WASHINGTON -- Consumer activist Ralph Nader, critical of EPA failure to ban the use of a cancer-causing chemical on apples, says a consumer group network will investigate whether the chemical is present in certain foods.
In a letter Sunday to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Thomas, Nader outlined the agency's steps taken to determine the toxicity of Alar, also known as daminozide, which is applied to fruit trees as a growth regulator.
'Alar ... is used to delay fruit-ripening for easier harvest, and it makes apples redder and firmer,' the letter said. 'Alar also breaks down to unsymmetrical dimethyl-hydrazine (UDMH) which has been shown to cause cancer in animals.'
The EPA recommended several months ago that Alar be banned, the letter said, but withdrew its recommendation after an advisory panel report that doubted whether Alar was carcinogenic. The agency then placed Alar in the 'special review' category, 'which could take three or more years,' the letter said.
'Since the first report about Alar's danger was published in 1978 by the Eppley Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical School, it is deplorable that the EPA has taken so long to act, then retract, then initiate another process of delay,' the letter said.'
The letter informed Thomas that Nader's consumer group network 'will launch a drive to ask supermarket chains, apple juice processors, apple sauce manufacturers, whether they are carrying or using Alar apples.'
Also targeted in the consumer drive will be baby food producers, airlines and government food service operations that serve civilian and military personnel.
'Certainly, the taxpayer should not be paying for cancer risks for those in government service, and, starting to set an example in this sector of consumpution, will prod the private sector ... to take similar steps,' the letter said.
