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This disagreement between CR and Chrysler underscores the difference between objective tests and predictions that are based on a sample of subjective responses (how serious, for example, is a "serious" problem?). And what about products that do not perform tasks, like automobiles or dishwashers, but are rather made to be ingested, e la orange juice, which is featured in the February 1995 issue of CR? Isn't one person's ambrosia another person's pig swill? "We have a standard of what is good orange juice," says CR spokeswoman Rana Arons. Tasters attempt to quantify attributes such as "sweet" and "astringent." "But you'll never see in Consumer Reports anywhere, 'We like this best, this tastes good.' We never say to our testers 'what tastes best.' " Which is a confusing assertion, given the headline at the top of the February cover: WHICH ORANGE JUICES TASTE BEST?
Charges are also growing that CR regularly crosses the line between impartial objectivity and committed advocacy. In one sense, this complaint is nothing new. In its very first issue, May 1936, the magazine ran a story on the dangers of lead in children's toys. In the 1950s, CR warned-correctly-that radioactive fallout from nuclear tests in the atmosphere was contaminating milk products; in the '60s and '70s it repeatedly urged auto manufacturers to install seat belts.
But in those campaigns, critics argue, CR had hard science or, in the case of seat belts, exhaustive testing and research on its side. The magazine's more recent warnings, they add, have not been similarly grounded in facts or else have made minimal risks seem major ones. In May 1989, CR did a story on the health risks posed by the continued use of the chemical Alar to ripen apples. The piece made news in other magazines and on TV and helped spread alarm about the chemical; eventually, stores took Alar-treated apples off the shelf, costing U.S. apple growers an estimated $100 million in discarded produce. While some, including CR, still maintain that Alar could pose a hazard, the National Cancer Institute, the American Medical Association and the Surgeon General concluded that the chemical put apple eaters in little if any danger.
A similar controversy has blown up over CR's condemnation of bovine somatotropin (bst), a genetically engineered hormone to increase milk production in cows. Again, the magazine's original warning in the May 1992 issue (udder insanity) was widely reprinted, prompting consumer resistance to the use of bst on dairy cows. And again, a small battalion of other environmental watchdogs refuted the claims of danger, including the A.M.A. and the Food and Drug Administration.
Dale Bauman, a Cornell University professor of nutritional biochemistry, claims that Consumer Reports erred in its bst story by relying solely on its in-house critic in the field, Michael Hansen, rather than a panel review. "Nobody has the credibility to handle a wide range of issues," Bauman says. He adds that he found a Hansen report on bst "replete with mistakes" and that the fda sent Hansen a letter listing all the errors. "I don't think this helps the magazine's credibility," Bauman observes.