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LISLJMEH q~PS-- - Alternative Contact Lenses Bikecentennial Rigid Gas Permeable (RGP) i Many of the seven and a half contact lenses are an alternative I million adults who bought a to either hard or soft contact bike last year might find them- lenses. I selves at a loss when looking These contacts are made of a for good places to ride. Bikecen- plastic that provides high-quality tennial is an organization visual correction, while allowing designed to remedy this. more oxygen to reach the eye I Founded in 1973 to promote than with other types of contacts. biking safety and provide an Thus, they are an option if information clearinghouse for you want the excellent vision bikers, Bikecentennial mapped a correction provided by hard cross country route for bicyclists lenses, but find those lenses ' in time for the Bicentennial in irritating. 1976. Likewise, if you have found They have continued to con- soft contacts less than ideal, duct bicycle tours and map new RGP contacts may offer an alter- routes and now sell maps cover- native that is easier to maintain, ing some 17,000 miles of bike less expensive, and more : routes. Also, they produce vari- durable. Because RGP contacts I ous resources for bikers such as are custom fitted, they can cor- maps of mountain bike trails, a rect a wider range of vision ; magazine for members, and a problems than soft contacts. bicyclist's yellow pages listing They also may be less likely to services and products. promote allergic reactions or eye : For more information contact infections than extended-wear Bikecentennial at P.O. Box versions of soft contacts. 8308, Missoula, Montana 59807, It generally takes a few days (406) 721-1176. to a week for a person to become accustomed to wearing RGP I No-Load Mutual Funds contacts, although some people , The Individual Investor's are comfortable with the lenses Guide to No-Load Mutual Funds, in a matter of hours, notes Dr. by the American Association of Arthur Giroux of the American , Individual Investors (AAII), pro- Optometric Association (AOA). ' motes no-load mutual fund However, they should be worn I investing. daily thereafter to maintain ~ No-load funds are sold direct- optimal comfort unless your doc- ' ly to investors to avoid the load, tor advises otherwise. or commission, that a broker ! RGP contacts cost from $200- receives when selling shares in ( 300 over the course of the first funds. The book, therefore, may year and then cost from $60-100 be of interest to those who want to maintain, which is only slight- to enjoy the advantages of mutu- ly more than hard contacts and ' al fund investing, but don't want less expensive than soft contacts. ~ some of their money going to ' For information on contact I pay the commissions. lenses, contact the American ' The 539-page book explains Academy of Ophthalmology, the general attributes of differ- . P.O. Box 7424, San Francisco, ent fund categories (growth, Calif. 94120-7424, (415) 561- ; bond, international, etc.), pro- 8500, or the AOA, 243 North ~ vides a guide to help you deter- Lindbergh Blvd., Saint Louis, mine your investment objectives I Mo. 63141, (314) 991-4101. ; and risk tolerance, gives advice ~ on recordkeeping and taxes, and outlines important information I to look for in the prospectus and other financial information a I fund provides for you to assess its performance. ~ It also rates the individual performance of more than 500 I no-load funds, including fund I objectives, five-year performance history, risk-to-return assess- ment, and other details such as who manages the fund. If you are willing to do the I necessary additional research on your own, this book will be a useful tool and guide to fund investing. A copy of the book costs $24.95 from AAII, 625 N. Michi- gan Ave., Dept. NLG, Chicago, Ill. 60611; (312) 280-0170. (For more information on mutual fund investing, see "Under- standing Mutual Funds," CR, October 1990.) Thyroid Problems Hyperthyroidism became well-known when the Presi- dent, Mrs. Bush, and Millie, their dog, all were diagnosed with the condition. Stemming from the overpro- duction of the thyroid hormone, hyperthyroidism is marked by symptoms such as a rapid heart- beat, insomnia, and tremors. Another disorder, hypothy- roidism, involves underproduc- tion of the thyroid hormone. This can cause muscle problems, dr ZZ) skin and hair, and loss o~ appetite. Because these symp ~ toms are similar to those associ ~ ated with normal aging, diagnosic and treatment of the condition is ~ often delayed. To receive a pamphlet about w thyroid disorders, write the Amer- ~ ican Thyroid Association, Walter ~ Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C. 20307-5001. -Guy Murdoch 2 Consumers' Research

co U 00 ME,Rc 11 ANALYZING PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND CONSUMER ISSUES 2 CONTENTS ,, p„;, ~;~: HOW FEDERAL OFFICIALS IGNORED AUTO SAFETY CAFE standards ruling finds safety considerations lacking DEPARTMENTS Consumer Tips Alternative Contact Lenses Bikecentennial No-Load Mutual Funds Thyroid Problems Consumer Letters Publisher's Page Safety Last? Dateline Washington Unsafe Devices? Consumers' Observation Post Food for Thought Nutrients Are Not Created Equal The Green Thumb Doc and Katy Abraham Calling all Consumers Understanding Vitamins Current Motion Pictures Consumer Alert Scott Pattison 4 5 6 7 8 MAGAZINE PASSIVE SMOKING AND YOUR HEART Harm to nonsmokers not evident in available studies WHAT WILL YOU PAY TO UNCLE SAM THIS YEAR? Try a third of your income WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A DICTIONARY Twenty points to consider HOW TO RAISE VEGETABLES WITHOUT A GARDEN Container gardening allows anyone to raise crops 37 CHOOSING THE RIGHT 38 UPHOLSTERING FIRM 39 40 Cumulative Index 42 Recorded Music in Review 43 Walter F. Grueninger Reupholstering could save (or cost) you money PRODUCT RECALLS Toys, autos, boats, and more ISSN 0095-2222 VOLUME 75 No. 4 APRIL 1992 10 13 20 22 26 30 35 April 1992 3

ooosuoier LETTERS AIR BAG SAFETY Peter L. Spencer's special report, "The Trouble With Air Bags," (January 1991) is out of date-and was already out of date when it was printed. I'm referring to his assumption, in the beginning of the article, that little data are available to gauge air bag effectiveness: "Traffic safety researchers say they won't know for sure how well air bags will perform in car acci- dents for several more years, when there will have been enough actual crashes with the devices to determine real-world effectiveness." There already are enough data, and traffic safety researchers have studied air bag effective- ness. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has com- pared driver deaths in frontal and non-frontal impacts involv- ing cars with and without air bags. All equipment on or before the 1991 model year were included in the study, so the database was quite large. What researchers found was that driv- er deaths in frontal crashes were 28% lower in air bag- equipped cars, compared with cars equipped with manual lap/shoulder safety belts only. Before these two studies were conducted, it's true that we knew about air bag performance primarily from individual crash reports. Now we're beginning to quantify air bag effectiveness- and note that the combination of air bags and safety belts really is lifesaving. So Spencer's conclusion that "[u]ntil more data from car crashes involving air bags become available, questions about an air bag's benefits to driver safety will remain open" simply isn't true. A number of other points in the article are also either untrue or misleading. For example: • Spencer says air bags work only in a limited range of crash scenarios. That's true, but the range includes frontal crashes, which account for about two- thirds of all driver fatalities (not the 42% Spencer claimed.) If all crash types are considered, including those in which air bags are not designed to deploy, air bags reduce driver deaths an overall 19%. • Spencer says air bags work "only in combination with seat belts." What he may have been trying to say is that this is the best combination for occupant protection. But the implication that air bags don't deploy unless seat belts are used is incorrect. For occu- (See AIR BAG page 34.) MOVING ? name MAIL TO: Consumers' Research, Inc. address P.O. Box 41533 Nashville TN 37204-1533 , city state zip Attach label here CONSUMERS' RESEARCH INC. TRUSTEES and OFFICERS: Presi- dent, M. Stanton Evans; Vice Presidents: Daniel Oliver, James Roberts, Ruth 1. Matthews, Terrence M. Scanlon; Secre- tary, Ronald Pearson; Treasurer, Allan Ryskind. CONSUMERS' RESEARCH INC. is an independent, non-profit organization, established in 1927 for the purpose of pro- viding the public with scientific, technicai, and educational information. Consumers' Research magazine presents articles on a wide range of topics of consumer interest. Consumers' Research is produced and published on the basis of data believed to be accurate. Consumers' Research is not supported by manufacturers, dealers, or any govem- ment agencies. Consumers' Research does not permit any person or firm to make commercial use of its findings. The publishers and editors do not assume responsibility for any injuries or damages resulting from the use of the products or services described in the magazine. SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES, mail orders, changes of address, undeliverable copies, etc., to be addressed to Subscrip- tion Department, Consumers' Research, P.O. Box 41533, Nashville, TN 37204- 1533, or call (615) 377-3322. Please allow 60 days for change of address. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $24 per year, 12 issues; $42, two years; and $58, three years. Canada and foreign: $32 (U.S.), one year; and $58 (U.S.), two years. BACK ISSUES: $4. Postage and han- diing Included. Specify exact date and send request to: Back Issues, Consumers' Research, P.O. Box 41533, Nashville, TN 37204-1533, or call (615) 377--3322. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR should be addressed to Consumers' Research Inc., 800 Maryiand Ave., NE, Washington, D.C. 20002. CR is not in a position to provide special answers by letter to questions that relate to an individual or personal problem. COPYRIGHT ® 1992 by Consumers' Research Inc., 800 Maryland Ave., NE, Washington, D.C. 20002. All rights reserved. Material in Consumers' Research is protected by copyright and all rights to its use are reserved by Con- sumers' Research Inc. No part of the content of the magazine may be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, except upon first obtaining permission in writing from Consumers' Research Inc. Manuscripts submitted must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. How- ever, Consumers' Research cannot be responsible for unsolicited material. 4 Consumers' Research

0.NALYZMR; PROaJtTS, SFAVN;ES tdm CON9IMER IS5UE5 MpGR21NE PUBLISHER M. Stanton Evans EDITOR Peter L. Spencer MANAGING EDITOR Wayne Laugesen ASSOCIATE EDITOR Guy Murdoch FOOD EDITOR Beatrice Trum Hunter DESIGN AND GRAPHICS C. Ashley Jackson CONTRIBUTING EDITORS George and Katy Abraham Jeff Cohen Richard Coorsh Walter F. Grueninger Malcolm A. Kline Ruth I. Matthews John W. Merline Scott Pattison Terrence M. Scanlon Jeff Schein Christopher Warden Walter W. Watt ASSISTANT PUBLISHER Whitney L. Ball CIRCULATION MANAGER M. W. Chapman BUSINESS MANAGER Mary Jo Buckland ASSISTANT TO THE PUBLISHER Irma V. White PRINTER Mack Printing Co. Easton, Pennsylvania SUBSCRIPTION DEPARTMENT P.O. Box 41533 Nashville, TN 37204-1533 (615) 377-3322 PUBLISHER'S PAGE Safety Last? Official efforts to protect consumers that wind up doing the reverse have been a frequent topic in these pages-and this month, we regret to say, is no exception. This time the problem is auto safety, which the federal government is supposed to be promoting through its reg- ulations, but in fact has managed to diminish. Such, at any rate, is the conclusion of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, set forward beginning at page 10. These negative safety outcomes are especially ironic, since they are caused by the federal agency supposedly in charge of ensuring traffic safety. The perverse effect results from the fact that the government is trying to regulate something else that doesn't need regulating to begin with-auto mileage standards, which consumers are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves. In fact, the whole sequence here shows the counter- productive nature of too much official activity: The "energy crisis" of the '70s, caused by government regula- tion, prompted efforts at mandated conservation, forcing higher mileage standards. This led in turn to auto down- sizing, putting more motorists at risk. We wish we had some good news to report about such matters, but these negative readouts are important on two fronts: First, because of the specific data imparted on the relative safety of products on the market. Second, because the recurring pattern of consumer disservice suggests the system in place is failing us, and urgently needs reforming. est wi CONSUMERS' RESEARCH magazine (ISSN 0095-2222) is published monthly for $24 per year by Consumers' Research Inc., 800 Maryland Ave., NE, Washington, D.C. 20002 (202) 546-1713. Second-class postage paid at Washington, D.C., and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send address changes to CONSUMERS' RESEARCH, P.O. Box 41533, Nashville, TN 37204-1533. M(,Vanton Evans Publisher April 1992 5

~as~~ing~on Unsafe Devi ces? In the wake of the recent controversy surrounding the use of silicone breast implants, the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says he will focus upon the use of other medical devices for use in the body. According to the FDA Com- missioner, David A. Kessler, the agency will look at medical devices that went into use prior to the year 1976-when a law was put into effect that required federal approval of new medical devices-as well as devices that went into use after the 1976 law that may not have received enough scrutiny. Experts say that even though these untested devices may have been used safely for more than 15 years, they could react adversely to drugs in the body, posing a sig nificant health hazard. "We must remember that these device laws are only 15 years old and our sophistication is still evolving," notes Kessler. "We now can ask and answer questions we could never even pose before." Some of the medical devices being considered include electri- cal brain stimulators; implants for the shoulders, knees, and testes; lens implants for the eye, ' and balloons that clear arteries. Furthermore, later this year, the ' FDA will submit for final review the use of saline breast implants. The first-ever inspec- I tion of U.S. seafood processing facilities by the federal govern- ment may have revealed signifi- cant problems, according to reports of preliminary data from ~ the FDA's new Office of Seafood. Up to 20% of samples analyzed revealed evidence of contan-iina- tion, filth, or decomposition, a rate that exceeds that of any other food commodity under the FDA's purview. However, Thomas Billy, director of the Office of Seafood, says that the rate may appear high because FDA investigators deliberately looked into species and fishing grounds that "have historically had problems." According to Billy, a 15% vio- lation rate is "pretty typical" of what to expect nationwide. By contrast, the FDA's pesticide monitoring program has revealed a 1.1 percent violation rate for chemical residues for domestic and imported foods in the U.S. (See "How Safe is the Fish We Eat?" CR, August 1989.) A cholesterol test might not be enough. Now, a blue-rib- bon, albeit unofficial, govern- ment panel suggests that adults who are tested for blood choles- terol should also be tested for lev- els of high density lipoprotein (HDL), the so-called "good cholesterol." Currently, HDL testing is extended only to those estimated 74 million people believed to be at moderate to high risk of devel- oping heart disease. People with total cholesterol within the "bor- derline" range of 200-239 mil- ligrams per deciliter of blood who have no other risk factors would not, under current guidelines, be candidates for an HDL screening. According to news reports, epi- demiologists estimate that 5% to 10% of the population with blood cholesterol levels below 200 mil- ligrams per deciliter of blood also have blood concentrations of HDL below 35 milligrams per deciliter, which would put them at moder- ate or high risk of heart disease, according to the National Choles- terol Education Program of the National Institutes of Health. HDL appears to be beneficial by protecting against accumulation of fat in the blood vessels, which can lead to a heart attack. (See "Food Health Claims: Fact vs. Fic- tion," CR, May, 1991.) The U.S. Court of Appeals has placed a roadblock in front of the 1990 fuel economy standards of the National Highway Traffic Safe- ty Administration (NfPrSA). Specif- ically, the court decided that NHTSA "obscuredd the safety prob- lem" when it set its corporate aver- age fuel economy (CAFE) standards, which mandate automakers to produce fleets with averages of no less than 27.5 miles per gallon. (See "How Federal Offi- cials Ignored Auto Safety" begin- ning at page 10.) The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank, had sued NHTSA, arguing that the 1990 CAFE standards force automakers to manufac- ture unduly dangerous cars. The U.S. government has decided to step up its planned phase-out of ozone- depleting chemicals. According to the new government stan- dards, U.S. production of chlo- roflurocarbons ("CFCs")-used extensively for refrigerants and solvents-and other chemicals that are believed to deplete the ozone layer will have to be stopped by December 31, 1995, four years sooner than mandat- ed by an international treaty. Currently, U.S. production of CFCs is 42% below 1986 levels because industry has found it easier than expected to develop safer alternatives. Additionally, the United States will re-exam- ine its phase-out schedule for less-harmful hydrochlorofluro- carbons, or HCFCs, and will also investigate methyl bromide. -Richard Coorsh 6 Consumers' Research

The Consumers I Observation Post AFTERMARKET ANTILOCK BRAKE KITS promise more than they deliver and can be dangerous, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Braking tests conducted by NHTSA indicate that these antilock devices do not prevent wheel lock-up, can cause poor braking performance, and might lead to loss of control. Advertisements for these products, which consumers bolt on to existing brake systems of their cars or trucks, claim to stop vehicles in distances up to 30% shorter than conventional brakes. However, tests of one product, Brake Guard ABS, found braking distances increased with this system by an average of 7%. NHTSA is currently investigating five antilock brake systems: Advanced Braking Systems, ABS/Trax, Accu-Brake System, G-Force, and ABS BrakeSafe. HOLDERS OF ADJUSTABLE RATE MORTGAGES (ARMs) BEWARE! Over the past three years, an estimated 4 million homeowners with ARMs have been overcharged. According to Consumer Loan Advocates (CLA), a not-for-profit public service group based in Chicago, the overcharges occurred primarily because lenders used the wrong index value to compute interest payments, or calculated the change in interest rates at the wrong time. Between 1989 and 1991, CLA audited a random sample of 9,000 ARMs nationwide, and uncovered errors in nearly half (47.5%) of the sample. The average overcharge was $1,588. (One borrower received a refund for $32,011.) The average time it took the borrower to obtain a refund was 62 days. The CLA advises consumers that the burden of proof of an overcharge rests with the borrower, not the bank, and that the interest the bank will pay on held funds is taxable. CLA will audit an ARM for a minimal fee, and provide consumers with an ARM AID booklet to help them audit their ARMs. For more information call (800) 767-2768. NO MORE TOLL BOOTHS. NO KIDDING. A new toll collection system, which electronically reads information stored in a transponder, or tag, attached to an automobile, is in the testing stage in New England. When an automobile passes through the system, the'ieader' automatically deducts funds from the driver's pre-paid account. "Eventually all that may be necessary is a bridge above the highway on which to install the reader," or electronic equipment could be imbedded in the roadway, says Thomas F. Humphrey, a traffic engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Researchers note that by not having to stop at toll booths, consumers would benefit from decreased travel time and fewer operating expenses, such as maintenance and fuel costs, which translate into fewer auto emissions and less air pollution. On the other hand, with electronic toIl collection, authorities could track people as they move from one place to another, raising questions of privacy rights. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania also are developing and/or testing electronic toll collection. New Hampshire plans to implement a system by the end of 1992. TO HELP PATIENTS AVOID UNNECESSARY AND EXPENSNE TREATMENTS, the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making plans to provide them with video programs that explain the various treatments available for certain ailments. According to The Wa11 Streetlournal, the non-profit foundation believes the programs also would help improve America's health care system because the videos "would start to infuse a health-care market dominated by the Continued on page 41. April 1992 7

Beatrice Trum Hunter Nutrients Are Not Created Equal Although Gertrude Stein wrote that "a rose is a rose is a rose," nutrients are not all equal. With- in each category of nutrients, crit- ical differences exist. These differences should be understood by anyone who is concerned about optimal nutrition. Proteins are not created equal. Proteins differ in quality depending upon the amino acids from which they are built. All amino acids must be present, and they must be in optimal ratios with one another. Under these conditions, quality pro- teins are built that are well uti- lized by the body. Egg represents the ideal qual- ity protein, against which all other proteins are measured, in terms of its protein efficiency ratio (PER). Egg is at the top of the PER scale, followed by pro- tein from other animal sources, both organs and muscles. The PER for proteins from non-ani- mal foods such as legumes, grains, and seeds is lower. All are limited by a low level of one or more amino acids, and they may not be in an ideal balance, one to another. Carbohydrates are not created equal. Complex carbohydrates, such as the starch from potatoes and whole grains, are handled by the body quite differently from sugars. Studies conducted at the Carbohydrate Nutrition Laboratory of the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture's Agricul- tural Research Service (ARS) at Beltsville, Maryland, showed that young male rats developed severe anemia, enlarged hearts, i and experienced premature death from a diet with sugar as the main carbohydrate source. The sugar induced copper defi- ciency. Rats remained in good health, with adequate copper, when starch was the main car- bohydrate source. Animals on a high-sugar diet, but not a high- starch starch diet, showed lower levels j of minerals such as selenium and calcium in their tissues. In order to induce mineral deficien- cies in experimental animals, frequently the feed is purposely formulated with half of the calo- ries derived from table sugar. Sugar and starch differ as car- bohydrates. Sugar is half fruc- tose tose and half glucose. Starch is all glucose. The ARS researchers found that the body metabolizes fructose differently from glu- cose. Fructose, and other sub- stances (such as alcohol) that are metabolized similarly, create a unique envirommnent in which copper deficiency can cause ~ health problems. Starch is not involved in the damaging metabolic pathway. Recently, ARS researchers found that damage to a rat's heart and other organs depends on a change in the way the cop- per-deficient animal handles another mineral, iron. In experi- ments, all copper-deficient rats stored more iron in their livers than animals with adequate lev- els of copper. Only the copper- deficient rats, eating a high-fructose diet, developed severe anemia. They were unable to utilize their supply of iron to make hemoglobin for red blood cells. However, their inability to use their iron supply when fed fructose failed to explain all the complications of copper deficiency. The researchers suspected that the iron might be toxic, because humans who suffer from iron overload (hemochromatosis) exhibit symptoms quite similar to those of fructose-induced cop- per deficiency in the rats. Autopsied livers from the starch- and fructose-fed rats were examined for free radicals. These substances are known to damage body tissue by oxidizing the molecules that form cells. Livers from the fructose-fed rats were found to generate five to eight times more free radi- cals of iron than those from the starch-fed rats. The role of iron overload in the fructose diet was reinforced by later studies. Rats were test- ed with an iron-binding drug and suffered almost none of the symptoms, damage, or mortali- ty of the untreated rats on a fructose diet. These findings are relevant to human health, because Ameri- cans have increased their sugar consumption at the expense of starches. The greatly increased use of high-fructose corn syrup in many processed foods and beverages has been suspected as an important factor in copper- deficiency and its linkage with heart diseases. Fats are not created equal. Fats vary in their composition of fatty acids and the proportions of saturated, monounsaturated, and unsaturated fatty acids. In general, animal fats are predom- inantly saturated and raise the blood levels of undesirable low density lipoproteins (LDLs); however, there are exceptions. Marine oils are highly unsatu- rated, and Stearic acid, found in beef, does not raise LDLs. In general, vegetable oils are predominantly monounsaturat- ed or unsaturated and raise the desirable high density lipopro- teins (HDLs). Again, there are 8 Consumers' Research

exceptions. Palm oil, palm ker- nel oil, and coconut oil (all plant derived) are predominantly satu- rated. However, human studies suggest that palm oil does not raise, but rather lowers, blood cholesterol. Also, the process of hydrogenation results in an unsaturated oil taking on the characteristics of a more satu- rated one. Olive oil, predomi- nantly monounsaturated, lowers LDLs, but not HDLs, while pre- dominantly unsaturated oils lower both. Minerals are not created equal. The form of the mineral may be critical to the amount that can be ~ A Aed Q. Does the body use all calories in the same way, regardless of their source? A. Scientists used to believe that all calories were created equal, but research has shown this not to be true. Similar to nutrients, not all calories are created equal (see article above). Calories from carbohydrates, fats, and protein are used differ- ently by the body. Nearly all fat calories are promptly stored in fat cells. Carbohydrates and proteins are converted into glu- cose for energy, with only those calories in excess of the body's fuel needs being stored. As a result, obesity may be linked to the proportion of fat in the diet rather than to the amount of calories consumed. Weight- reduction programs need to be tailored to account for this fact. In one recent study, limiting fat intake to about 20% of the total calories enabled chronically obese patients to lose an aver- absorbed into the body. (This is known as bioavailability.) For example, heme iron from animal foods is far better uti- lized than non-heme iron from vegetables, legumes, grains, and seeds. Food processors can select, from a number of iron compounds, the form they wish to use in iron enrichment of refined flours, cereals, and baked goods. The form they select may not necessarily be the one best utilized by the human body but, rather, serves a technical purpose by avoiding off-color or flavor in the fin- ished food products. Similarly, age of 20 to 30 pounds over a period of a year. These chroni- cally obese patients had failed in previous weight-reduction pro- grams to achieve satisfactory losses. Q. At present, what foods are being irradiated, and for what purposes? A. Food irradiation approval, begun as early as 1963, now includes the following: Wheat and wheat powder (to disinfect insects); white potatoes (to extend shelf life); spices and dry vegetable seasoning (to decon- taminate and disinfect insects); dry or dehydrated enzyme preparations (to control and decontaminate insects and microorganisms); pork carcasses or fresh non-cut processed cuts (to control Trichinella spiralis, the parasite that inflicts trichi- nosis); fresh fruits (to delay ripening); dry or dehydrated aromatic vegetable substances (to decontaminate); and poultry (to control illness-causing microorganisms). "Control" of insects and illness-causing microorganisms means that forms of zinc, chromium, and other minerals vary in their bioavailability. Vitamins are not created equal. As with minerals, the form of the vitamin may be criti- cal for its bioavailability. For example, vitamin E's activity is far greater from d-alpha toco- pherol than from dl-alpha toco- pheryl succinate (1.50 and 0.89 International Units in one mil- ligram, respectively). The inequality of nutrients has implications in assessing differ- ences in order to make sound recommendations for human requirements. their numbers will be reduced, but not eliminated. Although approval has been granted to irradiate the above classifica- tions of foods, not all are being treated. For example, poultry producers have no present plans to irradiate chickens and turkeys. Since 1966, the Food and Drug Administration has required that irradiated foods be labeled as such. In 1986, the agency added a mandatory logo to the labeling requirement. However, if irradiated ingredi- ents are used in a food product, the logo does not appear on the label of the finished manufac- tured food. Beatrice Trum Hunter is the author of a num- ber of books concerning food topics of impor- tance to consumers. The most recent ones include The Great Nutrition Robbery, The Mirage of Safety, and The Sugar Trap and How to Avoid It. Hunter is a frequent guest lecturer at universities and at meetings of health profes- sionals and from time to time she appears on national commercial and public television pro- grams. You may send your questions about food to Beatrice Trum Hunter, c/o Consumers' Research, 800 Maryland Ave., NE, Washing- ton, DC 20002. For a personal reply enclose a seif-addressed, stamped envelope. April 1992 9

CAFE Standards Ruling How Federal Officials Ignored Auto Safety Increasingly, consumer concerns have become topics for decision in the federal courts. This reflects the involvement of many regulatory agen- cies with matters of health, safety, and the envi- ronment, and lawsuits filed concerning enforcement of their rules and standards. We have addressed such subjects in previous issues of Consumers' Research-as in our Febru- ary feature on asbestos and dioxin, including excerpts from a federal court decision relating to the uses of asbestos. This month we provide the text of another such decision, involving automo- tive safety and mileage standards, as implemented by the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminis- tration (NHTSA), an agency of the U.S. Depart- ment of Transportation. This ruling from a panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals concerns so-called CAFE mileage standards imposed on the U.S. automotive fleet by federal regulation. The issue to be decided was whether these standards forced a "downsizing" of cars relative to what they other- wise would be, and whether this in turn meant less safe cars and loss of life (questions frequently considered in Consumers' Research). Plaintiffs including the Competitive Enterprise I ollowing are excerpts from a decision hand- ed down by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Febru- ary 19,1992. Choice means giving something up. In deciding whether to relax the previously established "corpo- rate average fuel economy" ("CAFE") standard for model year 1990, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") confronted a record suggesting that refusal to do so would exact some penalty in auto safety. Rather than affirma- tively choosing extra energy savings over extra safe- ty, however, NHTSA obscured the safety problem, and thus its need to choose. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act requires every major carmaker to keep the average fuel econ- omy of its fleet, in each model year, at or above a prescribed level. The Act holds manufacturers to a standard of 27.5 miles per gallon for model year Institute and Consumer Alert argued that the standards mandated less safe cars, and the court in essence agreed. It found (a) that the evidence shows smaller cars, other things being equal, are less safe than large ones; (b) that the CAFE stan- dards have compelled a downsizing of cars from what they would otherwise have been; and (c) that NHTSA had evaded the resulting safety issue in its rule-making. It is unusual to find a federal court saying, in so many words, that the federal government is in all likelihood enforcing a rule that "kills people," or that the regulators need to determine "the num- ber of people being sacrificed" to justify their actions, and that the responsible agency has dodged these life-and-death considerations. Such language is particularly shocking when we reflect that the agency in question is the National High- way Traffic Safety Administration. This ruling is additionally significant for con- sumers in that it contains specific information about the relative safety of different types of cars and vans, and about the interaction of other safety features with vehicle size. For all these reasons, we believe our readers should have full access to these official findings.-Ed. 1985 and each model year thereafter, but authorizes NHTSA to modify the standard up or down. Where the agency chooses to modify, it must set the replacement standard at the "maximum feasible average fuel economy level." In determining "feasi- bility," NHTSA has always taken passenger safety into account, and the agency maintains that safety concerns are relevant to whether the agency should adopt one CAFE standard over another. In August 1988, at the behest of various par- ties, including several major carmakers and peti- tioner Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), NHTSA initiated a rulemaking proceeding on whether to reduce the CAFE standards for model years 1989 and 1990. The agency quickly lowered the standard for model year 1989 to 26.5 mpg, but it continued to hear public comment on whether to reduce the 1990 standard as well. Then, in May 1989, NHTSA terminated its proceedings on that 10 Consumers' Research

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issue and left the statutory standard in place. While the agency rejected a variety of attacks on that standard, we are concerned with only one of the defeated arguments: the contention that the standard will force carmakers to produce sznaller, less safe cars, thus making it more difficult and expensive for consumers to buy larger, safer cars. We find that the agency has not coherently addressed this concern. When the automaking firms petitioned for a reduction in the model year 1990 standardd down to 26.5 mpg, and petitioners pressed the argument that failure to reduce the standard would cost lives, NHTSA had three basic choices. First, it might have concluded that the statute does not require it to con- sider safety effects when deciding whether to embark on a modification proceeding. It could then have dismissed petitioners' claims without further ado. While a court might have reversed, the statuto- ry framework is so loose and...that the agency would have had a fair shot at being upheld. Second, NHTSA might have seriously examined the record data. On its face this suggested (as we shall see) the overwhelming likelihood that a 27.5 mpg standard reduces the supply of safe cars avail- able to American consumers. Conceivably, of " ... consumers who do not want to be priced out of the market for larger, safer cars, deserve better from their government." course, a sophisticated analysis might have over- come the record's apparent implications, but even if it did not, all NHTSA would have had to do was face the trade-off. It could have said that while the 27.5 standard might cost, say 200-to-500 American lives a year for ten years, it would also reduce American oil imports by, say, 50,000-to-400,000 barrels a year, and that in its judgment the trade- off was worth it. And it could have expressed any such trade-off in less numerical terms. Finally, NHTSA could have fudged the analysis, held the standard at 27.5, and, with the help of sta- tistical legerdemain, made conclusory assertions that its decision had no safey cost at all. That is what it chose. The people petitioners represent, con- sumers who do not want to be priced out of the mar- ket for larger, safer cars, deserve better from their government. ...the agency insisted at oral argument that even if the 27.5 standard constrains the behavior of carmakers, it will not lead to smaller cars. Yet nowhere has the agency actually justified this claim or even purported to make such a finding. "Nothing in the record or in NHTSA's analysis appears to undermine the inference that the 27.5 mpg standard kills people..." It came closest in the following passage: "[T]here are still a number of fuel-effeciency enhancing methods that [GM and Ford have] not fully utilized throughout their fleets.... NHTSA believes that the domestic manufacturers should be able to improve their fuel economy in the future by these and/or other technological means, without outsourcing their larger cars, without further down- sizing or mix shifts toward smaller cars, and with- out sacrificing acceleration or performance." Why the agency expressed itself in the normative ("should be") is anybody's guess. At any rate, it has never claimed that domestic manufacturers will in fact meet the standard without downsizing their fleets, or even that there is a substantial probability that they will do so, or even that there is a substan- tial likelihood that they will use methods other than downsizing for the lion's share of the work. Presum- ably NHTSA does not assert such facts because it could not ground them in the record. Moreover, to the extent that carmakers choose technological innovation over downsizing (and fur- ther assuming that such innovation would not itself compromise aspects of auto safety), that choice would involve significant costs in implementation, even if we assume that research and development are complete. That cost would translate into higher prices for large cars (as well as small), thereby pres- suring consumers to retain their old cars and make the associated sacrifice in safety. The result would be effectively the same harm that concerns petition- ers and that the agency fails to negate or justify. The historical fact is, however, that carmakers respond to CAFE standards by reducing the size of their fleets. NHTSA itself has explicitly acknowl- edged as much in the past, and we ourselves have insisted that "the evidence shows that manufactur- ers are likely to respond to lower CAFE standards by continuing or expanding production of larger, heavier vehicles." Even in the decision below the agency acknowledged this link, explaining that "Chrysler's CAFE has been higher than that of GM or Ford in recent years primarily because it does not compete, or compete as heavily, in all the market segments in which GM and Ford sell cars, particu- larly the large car market." The agency now tries to obscure this reality by pointing out that "the average fuel economy of the new car fleet has improved steadily from 26.6 mpg in model year 1982 to 28.2 mpg in model year April 1992 11

"As NHTSA itself has amply docu- mented, however, minivans are considerably less safe than vans generally, with a fatality rate per registered vehicle about 25-33% higher than that of large cars." 1987, while the average weight of a new car increased two pounds during the same period." This argument misses the point. The appropriate comparison, which NHTSA must but did not address, is between the world with more stringent CAFE standards and the world with less stringent standards. The fact that weight has remained con- stant over time despite mileage improvements shows the effect of technological improvements, to be sure, but in no way undermines the natural inference that weight is lower than it would be absent CAFE regulation. Here we can be quite sure that it is lower, since, as NHTSA observed in this decision, economic recovery and declining gasoline prices sharply raised consumer demand for large cars over the relevant period ("consumer demand has shifted back toward larger vehicles") If consumers demanded substantially bigger cars, carmakers-absent regulation-would have pro- duced substantially bigger cars, not cars that remained, on average, within two pounds of the cars made when consumers favored smaller cars. More- over, NHTSA has given us no reason to think that whatever technological innovations permitted automakers to meet CAFE requirements while keeping weight constant did not also cost consumers more, again pricing some consumers out of the mar- ket for new large cars.' NHTSA also argues that even if the 27.5 mpg standard will deplete the supply of large GM or Ford cars, a consumer looking for a big car "will buy a large car from another manufacturer, or will buy a minivan, or will keep his or her older, large car.... [A]ny one of those alternative consumer out- comes is far more likely than the possibility that the consumer will buy a smaller car than he or she wanted to buy." Nothing in the record suggests that any of these will give consumers large-car safety at the prices that would have prevailed if NHTSA had made a less stringent choice. The reference to buying large cars from "anoth- er manufacturer" is somewhat in the spirit of Marie Antoinette's suggestion to "let them eat IIt is significant that even NHTSA makes no more than the lame claim that "[tlhis example illustrates the point that not all CAFE gains come by reducing weight." The issue is whether a material portion of the "CAFE gains" are likely to entail downsizing. NHTSA never even pur- ports to deny this. cake." By NHTSA's own hypothesis, the "other manufacturers" are Chrysler, which has essential- ly removed itself from the large car market, and foreign manufacturers, which are subject to CAFE standards on their U.S. sales. To the limited extent that foreign firms produce truly large cars at all, they are expensive ones. In suggesting minivans (which are exempt from the 27.5 standard), the agency disingenuously obscures their dangers by citing safety figures only for vans in general. As NHTSA itself has amply documented, however, minivans are considerably less safe than vans generally, with a fatality rate per registered vehicle about 25-33% higher than that of large cars. Finally, NHTSA's notion that the consumer should "keep his or her older, large car" ignores both its own finding that neww cars "appear to experience fewer accidents per mile traveled," and the plight of consumers seeking to buy a large car for the first time. By making it harder for consumers to buy large cars, the 27.5 mpg standard will increase traffic fatalities if, as a general matter, small cars are less safe than big ones. They are, as NHTSA itself acknowledges. The agency explains: "Occupants of the smaller cars generally are at greater risk because : (a) the occupant's survival space is generally less in small cars (survival space, in simple terms, means enough room for the occu- pant to be held by the vehicle's occupant restraint system without being smashed into injurious sur- faces, and enough room to prevent being crushed or hit by a collapsing surface); (b) smaller and lighter vehicles generally have less physical structure avail- able to absorb and manage crash energy and forces;. and (c) in most collisions between vehicles of differ- ent weight, the forces imposed on occupants of lighter cars are proportionately greater than the forces felt by occupants of heavier vehicles.°'2 The agency tries to skirt the obvious conclusion with two specious arguments. First, it essentially argues that the 27.5 mpg standard will have no effect on the availability of large cars (i.e., will accomplish nothing at all). This, we have seen, is simply untrue. Second, the agency observes that new cars now come with a variety of mandatory and optional safety fea- tures (airbags, anti-lock brakes, etc) that will pre- sumably compensate for a decline in size. There are two things wrong with this latter (See CAFE, page 35.) 2One might argue that the third factor indicated that if all cars were small, there would be fewer traffic fatalities. Any such inference appears quite doubtful. Cars can hit a variety of objects, including trucks, trees, and other cars; fatalities in car-to-car crashes do not account for even a majority of passenger-car occupants fatalities. Unless NHTSA outlaws trucks and trees, smaller cars will probably always mean higher fatality rates, as NHTSA recognizes., ("in single vehicle crashes, there is increased risk of serious injury or death"). 12 Consumers' Research

Special Report: Passive Smoking And Your Heart Gary L. Huber, MD, Robert E. Brockie, MD, and Vijay K. Mahajan, MD. n the July 1991 issue of CR, we defined the nature of environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), presented an overview of how the possible health risk of exposure to ETS is assessed, and reviewed the available literature on the alleged relationship between ETS expo- sure and the risk of nonsmokers developing lung cancer (see "Passive Smoking: How Great a Haz- ard?"). There are published now a total of 32 studies on ETS and lung cancer. Although some may cite these reports to mean otherwise, the majority of the published data do not support the conclusion that exposure to the residual con- stituents of ETS is associated with lung cancer in nonsmokers. That is, only 7 of the 32 pub- lished studies-or less than a fourth of the investigations that have examined this ques- tion-report a small, but statistically significant, increased risk. The reader is referred to our ear- lier publication for a more extensive analysis of these considerations. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke has also been reported as associated with the develop- ment of cardiovascular disease. This is an impor- tant issue, in that the number of people in our society who develop cardiovascular disease exceeds by a substantial margin those that will develop cancer. A critical evaluation of this sub- ject requires placing the available information in some rational perspective within a broader under- standing of cardiovascular disease in general. The term "cardiovascular disease" is used to describe those illnesses of the heart, brain, and other organ systems that develop because of acquired abnormalities in the blood vessels that supply them. Cardiovascular diseases are by far the most common cause of disease and death in our society today. Over 60 million Americans suf- fer from these diseases and one million or more of them die each year, accounting for one death every 30 seconds. Cardiovascular diseases are responsible for almost one-half of all deaths in the United States. To place this in further perspec- tive, there are more than twice as many deaths Drs. Huber, Brockie, and Mahajan are with, respectively, the University of Texas Health Center, the Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, and St. Vincent's Hospital-Medical College of Ohio. from cardiovascular disease as there are from all forms of cancer combined. Coronary artery disease, an illness that is due to a narrowing or blockage of the major vessels that supply blood to the heart muscle, is one of the most common forms of cardiovascular disease. If the coronary artery is partially blocked, the reduced blood supply to the heart muscle may cause reversible ischemic heart pain, or angina pectoris, to develop. If the blockage is more severe, myocardial infarction (irreversible dam- age to part of the heart muscle) can develop; "The fact that about half of all cardiovascular deaths can not be explained on the basis of spe- cific identifiable risks reflects how little we really know about these matters, and how extreme- ly difficult it is to study them with precision." worse yet, sudden death may occur. These are manifestations of coronary artery disease that we commonly call "heart attacks." Coronary artery disease and heart attacks cause about one death every minute in this country. The exact cause of coronary heart disease is not known. It is generally held that the primary problem is atherosclerosis, which is a gradual build-up of fatty deposits on the inside of the coronary vessels. The build-up of these deposits forms an atherosclerotic plaque, rendering the artery wall thicker, often with an irregular sur- face that may cause the blood within to clot. This is a slow process that begins in infancy or early childhood and progresses all through life. As the build-up of fats (primarily cholesterol) continues, a point is reached where the vessel opening becomes significantly narrowed and is more sus- ceptible to complete blockage. Many people who die of heart attacks, however, do not have an unusual amount of atherosclerosis in their coro- nary vessels, or even elevated cholesterol levels. Furthermore, the degree of development of April 1992 13

plaque formation does not consistently correlate with the site of an eventual occlusion or with death from this disease. Atherosclerosis appears to be responsible for the largest share of heart attacks and related deaths in this country. How or why atherosclerotic plaques occur and develop, however, is not known.' In the absence of a proven mechanism for the development of coronary heart disease, emphasis has been placed on the identification, through epidemiological studies, of "risk factors" that are associated with an accelerated rate of for- mation of atherosclerotic plaques. Most often, however, results of such epidemiological studies are expressed as death that is attributable to heart disease, not as a quantification of atherosclerosis. Unfortunately, death certificates, from which mortality rates are often derived, are notoriously inaccurate for diagnosis of heart disease. Risk Factors A risk factor is the term that describes a char- acteristic of behavior or of lifestyle, or an envi- ronmental exposure, or an inherited characteristic, that on the basis of epidemiologi- cal data is reported to be associated with the development of disease. The risk is usually expressed as an "odds- ratio," or a "risk ratio," which measures "relative risk" in comparison to some control group or pop- ulation which has not been exposed to the factor in question. If there is no difference in the disease rates associated with the factor, compared to the disease rate for the non-exposed or control group, the relative risk will be calculated as "unity," or 1.0. If there are differences in the disease rate that are associated with the factor studied, these differences will be expressed as a relative risk that is some variation of unity. If the relative risk is less than 1.0, the average exposed individuals would have less chance than the nonexposed con- trol individuals for the development of the dis- ease. If the relative risk is greater than 1.0, the exposed individuals would have an increased chance for the development of the disease. How- ever, the degree of increased or decreased risk must be "statistically significant" by acceptable biostatistical criteria before a relative risk can have any meaningful importance. Relative risk relationships are only mathemati- cal associations. When they are consistent and 1There currently are two widely investigated, speculative theories: (1) Atherosclerotic plaques develop in response to an initial injury to the blood vessel wall, or (2) the plaques are an uncontrolled growth of sorts, with replication within the vessel wall that results in a build-up of cholesterol-laden cells that eventually will cause a blockage. strong, there is an implication of a potential causal relationship. Even when very strong, how- ever, risk factors by themselves do not represent anything other than a statistical association. They must always be considered in the context of other scientific information. They must also be evaluated in the context of whether or not the reported association makes any biological sense. The strength of a statistical association does not necessarily determine its importance. For instance, a weak association, if statistically signif- icant, that affects very large numbers of people may be important because of the magnitude of its effect on the population at risk. A strong statisti- cal association that has no biological relevance may be unimportant or meaningless. Even strong relative risk associations must be viewed cau- tiously when there exist numerous potential caus- es of a disease. The greater the number of potential "causes" of a disease (usually identified as risk factors), the more difficult it becomes to analyze (or implicate) any one of these "causes" (or risks) to the exclusion of another. When the relative risk is less than 2.5 or so, the association of the identified risk factor with the development of the disease is, by convention, considered to be weak. That is to say, the associa- tion of the risk factor with the development of disease may have only limited or no real meaning. The weaker the relative risk, the greater must be the care and responsibility exercised in its inter- pretation. When the relative risk is less than 2.0, there is a strong possibility (or probability) that the association is artifactual-that is, the relative risk may actually be due to confounding factors where two or more potential associations cannot be separated or distinguished. (A confounding factor, in this context, can be defined in the most simple of terms as "an alternative explanation. ") When the relative risk is less than 2.0, there are enormous problems of controlling the biases of the investigator as well as biases that are inher- ently present within the experimental design of every epidemiological study. Bias, in this context, means the introduction of error by failing to con- trol for or to consider other important influences. Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease. To compli- ca.te matters further, it is extremely unlikely that cardiovascular disease is ever caused by one factor. The development and progression of this disease are associated with many factors. Over the past 25 years, in fact, more than 300 identifiable risk fac- tors have been reported as potentially important to the development of cardiovascular diseases. Even with this large number of risk factors, leading authorities in cardiology emphasize that it is remarkable that most people who develop 14 Consumers' Research

atherosclerosis and most people who die from car- diovascular disease do not have a readily identifi- able specific risk factor to explain their disease. For example, only slightly less than 50% of all cardiovascular disease and death has been associ- ated with specific risk factors. The fact that about half of all cardiovascular deaths can not be explained on the basis of specific identifiable risks reflects how little we really know about these matters, and how extremely difficult it is to study them with precision. Cardiovascular risk factors are usually classi- fied as unmodifiable or modifiable. Unmodifiable risk factors are ones that represent an association that cannot be changed, such as age, gender, race, genetic determinants, family history, and so on. Modifiable risk factors in many ways are poten- tially more important, because once identified they hopefully can be reduced or controlled. Modifiable risk factors number literally in the hundreds, but the most important ones are thought to be high blood pressure, diabetes melli- tus, and elevated blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. Excessive life stress, excessive alco- hol intake, lack of regular exercise, cigarette smoking, obesity in a certain body distribution, and other life style factors may be almost equally important. Most physicians try to reduce modifi- able risk factors in the hope of reducing the mor- bidity and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases and, especially, coronary heart disease. Active Smoking Active tobacco smoking is reported as a major and an important risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases and for coronary heart disease. Active smoking is called a "major" risk factor because of the large numbers of people who smoke. Smoking rates may be under-reported now because of the associated "social taboos" of smoking. In spite of this consideration, it is esti- mated that at least 50 million Americans contin- ue to smoke on a regular basis. The Office of the Surgeon General has emphasized that reducing the magnitude of this active smoking population would have a major national health impact in reducing cardiovascular disease mortality. Although classified as a "major" risk factor for heart disease on the basis of the sheer number of active smokers, it may come as a surprise to many readers to learn that active cigarette smoking is not a strong risk factor. For instance, in 1983 the Surgeon General's report focused exclusively on tobacco smoking and cardiovascular diseases and estimated the relative risk for coronary heart dis- ease in smokers at 1.7, compared to nonsmokers. Other estimates, now based on over 20 million person-years of epidemiological assessment, have set the relative risk in active smokers for coro- nary heart disease at a level of from as low as 1.3 to as high as 2.0 or slightly greater, but with a four-fold greater risk for sudden death, compared to nonsmokers. Indeed, when critically analyzed, most epidemi- ological studies report that active tobacco smok- ing alone is, in the absence of other potential risk factors (such as high blood pressure and high serum cholesterol levels), an extremely weak risk factor for the development of cardiovascular dis- eases. Given the presence of additional risk fac- tors, however, such as high blood cholesterol levels or hypertension, tobacco cigarette smoking has been reported to influence the net overall risk for death from coronary heart disease. That is, adding active tobacco smoking to another under- lying risk may result in a net effect that 'a greater than simply the sum of the two individual risks combined. There are several possible explanations for this, which will be addressed in the discussion that follows. It is not clear, for instance, whether tobacco smoke itself is actually important in the development of atherosclerosis or whether simply that tobacco smoking is an epidemiological "marker" for a life style characterized by multiple high risk behaviors. It must be remembered, how- ever, that increasing the strength of the risk asso- ciation does not allow the inference that the risk factor in itself is causal, for active tobacco smok- ing or for cholesterol or for any other factor. 'Passive' Smoking Nine epidemiological studies (see table, page 17) have reported the relative risk for develop- ment of cardiovascular disease in nonsmokers exposed to ETS. Since the residual constituents of ETS are so dilute, it is extremely difficult to mea- sure them directly. In that context, then, it is important to emphasize that none of the nine epi- demiological studies actually measured exposure to ETS, but rather projected or estimated an exposure to ETS on the basis of a surrogate. The surrogate was usually the historical identification (by answer to a questionnaire) of a smoker living in the household of a nonsmoker. The nine stud- ies contain 12 sets of epidemiological data, seven sets of which are data for nonsmoking females who were married to or living with active male smokers, and in some instances who reported ETS exposure in their workplace. Limited data are available on four sets of nonsmoking males who reported a surrogate equivalent of exposure to ETS. April 1992 15 ~ I

What Is ETS? Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) consists of "secondhand" residual smoke constituents emitted by active smokers into their sur- roundings. The nonsmoker may be exposed to these residual constituents in very dilute con- centrations. ETS residual constituents are remnants of exhaled mainstream and of sidestream tobac- co smoke that are so dispersed in environ- mental air that it is somewhat of a misnomer, or misconception, even to refer to them as "smoke," per se. Under real-life conditions, only about 100 or so of these environmental tobacco smoke remnants have been identified to date-and then only at extremely low con- centrations-in the environment of smokers. This is in contrast to the several thousand constituents that have been reported for the mainstream smoke that is inhaled by active smokers. Five of the twelve data sets report very small increases in relative risk that reach statistical sig- nificance, and seven of the data sets report changes that are not statistically significant at conventional levels of biostatistical acceptance. A relative risk ratio is an estimated average change in the disease rate associated with the studied variable; in all of these studies, then, the relative risk is the projected estimate of risk for developing cardiovascular diseases for nonsmok- ing individuals married to or living with smokers. Confidence intervals also are included for all data presented in the table.2 Seven of the 12 data sets have as a lower limit of their confidence intervals a relative risk of less than unity (1.0), indicating, by universally accepted epidemiological stan- dards, that spousal smoking may not be associat- ed with the development of cardiovascular diseases in nonsmokers; in other words, confi- dence intervals that reach less than unity for rel- ative risks indicate that there is insufficient evidence that the experimental group is different from the control group at the specified level of confidence. How Valid? None of the ETS epidemiological studies is a "high validity" randomized prospective interven- tion study designed to evaluate whether or not a reduction in the level of exposure to ETS is asso- ciated with a reduction in risk for cardiovascular disease. Three of the ETS studies are low validity case-control studies and six of the ETS studies are cohort "quasi-prospective" assessments. That is, they are drawn from what were prospective studies designed for another purpose and, as such, are valid only for generating hypotheses, not for confirming them. None of the six cohort studies were initially designed to evaluate the effect of ETS as a risk for cardiovascular disease. They all represent "data dredging" by "retrospec- tive" assessments of "nested case-controls" fol- lowed prospectively for another purpose. The studies are of diverse design and draw con- flicting conclusions. The six cohort studies, for example, do not report comparable data. Some report disease rates and others report death rates, some report prevalence statistics and oth- ers incidence data, and some assess the broad cat- egory of cardiovascular diseases in general and others assess certain manifestations of only the more specific coronary heart disease. For these reasons, the data from the various studies cannot be legitimately combined in so-called meta-analy- sis to see if stronger conclusions can be drawn.3 Even though combining such diverse data as are available from these studies is not generally considered scientifically acceptable (at least not by currently justified procedures), two publica- tions nevertheless have attempted to do so.` A third publication (Steenland, 1992), did not pool results of epidemiological studies, but developed and employed an elaborate model based on an extensive number of untested assumptions. Steenland projected a 2.2 percent greater chance for nonsmoking males and 1.2 percent greater chance for nonsmoking females of dying from coronary heart disease by age 74, when living with a smoker, in comparison to those living with a nonsmoker over a lifetime. Dosimetry and Trends. None of the studies on ETS and cardiovascular diseases measured or in any way directly quantified actual exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.s In the absence of direct measurements of exposure, these studies, like all epidemiologic studies on ETS, have used 2 A 95% confldence interval is a statistical expression of a range of val- ues that have, as listed here, a 95% probability of including the true value for the effect of nonsmokers living with smoking spouses, com- p3ared to nonsmokers living with nonsmoking spouses. Meta-analysis is a way of pooling or combining several studies, by sta- tistical analysis and integration of the results of low-power or weak reports, in order to draw conclusions that may be stronger than those demonstrable in any of the weak studies alone. 4The first publication (Wells, 1988) derived an estimated "pooled relative risk" for ETS surrogate exposure and heart disease of 1.2 for females and 1.3 for males. The second publication (Glantz and Parmley, 1991) failed to provide the reader with the methodology employed, and project- ed an overall "pooled risk" of 1.3 for both males and females. 5 Five of the nine studies on ETS and cardiovascular disease attempted to assess via a questionnaire on household smokers whether or not there was a "dose-related" association between the number of smokers 16 Consumers' Research

Studies of ETS and Cardiovascular Disease in Nonsmokers Study Sex Type of Study# Number of Cases+ Relative Risk** 95% Confidence Interval Variables Controlled Hirayama, 1984++ F P 494 1.16 0.9-1.4 Husband's age Garland, 1985 F P 19 2.7 0.9-13.6 Age, blood pressure (BP), weigt, choles- t i t l Lee, 1986 F C 77 0.9 0.5-1.6 erol mart a sta us. Age, marital status. M C 41 1.2 0.5-2.6 Svendsen, 1987 M P 13 2.1 0.7-6.5 Age, BP, plasma lipids, weight, income, He/sing, 1988 M P 370 1.3* 1.1-1.6 education, alcohol. Age, education, marital status, income. F P 988 1.2* 1.1-1.4 He, 1989 F C 34 1.5* 1.3-1.8 Age, BP, cholesterol, race, residence, Humble, 1990 F P 76 1.6 1.0-2.6 alcohol, other factors (but data not available). Age, BP, weight, cholesterol. Hole, 1990 M/F P 84 2.0* 1.2-3.4 Age, BP, weight, cholesterol, social class. Dobson, 1991 M C 22 1.0 0.5-1.9 Age, sex, prior coronary heart disease. F C 43 2.5` 1.5-4.1 ~ P=prospective cohort study; C=retrospective case-control study ' Statistically significant at the conventionally accepted level (5%). '` Weak relative risks have risk ratios between 1.0 and 3.0, or so. Any risk below 1.0 represents a negative relationship. Note that none of the studies report a strong average relative risk.. Data reported are from the author's papers or from review articles. + Cases contains coronary heart disease deaths and/or cardiovascular disease, with or without death. ++ Some of the data from Hirayama were reported as "statistically significant" with unconventional 90"/% confidence intervals (relative risk of 1.3 with 1.1-1.6 confi- dence intervals); recompilation of all of his data available reveals a nonsignificant relative risk. surrogates of exposure. For nonsmokers, the sur- rogate of ETS exposure has been an estimation of the number of active smokers living in the same household (usually an actively smoking husband with a nonsmoking female or an actively smoking wife with a nonsmoking male) or an estimate of smokers present in the work-place of the non- smokers. These surrogate "exposure" estimates were derived exclusively through various ques- tionnaires. No study employed actual direct quan- tification of ETS or ETS constituents in the environment of the nonsmoker. We reviewed in some detail the serious shortcomings of this approach in our previous publication in CR, noted above, and the reader is referred to that contribu- tion for a more extensive discussion. As with other studies on ETS and potential dis- ease risks, some of the reports on ETS and cardio- vascular disease contain data on some of the population subsets that, in the absence of other- wise significant differences, suggested to the authors or to other reviewers a "trend" of the sta- tistically insignificant data toward a meaningful association. Although in most of science "trends" in these kinds of data do not count, there are in the household and the amount of cardiovascular disease. The results were inconsistent, with some reporting a dose-response relationship, most reporting no significant effect, and some data suggesting a reverse dose-response relationship-less disease reported with high lev- els of exposure to ETS. "Six of the nine studies report a relative risk for cardiovascular or coronary heart disease...that is approximately equal to or in excess of that reported for active smokers. Intuitively, that makes no biological sense whatsoever." legitimate ways to assess whether or not such "trends" might have some "statistical signifi- cance." Seven of the nine original reports claim and discuss "trends" in their results, even when their own published statistical analyses of these data demonstrate that the proposed "trends" had no statistical significance. In other words, these contributors seemed to ignore their own biostatis- tical analyses and to adapt new rules to fit hypotheses otherwise not provable by their own reported data or by conventionally accepted bio- statistical principles. Other Scientific Evidence. Nonsmokers in the environments of active smokers typically are exposed to only extremely small amounts of a very limited number of residual remnants of ETS. Potential cardiovascular effects would not be expected from exposure to such small concentra- tions of these smoke constituents. April 1992 17

"All of the more than 300 cardio- vascular risk factors that have been identified are confounding variables and many have the same approximate relative risk or risk ratio as that reported for spousal smoking." Under real-life conditions,e it has been estimat- ed that nonsmokers are exposed to approximately as little as 1/10,000 to at most only about 1/100 to 2/100 per hour or so of certain constituents of cigarette smoke to which the active smoker is exposed in the same period. Exposure of nonsmokers to the highly diluted residual constituents of ETS is at a concentration well below that level which would be expected to produce any long-term pathological effects or dis- ease. Remarkably, then, in the face of this extremely low level of exposure, six of the nine studies report a relative risk for cardiovascular or coronary heart disease associated with ETS expo- sure that is approximately equal to or in excess of that reported for active smokers. Intuitively, that makes no biological sense whatsoever. Something clearly is wrong with either the design or with the gathering and calculation of the epidemiological data in these studies. Cigarette smoking remains a high frequency event in our society, with an estimated 50 million or more active smokers today. Approximately 500 to 600 billion cigarettes are consumed each year in this country alone. Death from cardiovascular disease is also a high frequency event in our soci- ety, with over one million cardiovascular deaths each year and one death every 30 seconds. It is not surprising, therefore, that considerable inves- tigative effort would be spent on studying the potential association between these two high fre- quency events. When such potential associations are studied, great care must be exercised to control for the influence of confounding factors on the reported results. This is particularly true for cigarette smoking and cardiovascular diseases because the reported association between the two is quite weak, the number of additional risk factors is extraordinarily large, and less than half of all car- diovascular disease mortality is reported to be associated with specific identifiable risk factors. 6 By "real-life" conditions it is meant conditions encountered in day-to- day living conditions in the world, as opposed to the artificial con- straints of the experimental laboratory or a sealed environment chamber. Confounding Variables. A confounding variable is one that can cause or prevent the outcome of interest (in this case, death from cardiovascular disease) and is not associated with the factor under investigation (in this case, reported expo- sure to ETS). All of the more than 300 cardiovas- cular risk factors that have been identified are confounding variables and many have the same approximate relative risk or risk ratio as that reported for spousal smoking. If these confound- ing variables are not evaluated and controlled for in an epidemiological study on ETS, how then can ETS be implicated to the exclusion of the other factors? It cannot be, of course, but that is exactly what has happened in the nine studies on ETS and car- diovascular diseases. For instance, the two largest studies (Hirayama with 494 cases and Helsing with 1358 cases-together representing well over 80% of all reported cases in these studies) do not even control for blood cholesterol levels, do not control for high blood pressure, and do not con- trol for diabetes mellitus, the three strongest risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease. Indeed, none of the nine studies controls for more than a limited handful of the potential 300 or more reported identifiable risk factors. In the absence of controlling these variables, the reported outcomes for implied ETS exposure are impossible to interpret with any confidence or meaning. In fact, it is now scientifically unaccept- able to undertake an investigation (or, for that matter, unacceptable to accept the contention of a published study) on cardiovascular disease with- out properly controlling for the three best known and widely accepted risk factors-high plasma cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and dia- betes mellitus. Lifestyle Factors Active smokers are different from nonsmokers in a remarkable number of ways. In general, smokers as a group appear to have a lifestyle that results in a clustering of several adverse health risk factors. Smokers tend to drink more alcohol than nonsmokers, drink more coffee, live a more stressful life, behave more aggressively, have a lower socioeconomic status, exercise less, sleep less, and spend less time on enjoyable hobbies. Smokers tend to be less safety conscious, not to wear seatbelts, to have accidents more frequently, and to behave in ways that increase their risks for injury. Smokers, on average, are less educated than nonsmokers. Smokers are less "health con- scious" than nonsmokers, and they have a more negative attitude about modifying behavior to 18 Consumers' Research

avoid ill health and, in general, toward preventive health measures. Smokers participate in fewer health risk screening tests and are less conscious about implementing good health practices than nonsmokers. The diet of smokers is also different from the diet of nonsmokers. Smokers eat a higher propor- tion of fat, ingest more salt, and consume more sweet foods and ice creams than do nonsmokers. The smoker's diet has fewer fruits, less fiber, fewer vegetables, and lower intakes of vitamins A and C, folate and beta-carotene. Smokers have more irregular eating patterns than nonsmokers, and tend more often to skip breakfast or skip lunch or both. Smokers tend to eat white bread more often, while nonsmokers eat brown bread more often. Smokers tend to drink whole milk, while nonsmokers tend to drink low-fat milk. Smokers have diets richer in saturated fats, while nonsmokers consume proportionately greater polyunsaturated fats. Smokers eat more "junk food" and "fast foods" than do nonsmokers. Smokers have, independent of smoking, a lifestyle and a diet that has been associated with increased risks for coronary heart disease, cardio- vascular diseases (including strokes), and cancers of all types. Smokers have a lifestyle and a diet "How these lifestyle risk fac- tors confound the study of these diseases in nonsmoking spousal partners within the same house- hold of smokers is unknown." that depresses immune defenses against exoge- nous toxins and against endogenous abnormali- ties, such as malignancies. In short, smokers have certain behavior characteristics that collectively might be described as "unhealthy lifestyles." The degree to which nonsmoking spouses of smokers share a clustering of unhealthy risk fac- tors has not been studied extensively and has not been quantified. We simply do not know for sure how spouses of smokers behave, but it is only common sense that these various risks would be shared. It is unlikely that nonsmoking spousal part- ners share all of these increased health risks, but it also is improbable that they do not share at least many of them. For example, the patterns of individual eating may be somewhat different for smokers and nonsmoking spouses but it is highly unlikely that the food availabilities within the same household would differ significantly for smoking and nonsmoking household members. Many of the lifestyle risk factors that cluster for smokers are the same risk factors that are associ- ated in general with increased risks for cardiovas- cular diseases and coronary heart disease. How these lifestyle risk factors confound the study of these diseases in nonsmoking spousal partners within the same household of smokers is unknown, primarily because the epidemiological studies on spousal smoking and cardiovascular disease have not evaluated them or controlled for them. Until control for such confounding factors is implemented in studies of this nature, the inter- pretation of reports of increased relative risks for cardiovascular diseases and for coronary heart dis- ease must be highly qualified and guarded. Mechanisms of Disease. Proponents of the hypothesis that exposure to ETS enhances the risk for the development of heart disease attempt to support that argument with a claim that sidestream tobacco smoke is more "toxic" than mainstream smoke. We reviewed this matter fair- ly extensively in our previous contribution to CR, concluding that sidestream smoke and ETS are not the :;ame and, in fact, bear little resemblance to each other. It has been proposed, nevertheless, that tobac- co smoke particulates known as polycyclic aro- matic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as benzo[a]pyrene (BAP), can induce injury to blood vessels and lead ultimately to atherosclerotic plaque formation. The basis for this assertion is the observation that experimental animals (par- ticularly the chicken) with artificially elevated high levels of blood cholesterol will have increased rates of atherosclerosis if administered certain PAHs. One of the problems with such reasoning, how- ever, is that the PAHs must be administered chronically in doses of 10 to 100 milligrams per kilogram per week; administration of lower doses does not appear to have any effect. Mainstream smoke delivers about 20 to 40 nanograms (one- billionth of a gram) of BAP per cigarette to the active smoker. If the dose used in the chicken studies indeed were extrapolable to humans, it would be comparable to active smokers consum- ing, as a very conservative estimate, over 5 mil- lion cigarettes each day to reach even the lower threshold limit of response. If those projections appear preposterous, con- sider, then, how much highly-diluted ETS would have to be inhaled to reach a threshold level of response. In ETS, BAP is present, if at all in detectable levels, at considerably diluted concen- (See SMOKE, page 32.) April 1992 19

What Will You Pay To Uncle Sam This Year? LII ow much will the government tax the average American family in 1992 and how will that money be spent? spending, still the second largest expenditure in the budget. The family's defense tab this year will be $3,138-or 19 cents out of each tax dollar. Health Care. This skyrocketing expense, com- prised mainly of Medicare and Medicaid, will take 15 cents of each tax dollar. The typical family will send Uncle Sam $2,561 in 1992 to pay for the $237.5 billion national health bill. National Debt. Ranking fourth at $214.6 billion, net interest costs account for 14 cents of the fami- ly's tax dollar-or a whopping $2,314 per year. In 1992, these four items alone will cost the typi- cal family $13,424-or 81 cents of each tax dollar. Most notably, the rate of growth in health spending is reaching such astonishing levels, rising more than 11% over the 1992 budget, that it has even sur- passed the fast-rising interest on the national debt. Both of these categories promise to outstrip defense spending should recent growth trends continue. According to economists at the Tax Founda- tion, a moderate-income family-two workers earning $54,926 with two dependent children- faces a federal tax bill of $16,608. That covers the family's direct and indirect federal taxes and serves to pay for the record $1.5 trillion in federal spending proposed in the Bush administration's new budget for 1993. Direct federal taxes-individual income and personal Social Security taxes-will cost the typi- cal family $10,671 in 1992. However, direct levies are by no means the whole tax burden. They account for only about three-fifths of what the government takes in. To these must be added such indirect taxes as the employer's share of Social Security taxes; corporate income taxes; excise taxes on such items as gasoline, liquor, and tobacco, and miscellaneous levies, which account for another $5,937. So how will all this money be spent? A Tax Foundation analysis found that of this typical family's $16,608 fed- eral tax payment, more than 80% will be commandeered by just four federal spending categories: Income Security. This is the federal government's biggest bill-over half a trillion dollars. The $501.8 billion that the federal gov- ernment will spend in this category is primarily Social Security and includes fed- eral retirement and unem- ployment compensation. It will claim 33 cents from each dollar the American family sends to Washing- ton, for a per-family total of $5,411. National Defense. The administration is calling for $291 billion in defense Family's Sharea Function Amount Percent of Total Spending Total Spending (billions of $) Income Security° $5,411 32.58% 501.8 National Defense 3,138 18.89 291.0 Health, 2,561 15.42 237.5 Net Interest 2,314 13.93 214.6 Commerce and Housing Credit 686 4.13 63.6 Education, Training, Employment, Social Services 535 3.22 49.6 Transportation 378 2.28 35.1 Veterans' Benefits and Services 370 2.23 34.3 Environment and Natural Resources 221 1.33 20.5 International Affairs 184 1.17 18.0 ~ General Science, Space and Technology 183 1.10 17.0 W" ~ Agriculture 169 1.02 15.7 W Administration of Justice 166 1.00 15.4 Z\D General Government 151 0.91 14.0 Community and Regional Development 82 0.49 7.6 Energy 50 0.30 4.5 Total° $16,608 100.00 $1,498.3 (a) This example uses a median two-earner family earning $54,926 per year with two dependent children. (b) Primarily social security, includes federal employee retirement, unemployment compensations, and nutrition assistance. Excludes veteran's income security. (c) Primarily Medicare and Medicaid. Excludes veteran's health care. (d) After deducting $42 billion in undistributed and offsetting receipts not classified by function. SOURCE: Tax Foundation. 20 Consumers' Research

t Average* Family's Budget Dollar Spending Category Amount Percent of Income Family Income $54,926 100.0% Federal Taxes 16,608 30.2 State and Local Taxes 5,218 9.5 Total Taxes 21,826 39.7 After Tax Income 33,100 60.3 Total Personal Consumption Expenditures 33,100 60.3 Housing and Household Operations 6,927 16.3 Food and Tobacco 6,061 11.0 Health/Personal Care 4,853 8.8 Transportation 4,012 7.3 Recreation 2,545 4.6 Clothing 2,456 4.5 Personal Insurance and Pensions 1,255 2.3 All Other 2,991 5.5 * This example uses a median two-earner family earning $54,926 per year with two dependent children. SOURCE: Tax Foundation. Spending on all other programs pales in compari- son. With the remaining 19 cents, Uncle Sam will spend three cents of the family's tax dollar on educa- tion, and less than three cents each on environment, transportation, science, and administration of justice. These direct and indirect federal taxes will claim 30.2% of this family's annual income, but even that does not tell the whole story because the federal government spends much more than just the tax dollars it collects. An estimated $353 billion deficit will eventually cost the typical American family thousands of dollars in interest payments and future debt repayment. And how does the family spend what's left? The family's first obligation after federal taxes is to state and local government. As the table indi- cates, this additional $5,218 tax payment brings the portion that taxes take from the average fam- ily's income to a hefty 39.7%. With the remaining disposable income, the family spends the bulk of its income on four items: housing and household expenses, 16.3%; food and tobacco, 11%; health, 8.8%; and transportation, 7.3%. After taxes and these expenditures, less than 17% of the family's income is left for such items as recreation, cloth- ing, personal insurance, and pensions. ® This article was provided by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit research and public education organization based in Washington, D.C. Be a Smart Consumer Protect Your Copies of CR We try to make every issue of Consumers' Research not just a magazine of passing interest but an author- itative reference that you will return to again and again. Now there's an easy way to organize the pro- tect your copies of Consumers' Research. Designed exclusively for CR by Jesse Jones Indus- tries, these custom-made, titled cases and binders will preserve your magazines, and provide the luxury look that makes them attractive additions to your bookshelf, desk or any location in your house or office. Whether you choose cases or binders, you'll have a storage system that's durable and well-organized to help protect your valuable copies from damage. • Cases and binders designed to hold a year's issues. • Constructed of heavy reinforced board, covered with durable leather-like material in maroon. • Title hot-stamped in gold. • Free personalization foil for indexing year. • Cases V notched for easy access. • Binders have special spring mechanism to hold individual rods which easily snap in. This allows magazines to be fully opened for easy readability. Consumers' Research Quantity Cases Binders Jesse Jones Industries, Dep t. CR One $7.95 $9.95 499 East Erie Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19134 Three $21.95 $27.95 sb` $3995 5 s $5295 Please send cases; binders for Add $1 per case/binder Consumers' Research postage and handling. Out- Magazine. side USA $2.50 per case/ binder. (U.S. funds only.) 0 Enclosed is $ O Charge my: (Minimum $15) 0 American Express O Visa 0 Master Card 0 Diners Club Card # Exp. Date Signature Charge Orders: Call TOLL FREE 7 days, 24 hours 1-800-825-6690 Print Name Address City/State/Zip PA residents add 7% sales tax SATISFACTION GUARANTEED April 1992 21

What To Look For In A Dictionary nnetnFKS,er X bviously, not all dictionaries are of equal merit. Given the large number and diver- sity of titles available, how does a con- sumer go about deciding which dictionary to buy or use? A simple solution is to ask the advice of a knowledgeable friend, teacher, colleague, or librarian or consult a reference work on the topic. These approaches will satisfy only casual con- sumers-those who lack the time or inclination (or both) to develop their own opinions about spe- cific titles. People for whom language plays a cen- tral role in their lives and work-writers, teachers, students, journalists, librarians, researchers, administrative and secretarial per- sonnel, word game enthusiasts, et al.-will want to examine firsthand any dictionary being consid- ered for purchase or extensive use. How, then, does the interested consumer evalu- ate a dictionary or related product? The simplest and most effective method is to ask the dictionary questions about words. The more questions you ask, and the more dictionaries you ask them of, the more likely you are to find the best dictionary for you. Serious consumers should use this approach: • Decide on three or four likely titles in the cat- egory of dictionary in which you are interested. • Develop a list of test (or sample) words to check in each competing dictionary. Although the list need not be extensive, try to choose several terms from a current newspaper or magazine that are new or ambiguous to you (a recent article on volcanoes in Time, for instance, used such techni- cal vocabulary as epicenter, lahars, zooplankton, and silviculturist). Also pick some commonly used words that have entered the language recently, such as stagflation, junk bond, sound bite, hacker (in the computer sense), yuppie, AIDS, crack (as in illegal drugs). • Go to a local bookstore or library where copies of the dictionaries might be found, and see how each performs. Don't merely look up the words, but carefully read the definitions and ancillary material to determine if the information is clear, current, intelligently presented, etc. Mr. Kister has written widely on dictionaries and other reference works. This is adapted from Kister's Best Dic- tionaries For Adults & Young People: A Comparative Guide, with permission of the author and The Oryx Press, 4041 North Central, Phoenix, Ariz. 85012-3397. Call (800) 279-6799 for order information. To achieve a full and fair appreciation of the overall quality of any dictionary, consider these 20 points: 1. Does the dictionary provide the level of vocabu- lary coverage you need? For whom is the dictio- nary intended? How extensive is its scope? How deep is the vocabulary coverage? Is the dictionary suited to your educational level and linguistic development? Does it meet any particular vocab- ulary needs or interests you might have? For instance, if you do much business correspon- dence, your dictionary should provide strong cov- erage of business terminology, including prominent trade names. This raises another question: Should you choose a general or special- ized dictionary? Or perhaps both? 2. Are the dictionary's contents clear and readable? Are the dictionary's definitions and other vocabu- lary components understandable to you (and oth- ers who might also be using the book)? If, for example, you look up the word endorphin and find it defined as "any one of a group of protein sub- stances in the brain that suppress pain and con- trol various physiological responses," do you grasp what is being said or are you still wondering what the term means? In similar fashion, are illustra- tive examples, usage notes, synonym studies, and pronunciation symbols presented with clarity? Is dictionary "shorthand" (signs, symbols, abbrevia- tions, etc.) kept to a minimum? Are abbreviations and other notations used in the dictionary easy to comprehend? Dictionaries may be "masterpieces of condensation," but only if the abbreviated mat- ter is completely clear to the user. 3. Is the dictionary produced by reputable people? People, not machines, make dictionaries. Who are they? What are the credentials of the lexicogra- phers, editors, and consultants? Such information customarily appears in the book's introductory material. If it doesn't, the dictionary is of ques- tionable authority. Is the dictionary part of an established product line? What is the reputation of the publisher or distributor? A problem with some electronic (as opposed to print) dictionaries is lack of information about who prepared and maintains the linguistic database. Regrettably, some major word processing systems have licensed inferior, no-name dictionary data. "Web- ster," the most prominent name in the dictionary industry, can be, and is, used by any publisher 22 Consumers' Research

who so desires, including those who publish the worst dictionaries in North America. 4. Is the dictionary reasonably current? Does it include relatively new words and phrases in com- mon usage, such as bimbo, Eurocentric, gene- splicing, and secular humanism? No dictionary can be expected to include every word ever used. Some new coinages, or neologisms, never get into any dictionary. Called "nonce" words, or words for the moment, they lack linguistic substance and normally die as soon as they appear. An example would be the contrived coinage "drame- dy" (an entertainment that contains the elements of both comedy and drama), which was used for a few years and then mercifully forgotten. Any dic- tionary boasting a recent copyright should be expected to include widely used new words and senses. Consumers should be aware, however, that the most recent copyright date (found on the reverse side of the title page) can be misleading as an indicator of a dictionary's true age. Unfortu- nately, new copyrights can be acquired with only minimal revision. 5. Are the dictionary's definitions thorough, accu- rate, precise, and objective? Some lexicographers define words with little more than a string of syn- onyms, so that the definitions of, say, the verb excise becomes "to remove, cut out, eradicate," the definition of eradicate "to remove, cut out, excise," and so on. Are definitions free from bias? For instance, are terms such as creationism and secular humanism defined as impartially as possi- ble? Are definitions precise? Do not mistake brevi- ty or oversimplification for precision. As dictionary critic Robert Pierson has pointed out, "Sure, it's 'readable' to call an apricot 'a delicious fruit of a pale creamy-pinky yellow,' but would not that definition apply equally well to nectarines and some grapefruits?" Do the definitions cover all senses of the word, as in the case of excise, which has at least one meaning as a verb and sev- eral quite different ones as a noun? How are mul- tiple senses listed? Does the dictionary list them historically, with the earliest meaning first (as Noah Webster did), or is the most common or fre- quently used definition given first, followed by less common senses in descending order (as is the cur- rent practice at Random House and American Heritage)? Knowing which approach a dictionary takes does matter, sometimes very much. In the case of sophisticated, for example, the word first meant misleading or corrupting, but over the years has come to mean experienced or urbane, almost a complete reversal of its original meaning. 6. Does the dictionary include etymologies and, if so, are they relatively easy to understand? Knowing something about the origin and development of a word often illuminates its meaning. The word fondue, for instance, derives from the French verb fondre, which means to melt; or, staying with French verbs, flirt comes to us from fleureter, meaning to move from flower to flower. However, dictionaries usually present etymologi- cal information in much abbreviated form (to save space), which can frustrate the casual user and form a barrier to comprehension. Check sev- eral words in the dictionary under review to see if its etymologies can be easily deciphered. A valu- able etymological innovation introduced in sever- al general dictionaries during the 1980s involves dating the first recorded use of most words and phrases. 7. Does the dictionary include illustrative quotations or examples and, if so, are they effective? Verbal illustrations help clarify the meaning of words by showing in context how they are actually used. For example, the Random House Dictionary (Sec- ond Unabridged Edition) demonstrates the use of the term cutting edge with this illustrative exam- ple: "on the cutting edge of computer technolo- gy." Such illustrations take one of two forms: Either direct quotations from published sources or, as in the case of the Random House Dictionary example, staff-written sentences or phrases. Illus- trative examples are especially useful in dictio- naries for elementary and secondary students to explain connotative or figurative meanings. The figurative sense of envelope, for instance, is defined and illustrated in the World Book Dictio- nary as "something enveloping; an outer cover: The envelope of a man's behavior is his response to his surroundings through the arts (Burton Rothleder)." Ideally, a dictionary should give the author, source, and date of quotations, but in practice this is usually not possible, due to space limitations; most, like the World Book Dictionary, merely cite the author or publication. 8. Does the dictionary include pictorial illustrations and, if so, are they effective? What type of illustra- tions are contained in the dictionary? Line draw- ings? Photographs? Maps? Are they clearly and sharply reproduced? Are they large enough? Are they effective complements to the written defini- tions or merely surface glitter? Visual representa- tion, if properly executed, can be a most effective aid to definitional clarity. Consider how instruc- tive a simple diagram showing the parts of an egg might be as an enhancement to the definition of egg. A recent innovation in school dictionaries, especially for younger readers, is inclusion of pic- torial illustrations that represent abstract con- cepts, such as envy and experience. 9. Does the dictionary include synonyms and antonyms, and if so, how extensive are they? Does the April 1992 23

Sample Words and Phrases Sample words and phrases used when reviewing the dictionaries and wordbooks covered in Kister's Best Dictionaries for Adults and Young People represent a cross-section of standard and nonstandard English, relatively new coinages, older words, and some technical terminology that might be encountered in popular reading matter and textbooks. Altogether 50 representa- tive terms were chosen for use in the evaluation process. Of these, 25 begin with the letter "e": eat, edge, eerieleery, effect, egg (including the idiomatic expression lay an egg), electrocardio- gram, elute, emporium (including plural vari- ants emporiums/emporia), empowerment, endo- (the prefix), endorphin, energumen, en passant, envelope, envy, epicenter, erewhile, ESP, Euro- centric, excise, existential, exit poll, ex cathedra, experience, and eye-catching. The remaining 25 terms span the alphabet: addiction, appa- ratchik, assure, bemuse, bimbo, CAD, chloroflu- orocarbon, creationism, cutting edge, flaunt, gene-splicing, horny, hospice, invalid, irregard- less, kilometer, microwave, off the wall,* osteo- porosis, psychographic, purchase, recuse, secular humanism, suck, and viscosity. dictionary provide synonyms for such words as envy and experience? Are the synonyms simply listed or are they discussed in paragraph-length notes that make distinctions among words with similar meanings? For instance, does the dictio- nary explain the subtle differences between the nouns envy and jealousy, the verbs envy, begrudge, and covet? A good, large dictionary will include numerous synonymies, or synonym stud- ies. Usually antonyms are tacked on at the end, almost as afterthoughts. 10. Does the dictionary include variant spellings and pronunciations? Before the use of dictionaries became common-place in the 17th century, English spelling and pronunciation lacked gener- ally accepted standards. Chaos ruled; school might be spelled schoale or schole or schoole, depending on the writer's or printer's preference or whim. Dictionaries standardized the spelling and pronunciation of most words, but not all. To this day, legitimate variations (often regional in origin) have survived. Both spellings of eerie/eery, for example, are valid and should be given in any dictionary; the same is true of invalid, which has two distinct pronunciations (in-VAL-id and IN- va-lid), according to how the word is used; and both pronunciations of creek (rhyming with meek and mick) are considered standard English. 11. Is the dictionary's pronunciation system reason- ably precise and not overly complicated? Are the marks and symbols used to convey pronunciation understandable to you? Is the pronunciation key clearly explained and conveniently located in the dictionary? (Many general dictionaries print a condensed version of the key at the bottom of every other page.) Most dictionaries produced in North America indicate pronunciation through some combination of phonetic respelling, diacriti- cal marks, and the schwa (an inverted e), which represents the most common vowel sound in American English (the a in about, e in system, i in easily, o in gallop, and u in circus). A few oth- ers, notably dictionaries from Oxford University Press in Great Britain, employ the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a more precise, albeit more complicated, system that encompasses all sounds the human voice is capable of making. 12. Does the dictionary furnish adequate usage notes and labels? Is the dictionary predominantly descriptive or prescriptive in its approach to lan- guage? Do the editors tell you how the language is used or how it should be used? Practically all rep- utable lexicographers today consider themselves adherents of the so-called descriptivist school, which strives to record how people actually use the language, not how some elitist group would have them do. If, for instance, a significant num- ber of people begin to use snuck as the past tense of sneak (instead of sneaked), the dictionary so reports. People make the language what it is, not lexicographers or college professors or govern- ment officials or any other special group. But many people long for some authority to tell them what is correct. They want to see in print that, say, irregardless, a commonly encountered vari- ant of regardless, is considered wrong or igno- rant. They want proof-positive that snuck is improper usage. They naturally look to dictionar- ies to provide this sort of judgment. Drawing on the evidence contained in their citation files, the best dictionary editors provide informed guidance about controversial language questions through the judicious application of usage (or status) labels and generous provision of usage notes. 13. Does the dictionary emphasize American or British English? Is the dictionary the product of a North American or British publisher? Are the edi- tors American or British? Most major British dic- tionary publishers distribute their products in North America, so consumers in the United States and Canada should be aware of the basic differences between British and American lexi- cography. Not only does American English differ in some striking ways from British English (we say sweater, they say jumper; we say trunk, they 24 Consumers' Research

say boot), there are also significant differences between American and British lexicographic prac- tices and, ultimately, the product itself. In other words, an American and British dictionary of sim- ilar size and intended usership will probably be quite unlike. Briefly, American-produced dictio- naries place much greater emphasis on new words, particularly scientific and technical termi- nology, than do their British counterparts. The same is true of etymologies, synonymies, usage notes, and illustrative examples. British dictio- naries tend to concentrate on definitions without bothering about all the lexical trappings. Ameri- can dictionaries normally treat run-on derivatives as separate entries, whereas the British subsume or cluster run-ons under the root word (e.g., com- poser, composite, and composition all may be found under compose). Finally, American dictio- naries customarily include much encyclopedic (or nonlexical) information, either in the main alpha- betical section or at the back of the book; British practice has been to leave such matters to ency- clopedias, almanacs, etc. 14. Does the dictionary offer any special or unique lexical features? Dictionaries have a tendency to imitate the successful innovations of their com- petitors, meaning that truly unique features are rare among dictionaries of any particular type. However, consumers should be on the alert for unusual or noteworthy aspects of the dictionary. For example, does the dictionary date the first use of words (as in the case of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)? Does it furnish an exceptionally large number of illustrative quota- tions (one of the great strengths of the Oxford English Dictionary)? Does it label figurative meanings of words (an admirable feature of the World Book Dictionary)? Does it include foreign- language glossaries as part of its lexical coverage (as does the unabridged edition of the Random House Dictionary)? 15. Does the dictionary include any useful nonlexi- cal (or encyclopedic) material? If so, does the mate- rial add to the informational value of the dictionary from your standpoint? Most dictionar- ies offer at least some material not directly relat- ed to words and language. Frequently biographical and geographical entries appear in the main A-Z sequence. A host of encyclopedic supplements may be appended, including maps of the world, population data, historical tables, weights and measures, lists of academic institu- tions, famous quotations, and important docu- ments such as the U. S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. All too often such "extras" are used by hucksters to ballyhoo inferi- or dictionaries. 16. Are the dictionary's page layout and typography appealing to the eye? Is the print large and legible enough for you and others who might use the dic- tionary, including children and senior citizens? Is the dictionary's design open and inviting or does it give the impression of gloomy tidings? 17. Is the dictionary physically well made? Does the binding seem sturdy enough to withstand heavy use? Is the paper sufficiently opaque (or nontransparent) so that images on the other side of the page do not blur through? Is the paper strong enough to resist tearing under normal use? Gray, pulpy, inferior paper presupposes a gray, pulpy, inferior dictionary. Does the dictio- nary lie flat when open (for convenient consulta- tion on a desk or stand), or is the book so tightly bound that it springs shut? Are the gutters, or inside margins, wide enough to allow for easy reading, photocopying, or rebinding? It's wise to spend some time examining the physical makeup of the dictionary. 18. Is the price of the dictionary in line with its direct competition? Quality desk dictionaries are great bargains in North America; few other books offer the consumer 1,500+ pages filled with valu- able information for just $17.95 or $18.95. But some dictionaries, especially modest works gussied up with lots of pretty pictures and factual supplements and priced in the $39.95 to $59.95 range, are little more than rip-offs. Likewise, the big "unabridged" tomes that sell for $19.95 (reduced, they say, from $69.95) are almost never worth the money. Inferior information is a bad bargain at any price. 19. What do knowledgeable critics say about the dictionary? Has the dictionary received positive notices from reviewers? Are the reviews mostly in agreement? Mixed? How do they square with your own findings? The major sources of dictio- nary reviews in North America are American Ref- erence Books Annual (ARBA); Choice; Library Journal; Reference Books Bulletin (contained in Booklist); School Library Journal, Wilson Library Bulletin; and Kister's Best Dictionaries for Adults and Young People. Several specialized periodical publications also include dictionary reviews: American Speech (quarterly journal of the Ameri- ~ can Dialect Society); the Barnhart Dictionary ~ Companion; and Dictionaries: Journal of the Dic- ~ tionary Society of North America. ~ 20. How well does the dictionary measure up to its w major competitors? True, comparative analysis of ~; competing dictionaries can be a time-consuming G,9 as well as frustrating undertaking, but the serious W" consumer will find it well worth the effort. Only through this process can you begin to appreciate C''= fully a dictionary's strengths and weaknesses. ® April 1992 25

How to Raise Vegetables Without a Garden ooc andKaryAe,anam Ill here's an old saying in the horticultural world: "When the economy is down, gar- dening is up." Last year more than 90 million Americans did some form of gardening. This year, with the economy still in a slump, many people will dig up a section of their lawn to grow some food crops. There's a big reason for the upsurge in gardening: It's healthy. Ask your doctor. According to an American Medical Associ- ation survey, gardening was the favorite leisure project of doctors, outdoing golfing, fishing, and other hobbies. Gardening is now America's biggest hobby. Working in the garden or lawn is nature's painless way to keep the waistline trim. You can use up more calories per hour gardening than you do by cycling or walking. Look at the figures pro- duced some time back at the University of Illi- nois. Bicycling and walking use 210 calories per hour, gardening uses 220 calories per hour, and lawn mowing (hand or push) uses 270 calories. Backyard gardening is also a money-saver. More and more people are finding that you can eat better and save dollars by growing your own vegetables. It's environmentally friendly; back yard gardeners help their plants cool and cleanse the air. Research figures indicate that many American families are getting into home gardening early in their married lives, contrary to the trend of the past eight or ten years. Tighter budgets make gardening attractive to the young, and it's a good nerve tonic for those living in a world filled with tension and frustration. Many parents tell us they are using gardening as a means to keep their children busy, so they won't be tempted by drugs. Gardening gets people back to nature where they can appreciate a beau- tiful sunset or get the thrill of growing their first chin-trickling tomato, sun-ripened peach, or handful of juicy red berries. And gardening may be the best cure there is for a new disease in our society-"high rise ill- ness." Doctors advise high-rise apartment builders to include planters, so dwellers can grow gardens for therapeutic effect. We've given enough reasons for gardening. Doc and Katy Abraham, CR contributing editors, run the Green Thumb nursery in Naples, New York. Apartment dwellers, town house residents, or home owners who lack garden space can resort to the fastest growing trend in gardening-growing vegetables, herbs, or fruits in containers. These can be anything from tubs, pots, baskets, boxes, tanks, barrels, galvanized pails, or window boxes. You'll be surprised to see what "concentrated" or "square foot" gardening can produce. Farming on a window sill, balcony, rooftop, or doorstep is the cheapest way to grow edible crops. You don't need a tractor, bags of fertilizer, tons of manure, or a tool shed full of implements to get results. All you need for growing crops this way are some containers, soil, some seeds, and a little plant food. Another advantage to growing plants in con- tainers is ease of cultivation. Whether used to grow vegetables or fruits, many containers can be turned or moved from time to time to take advan- tage of sunny spots so plants stay symmetrical in your window, sun porch, or patio. For example, large tubs can be mounted on a wheeled platform so they can be moved from one spot to another. In fact for some people, mobility is the main rea- son for growing crops in pots, tubs, or other con- tainers. We have friends who grow a bushel (32 quarts) of tomatoes and three pecks (8 quarts to a peck) of cucumbers in half barrel containers mounted on wheels. But the main reason for grow- ing crops in containers is the ease in caring for them. No weeding is needed. Just feed and water. Green Thumb Hints If we had to put our finger on one of the big secrets for plant growth in any container, it's good drainage. No fruit or vegetable likes "wet feet"-a gardener's term for overwatering or poor drainage. If you use wood, metal, or earthen containers, be sure to drill holes in the bottom. Use an electric drill to bore three or four holes (1/4" to 1/2" diameter is good) to let surplus water escape. We like to put pieces of crocks, pebbles, or crushed stone in the bottom for better drainage. Starting or Buying plants. You have the choice of starting your own plants from seed or buying started plants from a local nursery. Avoid heavy rooted crops, such as corn (except dwarf) and 26 Consumers' Research

pv.mpkins, as tlhey need more space for root growth. Peppers, cucumbers, melons, eggplants, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, onions, beans, beets, and turnips are all good candidates for farming in "postage stamp" gardens or containers. If you start your own plants from seed, use one of the so-called "peatlite" mixes found in garden stores. Your garden center has excellent plants already started and the clerk should be happy to discuss them with you. Soil Mixes for Mini-gardens. People who "farm" in tubs, pots, and other containers have an advan- tage over folks with conventional gardens. They can change and manipulate their soil much more easily. To start out with a good soil mixture, you don't need a dozen complicated formulations. Greenhouse operators use just one mix for a wide variety of plants, and there's no reason why you can't have one mix for all your plants. (The only exception is when you raise acid-loving plants such as blueberries. Such soils can be made acid by applying vinegar water or by scattering some aluminum sulfate on the mixture.) A good basic soil mixture for all your container plants is made up of one part peatmoss, one part loam (which is ordinary garden soil) and one part sand. Compost or rotted horse or cow manure can be substituted for peatmoss. Other substitutes for peatmoss include rotted leaves and grass clip- pings. If your soil is heavy, add perlite, vermi- culite, peatmoss, or compost (all available in any garden center). Also, add organic matter to the soil to provide nutrients and maintain a proper air/water relationship after feeding. Make your soil mixture a good one; it's going to last a whole season in a small area. Watering. The most important nutrient need- ed for plant growth and survival is water. It constitutes 80% to 95% of the weight of actively growing plant tissue, and plants in containers may consume hundreds of times this amount during growth. Directly or indirectly, water affects every growth process throughout the plant's life. Plants absorb most of their water needs directly from the soil. If the soil mix is either too coarse or tight, water uptake will be difficult. Your fingers are a good moisture- meter. Feel the soil from time to time. If it's dry, give it water. (Remember, where drainage is poor, drill holes in the container's bottom to let surplus water escape.) Feeding. You'll need to feed your plants more often in containers, because the roots are in a confined area. We prefer a liquid plant food because it's more quickly available to the feeder roots and is safe. Any well-balanced (one that con- tains nitrogen, phosphate, and potash) liquid fer- tilizer will do. Avoid applying the "hot" granular or powdered chemical fertilizers to plants in con- tainers. If you're an organic gardener use fish emulsion, plenty of compost, and take advantage of rotted manure if it's available. Garbage Can Compost. Plants growing in tubs, pots, raised beds, or conventional. gardens need a soil high in organic matter. Your own kitchen generates plenty of waste material daily (four pounds per person on average). This can be turned into valuable compost by making yourself a simple garbage can composter: 1) Take a galva- nized or plastic garbage can with a lid that fits well and punch several small holes in the bottom; 2) add three inches of good soil to the can; 3) throw kitchen wastes into the can, and add some shredded leaves or grass clippings. Odor is lack- ing, but coffee grounds or shreded newspapers are natural deodorants and should be included. Avoid grease, bones, etc. as they may attract rodents. 4) Where space is available, make a com- post bin from cement blocks or scrap lumber. Add your leaves, grass clippings, sawdust, and wood chips, in addition to kitchen scraps. Be sure the material remains moist, as a wet pile breaks down faster than a dry one. Your compost will be ready for use in about four months. The basic factors which affect com- posting are moisture, air, and size of particles. The secret to good composting is never letting the pile dry out. Moisture and oxygen are important for the billions of "soil bugs" that decompose the material. Some gardeners cover their pile with black plastic film during the winter to keep the heat and moisture in. The inside of a pile may become so hot that a hand cannot be placed inside. It's not necessary to buy commercial acti- Aprii 1992 27

Short Guide To Crop Growing How Container / Crop Started Conventional Troubles Amwe us Seed or roat crowns Comentloanai Beatdes Beens, Bush ~eed navm direct I In Other Mesican bean beat9e and Anthracnosei bligfd Beets Seed sown 2" apart (thin later ldeal ln either All tops, no bottoms for beet greens). Make several sowings for continuous crop. _ Cmtelaupe Seed startad Indoors Ehfiutr 4VIFt dua to lark of rasGar. (Muskmelon) at 72° F Blossom drop (not serkws]. `Carrota Seed sown direct. Make Easy to grow in either All tops, no bottoms sutxeashre soeving every 3 weeks. Ceiery Seed or started p Ideal for ehher None Ch.rd,Swias Seed sanvn direct Either Sna Is Cola Crops (Indudes Started plants Either Cabbage Woper cabbaqe,caullhower brussels sprouts) Com Ssad sown direct Not recommended In oon- Corn borers and takters. Grow mklgett rkbn corn ear worms where space IB eiiorL mbers Start ssad indoors r Poor set due poditlmatfon. Bittertaste due to temperature drop. 'i ggp aola Sdart eed indoors Ether Lste to ripen or poor aet LeCtese µ Seed startad indoors E r ugs or plants go or direct seaded to seed OR Seed, bulhs, or plerrts Ilo well In ripa, a microscopk: pest Hcrtrs (Basil, Seed or started plants Either Few If any parsley, chives, oregano, thyme) Peas Seed sown rectly Efther All vines, no pods _Suse dwarf type) `Peqpers Started planls Ehher Poor fru set fiadish Seed sown direct Efther AIt top, no bottoms. _ Hot taste. _ " 3quash Seed or started plants Either White flies and borers Tomatoes Seed or started plants Either Lots of problems. Grow 2-3 kinds, especially disease resistant types. Control Harvesting Handplck After second year Handpick Never pick rvest daily for or work beans when cendnuflus crop plant is wst. Avoid dose ptarrting When 5" tal for greens. Roots when 2" across. . Water Iy necessary body colortums When to yellow-green (wIi not ripen after~icked Seed sown too tf>Jck Use t nned carrots for Thin piards wd mn "batry" carrots. Dlg 3" tall. main crop in fall. i0one In Il or as needed (Fae shailow d has of Cut ieaves for use so new stale beer or handpick ones will keep coming. Plants will produce until fall or earl winter. Sprin e cayenne pepper When mature on lea+res or handpkdc Spray or dust with Sevin In mVik stage (spurts when oom Is 18" high rdlk wVien presed wtth thumb nail Keep p ts wat ck ly to get In d ry weather continuous suppfy Gavw early varisly ck vrIle t g skin Put ng~(wod ashes OaiFj to gst fres crop around each plant. Use slow-to-seed types. Spray or dust with Sevtn for greens or pull up onions In fall Keep plants watered As needed. on let in dry spells plants get too woody. Temperature too hot., Pick pods often. Sow grow Wando variety every 2-3 weeks. Grow early resistant type, When green or red such as Lady Beil Ron't sow too thick. Thin ic daily. Sow every out plants. Water daily. 2-3 weeks. l7se ail purpose spray. Pick daily to get Start early. continuous crop Failure to ripen. Give full Grow early variety to sun. Grow on "corsets" ripen before frost or for air circulation. pick green and keep in basement vators to start compost. Fungi and bacteria are already there ready to start decomposition. Your compost is a great way to build up a soil bank, for nothing is better for loosening up a heavy clay soil or tightening up a sandy one. Ralsed Beds. The latest wrinkle in home gar- dening is the concept of growing plants in raised beds. These are made of treated landscape tim- bers (sold at lumber yards), and can be any size or depth you wish. Plants can be set close togeth- er for maximum yield. They are easier to work and are ideal for anyone who doesn't have the physical stamina to work a conventional garden. The soil mixture is the same as for containerized gardens. Mulclaes. If you have a raised bed or a backyard garden, mulches help keep weeds out and mois- ture in and are great labor savers. Woodchips, sawdust, cocoa bean shells, coffee grounds, and newspapers are just a few of the good items avail- able for a mulch. Home Remedies far Inseets and Diseases. The best way to cope with insects and disease is to practice "preventive medicine." As soon as you aee a pest, crush it before it proliferates into a problem. A few insects are nothing to worry about; everyone has them. There's a new generation of insecticides that use common household ingredients which you can safely mix in your kitchen sink. Here's our formu- la, safe around children and pets and good for the good earth: 1) Add one teaspoon of liquid deter- gent, (dishwashing type-such as Palmolive, Ivory, Joy, etc.) to one cup of cooking oil (soybean, peanut, safflower, etc.), and shake vigorously; 2) Add this mixture to one quart of plain tap water, shake again to emulsify it; 3) Pour into a sprayer or pump bottle. Use this at 10-day intervals, or more often as needed. It's ideal for plants in con- tainers, raised beds, or backyard gardens. Test the mix an a single plant first to see if it causes tip burn. Spray in the evening or early morning, not in the heat of day. This is a contact insecticide so, in order to work, the mix must be sprayed on the pests. Safer's insecticidal soap is good on many pests of indoor and outdoor plants. A lot of our friends use Murphy's oil soap diluted 1/4 cup to a gallon of warm water. Pour this into a spray bottle, and spray on plants as needed to control aphids, white flies, spider mites, and other troublesome pests. Crops to Grow. The list of crops to grow is end- less. Study your seed catalogs for ideas, and don't hesitate to ask your garden center clerk. Both are a storehouse of information. The accompanying table lists a few varieties you can try, whether you're a greenhorn or a green thumber. ® Zg Consumers' Research AWil 1992 29

Choosing the Right Upholstering Firm u our first question, of course, is whether to have a piece of furniture reupholstered or simply replaced with something new. restore an old piece rather than losing you to a retail store for purchase of something new. If a piece is good enough to last, that doesn't mean you will save money by reupholstering it. By reupholstering, you do save the frame, the springs, and probably some padding and stuffing. But a high-production factory may be able to achieve enough efficiencies in making a comparable new piece that the price for the new piece is as low or lower than what an upholsterer will charge you. To assess cost, you'll have to compare price quotes from upholsterers with prices you find for comparable pieces of new furniture at retail stores. If your existing piece is of very high quali- ty or is an antique, an upholsterer's charges will be small compared to the cost of a replacement piece. On the other hand, if your piece is low quality, the upholsterer's charges for fabric and labor are very likely to exceed the cost of brand- new replacement. Cost will not be your only consideration, of course. You might want to reupholster a piece if you particularly like its design, if it matches other pieces in your home, or for sentimental reasons. Also, you might want to reupholster because the fabrics you like best aren't available on new pieces you like at furniture stores. You won't want to reupholster if the piece won't last as long as the new fabric. Most medium and better quality furniture should be capable of holding up through at least one round of reuphol- stery, but you should check the condition and quality of your piece. First check what you can easily see. Be sure there are no cracks in exposed wood and that legs or castors are solid and firmly secured. Then check what's beneath the surface. Take hold of a sofa's arm or a chair'.s arms and push from side to side. If the piece is in good condition, the arms won't wobble and there won't be creaking noises. Also, lift one end of a sofa to be sure the frame doesn't sag or creak. A frame that doesn't seem solid may be able to be fixed easily if it is fundamentally a good piece of furniture. To check this, you need to look a lit- tle more deeply. Turn the piece over and remove a portion of the dustcatcher beneath. Signs of quality are the use of solid hardwood rather than plywood or fiber board for key structural mem- bers such as the long piece that runs beneath the knees across the front of a sofa, the use of wood that is at least 1 inch or 1 and 1/4 inch thick in these key structural members, and the use of reinforcing blocks to strengthen corners. Coil springs under the seat, with each spring tied by twine in eight directions, are almost always a sign that the piece was of high quality when first made, but firmly secured sinuous wire springs (long way wires) may function equally well and are used in many high-quality pieces today. If you have questions about the quality of a piece or whether its structure can be restored, you can ask an upholsterer. You can take small pieces in for the shop to inspect. For large pieces, you can ask an upholsterer to come to your home. Many firms will send out an estimator at no charge-though some good firms don't ordinarily make such visits. Keep in mind, of course, that an upholsterer might be biased toward trying to This article is excerpted, with permission, fromWash- ington Consumers' Checkbook, a publication of the Center for the Study of Services, 806 15th Street, NW, Suite 125, Washington D.C. 20005. (202) 347-7283. Choosing the Right Firm If you do decide to reupholster, be sure to choose your upholsterer carefully. Your best guide to quality is the satisfaction of other customers. (Remember to check on com- plaints about shops on file at local government offices of consumer affairs.) Another consideration in choosing a shop is the amount you'll have to put down as a deposit. Most shops require between 25% and 50% of the job's price. A substantial deposit is fair to protect the shop for the expenditure it must make on fab- ric, and for the cost of labor if a customer simply abandons a piece. But the smaller the deposit, the more leverage you'll have for quick service and for corrections if the work is not acceptable. Visit shops to examine their work. You can look at finished pieces waiting to be returned to cus- tomers and you can look at items in process. By visiting more than once, you can see more samples. The following are a few points to look for. 30 Consumers' Research

• hhEck ihe seat deck of furniture with coil springs. The aeck is the platform beneath the seat cush- ions. Considerable skill is required to tie the springs with twine so that they are even. When pieces of old twine have become loose or broken, top-quality shops use new twine to retie all springs. Lower quality shops may retie only where the old twine is broken, with the likeli- hood that the old twine will soon break in other places. Also, lower quality shops that do retie all springs may fail to get them even. The worst shops may simply try to cover over problems where twine is broken or loose by adding padding on top of the springs. You can check the smoothness of the deck with eye or hand. Better still, you can look at partially finished pieces to see what the shop has done. • Check tufting. One of the most difficult uphol- stering skills is tufting-where a thread is drawn through a cushion or seat back at regular inter- vals to create depressions, which may be orna- mented with buttons. Check for uniformity. • Test the frame. No shop should send out a finished piece that isn't structurally sound. If necessary, a shop should completely disassemble and reglue the frame. Check by pushing and pulling on the chairs' or sofas' arms and by lift- ing the corners of sofas to be sure there is no wobbling or creaking. • Examine exposed wood. Exposed wood on legs, arms, and seat backs should be cleaned and brightened up. Often all the shop needs to do is rub a piece with fine steel wool and oil. • Check the skirt. If a piece has a skirt, the skirt should be lined. Better still, it should be weighted to ensure that it hangs evenly. • Be sure the pattern matches. A stripe, a vine in a floral pattern, or any other distinct line should flow from the top of the seat back across the cush- ions and down the front of the frame and skirt. There should be no more than a half inch of irreg- ularity. Patterns should be used symmetrically; if there is a stripe down the center of the right arm, there should be one at the same place on the left arm. Major elements, such as a large flower, should be centered on the seat back or cushions. It takes skill and time to match patterns. Also, when using a fabric with a large pattern, substan- tially more fabric is needed to do the job properly than to do it poorly. So shops make compromises. • Examine stitching and welting. Seams should be stitched so tightly that it is hard to see the threads. Welting, the decorative, fabric-covered cord that is often used around cushions, arms, and seat backs, should be smooth and even. The best approach is to cut the fabric for welting on the bias, so that the fabric threads run at an angle to the cord. • Check padding. There should be padding over the frame in all areas where there may be con- tact. Feel around arm tops, arm fronts, seat backs, leg rests, and other exposed places to be sure there are no hard edges, because fabric will wear out quickly on such hard spots. In seat cush- ions, which are usually made of polyurethane foam, the foam should be covered with polyester batting to give the cushion smooth, filled corners and to reduce wear between the foam and the upholstery fabric. Overall, frame elements and cushions should have smooth, even contours. While workmanship and promptness are your main quality considerations, you'd also like to use a shop that helps you make a good fabric selection. Most shops can order almost any fab- ric. If a shop can't get a fabric, you can pur- chase it separately somewhere else and simply bring it to the shop to apply. But it's convenient to use a shop that has a wide choice of fabric samples and that gives good advice on fabric selection. You can easily check out this aspect of shop service on your own. Among shops that meet your quality standards you'd like to find one that also offers good prices. Prices can vary sharply, in the Washington, D.C.- area for example, quotes ranged from $545 to $995 for one type of job, and from $350 to $600 for another. Most upholsterers will quote prices over the phone if you give them a good description of the piece and the name and number of the fabric you want. To make it easier for shops to give firm prices, it's a good idea to send a picture of the piece you want reupholstered. Better still, if the piece is small, take it in to a few shops. For large pieces, another option is to have upholsterers come to your home-although not all firms will do this and some charge for the service. When comparing prices, be sure to ask exactly what is included. Depending on the shop, the quoted price might or might not include: reglu- ing, retying springs, touching-up exposed wood, replacing the webbing beneath springs, wrapping cushions in new polyester batting, supplying arm covers, or delivery. Dealing With Your Shop After you have picked a shop, you must deal with it carefully to ensure that you get the best possible job for the money. The first decision is whether to buy fabric from the upholsterer, from a fabric shop, or other source. Upholsterers usually charge full list price for fabric while many fabric shops will offer dis- April 1992 31

counts of 20% or more. but upholsterers expect part of their profit to come from the fabric. So most will up the price for their labor by 25% or more if you supply the fabric. Price the job both ways-buying fabric from the upholsterers and buying it at the best price you can find elsewhere. Of course, you'll probably want to supply your own fabric if you already have some you like or if somewhere else you find a fabric-possibly a dis- continued pattern-that your upholsterer can't get. Wherever you purchase fabric, be sure you get material that not only looks good but will wear well. Ask the upholsterer or fabric store for a fab- ric's durability rating, which is available from the manufacturer. A light-duty, light-colored fabric may be fine for a rarely used living room. At the other extreme, you'll want heavy-duty fabric in a medium color for a family room used heavily by children. Also, be sure that heavily used fabric is treated with a soil protector, and find out how your fabric is supposed to be cleaned. Before you turn over your furniture to an upholsterer, be sure to discuss fully exactly what work will be done and get the main points written onto an estimate, contract, or drop-off receipt. You should have a document that at least indi- cates the price and whether regluing, retying of springs, new webbing, delivery, etc. are included. Also, be sure the projected completion date is noted. When you pick up or receive the item, check it over. Check the sturdiness of the frame, the match- ing of the fabric pattern, and other quality points discussed above. If an item doesn't meet quality standards as you and the shop have discussed them, insist that the work be done again. ® Smoke.... (Continued from page 19.) trations well below those demonstrable in the mainstream smoke inhaled by active smokers. (In fact, in studies on humans, no differences in uri- nary markers of the PAHs were reported detectable -after exposure to ETS, even at artifi- cially-created extraordinarily unrealistically high levels of exposure.) Science Offers Better The available data, reviews, and analyses reporting a health risk for cardiovascular and coronary heart diseases, as well as the data we previously reviewed for the reported relationships between ETS and lung cancer, should not be dis- missed or disregarded, even though much of the science employed is of questionable quality and validity. These potential associations should not be ignored, even though the studies that report them are inconsistent and the magnitude of these risks is within the range of "background noise" for epidemiological studies of this nature. The studies should be viewed with healthy scientific skepticism because they have not been controlled adequately for numerous confounding factors potentially important to the development of these diseases. Although the data available should not be rejected, they also should not be considered to be of an acceptable scientific quality. These studies represent the only data that are available today, and most of the investigators who have reported their data deserve due credit for publishing these initial observations in an attempt to answer a very, very difficult question. Science has much better to offer, however, and several key areas for research are of crucial importance to developing reliable answers for those issues not yet resolved. For example, the epidemiological data currently available must yield to data generated from better designed and better controlled studies. New stud- ies, incorporating reliable environmental markers of exposure, biological markers of dosimetry, and controlling for the numerous known risk factors for the diseases under study, will help resolve the current discrepancies in data. And it will be necessary for researchers to ana- lyze and control appropriately the many potential confounding variables present. What really is going on in smoking households versus nonsmok- ing households? Are the relative risks attributed to spousal smoking actually an identification of a behavior or a specific life style, rather than an 32 Consumers' Research

The ETS Social Movement t Some important questions need to be asked. If the results, or data, from these nine studies on ETS and cardiovascular disease were published not on the subject of ETS, but rather on a new therapy for heart disease, or a new pharmaco- logic agent for the treatment of cardiovascular disease, would that therapy be approved by the FDA or be implemented by the medical commu- nity? Most surely not, for the data are incon- clusive, inconsistent, and highly questionable. Why, then, are these studies of such marginal scientific quality acceptable to the medical com- munity? Are they accepted outright without debate because the subject matter is environ- mental tobacco smoke? Does the fact that a paper that is submitted for publication reaches an "antismoking conclusion" mean that the ordinary standards-of scientific peer review and of common sense are suspended? In the early 1960's, when medical reports and health warnings about active smoking began to surface with increasing frequency in scientific publications, there were those who then predicted that the cigarette manufactur- ing industry would soon be out of business. In 1964, in conjunction with his Committee's his- toric first report on "Smoking and Health," the Surgeon General formed a coalition known as the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health (NICOSH). A primary objective of this council was dissemination of information about tobacco and health. If the cigarette smok- er and the general public could only be educat- ed and warned about the ills of smoking, it then was believed, the use of tobacco cigarettes would disappear. The "problem of cigarette smoking" did not go away. In the two decades following the formation of the Council in 1964, and in the face of the most extensive public health education ever mounted in this country, total cigarette production in the independent association with residual con- stituents of ETS? This has not been done to date. Attacking this key issue is of essential importance in separating any association with ETS exposure from what otherwise may simply be a "risk mark- er" for other lifestyle factors. It would be nice if risk assessment were objective and a matter of pure science. Unfortunately, it is neither. Risk assessment incorporates large num- bers of assumptions and manipulations of unknowns. The problem of risk assessment is espe- United States increased by over 40 percent and per capita consumption fluctuated only marginal- ly in a cigarette sales market plateaued at near saturation. In 1975 Sir George Godber, in his published address to the World Health Organization, emphasized that it would be essential to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children that would be exposed involun- tarily to ETS. This ETS social movement, which took some time to gain momentum, has been more successful than all other antismok- ing measures combined in reducing tobacco cigarette consumption. Interpretations of the data concerning ETS appear to have been influenced significantly, and perhaps not always represented accurately, by pressures from government agencies and regulatory bodies, by professional health orga- nizations, and by editorial policies of a number of scientific publications. The latter are of spe- cial concern, in that the integrity of the scientif- ic process depends on its methodologies, including the editorial integrity and objectivity of the scientific review process. Much of the research on ETS, including some of the publica- tions on ETS and cardiovascular disease, has been poorly conceived and the studies are shod- dy. Should there be a concern that negative studies on environmental tobacco smoke do not get published as such, while ETS studies that report adverse health effects are published, even when they are of poor irivestigative design and of questionable interpretation? When scien- tific methodologies are compromised to this degree, both the scientific process and the needs of a society that depends on the integrity of that scientific process suffer. -G.L Huber, R.E. Brockie, V.K. Mahajan cially difficult, as in the case for ETS, when the available studies are feeble, the reported results are mixed, the actual exposure has not been measured directly, there are very large numbers of confound- ing variables that have not been quantified or, in most circumstances, even considered, and the issue in question is enshrouded deeply in emotional, polit- ical and economic forces. Given this situation, the works of the best scientists with the best of well- meaning motives can be distorted by prejudices, biases, and a variety of social pressures. ® April 1992 33

Air Bag.... (Continued from page 4.) pants who don't use seat belts-and there are a lot of them, even under belt use laws-air bags provide baseline protection. And for those who do use belts, the air bags further reduce deaths by 15% in frontal crashes, 9% in all kinds of crashes. • Spencer says only drivers are protected by air bags. He's right, but this isn't a limitation of the restraint system. It's just an indication that air bags are being phased into cars. More and more models now are being equipped with passenger- as well as driver-side air bags. We look forward to seeing virtually all passenger vehicles and light trucks with air bags for passengers as well as drivers by the '96 model year. • Spencer says "the added [safety] benefits of driving a larger car can even outweigh any advan- tages offered by air bags." We agree that larger cars are safer than small ones, but why would you set up a choice between a large car and an air bag? No such choice ever need be made. Your readers should know these facts. Brian O'Neill President Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Arlington, Virginia Peter Spencer responds: Reporting on issues that could involve matters of life and death requires accuracy and precision. CR's article was based on the best available data, including information from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, at the time it was written (in December 1990). Furthermore, the study released 11 months later (October 1991) by the Institute pre- sents estimates on air bag effectiveness that are entirely consistent with CR's reporting. The most important question about air bag performance concerns overall effectiveness (that is, effectiveness in all crash scenarios) with and without seatbelts. On this point the IIHS study concludes that "air bags alone reduce fatalities by about 21% and for belted occupants by about 9%." These estimates are only slightly higher than those presented in CR's article, which reported overall effectiveness of about 17% and 8%, respectively. While there is no question that air bags save lives and reduce injuries-and recent data contin- ue to support earlier predictions-questions con- cerning the extent of this effectiveness in real-life crashes remain open simply because not enough data have become available for full analysis. Despite Mr. O'Neill's assertions, the amount of information on car crashes involving air bags is still limited compared with the non-air bag fleet. The Institute study, for example, compared 571 driver fatalities in air-bag-equipped cars with 8,045 driver fatalities in non-air bag cars and could not assess whether or not the air bags had actually deployed. Information about when air bags deploy deserves precise reporting. Stating that two-thirds of driver fatalities stem from "frontal" crashes obscures the point that nearly a third of these crashes are from oblique angles. As CR's article pointed out, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics show that 42% of driver fatalities involve "head-on collisions.... Roughly 17% involved fr' ont-angle collisions, where in many cases it is uncertain that air bags would inflate." O'Neill's final comments completely misrepre- sent the content and context of the article. It did not say that air bags work only in combination with seatbelts, but that they "provide additional protec- tion" in this manner-a crucial difference, and an important point, especially when one considers that seatbelts alone are more effective than an air bag alone in reducing fatal injuries. In this context, too, it was noted that air bags "work to protect only the driver and...the front-seat passenger" to emphasize that belts must be worn by other occupants to receive any protection. Finally, while consumers have little if any choice regarding the installation of air bags- nearly 90% of new cars will have them next year- car size remains a choice, and one that consumers seeking maximum safety would want to know about. Interestingly the Institute's study shows that air bags in large cars (with a wheelbase of greater than 110 inches) reduced driver fatalities by 36% compared with 9% in small cars (with a wheelbase of less than 100 inches). Such data about relative levels of protection are essential for safety-conscious motorists. ® 34 Consumers' Research

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Product Recalls U ccessory Tray for Walker. Graco Children's Products reports that the black "music button" on its play tray (model 45537, sold before September 1991) for the Graco Tot Wheels II Walker can be removed by children and might present a choking hazard. This recall doesn't apply for any other Graco walker. For a kit to correct the problem contact Graco at (800) 338-1206. Dolls. Jak Pak, Inc. is voluntarily recalling its "Rain or Shine Dolls" (model JP 0137) sold between January 1990 and December 1991 for $2 to $3. The plastic doll, with brown hair, painted features, and movable head, arms, and legs (and wearing a removable raincoat and shoes), has small parts that may come loose and present a choking hazard to children (although no incidents have been reported). Return the doll to the store where you purchased it for a full refund or call Jak Pak at (800) 526-0113 for more information. Stuffed Animals. North American Bear Company is voluntarily recalling its "Cats Pajamas" and "Slugger Bear" dolls because of small buttons and snaps that may come off and pose a choking haz- ard. The cat cost about $24 and has gray fur and a pink nose and is wearing white-striped pajamas with a pocket and two white buttons. The tag on the back reads in part "Cat Pajamas #1162, North American Bear Co., Inc." The bear cost about $40 and is brown with a red and yellow striped body suit that cannot be removed and a red and blue cap with a yellow rocking horse on the visor. Call North American Bear at (312) 329- 0020 for more information on how to return the cat. Return the bear to the F. A. 0. Schwarz out- let where you bought it for a refund. Electric Mixers. Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex Inc. is voluntarily recalling its hand-held mixers (model 230 and 232) that were sold between April 1990 and 1991 for $10 to $20. These have date codes (1290-1691 and 3890-1791) printed in ink Information for this article was provided by the U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the Coast Guard. To report a product- related injury or to get information about recalls, con- tact the CPSC at (800) 638-2772. For auto-related safety information, contact NHTSA at (800) 424-9393 or (202) 366-0123 in the District of Columbia. For boat safety information, contact the Coast Guard at (800) 368-5647 or (202) 267-0780 in the District of Columbia. near the nameplate on the bottom of the mixer. The fan blade may break and fall into food being prepared. Call Hamilton Beach/Proctor Silex at (800) 341-3333 to find out how to get a newly designed replacement. Electric Cradle Swing. Graco Children's Products is voluntarily recalling the cradle portion of its "Converta-Cradle" swings sold after January 1990, because they may pose a choking hazard to children. The units were sold for $99 and can be identified by their straight, not curved, stand legs and head-to-foot swinging motion. The company is offering a refund of $25 or a choice of one of several other Graco products to swing buyers who call Graco at (800) 942-1700. Exercise Machines. Hanover House Industries, Inc. is voluntarily recalling its "Pull-Up Exercis- er" (manufactured before 1988) and its "Magic Rower" (manufactured before 1989). Each is operated by springs that, if overextended, may break or come loose from their moorings and cause serious injuries to face or body. The edges of the footrest bar on the "Pull-Up Exerciser" may also cause injuries if the end plugs come off, and the "Maxi Rower" may tip over, resulting in bruises or broken bones. This recall covers units sold by mail order only. By calling Hanover House at (800) 338-2670 consumers can receive a repair kit for the "Pull-Up Exerciser," or, for the "Maxi Rower," customers will receive a credit good for future catalog purchases. Batting Stand. Rawlings Sporting Goods Co. is voluntarily recalling its "Batting Tee" batting practice stand due to the possibility that the metal stake tethering the ball may pull out of the ground and strike a player. The tees, model num- ber TBK-2, have a red "Rawlings" on the home plate stand and have been on sale nationwide since 1987. To get a redesigned, replacement game call Rawlings at (800) 367-3455. Furniture. Devan Designs, Inc. is offering a free modification kit for certain pieces of furniture in its "Rainbow," "Color Plus," and "Perimeter" col- lections, sold between December 1989 and June 1991 under the Lexington Furniture Industries brand name. The furniture may tip over if several drawers are left open at the same time. For infor- mation write Devan Modification Kit, P. 0. Box 969, Marion, NC 28752 or call Devon Designs at (704) 249-5277. Necklace. Lawrence Jewelry Company and K & M Associates are recalling their necklaces which consist of a three-inch kaleidescope held by a col- ored 14-inch nylon cord. There is a chance that 1**~ the kaleidescope may come apart and pose a W chocking hazard. They were sold between June N and August 1991 for about $3 to $3.50 each. ,~ April 1992 35

Return the necklaces to the store where you pur- chased it for a cash refund, or call Lawrence Jew- elry at (800) 328-3967 or K & M Associates at (800) 343-9340 for more information. Wind-up Swing. Century Products Company is voluntarily recalling its infant swings (models 12- 319, 12-329, 12-344, 12-345, and 12-349) with "Whisper-Wind" motors which sold for $30-80 in 1991. Removing the plastic cover over the motor may cause the spring to uncoil, inflicting punc- ture wounds or cuts. The manufacturing codes on a label under the seat are 9101 through 9112. Call Century at (800) 446-1366 to receive a free replacement motor and installation instructions. Car Seats. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports three child safety- seat recalls: Century Products is voluntarily recall- ing its Century 580 safety seats (models 4580, 4581, 4583, and 4585) manufactured between July 1986 and December 1989 for potential shoulder strap problems. Evenflo is voluntarily recalling its "Seven-Year" safety seats (models 453 and 459) and its booster seats (mode1470 and 471) manufac- tured between February 1987 and August 1988 to replace small parts that may work loose and be swallowed by a child. Contact Century at (800) 892-3600 and Evenflo at (800) 837-8926 for infor- mation on their respective recalls. Car Seat Covers. Kolcraft Enterprises is offering free replacement seat covers to owners of its "Per- fect Fitt" seats (models 180-200). The current seat covers do not meet federal fire retardancy stan- dards. Call Kolcraft at (800) 453-7673, or write them at 3455 West 31st Place, Chicago, IIl. 60623 for more information. NHTSA encourages parents to continue using the recalled seats or accessories until the repair can be made or replacements arrive. Boats. Accoring to the U.S. Coast Guard: Out- board Marine Corporation is voluntarily recalling its Grumman Brand Jon and Bass Boats (with HINs ending in D090 through G090) to have additional flotation material installed. Tracker Marine is voluntarily recalling its alu- minum and fiberglass boats built between 1 May and 15 September 1991 (with HINs 2000DC, 190TF, 190DC, 180TF, 180P`S, 170TF, 160TF, Ultra 180, 185TF, TX17, Pro 17, PF16 Special, Pro 16, Magna Fish, Magna Convertible, Magna 19 Bowrider, Magna CC, Magna Fish and Ski, Magna Fun, Pro DV16, Pro DV17, Super 17, TV17, and Sweet 16) to replace the emergency ignition cutoff (kill) switch that might not work. Bayliner Marine is voluntarily recalling its 2502 Trophy models with twin 175 hp Mercury outboards (model FH 92) to rewire the neutral safety switch on the shift control. ® Cafe.... (Continued from page 12.) argument. First, so far as we can tell, the agency nowhere claims that these safety innovations fully or even mostly compensate for the safety dangers associated with downsizing. More critically, as in the relation with fuel economy and downsizing, the relevant inquiry is whether stringent CAFE stan- dards reduce auto safety below what it would be absent such standards. That new safety devices may be coming on the market is all well and good, but it is immaterial to our inquiry unless the implementation of those devices somehow depends on or is caused by more stringent CAFE standards; no one even hints at such a link. Whatever extra safety devices may contribute to either type, small cars remain more dangerous than large ones, all other things being equal.3 . Nothing in the record or in NHTSA's analysis appears to undermine the inference that the 27.5 mpg standard kills people, although, as we observed before, we cannot rule out the possibility that NHTSA might support a contrary finding. Assum- ing it cannot, the number of people sacrificed is uncertain. Forced to confront the issue, the agency might arrive at an estimate lower than that of two independent analysts who came up with an annual death rate running into the thousands (for the cars produced in any one model year). See Robert W. Crandall and John D. Graham, "The Effect of Fuel Economy Standards on Automobile Safety," Jour- nal of Law and Economics (April 1989). Yet the actual number is irrelevant for our purposes. Even if the 27.5 mpg standard for model year 1990 kills "only" several dozen people a year, NHTSA must exercise its discretion; that means conducting a serious analysis of the data and deciding whether the associated fuel savings are worth the lives lost. When the government regulates in a way that prices many of its citizens out of access to large-car safety, it owes them reasonable candor. If it provides that, the affected citizens at least know that the government has faced up to the meaning of its choice. The requirement of reasoned deasionmakdng ensures this result and pre- vents officials from cowering behind bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. Accordingly, we order NHTSA to recon- sider the mattex and provide a genuine explanation for whatever choice it ultimately makes. ® 3The point is widely recognized. See, e.g., NHTSA, Small Car Safety in the 1980's at 77 ("In the event of a crash, the likelihood of injury is increased as the car's size decreases"); cf. Center for Auto Safety, Small on Safety (Clarence Ditlow, ed. 1972) ("Small size and light weight impose inherent limitations on the degree of safety that can be built into a vehicle. All known studies relating car size to crash injury conclude that occupants of smaller cars run a higher risk of serious or fatal injury than occupants of larger cars."). 36 Consumers' Research

By Doc and Katy Abraham Q. Our African violets have done well in the past, but some are now wilting and rotting at the main stem. What causes this? A. Wilted plants and rotted stems are a sign of a fungal infection called crown rot. This is aggravated by overwatering, excess humidity or temperature extremes. Cut off the damaged foliage and repot. Jelly-like leaves and stems that droop over the rim of the pot could be due to excess fertil- izer or salt injury. Flush out the roots and coat the rim of clay pots with paraffin. Do you have a copy of our "Guide to Growing African Violets" for year-round beauty? If not, send CR a self- addressed, stamped envelope for a copy. It's full of tricks florists use for year-round blooms. Q. We cut down the black wal- nut near the edge of our garden because the leaves of our vegeta- bles turned yellow. Will we be able to have a good garden on that site now? A. Yes, the black walnut (Juglans nigra) is the most widely known example of an allelopath ("Al-lell-O-Path")-a plant which produces chemicals harmful to other plants. The earliest account of juglone poi- soning dates to A.D. 37 when Pliny the Elder, the Roman nat- uralist, recorded the walnut's harmful effects on surrounding plants. All species of walnut con- tain juglone, but black walnu-s have the highest concentrations. Many plants are stunted or killed by juglone, but some are resistant to it. A walnut tree 60 feet or so from a garden can cause some plants to wither and die. After the tree is cut down, it stops making juglone poison. Walnut leaves contain some juglone, but they're unlikely to cause harm in a garden or in a compost pile unless matted several inches thick. Micro-organisms help break them down and detoxify them. Q. I heard aspirin, mouthwash, copper coins, etc. improve the vase life of cut flowers. You say they don't. Who's right? A. No doubt, these materials may have some limited benefit. What you see in most of these materials is that they will acidify the water, or have a bactericidal effect. Acidifying the water enhances uptake to some degree and retards bacterial growth, two beneficial measures for keeping cut flowers. Perhaps an easier way to go about it would be simply to put a few drops of household bleach into your vase of water to retard bacterial growth. That will give you about as good a system for extending flower vase life as anything we can think of, other than using a correct hydrating solution and floral preservatives that you can pick up from a retail florist. Q. We love orchids but do not have a greenhouse. Is there any kind we can grow in our kitchen window? A. Indeed, if you can grow gera- niums, there are orchids you can grow. There are over 25,000 known orchid species and many of them are easy-grow house plants. The biggest challenge is watering them, with the greatest danger being overwatering. Keep the phalaenopsis ("moth") orchid and the paphiopedilum ("lady slipper") orchid moist. The cattleya ("prom") orchid prefers to be watered well, then allowed to dry out completely between waterings. To see if a plant needs water- ing, try the lollypop stick test. Thrust the stick three inches into the bark medium near the center of the pot. Leave it in a few seconds, twisting it several times, then remove to see if the point shows any moisture. If the stick comes out clean, the soil is dry. Water the lady slipper or moth orchid if the point is barely moist. For cattleyas, water only if the point is completely dry. The lollypop stick test works for all house plants and makes a good moisture meter. Q. Last year our radishes were wretched-all tops, no bottoms. 2 A. The Latin name of radish, Raphanus sativus, comes from raphanos, or "easily reared." They like a loose soil (no clay), dislike overcrowding, and do not need much fertilizer. Sow seeds about 1/4" deep, and thin plants to between one and two inches apart when tops are one or two inches high. Get them in the ground as soon as possible because the hot days of summer make the bottoms hot and cause the tops to "bolt," or go to seed IV early. Q Address your questions and requests to Doc and Katy Abra- ham, Consumers' Research, 800 Maryland Ave., NE, Washington, DC 20002 April 1992 37

0 LnL1NG ALL A sumers Understanding Vitamins The role of the diet in the devel- opment of chronic diseases is becoming more and more well- known, both among researchers and the general public. It has been estimated, for instance, that what we eat accounts for fully one-third of all cancers and may be a major factor in the development of heart disease. Although the exact nature of the relationship between diet and disease remains somewhat unclear, evidence is gathering that shows dietary vitamins may play a large part in this. Vitamins have long been understood to perform in the body a number of essential bio- chemical functions, which if lacking cause so-called vitamin deficiency diseases, such as scurvy. While researchers have used this understanding to guide the development of nutritional recommendations, they have also been noticing an association between vitamins and a wider range of human diseases. For several years, for example, evidence has accumulated that associates dietary vitamin intake with the prevention (or develop- ment) of cancer. Most commonly reflected in this evidence is the association between vitamin C intake and cancer. At a February conference of the New York Academy of Sci- ences, Dr. Gladys Block of the University of California at Berke- ley presented a paper noting that "the role of vitamin C and vita- min C-rich foods in cancer pre- vention has been examined in more than 90 epidemiological studies, and most have found sta- tistically significant reduced risk with the higher intake." Block wrote that "strong evidence exists" for a reduced risk of oral, esophageal, gastric, and pancre- atic cancers, and "substantial evi- dence" suggests a risk reduction with "cancers of the cervix, rec- tum, breast, and even lung." Other research suggests a similar role in cancer prevention for vita- mins E and beta carotene (a pre- cursor of vitamin A). Scientists believe these vita- mins, which are classified as antioxidants, fight cancer by, essentially, neutralizing "free radical" oxygen molecules in the body. These chemically reactive particles are believed to cause harm by "oxidizing" proteins and genetic material-which can lead, ultimately, to cancer. By stopping or reducing this oxida- tion, goes the theory, cells that otherwise might become cancer- ous function normally. Now, studies are showing a relationship between these antioxidant vitamins and deve- lopment of heart disease. Some suggest that oxidation of LDL cholesterol speeds the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, which can lead to heart attacks (see page 13 of this issue). Laborato- ry studies have shown that vita- min C may protect against this in humans. According to a report in Science, researchers exposed human blood to "oxida- tive" substances and found that "there was no oxidative damage [to LDL cholesterol] as long as vitamin C was around." Other antioxidants also show some promise in fighting heart disease. Studies performed at the University of Texas South- western Medical Center, for example, found vitamin E and beta carotene also prevented the oxidation of LDL cholesterol. And preliminary data from the U.S. Physicians' Health Study, a major, long-term project funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, suggest that beta carotene may have some protec- tive effect in the prevention of heart attacks, even among those at high risk. At the New York Acade- my of Sciences conference, Dr. Charles Hennekens of Harvard Medical School noted that 333 study participants with chronic angina-a high risk factor for heart attacks-reported no heart attacks, or strokes, over the nine- year period in which they con- sumed beta carotene supplements. Of course, dietary vitamins are not just associated with can- cer and heart disease. Antioxi- dants might fight the formation of cataracts and vitamin K might assist bone metabolism, thus perhaps preventing bone loss due to osteoporosis. Last summer, a major study showed that pregnant women who consumed appropriate lev- els of folic acid lowered the risk of spinal chord defects in their children. Larger studies will be neces- sary before definitive answers about vitamins and disease can be suggested. Most researchers consider it too early, say, to recommend that consumers run out and pur- chase all sorts of vitamin supple- ments-many of which can be toxic in high doses. But they do emphasize one point, well known to CR readers: a well-bal- lanced, varied diet is a good way to stay healthy for a long time. Perhaps soon we'll know more about why. -Peter L. Spencer 38 Consumers' Research

Whal te hcritics say*about ; MOVIE S I - , 'Consumers' Research does not judge the films. The judgments and comments given here come from a sampling of movie reviews in newspapers and magazines, and on TV. They are compiled by the editors of Consumers' Research. Adult Entertainment Values Number of Critics Saying - Go ?? No The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective (G) ................ 5 1 0 Animated feature about a crime-solving mouse Alan and Naomi (PG) .................... 2 5 0 Story of a Jewish boy who befriends a traumatized WWII refugee At Play in the Fields of the Lord (R)........ 2 3 2 A drama about trying to save the rain forest; political message Beauty and the Beast (G) ................ 18 2 0 Animated version of the classic tale Blame it on the Bellboy (England) (PG-13).. 3 1 0 Farce in which a bellboy mixes up important messages to hotel guests Daughters of the Dust (unrated) .......... 3 0 0 Drama about blacks living on the South Carolina Sea Islands Final Analysis (R) ....................... 1 12 5 Murder/mystery involving a psychologist, his patient, and her sister Freejack(R) ............................ 0 4 12 Movie set in the future where people can buy anything, even immortality Gatell(R) ............................. 0 1 3 Horror movie about some kids who re-open the gate to hell Gladiator (R) ........................... 1 5 2 Drama centering on two amateur boxers Get Back (PG) .......................... 0 2 2 Concert film featuring Paul McCartney Grand Canyon (R) ...................... 10 14 2 Movie about doing well, doing right, growing up, growing old, etc. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (R)....... 4 13 5 Drama/shocker about an evil nanny Hear My Song (R) ....................... 13 2 0 Drama about a hustling young nightclub owner The Inner Circle (PG-13) ................. 2 2 1 Drama that explores Stalin's meaning to the Russian people Juice(R) .............................. 3 12 6 Drama about four young black men in Harlem Kafka (R) .................. ....... 3 6 6 Drama in which novelist Franz Kafka tries to solve a mystery Adult Entertainment Values Number of Critics Saying - Go ?? No Kuffs (PG-13)... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 8 8 Comedy about a ne'r-do-well who inherits a private security company The Lawnmower Man (R) ................. 0 0 3 An experiment in "intelligence enhancement° goes awry Let Him HaveIt(R) ...................... 2 2 1 A 19-year-old Briton is hanged for a crime he probably didn't commit Love Crimes (R) ........................ 0 3 10 A predatory photographer traps women by promising to make them famous models The Lunatic(R) ......................... 0 0 3 Story about a man who talks to nature The Mambo Kings (R) .................... 3 4 0 Two Cuban mambo musicians try to make it in New York in the 1950s Medicine Man (PG-13) .................... 1 7 5 A biochemist finds a cure for cancer in the South American rain forest, but loses the formula Memoirs of an Invisible Man (PG-13) ....... 0 4 7 Comedy in which the CIA attempts to recruit an invisible man as a spy Mississippi Massala (R) .................. 14 3 0 A family, expelled from Uganda, adjusts to life in America My Father is Coming (German) (unrated).... 0 4 0 A look at Manhattan's sexual underbelly Naked Lunch (R) ........................11 7 5 Movie based on the novel by William S. Burroughs Once Upon a Crime (PG-13) ............... 0 0 3 Comedy in which a Monte Carlo police inspector investigates the murder of a wealthy woman Othefio(unrated) ........................ 2 1 0 Re-release of Orson Welles' 1948 adaptation of the Shakespeare play Overseas (France) (unrated) .............. 2 2 1 Drama, involving three sisters, set during the last days of French colonial rule in Algeria Radio Flyer(PG-13) ......................1 6 7 Two kids dream of building a flying machine Rush(R) ........................ 2 12 3 Undercover cops become heroin addicts Shining Through (R) ..................... 1 14 19 WWII saga about an American stenographer-turned-spy Stopt Or My Mom Will Shoot (PG-13)....... 0 2 11 Comedy in which an L. A. cop battles with his mom, who moved to L. A. from New Jersey This Is My Life (PG-13) ................... 4 6 2 A cosmetics saleswoman becomes a hit stand-up comic Until the End of the World (R) ............. 1 2 1 Sci-fi drama about a woman who travels with a ® pair of bank robbers ~ Wayne's World (PG-13) .................. 5 10 1 ~ Comedy about two teenagers who have their own cable-access TV show ~ GO- the film is entertaining, well worth seeing. ?? - the film is flawed, but rewarding. NO - the film is not recommended as entertainment. C4 t~ April 1992 39

coNS~~ert State Credit Laws States regulate credit cards in I various ways. Some limit or pro- ~ hibit annual fees, some ban or restrict fees for late payments or fees charged to cardholdersl when they exceed their limit f. For example, Texas prohibits annual fees, while Maine limits I annual fees to $12 or less. Cali- fornia limits late fees to $5, and 16 states prohibit fees charged to customers for exceeding their line of credit. Banks that issue credit cards have operated under the assump- tion-backed by a 1978 Supreme Court decision-that the annual j and late fees they charge are gov i- erned by the laws of the state in which the card was issued, not ~ the laws of the various states in ~ which the cardholders reside. But lawsuits in four states- Alabama, Massachusetts, Min- nesota, and Pennsylvania-are now challenging this assump- tion. The attorneys general of these states argue that cardhold- I ers in their states do not have to i pay fees higher than those allowed by their state laws. The outcome of these cases could have implications for cardhold- ers across the country. In one of the recently filed state cases-brought by Mas- sachusetts Attorney General I Scott Harshbarger-a federal judge ruled that a credit card issued by Delaware Trust Com- pany (associated with Sears, Roebuck and Co.) had violated a Massachusetts law by charging a late fee. While the outcome of these . cases may mean that annual fees , and charges for late payment Is will be limited or prohibited for many consumers, there are also some potential problems. The : restrictions could decrease the availability of credit because banks will be more cautious when choosing cardholders. Also, costs of complying with various state regulations will decrease credit availability and raise card costs. A vice president of the Fleet/Norstar Financing Group recently told The New York Times that "we have spent tens of thousands of dollars keeping track of the exceptions in state laws." To cover these additional costs, banks will almost surely respond by charging higher interest rates. Citicorp, for example, (one of the largest credit card issuers in the United States) is considering a credit card with an annual rate of 15.9% that would climb to 19.9% for late payments. (See "Do Credit Cards Need Interest Rate i Caps?" CR, February 1992.) Pollution Rights In an innovative proposal, government regulators of air quality in Southern California are planning to allow corpora- tions to purchase and sell the right to pollute. The proposal , will have to be approved.by the state's Air Quality Board, and if approved could go into effect as early as 1994. The proposal provides an eco- nomic incentive for companies to reduce pollution as much as possi- I ble. Companies that cannot afford : to comply with certain emissions levels, however, would be spared the expense, thus protecting jobs I and certain industries and thei I{r products. Consumers should ben- efit tremendously from this I approach. Under the proposal, regulators would set the acceptable levels of emissions. Companies with improved technologies or other means to decrease their emissions below the required levels would gain "credits" for those lower emissions. They can then sell I 40 Consumers' Research By Scott Pattison those credits to the companies that cannot economically reduce their emissions to the requisite levels. Proponents say the proposal is an improvement over the cur- rent approach in which govern- ment dictates how each company and industry must reduce emis- sions. The marketing of pollu- tion rights reaches the same result-lower overall polluting emissions-but not by telling companies how to do it. Opponents argue, however, that the proposal is risky and some labor groups are concerned that it is an incentive to close plants in the region and move elsewhere. Proponets counter that the proposal would make it more economical for companies to stay put. House Bikes The city of Greenfield, Cali- fornia has just begun a policy requiring that every purchaser of a new home must be provided with two new adult-sized bicy- cles "free of charge." The City Manager, an avid bicyclist, believes that the policy will reduce air pollution and traffic congestion by encouraging the riding of bikes. Whatever the environmental benefits, requiring the inclu- sion of bikes-which can sell for upwards of $300 apiece-as part of home sales will effec- tively increase home costs. Even such minor regulatory cost increases can affect the affordability of homes. For example, as was reported in the September 1991 issue of CR ("The High Cost of American Homes"), each $1,680 increase in the cost of homes-due to building codes, fees, permits- can price more than 12,000 people out the market for those homes each year. I

Continued from page 7. The Consumers" Observation Post preferences of doctors and other suppliers of care with the kind of consumer power that drives other industries." Initial evidence seems to support this; in two of the areas where the videos were tested, rates of prostate surgery decreased 60% to 44%, and patient satisfaction increased. The Foundation plans to introduce the video programs later this year for use in doctor's offices and hospitals, so that patients can discuss options with their doctors. The videos will cover benign prostate disease, low back pain, high blood pressure, and early stage breast cancer. Programs under development include cardiovascular disease, arthritis, prostate cancer, and cataract removal. ARE YOUR PLANTS STRESSED-OUT? If so, then maybe they need vitamins. Science News reports that Dale M. Norris, an entomologist at the University of Wisconsin, has patented a vitamin (C and E) supplement, which protects plants from the stress caused by drought, weed killers, and insect predators. Specifically, the supplement helps protect stress-sensitive proteins-self-defense messengers in plants-which can be damaged by free radical molecules, which cause biological damage. Dr. Norris's tests indicate, for example, that soybean plants treated with dilute solutions of the vitamins were significantly less subject to insect predation than untreated soybean plants. In addition, Dr. Norris's studies have "boosted the stress tolerance of snap beans, sweet com, field com, broccoli, coleus, ash trees and elms." Scientists are still formulating the proper dosage for specific plants, but Dr. Norris hopes to market his products later this year. REAL EGG LOVERS WHO CAN'T STAND THE CHOLESTEROL can look forward to reduced- cholesterol, liquid whole eggs. The product, Simply Eggs, is created through a process that extracts 80% of the cholesterol from egg yolks. The yolks are then re-combined with the egg whites. A spokesman for the manufacturer, Michael Foods, says Simply Eggs "is nutritionally identical to whole eggs," and tastes the same. The product meets U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations and has received a "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) rating from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, the company must still obtain USDA approval for its pilot plant, and meet FDA requirements for labeling. The'manufacturer is testing Simply Eggs in retail markets in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Los Angeles. No date has been set for when the product will be available to consumers, but food service industries will have it in a few months. AVIS, THE NATION'S SECOND-LARGEST CAR-RENTAL COMPANY, is backing a bill in New York state that would limit the amount car-rental companies have to pay if their renters are involved in accidents. The bill was created in response to New York's "vicarious liability" law, which holds the owner of a vehicle, and its driver, responsible for accidents. Because of that law, Avis and Hertz both claim to have paid millions of dollars in legal expenses because drivers and passengers of other cars, involved in accidents with their customers, sued the companies. To cover those expenses, Hertz (the natiori s largest car-rental company) recently imposed surcharges of up to $56 a day on its renters in some areas of New York City. Instead of raising rates, Avis decided to push for a change in the law. The bill backed by Avis would limit a rental car company's liability to $100,000 per victim and $300,000 per accident. It would give the company access to the renter's collision damage insurance, and also limit the application of the vicarious liability law. April 1992 41

0 CUMULATIVE INDEX APRIL 1991 THROUGH MARCH 1992 Entries shown in bold are longer, more comprehensive articles. Page Issue Advance-fee loans ...................... 16 Dec 91 AIDS, from doctors ..................... 15 Mar 92 Air conditioners .......................... 20 Jun 91 Air pollution: regulation of ........... 40 May 91; 23 Aug 91 in California ............................... 40 Jan 92 Airline fares, bargain ....................... 2 Apr 91 Animal tests ...................................38 Aug 91 Antitrust .........................................40 Jun 91 Art supplies by mail .................... 23 Jan 92 Asbestos regulation .................... 10 Feb 92 Aseptic packaging .......................15 Aug 91 Automobiles: alarm laws .................................. 40 Apr 91 bumper tests ............................ 30 Mar 92 buying ....................................... 20 Aug 91 CAFE standards ................... 6,38 Dec 91 17 Apr 91; 6 May 91 emissions standards .................. 40 Dec 91 fluids and filters ....................... 26 Dec 91 Detroit model review ............... 11 Nov 91 insurance costs ..... 31 May 91; 36 Aug 91 24, 40 Nov 91; 40 Jan 92 leasing ......................................... 2 Jun 91 maintenance ................................ 2 Sep 91 mileage estimates .....................19 Nov 91 quality survey ......... 18 Aug 91; 14 Nov 91 regulation costs ....................... 15 Sep 91 safety ratings ............ 23 Jul 91; 16 Nov 91 subleasing ................................... 2 Oct 91 theft protection .........................22 Oct 91 tires ............................................16 Jul 91 Banking: bank. S & L failures ..................... 6 Feb 92 credit union regulation ................. 6 Jul 91 deposit insurance .................... 20 Mar 92 Bicycles: buying ....................................... 24 May 91 helmets ....................................... 2 May 91 Black market and regulation ...... 32 Oct 91 Bottled water ............................... 10 Jun 91 Cable television: competition ................................ 40 Feb 92 rates .......................................... 38 Jun 91 reregulation ................................ 6 Aug 91 Cancer: and nuclear power ..................... 38 Jul 91 and pesticides ........ 38 Sep 91; 30 Dec 91 unproven remedies .................. 20 Sep 91 Carpeting, wall-to-wall .............c. 26 Mar 92 Charities, assessing ....................15 May 91 Chemical residues in livestock.. 33 Jan 92 Christmas tree care ........................ 2 Dec 91 Clean Water Act, effects ............... 40 Mar 92 Competition: restraints on ............................... 40 Jul 91 local telephone ...........................11 Dec 91 Composting, how to ................... 23 Apr 91 Computer information services..11 Oct 91 Consumer updates ........................ 38 Jan 92 Consumers' Research: past issues ................................. 38 Oct 91 issue updates ............................. 38 Apr 91 symposium ............................... 35 Jul 91 Credit: cards, interest rate caps .......... 28 cards, low interest rate ............ 34 Day care ........................................ 40 Dioxin ........................................... 10 Drugs: advertisements ...........................38 Alzheimer's ................................. 6 Feb Sep Jul Feb Jul Jun 92 91 91 91 91 91 Page Issue approval process ...... 31 Apr 91; 6 Jan 92 for blood pressure ....................17 Jan 92 prices .........................................38 Nov 91 Education and money ................. 26 Apr 91 Electronics, new products ......... 34 Dec 91 Energy conservation: gasoline tax .............................. 24 Jun 91 heating efficiency .....................23 Dec 91 Environment: myths about ............................. 11 Jan 92 paper vs. plastic ...................... 28 Oct 91 protection costs ......... 40 Apr 91; 40 Dec 91 science and .............................. 17 Oct 91 Farm programs ............................20 Jul 91 Flu shots ......................................... 2 Sep 91 Food: alitame......................................... 8 Mar 92 cholera ........................................ 8 Dec 91 edible coatings ...........................23 Mar 92 fermented foods .......................... 8 Oct 91 foodborne disease ....................... 8 May 91 grading ........................................ 8 Sep 91 health ctaims .......... 10 May 91; 28 Aug 91 herbal tea .................................. 31 Nov 91 hydroponic produce ..................... 8 Jul 91 in the military ......................----..-.. 8 Jan 92 labeling ..................................... 29 Apr 91 listeriosis ..................................... 8 Nov 91 oatrim .......................................... 8 Jun 91 paralytic shellfish poisoning ........ 8 Feb 92 phytates ....................................... 8 Apr 91 safe handling & storage .......... 29 Jun 91 seafood safety .......................... 34 Jun 91 selenium ...................................... 8 Aug 91 standards .................................. 26 Jul 91 Fraud, conning the elderly ......... 30 Sep 91 Fungal infections ............................ 2 Dec 91 Garden: Q& A ............................... 37 Monthly Gasoline tax ........................•....-.. 24 Jun 91 Global warming ........................... 17 Oct 91 Gripe book ...................................... 2 May 91 Gun safety training ......................... 2 Mar 92 Health care crisis: medisave accounts ...............-- 12 Mar 92 rationing .................................... 40 May 91 reform .... 40 Jun 91; 10 Aug 91; 40 Oct 91 solution .................................... 10 Mar 92 Health Care Power of Attorney.. 32 Feb 92 Health information ....... 31 Aug 91; 2 Feb 92 Heartburn ....................................... 2 Nov 91 Heatstroke ...................................... 2 Aug 91 Herbal tea and toxicity ................ 31 Nov 91 Highways. 1990 appropriations bill 6 Apr 91 Home: affordability .............................. 32 Mar 92 high cost of .............................. 10 Sep 91 Insurance ................................. 24 Sep 91 maintenance ............................... 2 Jan 92 mortgages ..................................16 Feb 92 Ice cream substitutes ................. 26 Oct 91 Insurance: high-risk ...................................... 2 Aug 91 home ......................................... 24 Sep 91 long-term care .................... ....-. 25 Jun 91 reform ...................... 10 Aug 91; 24 Nov 91 temporary ................................... 2 Jun 91 Investment fees ........................... 28 Nov 91 IRA reform ................................... 30 Jul 91 Lawyer monopoly ......... 40 Apr 91; 40 Oct 91 Licensing laws ............................ 20 May 91 Lotteries ..................... 38 Aug 91; 40 Sep 91 Mail-order shopping ....................... 2 Nov 91 Page Medicaid reform ............................ 40 Medicare ........................... 6 Medisave accounts ........... ........ .- 12 Milk prices ................................... 20 Motion picture ratings ................... 39 Mortgages: general information ..........__ 16 refinancing ..................... ........ .- 21 reverse ..................................... 30 Mutual funds ............................... 26 Nutrition book ................................ 2 Nutrition labeling ........................ 29 Issue Feb 92 Mar 92 Mar 92 Jul 91 Monthly Feb 92 Feb 92 Jan 92 Jan 92 Oct 91 Apr 91 Ocean cruises, bargain .................. 2 Feb 92 Ocean pollution ...... ......... ............ _ 38 May 91 Oil prices, economics behind..... 10 Oct 91 Osteoporosis .........................-..-.. 24 Feb 92 Ozone depletion .......................... 17 Oct 91 Passive smoking ......... 10 JuI 91; 30 Oct 91 Passport, getting a ......................... 2 Jan 92 Pesticides ................... 38 Sep 91; 30 Dec 91 Pet food .......................................... 2 Oct 91 Price increases, hidden ........ 21,38 Apr 91 Privatization .................................. 40 Jul 91 40 Sep 91; 40 Nov 91 Product recalls ........... 35 Apr 91; 36 May 91 36 Jun 91; 36 Ju191; 35 Aug 91; 33 Sep 91 36 Oct 91; 36 Jan 92; 35 Feb 92 Toy labeling, excessive ................. 38 Mar 92 Product tampering ...................... 34 May 91 Radon: danger ...................................... 10 Apr 91 detectors ................. ............. _.. 15 Apr 91 Recorded music reviews .............. 43 Monthly Refund rights .............................. 28 May 91 Regulation: and EPA science ........................10 Feb 92 and landfills ................................. 6 Nov 91 and small business .....................40 Jan 92 and the black market ................32 Oct 91 cost to consumers .... 38 Sep 91; 40 Nov 91 of medical referrals .................... 40 Dec 91 of personal choices ... 40 Jan 92; 40 Mar 92 overkill ....................... 40 Oct 91; 40 Jan 92 science behind ......................... 35 Jul 91 Sewage treatment ......................... 36 Aug 91 Sleep apnea .................................. 2 Mar 92 Smoke, passive: and lung cancer ........................ 10 Jul 91 debate of dangers .................... 30 Oct 91 Social Security number .............. 20 Dec 91 Sunglasses .................................... 2 Jul 91 Taxes: and sports stadiums ................... 40 Jul 91 and gambling ............................. 40 Nov 91 controling hikes ......................... 40 Mar 92 growing burden ........................16 Jun 91 last minute help .......................... 2 Apr 91 on junk food ............................... 40 Sep 91 on property ................ ....... .......... 40 Dec 91 state tax burden ....................... 40 Jun 91 36 Aug 91; 40 Oct 91 tax raise ploy ...............................40 Mar 92 Telephone: local competition .... 11 Dec 91; 40 Feb 92 new services ............................... 4 Sep 91 Tires, shopping for ..................... 16 Jul 91 Travel with pets ............................. 2 Jul 91 Tree buying ................................... 2 Mar 92 Wages, public vs. private .............. 40 Feb 92 Water testing ................................. 2 Aug 91 Winter tips ..................................... 2 Jan 92 Wood stoves, use restrictions ...... 40 May 91 For subscription rates and prices of single copies and back issues of Consumers' Research magazine, see page 4. Consumers' Research is available on 35 mm positive microfilm from University Microfilms Inc., 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. For a braille edition, call or write Regional Libraries for the Blind. Consumers' Research is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and in the quarterly compilation of Consumers Index, Pierian Press, Box 1808, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. 42 Consumers' Research

Recorded Music in Review by Walter F. Grueninger Amazing Grace. Jessye Norman (soprano) with various pianists, an organist, Ambrosian Singers, Royal Phil- harmonic Orchestra under Alexander Gibson and Willis Patterson. Philips CD 432 546 2. As Longfellow wrote, "we hear singing lovely as the day." Is there a household which would not respond to this music? The 18 sacred songs com- piled from earlier releases include Let Us Break Bread Together, Panis Angelicus, Ave Maria, Steal Away, City Called Heaven, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, Amazing Grace. Marvelous recording. AA AA Bach: Concertos BWV 1052-1058. Andras Schiff (piano) with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. London 425 676 2. Two CDs. These seven keyboard concertos originated from existing Bach works. The master composed them for the Leipzig Collegium Musicum in 1729 where, as director, he became responsible for the popular weekly concerts. Bach and his son probably played the solo parts on different dates. Schiff gives us an animated perfor- mance which shows his formidable tech- nique, but other artists play the slow movements with more feeling. Good news though; in his playing there is no imita- tion of an earlier plucked string instru- ment, such as harpsichord. Clear, well-balanced sound. The orchestra sup- ports the soloist successfully. A AA Bach: Four Great Toccatas & Fugues. E. Power Biggs (organ). CBS Records CD MM 32643. Demonstrating his expertise at the keyboards, Biggs plays the organ in Germany and at Har- vard University. You might have heard this glorious concert music on LP before it was remixed and sonically improved for CD. It's worth hearing again and again. Three short pieces fill out the CD to reach a total time of nearly 70 minutes. AA AA Fennell Favorites. Dallas Wind Symphony. Reference Recording CD RR 43. This unusual program of transcrip- tions, played by 50 woodwinds plus brass and percussion instruments, features Woodland Sketches by Edward MacDow- ell. Other selections include short pieces by Bach, Brahms, Goldmark, Halvorsen, Prokofiev. The playing under widely experienced bandmaster Frederick Fen- nell would be difficult to surpass. Superb live recording taped in Mayerson Sym- phony Center, Dallas, Texas. AA AA Gershwin: Piano Concerto, etc. Peter Jablonski (piano) with the Royal Philharmonic under Vladimir Ashke- nazy. London CD 430 52 542 2. America the beautiful and not so beautiful. Jablonski plays the solo part of the 30- minute concerto in good jazz style, though more sophisticated than neces- sary. He has sympathetic, but overly expressive, orchestral support. The remainder of the program provides four piano solos: The 1935 Leonard Bernstein transcription of Aaron Copland's colorful orchestra piece El Salon Mexico, a dull piano solo which takes 11 minutes to per- form; the three-minute Copland Blues No. 3; the six-minute Samuel Barber Bal- lads; and three George Gershwin Pre- ludes which total six minutes. All played well enough by this youag pianist, but not especially appealing inless you're deeply in the groove at the moment of lis- tening. Excellent recording. A AA Handel: The Italian Years. Julianne Baird (soprano) and Philomel (Baroque Orchestra). Dorian Recordings CD DOR 90147. A must have Baroque CD. It presents three arias by Handel expressing different kinds of motion: The erratic motion of a moth, the youth- ful power of Icarus soaring into the sun, and the fury of the sun's rays. Baird's singular voice meets all challenges and I'm very enthusiastic about this CD. Telemann contributes an instrumental trio (seven minutes) and Vivaldi an 11 minute, vivacious All'ombra di sospetto for voice, flute obbligato, and orchestra. Song texts supplied. Superb recording taped in the Troy New York Savings Bank Music Hall. AA AA Mozart: Horn Quintet (K.407); A Musical Joke (K522); etc. Performed by L'Archibudelli. Vivarte/Sony CD SK 46 702. A program provided by strings plus natural horns which may not arouse your deepest emotions, but may make you happy. Without valves on the horns, the players produce the full diatonic scale only by inserting the right hand into the bell of the horn for intermediate tones. It's not easy to keep tones from being sharp or flat. In addition to the principal pieces above, the recording gives the lighter side of Mozart-march- es, duos, and fragments-performed by combinations chosen from the five string players and two hornists, all of whom appear to hate shoddiness. The string players use historical instruments fitted i with gut strings-instruments made by Stradivari, Forster, Thompson, Pressen- da, da, Gaspara da Salo, etc. Superior recording. AA AA Stravinsky: The Firebird; : Petrushka; Fireworks. Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman. Telarc CD 80270. A French influenced fantasy, Fireworks, dating from 1907, attracted attention to Igor Stravinsky, but the 1910 Firebird ballet music was regarded as his first masterpiece. Petrushka fol- lowed lowed with harsh notes, strange har- monies, etc. Definitely, Stravinsky ~ became avant garde. As years passed he offered alternate orchestrations of his music. In 1910, he re-scored Fireworks for a smaller orchestra. In 1919, he re- scored the original suite from Firebird. In 1947, he gave us a new version of Petrushka. The Baltimore Symphony plays these revised versions with preci- sion, energy, showmanship. Brilliant I sound. AA AA Walther: Deutsche Barock Kam- mermusik. Francois Fernandez (violin) with the Ricercar consort. Ricercar RIC CE 045022. Distributed by Allegro Imports, 3434 SE Milwaukee Ave., Port- land, Oreg. 97202. Johann-Jacob Walther has been called "the Paganini of his time." He lived from 1650 to 1717. Here the musicians play, principally, suites consisting of dances-courante, sarabande, gigue, etc. You may be sur- prised by the original style and good taste of the compositions. But, after all, Walther was a cousin of genius J. S. Bach! The playing and recording are very good indeed. AA AA Yuri Bashmet (viola) Plays Schu- bert, Schumann, Bruch, Enesco with Mikhail Muntian (piano). RCA Victor CD 60112 2RC. Russian violist Bashmet pos- sesses the technique and rich, doleful tone for this program featuring the famous Schubert Arpeggione Sonata and Schu- mann's Marchenbilder-the set Schu- mann produced for viola. When required there's elegant, romantic playing in these big selections and in the short pieces by Bruch (Kol Nidre), Schumann (Adagio and Allegro), Enesco (Konzerstiick). Rarely do we hear unwelcome, exceedingly heavy, dark, contralto sound in this 74- minute recital. Bashmet has the good for- tune of playing with a talented partner. Nicely balanced sonics. AA AA How CR Rates Recordings Ratings (AA,A,B) apply first to quality of interpretation, second to the fidelity of recording. The interpretation rating applies to Long Play records (LP), Compact Discs (CD), Tape Cassettes. The fidelity rating applies only to the format heard. (Generally the performance is available in the three for- mats.) Space rimits comment to highly rated recordings, for it is the view of Consumers' Research that readers are most interested in recordings judged to be superior. April 1992 43

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