Those who fail to learn the lessons of history

Well, they're doomed to repeat them, of course. Here is a well done retrospective by Jay Lehr on the Alar scare on apples back in 1989.

Of particular note is this ending thought:

While most people still recall the historic Alar scare, few recognize the malevolent intentions of the groups involved. Thus, similar unjustified scare campaigns are likely to be repeated.


TK: Never has been the industry as vulnerable to a scare campaign as now. We can take some comfort that CBS, one of the players in the Alar scare, did a balanced job earlier this week in an evening news series on food safety.