SCIENCE-THE DARK SIDE 257THE FIRST MEETING
From the first moment of the first meeting in April 1980, I knew I was
the chicken who had wandered into a fox's den, although I went in with
high hopes and an open, though naive, mind. After all, lots of scien-
tists, myself included, have consulted with companies while working to
maintain an objective mind in the best interest of the public health.
In the second session of our first committee meeting the chairman,
Tom Jukes, passed around a proposed news release, handwritten by
himself, regarding the mission of the committee. In addition to an-
nouncing our formation, the news release listed examples of the kind of
nutrition frauds that our committee intended to expose.
As I scanned the list of so-called frauds, I was stunned to see the
1977 McGovern dietary goals^5 on the list. First drafted in 1976, these
relatively modest goals suggested that less meat and fat consumption
and more fruit and vegetable consumption might prevent heart disease.
In this proposed news release, they were described as nothing more
than simple quackery, just like the widely condemned Laetrile and
pangamic acid preparations. In essence, the recommendation to shift
our eating habits to more fruits and vegetables and whole grains was a
fraud. This was the committee's attempt to demonstrate their ability to
be the supreme arbiter ofreliable scientific information!
Having looked forward to my membership on this new committee,
I was shocked to see what was emerging. Although I had no particular
predilection toward anyone type of diet at the time, I knew that the
landmark diet, nutrition and cancer panel that I was on at the National
Academy of Sciences would likely recommend something similar to Mc-
Govern's goals, this time citing cancer research instead of heart disease
research. The scientific results with which I was familiar very clearly
seemed to justify the moderate recommendations made by McGovern's
dietary goals committee.
Sitting next to me at our first meeting was Alf Harper, whom I had
held in high esteem since our days at MIT where he was the General
Foods Professor of Nutritional Sciences. Early in the meeting, when
this handwritten proposed news release was passed out to the commit-
tee members, I leaned over to Harper and pointed to the place where
it listed McGovern's dietary goals amongst other common scams and
whispered incredulously, "Do you see this?"
Harper could sense my unease, even disbelief, and so quickly spoke