the ground and is absorbed into the plant by the roots, rather than being applied to the leaves and fruit. This is advantageous not only in destroying pests such as nematodes, which cannot be attacked by spraying the foliage, but also from an environmental point of view. Residues don't remain on the leaves and fruit, presenting less exposure to birds and other wildlife, and well as to human consumers of the food.
Like virtually all chemical compounds, Temik is dangerous to humans if ingested in excessive amounts.
Union Carbide chemists have subjected it to extensive testing, and in cooperation with EPA have determined the bounds within which its use presents no health hazards. EPA has developed a number of "tolerance levels" governing the amount of Temik that is considered safe for fruits, vegetables, water, milk, etc., since traces of the chemical will be absorbed into the edible portions of the crops on which it is used.
There are, of course, those who deplore the use of any chemicals, including fertilizers, in agriculture. However, chemistry has been a key factor in the tremendous growth of agricultural productivity in this country, helping to make it possible for a scant three percent of the population to produce the food and fiber that we require for our own sustenance, as well as enough surplus to supply much of the rest of the world. Moyers' attack on Temik was so inaccurate and dishonest that it must be classed with the work of the extremists who seem to be intent on discrediting and reversing the scientific advances that have made such gains possible.
It is slightly ironic that Moyers based part of his criticism of Union Carbide on the allegation that the company was being excessively secretive about data on the health effects of Temik. Moyers' charges were aired only three weeks after CBS had announced that it was going to keep secret the report of the investigation into its documentary smearlug Gen. Westmoreland. CBS contends that since it is a private company, it has no obligation to reveal the contents of that report, which, if honestly done, wouM tell us how CBS News broke its own rules to "get" Gen. Westmoreland.
A spokesman for Union Carbide had explained to Moyers why his company felt obliged to place restrictions on the disclosure to the public of technical data about Temik. Jack McWhirter, a vice president of the company, explained that the data constitute valuable property and that it is necessary to keep such data from being disclosed to competitors who might be able to use the information to develop, register and market a competitive product.
The validity of this argument was demonstrated recently when it became known that the secret formula for "Roundup," a weed-killer developed by Monsanto Chemical, had been disclosed to a lawyer representing many of Monsanto's competitors by a clerk at the Environmental Protection Agency. The formula had been included by error in a package of documents supplied to the lawyer in response to a Freedom of Information request. A chemical industry spokesman commenting on this blunder pointed out that it takes an average of eight years to get a pesticide registered with the EPA and that the tests and research cost around $35 million. While Monsanto's rights to "Roundup", the largest selling herbicide in the world, may be protected in the U.S., a competitor who obtained the formula could register it abroad in Japan or France without investing the huge sums that Monsanto put into the development of the product.
Bill Moyers gave his viewers the impression that Union Carbide was unwilling to disclose its health and safety data on Temik to anyone, which he knew to be false. Jack McWhirter stressed in his talks with Moyers' staff that Union Carbide would supply such data to any reputable scientist who would agree not to publish details of data, which might be of value to competitors. Such scientists would, of course, be free to draw their own conclusions about the safety of the product and make them public. McWhirter also made it clear that all the data are made available to the EPA.
Those statements were edited out of the portion of the interview with McWhirter that was used on the broadcast. Moyere gave no indication that the data have been made available to the EPA or that they are available to responsible scientists willing to abide by Union Carbide's conditions.
On the contrary, Moyers used his own secret source, an individual identified only as an "unidentified scientist," who was shown saying: "The company protects their data and keeps it secret. Good or bad, it has the potential for enormous harm to the public because the light of day will never uncover a bad decision by EPA until it's too late." Moyers then added: "These are issues affecting the health and safety of human beings. But Union Carbide says it must guard its secrets for fear of the competition."
Moyers gave his viewers the impression that the EPA is seriously negligent in dealing with Temik. He said, "We wanted to talk to the administrator of the EPA about these issues, but she sent word that she was too busy. So the public must depend for reassurance on those who have the most to gain commercially from Temik's widespread use."
The truth, not disclosed anywhere in the program, is that Jay Ellenberger, an EPA pesticides expert, spent 15 hours talking with researchers for Bill Moyers and other reporters working on the Temik story. Mr. Ellenberger
has told us that his immediate superior spent almost an equal amount of time talking to Moyers' researchers and the journalists. Certainly honest reporting would require that in conjunction with stating that the EPA Administrator refused to discuss the matter, there should have been some mention of the fact that EPA experts had disconed the Temik case with Moyers' researchers at length. In view of this, the statement that the public must depend for reassurance on the manufacturer, not EPA, is grossly misleading.
Moyers further suggested that EPA was not doing its job of protecting the public against the alleged dangers of Temik with this statement, "We do know this. The approved tolerance levels set by the EPA for Temik in milk is 2 parts per billion (ppb], for water 10 ppb, and for orange juice 300 ppb--thirty times more than is allowed in water. That's because the tolerance levels set by EPA have more to do with how much pesticide is needed to kill the insect than how much pesticide residue in food is safe for long-term human consumption."
First of all we have been informed that the tolerance level for Temik of 300 ppb is for the entire orange, not orange juice. That includes the rind. Union Carbide and EPA have found that the average residue levels for oranges in areas treated with Temik are 58 ppb for the rind and 16 ppb for the juice. The question EPA considered was what level is safe for humans consuming oranges. On the basis of the scientific data available to them, they concluded that levels as high as 300 ppb would pose no threat to human health. The level could have been set much lower, but a much lower level could occasionally necessitate the condemnation of oranges with levels of Temik that posed no danger to human health on the basis of scientific evidence available to EPA.
Without apparently inquiring into the reasons for the differing levels set for milk, water and oranges. Bill Moyers leaped to the conclusion that EPA disregarded health considerations in setting the level for oranges far higher than the level for milk and water. This statement was Moyers' personal opinion, not based on any scientific information. It was strongly disputed by EPA, a fact that Moyers' researchers surely knew.
EPA has a tendency to set the tolerance levels as low as is reasonably possible even though higher levels may be perfectly safe. For example, practically no Temik residues are found in milk, and a 9 ppb tolerance level presents no problem for milk producers. That does not mean that a higher level would not be safe. Perhaps CBS News would argue that the tolerance level for milk or water ought to be set at 300 ppb if that is considered safe for oranges. And parhaps that is the most logical position. On the other hand, the scientists at EPA might be concerned about being criticized far setting tolerance levels far above any level of contamination experienced and perhaps thereby encouraging carelessly increased contamination.
Moyers was not interested in explaining such complexities to his viewers, or giving the EPA's explanation for its actions. He preferred his own unscientific conclusions.
Moyers sought to create the impression that Temik is an extremely dangerous chemical whose long-term health effects are unknown. He showed his secret unidentified scientist saying, "Temik is so toxic it cannot be tested at high levels in small animals. The animals will die if you give them too much." Moyers then said, "In other words,we do not know enough about the long-range, chronic consequences of Temik in the orange juice we're drinking every day. We just don't know."
If the "unidentified scientist" is really a scientist, he surely knows that his statement about the toxicity of Temik is misleading in the sense that there are thousands of chemicals that will kill if administered in large doses. That is true of ordinary table salt. That proves nothing whatsoever about the long-range health effects of Temik, and the conclusion that Moyers drew from the statement was totally unwarranted.
Union Carbide and EPA both agree that the data show that Temik has no chronic health effects. Extensive independent long-term exposure studies of its active ingredient, aldicarb, show that it does not cause cancer, mutations, birth defects, or reproductive problems in various test animals. EPA's Hazard Evaluation Division has said, "Aidicarb's activity in living organisms has been studied extensively. It is not carcinogenic, chronically toxic, neurotoxic, teratogenic, fetotoxic or mutagenic. It does not accumulate in the mammalian organism."
Instead of reporting these scientific findings, Moyers chose to frighten his viewers. His scare tactics were augmented by the cloud of suspicion he cast over the "orange juice we're drinking every day." That surely gives the impression that with every sip we are imbibing a little Temik. The governor of Florida appointed a scientific task force to check out such allegations. They obtained 256 samples of orange and grapefruit juice concentrates from markets in every state. No Temik was found in any of these samples. A Food and Drug Administration study came up with similar results.
Moyers aired charges that Temik was contaminating ground water in Florida to a dangerous degree. In the first broadcast, Moyars brought out the fact that the ground water had been contaminated by Temik on Long Island. He suggested that this might also he true in Florida, because the soil is similar. Moyers said: "That worries some scientists. They're worried about the contamination of the drinking water here (Florida) and they're worried about what this poisonous chemical is doing to citrus and the juice we get from it."
The only scientist Moyers produced who expressed such fears was the same unidentified individual who was used throughout the program to bolster Moyers' unscientific conclusions. This man said that it was a 100 percent probability that the ground water in Florida had been contaminated by Temik, but he produced no data to support that claim.
Union Carbide agrees that ground water on Long Island was contaminated, and they stopped selling Temik there. They contend that the soil conditions in Florida are different from Long Island. The soil is less acid, has a higher average temperature, a higher percentage of organic matter, and higher microorganism activity. They say that for these reasons Temik decomposes more rapidly into harmless substances. They also say that they have monitored the ground water in Florida and have found no dangerous levels of contemination.
Moyers showed Mr. McWhirter saying, "It's hard to be 100 percent sure of anything, I guess, but our scientific data and our calculations and models said to us that under Florida conditions, there should not be a problem." This was immediately followed by the "unidentified scientist" saying that the probability of contamination was 100 percent. The Union Carbide statement was made to sound as if their knowledge was based on theory, rather than observation of the results. The mysterious unidentified witness was given great credibility by Moyers despite his failure to cite any evidence to back up his statements. Union Carbide, which has the evidence, was not shown indicating that they have any such evidence.
Moyers began his program interviewing two critics of Temik, Ted Goldfarb and Dan Wartenberg, identified as "two scientists from the State University of New York who have been studying the effects of Temik." These men deserved a fuller identification. It is probable that they had a great deal to do with the sudden spurt of journalistic interest in Temik just prior to the consideration by the House of the Pesticide Control Bill. They are both members of a leftwing group known as "Science for the People (SFTP)". Warrenberg, who is only a graduate student, has been identified as the top policy man for this group in the U.S.
"Science for the People" has said that its goals include "exposing the class control of science and technology, developing a political strategy by which people in the technical strata can ally with other progressive forces in society, and opposing the ideologies of sexism, racism, elitism and their practice.' They say they "hold an anti-imperialist world view." During the Vietnam war, SFTP made its contribution to the war effort by collecting scientific equipment and technical materials for the Vietnamese communists. Many of its members were reported in 1976 to be oriented toward Manism.
There is evidence that Moyers' broadcasts were part of a well coordinated campaign to bring public pressure to bear on Congress to pass the Pesticide Control Bill that came before the House of Representatives on August 11. Material similar to Moyers' broadcasts were distributed by a group called Network News Service, whose reporters had interviewed Union Carbide and EPA officials about the time that Moyers' staff was doing the same. Similar stories with similar inaccuracies were carried by the Orlando Sentinel and the Tampa Tribune on August 1 and 3 respectively. UPI ran a similar story on August 2 and the AP and States News Service had similar stories on August 3.
Two amendments to the Pesticide Control Bill got strong support from the misleading statements in the Mayera broadcast. One gave the states the power to set their own limits on pesticide use, superseding the authority of the EPA. This probably explains why Mayera misled his viewers into thinking that the EPA was falling down on the job of regulating pesticides.
The other guaranteed the access of scientists to manufacturers' data on pesticides. This probably explains why Moyers falsely gave the impression that Union Carbide was concealing its data from all scientists, including the EPA.
The industry opposed these amendments. They see serious problems in having to deal with 50 little EPAs in all the states, and they fear that loopholes in the second of these amendments may result in the disclosure of proprietary information to competitors. Nevertheless, with the help given by Mayors' inaccurate, misleading, and unfair broadcasts both amendments passed.
Mayors' broadcasts on Temik were riddied with errors and misleading statements. This was all done, it appears, to help secure the passage of certain legislation. The Florida citrus industry, a $2 billion a year business, could have been seriously harmed if Mayera' broadcasts had been taken more seriously. The story was not picked up by many newspapers outside of Florida and got no national 'IV coverage except by CBS.
A Nod to the Critics Wrong AgainCBS has heard from the critics of the Moyors' programs, including AIM. Without acknowledging that he was responding to criticism, Moyers returned to the subject of Temik on the CBS Evening News on September 22. He aired for the first time that portion of the interview with Jack McWhirter in which the Union Carbide vice president explained that the company would supply data on Temik to government authorities and to scientists who would agree to keep the information from falling into the hands of competitors. However, Moyors tried to undercut McWhirtcr's statement.
He said, "The terms of the Union Carbide position pose difficulties for scientists and the public. Rarely do regulatory agencies conduct tests of their own to verify the data they review." That is progress for Moyers. Instead of leaving the impression that the company was refusing to disclose information to the government as in his earlier programs, he was now merely suggesting that the data they supplied might not be trustworthy.
Actually EPA provides detailed and strict instructions to manufacturers conducting tests for safety of their products, and they carefully monitor and check the results. Many of these tests require years of work and cost a great deal of money. EPA feels that this is an expense that should be borne by the manufacturers, not the taxpayers. If the manufacturers falsified the results, they would be subject to heavy penalties.
Forced to acknowledge that Union Carbide was willing to release its health and safety data under certain conditions. Moyers attacked the company from a different angle, but again he proved to be in error. He said, "Even scientists willing to accept the secrecy requirements can still be given a hard time. Consider the experience of a coalition of the National Resources Defense Council and the AFL-CIO, which invoked a 1978 law to seek the health and safety data on Temik. Some companies resisted so stubbornly that the coalition was forced to go to court. Only last week did the EPA finally overrule Union Carbide's objections and require release of the Temik studies."
Union Carbide was not forced by the court to provide these data. The AFL-CIO and NRDC court action in fact was against EPA, not Union Carbide. The EPA had been slow in providing data under the Freedom of Information Act not because of reluctance but because of the large volume of FOIA requests it was trying to process. There is a procedure under which manufacturers in such situations are given the right to specify which of their data about to be released should be withheld as "trade secrets". Union Carbide was concerned that EPA might release too much, but met with the AFL-CIO and NRDC and reached an agreement on what should be released.
Moyers has demonstrated his dedication to advocacy journalism. We must raise the question of whether or not Moyers' partisan, leftist advocacy journalism does not pose a serious problem for CBS News and its credibility.
You can protest Bill Moyers' reckless disregard of accuracy and fairness by writing to: Van Gordon Sauter, President, CBS News, 524 West 57th St., N.Y., N.Y. 10019, and to these sponsors of the programs on which he appeared.
J.L. Ferguson, Chairman, Sherman E. Rose, Chairman General Foods (Sanka Coffee) Subaru of America Inc. 77 Middlebrook Farm Road 7040 Central Highway Wilton, Conn. 06897 Pmmmuken, N.J. 08109
Abe Plough, Chairman, John Mariana, President Plough, Inc. Banff Products (Reunite Wine} (Maybelline & Dr. Scholl's) 200 Sherwood Ave. 3030 Jackson Ave. Farmingdale, N.Y. 11735 Memphis, Tenn. 382S2
Philip Caldwell, Chairman, Edward Jefferson, Chairman Ford Motor Go. E.I. DuPont de Nemours The American Road (Conoco] Dearborn, MI 48121 Box 3835 Greenville, DE 19807
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NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF By Reed Irvine, October-II 1982
FOR THE FOURTH TIME THIS YEAR WE ARE CRITICIZING BILL MOYERS OF CBS IN THE AIM Report. It is not that we are picking on Bill. He just seems to be prone to produce terribly inaccurate and unfair broadcasts. This time the subject is a pesticide called "Temik."
WE HAVE DEVOTED THE ENTIRE AIM REPORT THIS TIME TO THE CBS ATTACK ON A CHEMICAL that has proven to be very useful in increasing agricultural productivity. We probably have told you more about Temik than you really wanted to know, but I think the case is important as an illustration of how far Bill Moyers and CBS are willing to go to achieve their goals. We show very conclusively how they played fast and loose with the facts in order to prove their predetermined conclusion that Temik poses a serious threat to public health.
I WROTE TO VAN GORDON SAUTER, THE PRESIDENT OF CBS NEWS, ON SEPTEMBER 7, POINTING out these errors and asking for corrective action. It is three weeks since that letter went out, and I have not yet had a reply. I assume that Mr. Sauter is finding it a little difficult to refute what we have said, and CBS has never been inclined to admit its sins with alacrity. I suggest that you read the story and write to Mr. Sauter to urge him to take remedial action. We have also listed the companies that sponsored commercials on the CBS Evening News on the nights that Moyers' attacks on Temik were aired. I would urge you to write to them also.
HERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS. YOU CAN QUIT WRITING TO MR. SULZBERGER AT THE NEW YORK Times about Raymond Bonner. Bonner is no longer the correspondent for The Times in Central America. He has been reassigned to New York, where I hear he will be working on the business section. Sydney Gruson, who has written to many of you who wrote to Mr. Sulzberger about Bonner, has informed me that this is a normal rotation of personnel. I won't quarrel with that. I am just pleased to see Bonner located elsewhere, and I feel that the reporting from El Salvador in The Times has already shown a noticeable improvement.
MORE GOOD NEWS! A DISSIDENT SURFACED AT THE NEW YORK TIMES ON SEPTEMBER 14. I was startled to see among the letters to the editor that day one signed by A.M. Rosenthal, the executive editor of The New York Times. Mr. Rosenthal had written to the editor to say that he strongly disagreed with both the obituary and the editorial the Times had run on the late Wladyslaw Gomulka, the former boss of the Polish communist party. Mr. Rosenthal agreed with Prof. Andrew Ehrenkreutz of the University of Michigan, who had charged in another letter published in the paper that the coverage of Gomulka's death by the Times had resembled an official Polish press release. In its editorial, The Times said that Gomulka was "a man of courage and a true Polish patriot." It said he had "bravely defended his country's interests against the Kremlin." The Times obituary said that Gomulka had shown that "a Communist government could run a predominantly non-communist country without resorting to overt police terror."
EXECUTIVE EDITOR ROSENTHAL AGREED WITH PROF. EHRENKREUTZ THAT THIS WAS GRIEVOUSLY wrong. The professor had described Gomulka as "a stubborn ideologue who evolved into one of Moscow's most subservient henchmen." He had ushered in a new era of repression that included violent repression of church activity, an anti-semitic campaign, kangaroo trials of intellectuals, and attacks on shipyard workers that left hundreds dead.
MR. ROSENTHAL SAID THAT IT WAS INCORRECT TO SAY THAT GOMULKA HAD DEMONSTRATED THAT the communists could rule without resort to police terror. He was there in the late 1950s, serving as a correspondent for The Times, when Gomulka was killing off the freedoms that had blossomed in the wake of the 1956 workers' revolt. He said that like other communist dictators, Gomulka ruled through the power of the police. Rosenthal wrote: "I regret that this distortion of history and the suffering of the Polish people slipped by our editors. It is a distortion which is not easily dealt with by our usual formal correction, and I therefore offer my apologies."
ROSENTHAL'S LETTER WAS A STINGING REBUKE TO THOSE WHO WROTE THE GOMULKA EDITORIAL and the obituary. Rosenthal disclaimed any responsibility for the editorial, saying that as executive editor he had no Jurisdiction over the editorial page. However, obituaries fall within his province, and he was obviously one of the editors who let the Gomulka obituary slip by. We acknowledge his courage and candor in taking this unprecedented action to both apologize and set the record straight. There remains the question of why an editorial writer and an obituary writer employed by The Times and their immediate editors permitted such a grave distortion of history to be perpetrated. I am reminded that for many years the obituaries in The Times were edited by an admitted former member of the Communist Party, Alden Whitman. Whitman testified that he had been a party member from 1935 to 1948, when he said he resigned. I was frequently struck by how favorable Times' obituaries of deceased communists were during the period that Whitman was the editor. My suspicions that Whitman's break with the Communist Party may have been more formal than philosophical were strengthened when I read the review he wrote of the memoirs of Wilfred Burchett last year. Burchett, who had notoriously toed the party line for years and had been identified as having been a KGB agent, was praised by Whitman as a maverick journalist "who seems to wear no one's collar but his own." It would appear that Whitman, now retired, has left some disciples at The Times.
WHILE WE ARE HANDING OUT PRAISE, LET'S ACKNOWLEDGE A COUPLE OF GOOD PERFORMANCES by NBC and one by Mike Wallace and "60 Minutes." NBC has recently aired two good documentaries. The first was titled, "What Ever Happened to El Salvador?" It presented a view of the conflict there that was far different from what we have been getting from most of the big media. It actually featured interviews with U.S. Army advisers training the Salvadoran troops and with a Salvadoran officer. NBC had a camera crew accompany a Salvadoran army unit on patrol. Usually our reporters have a preference for the guerrillas. The documentary was so good that it has come under attack by the leftists, including the communist Daily World. The program was produced by Bob Rogers, who has one other fine work, and was narrated by Richard Valeriani and Bonnie Anderson. On September 21, NBC aired another fine documentary, "The Man Who Shot the Pope--A Study in Terrorism." This was an elaboration on the Claire Sterling article in the September Reader's Digest. It showed evidence that points very strongly to a conspiracy to kill the Pope that embraces the Soviet KGB and the Kremlin. Thanks to NBC's documentary this story finally got into the news in a fairly big way.
WE SUGGESTED AFTER THE CBS SMEAR OF GENERAL WETMORELAND THAT MIKE WALLACE, who was the correspondent on that program, ought to be fired. On September 26, Wallace did a segment for "60 Minutes" on the labor union boycott of Coors beer. To my surprise, the Coors Company came out looking very good and the boycott sponsors looked asinine. The charges of discrimination against minorities, women and gays were shot down by the employees themselves, and Coors was given high marks for its treatment of its workers. Is Mike striving to improve his image? Letters of commendation would be in order.
HERE IS A HOT LAST MINUTE RECOMMENDATION FOR ACTION. SENATOR TSONGAS HAS INTRODUCED a resolution in the Senate in favor of American material support to the freedom fighters in Afghanistan. This is now co-sponsored by 99 out of the 100 Senators, the largest backing of any resolution in history, but it is running into more resistance in the House. In spite of this overwhelming backing in the Senate and a press conference on September 30, it has not been mentioned by any of the networks or major newspapers. We urge you to phone or write your Congressman and Senators to back this important measure.