02/03/05 Alar sixteen years later, Part two

At the height of the Alar scare that crippled the apple industry in 1989 and the early 1990's, many schools took apples off their lunch room menus, Alar & which was proven not to be the health risk CBS's 60 Minutes claimed to be & was taken of the market, and the industry had estimated to have lost $375 million dollars as a result. Even though it was later shown that the alar report was based on faulty, if not misleading, scientific information, it was public perception not fact that ruled the day. And fruit industry leaders, like Fred Valentine who headed the Washington State Horticultural Association during the Alar scare, learned valuable lessons about getting the right message about apples out, and being on top of issues that could threaten business. VALENTINE: One of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life, I went to the Hort meeting and conducted that meeting, I was so proud everything had gone good, then I got home and it said on the front page "Fred Valentine says don't worry about alar, we export all that fruit". So old big mouth stuck his foot right in it, and the phone started ringing off the hook. And three days later I was in a media training session. Since that time various commodity and ag groups have learned how to become more proactive in addressing issues, and getting their point of view out in a timely and factual fashion when negative reports come out. More on that in our next program.