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which has a harmful effect, as by pesticides or nitrates that might be found in wine, or by the alcohol itself in wine. Unless an experiment actually has subjects drinking
wine, no conclusions concerning drinking wine are possible. (3) An experiment
demonstrating a physiological effect of something ingested is likely to be of short
duration, and is not likely to measure the effect on longevity. However, demonstrating
a physiological effect that appears to be beneficial (say a heightened level of HDL, as
mentioned by Kim Marcus above) is not the same as demonstrating increased longevity,
since the relation between the observed effect and longevity is speculative.
In short, the only research that can prove that prolonged drinking of three to five
glasses of wine per day can extend life is the non-feasible experiment that we have
already discussed above in which subjects are required to drink different amounts of
wine over an extended period of time, and the effects on longevity noted.
The Harm That You May Have Done.
What the above reasoning leads us to, then, is that you were without justification for
promoting the conclusion that you did - that drinking three to five glasses of wine each
day extends life. Quite possibly, your conclusion had the effect of increasing the
consumption of alcoholic beverages, particularly wine, and possibly, the effects of this
increased consumption have been uniformly bad.
These may be among the damaging effects of your advice. The level of alcohol
consumption that you advocate slows reaction times and interferes with coordination and
impairs judgment, and therefore invites accidents. Certainly no airline pilot would be
permitted to consume a fraction of your recommended daily intake and still be allowed to
fly, and certainly every driver should recognize that he is putting himself at risk
drinking as much as you advocate. We recognize the damage that your advice may have
inflicted when we take into account that except for infants and the aging, accidents are
the leading cause of death.
The level of alcohol consumption that you advocate interferes with, or makes quite
impossible, difficult mental work. Thus, a university student who follows your advice
and has a couple of glasses of wine with his di
as well head out to a pub after that, because he will find his calculus homework quite
incomprehensible. A chemistry professor who follows your advice and has a couple of
glasses of wine with his lunch will find himself making mistakes as he tries to lay out
the electron configuration of aluminum for his class - he had better find some simpler
topic to treat in that lecture if he doesn't want to embarrass himself in front of his
students. A lawyer arguing a complex case who follows your advice and has a couple of
glasses of wine with his lunch will find himself losing the thread of his argument in
court - he had better let his junior take over that afternoon if he wants to maintain
his reputation.
The level of alcohol consumption that you advocate may damage health. The level of
alcohol consumption that you advocate possibly saps energy and depletes motivation,
possibly leads to more time spent in small talk and in television viewing, and less in
productive work and creative effort. Undoubtedly, the level of alcohol consumption that
you advocate promotes outright alcoholism. Yours has been a call based on
pseudo-science to abandon sobriety and embrace intoxication - hardly a direction that
American culture needs to be pushed in.
The French Paradox and The Ugly Face of Freedom were equally flawed. And to return to
the comparison of your 23Oct94 broadcast The Ugly Face of Freedom to your 5Nov95
broadcast The French Paradox, I do see a striking parallel. In both cases, you didn't
know what you were talking about, but stepped forward and talked anyway. Given that you
had not studied the subjects to which you addressed yourself, given that you had not
thought about them, given that you were capable of nothing better than passing along the
most superficial, man-in-the-street, off-the-top-of-my-head conclusions, the truly
remarkable thing is that you would have the arrogance to think yourself worthy of
standing up in front of tens of millions of people and telling them what was your
opinion. Yet that is what you did, and in each case, you got it wrong. Your many
conclusions in these two broadcasts ranged from totally opposite to the truth to totally
unsupported by the evidence. The Ugly Face of Freedom for which you will always be
remembered in the Ukrainian community was wrong and destructive. The French Paradox
which judging from its Internet prominence appears to be your best-remembered broadcast
among your total audience - was also wrong, and also destructive.
A word concerning self-help. If you yourself subscribe to the prescription of drinking
three to five glasses of wine each day, then I would recommend that you attempt to break
yourself of the habit, and substitute for the many hours of inebriation thus avoided
some sober study. Had you substituted for many hours of inebriation the sober reading
of history, you might have spared yourself the fiasco of The Ugly Face of Freedom. Had
you substituted for many hours of inebriation the sober study of scientific method, you
might have spared yourself the fiasco of The French Paradox. Perhaps you have no more
than to look at these two pratfalls in your own career to see how damaging is the effect
of making a habit of indulging in alcohol.
Disclosure would be a step toward restoring professional credibility. As enthusiasm for
your French Paradox broadcasts seems to have its source in the wine industry, and as
your integrity has been brought into question on the matter of The Ugly Face of Freedom,
I wonder if your professional standing would not be enhanced by your assuring 60 Minutes
viewers that you have received no benefits from the wine industry in gratitude for the
increased sales that your French Paradox broadcasts have brought it. The absence of
such an assurance will invite some 60 Minutes viewers to construe your French Paradox
broadcasts more as infomercials than as investigative reporting.
Lubomyr Prytulak
cc: Ed Bradley, Jeffrey Fager, Don Hewitt, Steve Kroft, Andy Rooney, Lesley Stahl, Mike
Wallace.
HOME DISINFORMATION PEOPLE SAFER 1553 hits since 26Apr99
Morley Safer Letter 8 26Apr99 One out of 40 escaped shooting
It looks very much, Mr. Safer, as if on your 60 Minutes broadcast of 23Oct94, The Ugly
Face of Freedom, your chief witness testifying to Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis
was himself a war criminal of substantial proportions, a former Gestapo agent with the
blood of many on his hands, perhaps much of it Jewish blood.
April 26, 1999
Morley Safer
60 Minutes, CBS Television
51 W 52nd Street
New York, NY
USA 10019
Morley Safer:
I bring to your attention the following excerpt from an article by L. A. Ruvinsky
published in the Ukrainian Historical Journal in 1985:
After the end of the Second World War, the former head of the Lviv
Gestapo, P. Krause, replying to a question put by the writer V. P.
Bieliaev, testified: "If on our side, in the Gestapo, there had not
worked several agents from among the Zionists, we would never have been
able to capture and destroy such a large number of Jews, who were