‘Killer Virus’ Boosts Ratings

News media coverage of the West Nile virus did little more than “foment fear” and marked a “dangerous new low,” critic Karen Charman writes in Extra! — the magazine of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting), a left-leaning New York-based media watchdog group.

“Most media reports have painted a picture of a galloping mosquito-borne killer virus that can only be stopped by blanketing areas with pesticides,” Charman writes in the November/December 2000 issue of Extra! (Article online at http://www.fair.org/extra/0011/west-nile.html.)

As hard frosts ended the mosquito season over much of the country, the year 2000 turned out to be something of a bust for media prophets who had trafficked in suggestions that West Nile was a looming public health disaster. One U.S. death was attributed to West Nile this year, compared to seven in 1999.

Charman’s thesis is that the media exaggerated the risks from West Nile, while underplaying or ignoring the risks from “a massive spraying campaign that has significantly increased pesticide exposures to more than 15 million people.”

The pesticide Malathion was sprayed in New York during the late summer and fall of 1999 when about 65 people got sick. Health officials at the time assured people that aerial spraying of Malathion over densely populated areas posed little risk.

Malathion is one of the organophosphate family of pesticides, some of which are potent neurotoxins. In 1996 Congress ordered EPA to reassess the risks of organophosphates. But while some have been pulled from major uses (chlorpyrifos, diazinon), EPA’s preliminary assessment rates aggregate Malathion risks from public health mosquito control as “low and not of concern.” Critics say the agency does not yet have the data to support those judgments.

In 2000, New York authorities sprayed pesticides considered less toxic than Malathion, synthetic relatives of the “natural” pyrethrins produced by chrysanthemums: Anvil (sumithrin) and Scourge (resmethrin). Environmental and consumer groups however, challenged the safety of both Malathion and the pyrethroids. More than 200 people called the city to complain that the spraying made them sick.

The key question is whether the risks of West Nile are great enough to justify any possible risks of aerial pesticide spraying over populated areas.

West Nile is only one of a number of insect-borne viruses that can cause encephalitis – four of which are already found in the United States. The most common, St. Louis encephalitis, sickened 223 people and killed 11 in a 1990 Florida outbreak.

Most people infected by the West Nile virus have no symptoms or only mild ones. In a fraction of the cases with symptoms, encephalitis develops. The people who die from West Nile and other kinds of viral encephalitis are mostly the elderly who are physically frail and have compromised immune systems.

Charman reports that about 2,000 people died of the flu in New York City in 1999, compared to seven from West Nile. She argues that the media elevation of West Nile into the year’s most dreaded “killer virus” has been way out of proportion to the actual dangers it presents.

Charman cites numerous examples of coverage to prove her point, most of them from newspapers. She also cites articles (like one in the Boston Globe on August 8, 2000) that try to put the scare story in the context of bigger risks the media ignore.

Scare stories sell newspapers and boost broadcast ratings. West Nile is mediagenic partly because it had not been noticed in the United States before 1999. Fear of the un-known, of course, is the scariest kind of fear, and the kind most difficult to allay with facts.

Charman’s assessment of media coverage is probably accurate overall. But her characterization does not acknowledge how different the coverage by the New York Times was from that of other media. The Times stood out from the crowd in several ways.

As you would expect of a New York City paper, the Times unrelentingly covered every small development — the finding of infected birds, the spraying schedules, the human cases and the stories behind them.

Characteristically, when a dead bird or sick person turned out upon further testing not to have West Nile, the Times covered that, too.

A major portion of the Times’ coverage also covered the debate and litigation over spraying as if it were a real issue, rather than merely accepting the calming assurances of municipal officials.

The Times also printed a series of articles trying to put the risk from West Nile into context of other risks. For example, stories headlined: “A Fight Against Fear as Well as Mosquitoes” (7/26/00), “Exotic Ills Loom Large, But What About the Flu?” (6/4/00), “Tick-Borne Illnesses in West Nile’s Shadow” (9/24/00), and “Pesticide Effect, Hard to Assess, Stays in Shadow of Disease Fight” (7/26/00).

And it focused on non-spraying responses to the virus as well: “Mosquito Program Favors Prevention over Pesticide Use” (4/14/00), and “City to Crack Down on Standing Water in War Against West Nile” (4/19/00).

Joseph A. Davis

EPA is close to finalizing a mechanism that could be key to the open flow of timely, accurate information from the agency to the press and public.

The Information Products Bulletin (IPB), the agency says, “will inform stakeholders and the public about upcoming significant information products being produced by EPA and some of the states.”

“So what?” a skeptic might ask. For one thing, environmental reporters who use federal and state databases to develop stories might use the IPB to be ready with research projects when new data comes out.

In some cases, EPA will offer the public a chance to comment on forth-coming data before it is published. Right-to-know advocates worry that the IPB could offer interest groups a chance to censor or stifle data they don’t want to see the light of day. Whether the comment process will become an opportunity for obstructing or slanting publications remains to be seen.

The IPB was described in a Federal Register notice on November 30, 2000, (pp. 71314-71317) — which itself will be open for public comment until January 2, 2001. Further background is at http://www.epa.gov/ipbpages/.

The IPB will be a joint effort of EPA and the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS), a nonpartisan, nonprofit association of state environmental commissioners. An “interim” Web site version of the IPB is already online (http://www.epa.gov/ipbpages/ipblist.htm). EPA says a more detailed IPB will be published online and on paper in March 2001 and every six months thereafter, with Web updates possibly more frequently.

EPA defines the “significant information products” which must be included in the IPB as:

• “Products that analyze and/or compare data from various agencies and organizations, including industry, as well as various federal, state, tribal, and local agencies”
• “Significant data collected by, acquired by, or directly reported to EPA from various agencies and organizations that EPA has not interpreted or analyzed”
• “Products that describe or assess environmental conditions, trends, or risks”
• “Products that apply to a large segment of the population or large geographic area”
• “[Software] models used by the public to perform environmental analyses based upon data from various agencies and organizations”
• “Those annual reports and other products released on a regular basis that describe environmental conditions, trends, risks, and/or portray compliance or performance.”

That definition can be read so broadly as to include almost anything that involves facts or thinking about the environment. But the notice also lists 15 things not to be included in the IPB, including:

• announcements
• brochures
• citizen cuides
• fact sheets
• journal articles
• policy statements
• press releases
• rulemakings and supporting documents (e.g. guidance).

The notice seems to give wide leeway to EPA in how it gathers outside comments on upcoming data products and whether it accommodates those comments. Mechanisms could range from focus groups, surveys, and Web sites to Federal Register notices with formal comments.

It is not clear whether the comments EPA receives, and the agencies response to them, will always be open to public view. One option is “stakeholder or expert consultation,” which is defined as “Extended communication (through meet-ings, phone conversations, email, Fax or U.S. mail) with representatives of various government agencies and/or organizations ....” While the notice emphasizes receiving of comments in recorded form, it does not require them to be recorded.

The IPB is to “provide an opportunity for stakeholders and the public to comment ... on some of the significant information products described on the list.” The criteria for which items need comment are somewhat loose: “It should be noted that it may not be practical or useful to provide an opportunity for stakeholder or public input for some products on the IPB list. Examples of such products are those produced on a routine or annual basis, or those that are technical, science-based documents that undergo a rigorous peer review process.”

While “public” can include virtually anybody, “stakeholders” are defined as “individuals who represent groups or specific segments of the public with a vested interest in the product or policy,” such as “representatives of an industry sector, community, government agency, [or] non-governmental organizations (NGOs).” Environmental groups are not mentioned explicitly.

The notice seems to offer little legal basis for interest groups to halt or censor EPA data products. The notice specifies: “Where possible, every effort will be made” to make draft or prototype data products publicly available. It is silent on what EPA must do with the comments it receives and states no specific limitations, conditions, or prohibitions on eventual final publication. Nonetheless, its endorsement of “extended communication” with stakeholders could have the practical result of delaying publication.

Proposal Written by Lobbyists

Although the notice describes the IPB as an EPA and state initiative, it isn’t. It was invented and virtually imposed on EPA by industry lobbyists.

One of the first appearances of the idea was in a paper (“Government Accountability for Environmental Information”) submitted to EPA in May 1999 by Mark Greenwood, a former EPA official now with the Ropes & Gray law firm. Greenwood is the main spokesman for the Coalition for Effective Environmental Information (CEEI), a lobbying consortium representing the chemical, forest products, auto, petroleum, plastics, electric utility, and manufacturing industries. Greenwood and CEEI have made a number of proposals which could limit public and press access to EPA information.

Major points of the industries’ information agenda in Greenwood’s paper were inserted as mandates to EPA in Senate report language accompanying the fiscal 2000 appropriations bill for EPA (H.R. 2684, S. Rept. 106-161). The language was inserted on September 16, 1999, into the report by Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-MO), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that covers EPA. It outlined the major features of the IPB. While such report language may technically be non-binding, agencies usually feel constrained to comply with wishes expressed by the committee that funds them. Appropriations report language, unlike other congressional action, requires neither hearings to examine its justification nor any record of the process by which it was arrived at.

“I’m a little troubled by EPA going down the path of doing this,” said Rick Blum, an analyst with OMB Watch, one of the groups tracking EPA’s information policies.

“It’s one thing to provide notice,” Blum said, explaining his “mixed opinion” on the IPB. “We want a very open, transparent government .... We encourage public participation .... but how do you get the public involved and make sure you’re providing broad representation — not just to one segment of the public?”

“EPA is tying its own hands, in essence,” Blum said. “EPA was limited during their Sector Facility Indexing Project from taking its own data and performing straightforward calculations on that data and then publishing the result. If they can’t perform simple mathematical calculations on data they have and publish that to protect public health ... what can they do?”

Blum noted that a lot of time and work was required of groups taking part in public participation. “It becomes a game of resources,” he said. “And in that kind of game, industry will always win.”

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s expert panel recently evaluated the potential of StarLink^tm corn for causing allergies. StarLink, a genetically engineered corn made by Aventis CropSciences, is not licensed for use as human food. It made headlines this fall when it was found in processed food products such as taco shells. The principal concern that has kept EPA and FDA from approving StarLink for human use is its possible allergenicity.

The FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel was set up under the revised Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. It issued a preliminary assessment on November 13, 2000, and a more final one on December 5.

Below are some headlines reporting on the panel’s preliminary and final findings. They may tell discerning readers more about the biases (or lack thereof) of the publications they ran in than they tell about the risks of StarLink. First, EPA’s version:

“In summary, the Scientific Advisory Panel found, based on available information, that there is a “medium likelihood” that StarLink protein is a potential allergen and that given the low levels of StarLink in the U.S. diet, there is a “low probability” of allergenicity in the population exposed to the corn. While the Panel declined to speculate on the sensitization to StarLink, the Panel did note that children may be more sensitive than adults and study of infant diets should be given high priority. The Panel recommended as its highest priority that individuals who claim to have experienced adverse effects from StarLink corn consumption be studied as soon as possible to determine whether StarLink was the source of the reactions.”

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A four-day “intensive course in global climate change” is planned for April 24-28 at the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships program at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ranging from fundamentals on climate and human and natural processes to strengths and limitations of climate models and research directions, the planned MIT “boot camp” will offer travel expenses of up to $500 and lodging and meal expenses for 12 journalists selected to participate. Human and ecosystem health, sea-level rise, agricultural impacts, and “worst-case scenarios/more likely impacts” are among issues to be addressed.

“How can journalists distinguish evidence from hype?” an MIT flyer asks in promoting the mini-fellowships, applications for which are to be submitted by February 1.

The program begins with dinner on April 24 and runs through mid-day on April 28, and those chosen to attend “are required to attend all sessions.” The faculty identified for the meeting includes well-known climate and health faculty members from MIT and from Harvard, including both global warming “skeptics” such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen and those associated with a more environmentalist perspective, such as Harvard Medical School’s Paul Epstein.

The program says it will give preference to staffers at news organizations, but those wanting to prepare for a career in science or environment also are eligible to apply. “Applicants may be reporters, writers, editors, or producers and must have at least five years of full-time experience in journalism,” the program says.

Application forms can be downloaded from http://www.web.mit.edu/knight-science. Contact Knight Science Journalism Director Boyce Rensberger, previously a New York Times and Washington Post science writer, with questions at (617) 258-8249 or at boyce@mit.edu.

Introduction

It is an area where some journalists have played a large role in raising scientific and policy questions. It’s also an area where a lot of research has produced repeated consensus statements from the scientific establishment suggesting there is little persuasive evidence of important health risks. Yet journalists have continued to echo activists’ concerns in a manner that itself raises questions.

On the one hand, some have alleged a “cover-up” of evidence of harmful health effects. On the other, there may be a question of whether the media’s financial need for scare stories makes scientific evidence an inconvenient nuisance. To the conspiratorial mentality, lack of evidence is merely proof of a cover-up.

At the center of the controversy for many years was Paul Brodeur, who covered the environment for New Yorker magazine, and who authored a series of articles on EMFs in that magazine in 1989-92. Brodeur was called by ENN “the dean of environmental journalism in this country” – and a “reporter who has made his career by digging up massive conspiracies” by skeptic Michael Fumento and was featured on the “Quackwatch” Web site. His work was published in book form as Currents of Death (1989) and The Great Power Line Cover Up (1993).

What’s an EMF?

Ordinary household power alternates at a frequency of 50-60 cycles per second (hertz). This backgrounder will be limited to discussion of these “power-frequency” or “extra-low frequency” EMFs, since they are a primary area of controversy or concern. Health concerns also exist over many other forms of electromagnetic energy – from microwaves and cell phones to radio towers and radar. But the much higher-energy fields created by these higher-frequency currents are quite different in terms of physics and biology, and they must be evaluated separately.

Why Cover EMFs?

Story Ideas

1. What are the findings and conclusions of the major reviews of research on the health effects of EMFs?
2. Are there high-voltage power distribution lines in your community? Has anyone measured the fields that they generate? How far are the lines from residential areas and other populated places?
3. What, if any, provisions are there in your local building code for minimizing generation of EMFs by home wiring?
4. What steps can ordinary people take to minimize their exposure to EMFs?
5. Do any industrial facilities in your area expose workers to EMF levels much higher than those a person in an ordinary residence would be exposed to?
6. What new studies on EMFs and health are being reported? Have they been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals? How do they square with other research?

Issues

• Could confounding factors account for the weak association between EMFs and childhood leukemia and chronic lymphocytic leukemia? What might they be? (E.g., age of housing, income level, ....)
• Are ratepayers and consumers willing to pay for the extra degree of protection from EMF exposure which the electrical industry could achieve?
• Does the lack of conclusive evidence that power-frequency EMFs cause cancer mean that other mechanisms of EMF exposure (microwaves, radar, cell phones, etc.) also deserve a clean bill of health?
• What physical and biological mechanisms could account for the weak epidemiological association betweem EMF exposure and childhood leukemia? What further research could help resolve uncertainties?
• Should the government set limits for occupational exposure to EMFs, which can be much higher than residential exposures?

Background and Context

Concern was sparked by a 1979 article published in the American Journal of Epidemiology by researchers Nancy Wertheimer and Ed Leeper. Using the type of powerlines as an index of exposure, they found higher exposures associated with an excess incidence of childhood leukemia and brain cancer.

That study and the suspicions it aroused inspired scores of additional scientific studies, as well as journalistic “exposes” such as Brodeur’s. Yet after two decades, little evidence has been found to support the suspicions.

In the 1992 Energy Policy Act Congress called for a review of the science on EMFs. Reviews under that mandate were published by the National Research Council (affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences) in 1996 and the NIEHS in 1999.

While not giving EMFs a clean bill of health, the reviews concluded that there was little strong evidence that EMFs were causing harm to human health in normal circumstances.

For one thing, lab studies could not show genetic damage or cancer in cells or test animals exposed to many times the level of EMFs most people are exposed to. Nor did the studies come up with other plausible mechanisms by which EMFs could be causing problems.

And although early studies, such as those by Wertheimer and Leeper, showed a statistical association between EMF exposure and certain cancers, other studies, larger and more rigorous, could not replicate those results.

the minority of studies that did show some association failed to find any dose-response relationship. When theoretical indexes of exposure (based on types of wiring) were replaced with actual measurements of fields, the association vanished.

There was some evidence that workers in electrical occupations (linemen or welders) who received much higher exposures were having higher rates of some cancers.

There is much people can do to reduce their own exposure if they are still worried about EMFs despite lack of scientific demonstration that they cause significant harm. Except in certain cases, most people’s greatest exposure to EMFs may come from sources inside the home, rather than from power lines outside it. It is worth remembering that intensity of EMFs decreases proportionally to the square of the distance to their source. So doubling the distance between you and an electric motor will reduce your exposure to one-quarter of its previous level.

The NIEHS suggests avoiding standing too close to computers, microwave ovens, televisions, or other devices that may emit EMFs. People can reduce the time of exposure to EMFs by turning off devices such as electric blankets when they are not in use. It may also be wise to avoid keeping devices such as electric alarm clocks too close to the bed. Adults can discourage children from playing near high power lines or electrical transformers.

Research Findings

• National Research Council
  “...the conclusion of the committee is that the current body of evidence does not show that exposure to these fields presents a human-health hazard. Specifically, no conclusive and consistent evidence shows that exposures to residential electric and magnetic fields produce cancer, adverse neurobehavioral effects, or reproductive and developmental effects.”
• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
  “The NIEHS believes that the probability that EMF exposure is truly a health hazard is currently small. The weak epidemiological associations and lack of any laboratory support for these associations provide only marginal scientific support that exposure to this agent is causing any degree of harm.”

Sources and Resources