SCIENCE-THE DARK SIDE 261placed in the hands of all 535 u.s. congressional members. It was clear
that the CAST was deeply concerned about the possible impact that our
report might have on the public.
The CAST wasn't the only group that stepped up to criticize the
report. In addition, there were the American Meat Institute, National
Broiler Council, National Cattlemen's Association, National Livestock
and Meat Board, National Meat Association, National Milk Producers
Federation, National Pork Producers Council, National Turkey Fed-
eration and United Egg Producers.3 I wouldn't presume to know how
much cancer research the National Turkey Federation conducts, but I'm
guessing that their criticism of our report was not born out of their de-
sire for truth in science.
It was ironic that I had learned some of my most valuable lessons
growing up on a dairy farm, and yet the work I was doing was portrayed
as being at odds with agricultural interests. Of course, these mammoth
corporate interests were far removed from the farmers I knew growing
up-the hardworking, honest families that maintained small farms, just
big enough to get by comfortably. I often have wondered whether these
Washington agricultural interests truly represent America's great farm-
ing tradition, or whether they only represent agricultural conglomerates
with operations worth tens of millions of dollars.
Alf Harper, who had written a strong letter of support for my first
faculty position after leaving MIT, wrote me a stern personal letter in
which he declared that I had "fallen on [my] own petard." A petard is a
type of bomb or firecracker. Apparently, my involvement in the Public
Nutrition Information Committee and the NAS Diet, Nutrition and Can-
cer report was finally too much for even him to bear.
Times were hot, to be sure. Congressional hearings, in which I testi-
fied, were held on the NAS report itself; People magazine featured me in
a prominent article, and an endless series of news media reports contin-
ued over the next year.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCHIt seemed that for the first time in our history, the government was seri-
ously thinking about what we eat as a means of controlling cancer. This
was fertile territory for doing something new, and something new did
indeed fall into my lap. I was invited to assist a new organization called
the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) in Falls Church,
Virginia. The founders of this organization were fund-raisers and had