Guidelines for Americans.
Now wineries want to label their products as health food. In 1999 several wineries
convinced the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to permit an
ambiguous label on wine bottles suggesting that people write the USDA to learn more
about the "health effects" of drinking alcohol.
Further pressure from the Wine Institute and complaints from Senator Strom Thurmond,
author of the warning label currently on alcohol bottles, prompted BATF to open the
entire issue of putting health claims on alcohol bottles for public comment. The
BATF is expected to hold hearings on the topic around the nation this spring.
To date, no U.S. government agency has recommended that Americans drink alcohol to
protect themselves against heart disease.
[...]
The push to put a health benefits label on alcohol bottles is a marketing ploy, pure
and simple.
[...]
David Jernigan directs international programs for The Marin Institute. He is the author of
Thirsting for Markets: The Global Impact of Corporate Alcohol.
Copyright 2000 Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol Other Drug Problems
The original article from which the above excerpts were taken can be found on the
Marin Institute web site at www.marininstitute.org/NL2000a.html.
What you are obligated to do
(1) Retract and correct The French Paradox. You must bring to public attention two
things: that the evidence presented in your two French Paradox broadcasts was
insufficient to justify your conclusions to the effect that drinking wine prolongs life
(as explained in my letter to you of 21Apr99, already cited above); and that broader
scientific evidence than you reported in your broadcasts, or since, contradicts your
conclusions (as illustrated in the Marin Institute excerpts above). Your unwarranted
and false conclusions advocating wine consumption cannot be left to continue inflicting
harm upon the public as they do today. Your obligation to journalism, to 60 Minutes, to
the public, and to your conscience, demands that you issue such a retraction and
correction without reservation and without delay.
(2) Disclose any conflict of interest relating to The French Paradox. Please
disclose any consideration that you may have received, or that 60 Minutes or CBS may
have received, from the wine or alcohol industries for your two French Paradox
broadcasts. In the absence of affirmations on your part that no such consideration has
traded hands, your broadcasts may tend to be viewed less as defective reporting than as
infomercials. Of particular interest would be the nature of any relationship between 60
Minutes and Edgar Bronfman Senior, chairman of liquor giant Seagram.
(3) Retract and correct The Ugly Face of Freedom. Every day, growing numbers of
people become convinced that you owe a similar retraction and correction for your
similarly incorrect and damaging 23Oc94 broadcast, The Ugly Face of Freedom.
(4) Disclose any conflict of interest relating to The Ugly Face of Freedom. Please
disclose the degree to which your broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom was requested by
external sources, who these sources were, and what benefits to 60 Minutes or to CBS
accrued from complying with such external requests. Of particular interest would be any
request originating from the direction of Edgar Bronfman Senior. You need to take some
such step in order to disarm the suspicion that your broadcast was no better than an
eruption of the hatred toward non-Jews, and particularly of the special hatred toward
Ukrainians, which is endemic to Jewish culture.