Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины
drinking in the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, which the industry subsequently used to
market wine as a health elixir. Food and Wines from France, which promotes Gallic
products overseas, placed full-page newspaper ads announcing that French consumption
of fatty food was counteracted by drinking French red wine.
"[Health] announcements are increasing consumption more than anything else," said
Stephanie Grubbs, marketing manager for Robert Mondavi Coastal, in Impact magazine in
1997. That same year, three out of four readers in the January Consumer Reports on
Health survey believed that moderate red wine consumption is more beneficial than
drinking beer or liquor.
Recently, the San Francisco-based Wine Institute helped some California wineries get
permission from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to add a label
referring consumers to the federal dietary guidelines to learn the "health effects"
of alcohol. But anyone who actually sent for the document would discover that the
government's advice on alcohol is mostly cautionary.
Inflamed by the belief that the wine industry was using the label to make it appear
that the government was suggesting Americans drink for their health, Senator Strom
Thurmond (R-SC), whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver, recently won a battle
for the BATF to hold hearings on whether the "health effects" label can legally be
affixed to every wine bottle. They're scheduled to take place in a number of U.S.
cities in late spring.
Today the Wine Institute touts its product on its website with studies and press
releases. One quotes David Pittman, Ph.D., researcher at Washington University in
St. Louis: "In societies such as France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, where wine and
overall alcohol consumption is higher than in the United States, they just don't have
as many alcohol-related problems such as drunk driving and underage drinking."
That would be news to France.
The world view that the French are able to control their drinking habits is untrue,
according to Pierre Kopp, professor of economics at the Sorbonne. Kopp recently
released the first French study estimating the cost of legal (alcohol and tobacco)
and illegal drugs. Kopp estimates that alcohol costs France $18.5 billion (U.S.)
each year. Drinking is responsible for nearly 53 percent of overall social costs of
alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs, he reports. (Annual cost to the state is $14.3
billion for tobacco and $2 billion for illegal drugs.)
But even these high alcohol economic cost figures are underestimated, cautions the
researcher, because he left out alcohol-related crime and accidents, which comprise
some of the largest costs to society in the United States. Kopp focused on public
and private money spent on medical treatment, lost productivity, absenteeism,
uncollected taxes, unpaid health contributions, and preventive measures.
[...]
"Consumption is exceptionally high and the final bill is extremely heavy. Alcohol
accounted for 42,963 deaths in France in 1997."
[...]
When "60 Minutes" introduced the French Paradox to America, Morley Safer featured
only one French scientific authority - Serge Renaud, a trendsetter in alcohol
research who still maintains that "there is no doubt that a moderate intake of wine
(one to three glasses per day for a man) is associated with a 30- to 40-percent
reduction in mortality from all causes." In its first issue of the new millennium,
the prestigious British journal Lancet noted in a short profile of Renaud that his
enthusiasm for alcohol and the French Paradox is hardly unanimous today among his
French peers. In fact, at least two of the scientists instrumental in early French
Paradox research today disagree with Renaud's belief in the central role of alcohol
in a lower coronary heart disease rate.
[...]
What's new for both men is the MONICA Project established by centers around the world
to MONItor trends in Cardiovascular diseases and relate them to risk factor changes
over a 10-year period. Established in the early 1980s by WHO, its final data were
highlighted last September at the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona. De
Lorgeril reported there that the WHO data were 75 to 90 percent higher than France's
statistics for coronary heart disease deaths.
The cardiologist said he scrutinized alcohol-related deaths and found that French
men, "who drink too much," have the highest rates of liver disease and - by far
more upper gastrointestinal cancer, and were more likely to die in accidents, by
suicide, or as a consequence of crime than men of other nationalities. While men in
Sweden can expect to live 76.5 years on average, a French man's average lifespan,
said de Lorgeril, is 74.1 years.
Dr. Ian Graham, a professor of epidemiology at Trinity College in Dublin, said that
de Lorgeril's statistics suggest that the lower rate of coronary deaths in France are
due "to competing causes of death" - many more French men might die early from
alcohol-related causes before they have the opportunity to die of heart disease.
[...]
In 1998, a pharmacist who is a director at the French counterpart of the U.S.
National Institute of Health handed then French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner a
report that had the effect of "a sort of a bomb." In what has become known as the
Roques Report, Bernard Roques classified drugs on the basis of their danger to the
public rather than their legal status. Based on scientific data, alcohol took first
place along with heroin and cocaine; tobacco took second place with amphetamines and
LSD; and marijuana was in the third, least dangerous group.
[...]
Written by Hilary Abramson; edited by James F. Mosher; copy edited by Pam Glenn
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/NL2000.html.
Drink Like the French,
Die Like the French
by David Jernigan
The truth is finally starting to come out: If Americans drink alcohol like the
French, we will die like the French.
[...]
Nearly 43,000 French people die each year from alcohol-related causes, roughly the
equivalent of 200,000 American - double the number who currently die annually of
alcohol-related causes in the United States.
According to the World Health Organization's Global Status Report on Alcohol, the
French drink 54 percent more alcohol than Americans, and die of liver cirrhosis 57
percent more often.
Yes, fewer French people die of heart disease than would be expected given their
fatty diets. However, French men in particular die prematurely in disproportionate
numbers, and alcohol-related problems are often the cause.
In 1991, Morley Safer's "60 Minutes" report on the possible heart protective effects
of drinking red wine led to a 44 percent increase in red wine sales among Americans.
Assiduous lobbying by wine makers prompted the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for
the first time to make positive mention of alcohol consumption in its Dietary
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.
Lubomyr Prytulak
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE WIESENTHAL 747 hits since 18Jan98
Wiesenthal Letter 14 Sep 4/97 The forgotten Bodnar
September 4, 1997
Simon Wiesenthal
Jewish Documentation Center
Salztorgasse 6
1010 Vienna
Austria
Dear Mr. Wiesenthal:
In your testimony on the 60 Minutes broadcast of October 23, 1994 "The Ugly Face of Freedom" I notice a startling
omission:
MORLEY SAFER: I get the impression from people that the actions of the Ukrainians, if anything,
were worse than the Germans.
SIMON WIESENTHAL: About the civilians, I cannot say this. About the Ukrainian police, yes.
That's all you said! You just left it at that! But in that case, there is something very big missing from your
statement, isn't there Mr. Wiesenthal - something very interesting, very important, very relevant? Something that the
60 Minutes viewer would have found to be quite remarkable? Do you know what it is?
It is the story of the Ukrainian policeman with the surname Bodnar the one who saved your life? Remember him?
Don't you think that this forgotten Bodnar is someone who should have been mentioned in your statement? And doesn't
the story of the forgotten Bodnar somewhat contradict your unqualified statement that the Ukrainian police
collectively were worse than the Germans? And if among what you say is the worst of the Ukrainians (the auxiliary
police) some are saving Jews, then what heroic acts can we expect among the rest of the Ukrainian population?
To refresh your memory about this story which seems so forgettable to you now, I may remind you that you were
about to be executed, but:
The shooting stopped. Ten yards from Wiesenthal.
The next thing he remembers was a brilliant cone of light and behind it a Polish voice: "But
Mr. Wiesenthal, what are you doing here?" Wiesenthal recognized a foreman he used to know, by
the name of Bodnar. He was wearing civilian clothes with the armband of a Ukrainian police
auxiliary. "I've got to get you out of here tonight."
Bodnar told the [other] Ukrainians that among the captured Jews he had discovered a Soviet
spy and that he was taking him to the district police commissar. In actual fact he took
Wiesenthal back to his own flat, on the grounds that it was unlikely to be searched so soon
again. This was the first time Wiesenthal survived. (Peter Michael Lingens, in Simon
Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance, 1989, p. 8)
But the story of the forgotten Bodnar is even better than that - Bodnar not only saved you, not only risked his
life to save you, but possibly gave his life to save you. I say that because Bodnar must have known that the
punishment for saving a Jew from execution and then helping him escape would be death. And how could he get away with
it? In fact, I ask you now, Mr. Wiesenthal, whether the forgotten Bodnar did get away with it, or whether he paid for
it with his life, for as you were tiptoeing out, you were stopped, Bodnar offered his fabricated story, and then:
The German sergeant, already a little drunk, slapped Bodnar's face and said: "Then what are you
standing around for? If this is what you people are like, then later we'll all have troubles.
