The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. Leading the news this Thursday, the House passed the $5.8 billion drought aid bill, the Administration said the upcoming budget deficit will not be high enough to trigger automatic cuts and Iran claimed 4,000 were killed or wounded in two days of fresh fighting in the Iran/Iraq War. We'll have the details in our News Summary in a moment. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: After the News Summary, our major focus is the Surgeon General's report urging changes in America's diet to fight disease. The Associate Surgeon General, two nutrition experts, and a food industry representative debate the recommendations, then a documentary report on fish that may not be good for your health, finally, Charlayne Hunter-Gault has a conversation with poet laureate Richard Wilbur. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: The House of Representatives passed an emergency drought aid bill this afternoon. It calls for $5.8 billion in help to farmers who have had crops damaged or destroyed by the recent drought. The vote was by an overwhelming 368 to 29 margin. One of the debate points leading up to the vote was on a more than $100 million aid package for dairy producers.

REP. JAMES JEFFORDS, [R] Vermont: It is our responsibility, nobody else's responsibility, not the Administration or anyone, that we bring the adequate supply of milk to the United States. So I just implore you to take a look at what we're asking you to do here, nothing but to give some minimal assurances to the dairy farmer, give them a signal to stay in business, don't let us become short of dairy products next year, that's all.

REP. PAT ROBERTS, [R] Kansas: This is a most dangerous and wrong headed precedent. Does this mean every time, as my colleague from Kansas has pointed out, that we see see an increase in the grain price that Congress should increase the dairy support price, should other consumers of grain, those in the cattle business, the swine, the sheep and the poultry, be asked to pay more for those same grain supplies without any similar subsidy? That's not fair.

MR. LEHRER: The House ended up approving a cutback assistance package for dairy farmers. The bill is expected to pass just as comfortably in the Senate where a vote is expected later this evening. The Reagan Administration is publicly on record in favor of the legislation but today White House Budget Director James Miller warned that it could trigger automatic budget cuts. He told reporters the upcoming federal budget now foresees a $140.1 billion deficit. Automatic cuts would be triggered if it goes to 146 billion. Meanwhile President Reagan told a group of farm youth at the White House that he would sign the drought bill.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: We're determined to get aid just as quickly as we can to those farmers who need help and I'm calling on Congress to act on comprehensive drought relief so I can sign some legislation to that end very soon.

MR. MacNeil: Iran claimed today its forces had killed or wounded 4,000 soldiers in fresh battles with Iraqi and Iranian rebel forces. The Iran news agency said the fighting took place on the central front. Earlier, the Iran rebel group, called the National Liberation Army, claimed that its fighters had killed or wounded 40,000 Iranians. Iraq said its air force heavily bombed Iranian positions but made no mention of Syria's ground fighting. In New York, there was a lull in cease-fire talks, although UN Secretary General Perez De Cuellar said he was optimistic. Iran once again ruled out direct talks with Iraq until a cease-fire is in effect, and an Iranian spokesman said he did not think there was anything to talk about with the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Jackson said he was trying to negotiate with Iran for release of American hostages.

MR. LEHRER: There is some presidential politics to report today. The Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis took an ethics shot at Vice President Bush, the sure Republican nominee. Speaking in New Jersey, Dukakis said Bush should have called for the resignation of Attorney General Meese last spring. He also made light of Bush's recent proposal to set up a White House ethics office.

GOV. MICHAEL DUKAKIS, Democratic Presidential Nominee: And in a Dukakis White House, the ethics office will be in the Oval Office, not some place down the hall.

MR. LEHRER: Vice President Bush was in Washington today. He told reporters a new speculation about his running mate was inevitable. He said he hoped the process would not be demeaning to anyone. He said it was proceeding in an orderly fashion.

MR. MacNeil: Old Faithful and the Yellowstone National Park again were the focus of the Western fire story today. Firefighters use flame throwers in an effort to redirect the fire burning within six miles Old Faithful Geyser. Back fires started with a napalmlike substance dropped from helicopters were also employed to control the blaze. The Yellowstone conflagration is one of many plaguing eight Western states. Near Rapid City, South Dakota, a 2200 acre blaze destroyed more than 20 buildings and forced the temporary evacuation of a thousand persons last night. Authorities now say the fire is 80 percent contained. They blamed it on an unknown arsonist who has started as many as eight fires in one day and a total of fifty since May.

MR. LEHRER: Morale is high at the Justice Department according to the No. 2 man. Acting Deputy Attorney General Harold Christiansen told the Senate Judiciary Committee today he had seen no evidence of malaise. Arnold Burns, who held the job until his resignation in April, told the committee Tuesday, the Department had a terrific morale problem because of the legal problems of Attorney General Meese. Senator Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he found Christiansen's testimony somewhat incredible. Christiansen answered, "I don't think so," when Kennedy asked if he was going in over there with blinders on.

MR. MacNeil: The Home of South African Nationalist Leader Nelson Mandela was gutted and destroyed by fire today. Police said the blaze was set by arsonists. We have a report from James Robins of the BBC.

JAMES ROBINS: Flames spread quickly through the Mandelas family home, a bungalow which Nelson Mandela first rented in the 1950's, before the AMC leader's life imprisonment. His wife, Winnie was not in the house. Among the first to spot the fire was the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu. Trevor Tutu lives in the same street and got as close to the flames as he could, satisfied no one was trapped inside. The fire brigade had still not arrived over half an hour after the alarm was raised. Angry locals insisted the authorities wanted the house to burn. Loose bricks littered the ground outside the house, backing evidence from eye witnesses who say local school children first stoned the house, then started the fire. Why they attacked is less clear, but whatever the motive, the house was all but destroyed. Some say there was a feud between a local school and young men of the Mandela football team who appeared to act as body guards for Mrs. Mandela. She arrived for a few moments to see the ruins of her home, but said nothing about possible causes.

MR. MacNeil: Late today a spokesman for the Mandela family said the community must put an end to this; anyone who would think of attacking the Mandelas' house represents the forces of darkness. Also in South Africa, the government suspended a controversial new press restriction three days before it was to go into effect. Their plan to set up a register of journalists have been condemned around the world. This week the U.S. State Department urged Pretoria to drop it. Today's announcement said the register was not being dropped but temporarily suspended.

MR. LEHRER: The Cambodia talks ended today in Indonesia. There were sharp words of disagreement over what was accomplished. The purpose of the meeting was to begin informal discussions about ending the Civil War in Cambodia over Vietnam's 10 year occupation. A leader of an anti-Vietnam guerrilla faction said a Vietnamese spokesman told a shameless lie when he said the meeting had reached broad agreement on Vietnam's continued presence. Other Cambodian leaders attacked the guerrilla forces for being the difficult ones in the discussions.

MR. MacNeil: Canadian officials disclosed today that a jetliner carrying 246 passengers had to climb sharply to avoid a collision with a Soviet military jet plane that was intercepted by U.S. and Canadian fighter planes yesterday. It happened 250 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. A Canadian transport official described the incident as a fairly close call. That's our News Summary. Now it's on to changing what Americans eat, tainted fish, and the poet laureate. FOCUS - FOOD FOR THOUGHT

MR. MacNeil: What you eat and drink can kill you. That's what the Surgeon General says. Yesterday Dr. C. Everett Koop, the Surgeon General, issued a 700 page report stating these facts. Nearly 2.1 million Americans died last year. At least 2/3 of them died due to bad diets or drinking. The report made a series of recommendations, primarily that Americans should reduce the amount of fat they eat. In addition to reducing fat and cholesterol, the report recommended that people maintain a desirable body weight, here, exercise is important, that they increase their consumption of complex carbohydrates and fiber, things like whole grain foods and fruit, that they reduce their salt intake and take alcohol in moderation, if at all. The report took four years to complete and follows in the tradition of the Surgeon General's original report linking smoking to cancer and other illnesses. Joining us now for a NewsMaker Interview is the Assistant Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. J. Michael McGinnis. Dr. McGinnis, my first reaction yesterday was we've been hearing all this for years, what is significantly new?

DR. MICHAEL McGINNIS, Assistant Surgeon General: Well, I think that is significantly new about this report are several things. First, it's clearly the most comprehensive review that's ever been undertaken by the federal government or any other national organization of the broad range of nutritional issues and the science base undergirding those nutritional issues. Secondly, it identifies quite clearly that there is a convergence of recommendations about dietary factors and their effect on health outcomes regardless of the perspective of an individual disease process. We've known for some time, for example, that dietary fat and cholesterol were important to outcomes of heart disease. We've known a little more recently about some of the relationships between dietary fat and fiber intake and cancer, but the important issue that we've learned from the broad review that's been undertaken is that there's a convergence of recommendations from several perspectives and finally, this is the first time that the federal government has identified dietary fat as chief among several food factors involved in these processes.

MR. MacNeil: I just had the impression that I had been reading this kind of thing in columns and newspapers and national magazines for some years now and I wondered who in particular was this new information aimed at.

DR. McGINNIS: The information is aimed ultimately, of course, at the American public, which is the ultimate beneficiary of the kinds of recommendations we're talking about. But the report, itself, is aimed at policy makers. As you noted earlier, the tradition of the Surgeon General's report of the past has been followed in this one and Surgeon Generals' reports are typically dispassionate, intensive scientific reviews of a particular issue of importance for the American people. Clearly, no issue can be as important for the American people, clearly no issue can be as important as dietary issues, which is of course a concern for each of us. the report finds, and I think it's important to point this out, that if you're among the two out of three Americans whom neither smoke nor drink excessively that the most important factor for your long-term health is what you eat.

MR. MacNeil: What would have to happen and how quickly to make a significant difference in the death rate say in 10 years time?

DR. McGINNIS: Well, unlike the situation in 1964, with the Surgeon General's report on tobacco and health, we're already seeing changes in the dietary area and we can learn a little bit about the magnitude of those potential changes that we see now. Now for example, we've had a shift over the last decade and a half or so for some food substances in the consumption of types of dietary fat. There's been a major shift away from saturated fat consumption to unsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat consumption. Along with that shift, there has been a change in the incidence of heart disease rates. We've seen about a 42 percent drop in heart disease rates in the period between 1964 and 1984. For example, now part of that is related to diet, part of that is related to changes in smoking behavior, but some estimates indicate that about a third of the improvement can be attributable to dietary changes. That means that we're seeing a hundred thousand or more fewer deaths from heart disease as a result of dietary changes that have already occurred.

MR. MacNeil: When you say it's aimed at policy makers, which policy makers and what would you like them to do?

DR. McGINNIS: Well, policy makers at every level of the private and public sector, if you will, who have the potential to change the kinds of decisions that people make.

MR. MacNeil: Name a few kinds of policy makers who you would like to see take action on this report.

DR. McGINNIS: They're clearly in our own department. First and foremost, are our own policy makers. For example, we think that the time is ripe for taking a hard look at our labeling policies in the Food & Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture. We can do better to provide information to people on food labels. We can do better in the food assistance programs that we run in our department in Health & Human Services as well as in the Department of Agriculture to provide incentives for healthy dietary choices. We can do better in the school systems to provide information to students about healthy dietary practices. We can do better in clinicians' offices to counsel patients about dietary practices. Up and down the line there are changes that can be made and we hope this report will help facilitate.

MR. MacNeil: Why is the report so general? Why doesn't it mention specific foods or groups of foods that contain the things that you think people should avoid? I mean, for instance, why isn't this an attack on the fast food business, whose staples are hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries and pie and milk shakes and things like, which millions of Americans eat regularly?

DR. McGINNIS: Well, againthis report is not targeted to individual consumers. It's targeted to the policy decision makers in general, and it is pretty clear about the kinds of changes that ought to be made. For example, if you eat a diet that's high in fatty meats and dairy products and prepared in oils, then you ought to cut down, you ought to choose meats that are more lean and trim the fat and trim the skin of poultry, but it offers prescriptions in a variety of areas related to fat, related to choices in increased carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates and fiber, that can then be taken and interpreted for the public in ways that are more specific to the cultural milieu of individual consumers and to the economic and other settings that consumers find themselves in.

MR. MacNeil: Dr. McGinnis, thank you. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Now three reactions to Dr. McGinnis and the Surgeon General's report. Michael Jacobson is the Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, Dr. Myron Winick is Professor Nutrition and Pediatrics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Charles Carey is President of the National Food Processors Association. He's with us from public station WGBH in Boston. Dr. Winick, to you first. What do you see as the major significance of this report?

DR. MYRON WINICK, Columbia University: Well, from my standpoint there's really two very important. One is the studies, themselves, that have been looked at in such great detail, and the other are the recommendations, and I think it's very important that we separate those two.

MR. LEHRER: What's the central finding then that is new and fresh and important?

DR. WINICK: Well, the most important thing to the academic community, to the people who are involved in trying to teach doctors about nutrition, the most important thing is for the first time we have a body of hard evidence which has been reviewed in great detail. You can't teach a medical student or a resident by saying, we think you should tell your patients to reduce the amount of fat. They want to know why, what is the evidence upon which this is made, and this is the first time we have this body of evidence so well put together for all of these chronic diseases.

MR. LEHRER: As a general rule, its been said for years that doctors really don't pay any attention to nutrition. You're saying that this report might get their attention?

DR. WINICK: Well, this report will help a great deal. There is a movement going on at the present time to increase physicians' knowledge of nutrition. And this is all across-the-board.

MR. LEHRER: Is it working?

DR. WINICK: It's working very slowly frankly. We've done surveys in the past.

MR. LEHRER: What's the problem? They just don't buy it, they don't believe it?

DR. WINICK: The problem is twofold. One is that they don't really believe that nutrition is that important in the whole aspect of health, and that's why this report is so important for that group, because the evidence is there. It's very clear and very well put together and put out. And secondly, the argument is always there that we've got so much to teach it's hard to get another course in and that sort of thing.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Now what about the recommendations? You said there were something in the recommendations.

DR. WINICK: The important thing from my standpoint as far as the recommendations are concerned is something that Dr. McGinnis touched on and that is that for the first time these recommendations are across-the-board. We don't have to worry about well, we shouldreduce the fat for this disease and maybe not so much for that disease and increase the fiber for this disease and the American public tends to feel, my God, all of these things - -

MR. LEHRER: What disease am I preventing today? But they're saying --

DR. WINICK: Here we have some very specific recommendations which are made to reduce the incidence of chronic disease which is at the present time accounting for most of the deaths in this country by simply changing our eating pattern.

MR. LEHRER: You know when I read that yesterday and heard Dr. McGinnis, Robin, repeat it again tonight, that most of the deaths, 2/3 of the deaths, are caused by dietary problems. That has a strange ring to it. Is that verifiable?

DR. WINICK: I don't think it's fair to say are caused by.

MR. LEHRER: Influenced by.

DR. WINICK: That's right. What we really can say is that the risk for dying of a particular disease is based in part on what you eat in 2/3 of the diseases. And that's very important.

MR. LEHRER: And that brings us to Mr. Carey in Boston. What's the reaction in the food industry? Are you going to take these recommendations and revolutionize your industry?

CHARLES CAREY, National Food Processors Association: I don't think it's going to require revolutionizing the industry. We're very glad to see this report. I think it's been long needed, an official comprehensive summation of the relationship between diet and health, and I certainly agree that it can form a foundation for changes in policy. Three years ago we petitioned the Food & Drug Administration to change its policy on labeling to permit food manufacturers to provide information on the healthful aspects of their food on the label. That resulted about a year ago in a proposed new set of rules by the Food & Drug Administration which is still pending. We think it's very important that if you're going to change the dietary habits of the country that all the means of communication that are available be utilized, including the use of advertising and the use of labeling to persuade people and not just compel them to change their diet.

MR. LEHRER: As a practical matter, is healthy eating good business for the food industry?

MR. CAREY: Well, certainly it can be.

MR. LEHRER: But has it been up to now?

MR. CAREY: I think most of the food we eat can contribute to a healthy diet and what can happen under these new rules is that the food manufacturers will be able to explain in persuasive terms to their consumers why certain foods should be more prominently placed in their diet, something that we've been precluded from doing up to this time.

MR. LEHRER: And the industry is prepared to you say -- you don't like my word revolutionize -- but I'll just ask you -- what is the industry prepared to do as a result of what the Surgeon General said yesterday?

MR. CAREY: Well, we're, for instance, prepared to take the type of information that is presently contained in the voluntary nutritional labeling which is widely embraced by the industry now. Most processed foods are nutritionally labeled, but that nutritional label is rather sterile as a means of communicating to most consumers. It really doesn't explain to them the desirable features of the food that should be emphasized, but if the rules are changed as had been proposed now by the Food & Drug Administration at the urging of our organization and others, the manufacturers on their labels and in their advertising will be able to highlight those characteristics and make them seem more attractive to the public.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Jacobson, as a practical matter, is it going to be possible to revolutionize the eating habits of Americans?

MICHAEL JACOBSON, Center For Science In Public Interest: Not overnight. I think this report is useful in getting nutrition on the front page, but I disagree with some of the observations about whether there's something new. We've heard this all before as Robin recognized. In fact, nine years ago, the Surgeon General of the United States issued a report saying eat less fat, eat less cholesterol, eat less sodium, eat more fiber rich foods, and even said something this report doesn't say, which is eat less red meat, which is the major source of saturated fat in our diet. This report is vague and wishy washy, if you want to boil it down.

MR. LEHRER: If you'd just answer my question first, is it possible to change the American eating, and then we'll get back to your criticisms of the report.

MR. JACOBSON: There are many ways to change the public's eating habits. It's not going to happen overnight. There are many things that food companies can do, many things that the government can do.

MR. LEHRER: What could the food -- you heard what Mr. Carey just said -- what could the food industry do to contribute to this?

MR. JACOBSON: They could provide more healthful foods. McDonald's, for instance, could stop frying its french fried potatoes in beef fat. Supermarkets could have better labeling on the shelves. Right now nutrition labeling is voluntary and only half the foods have nutrition labeling. The rest of the industry could also voluntarily do it or could support legislation that would require it. But I think a lot of it goes to the Department of Health of Human Services, Department of Agriculture, Federal Trade Commission. This report is vague.

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me one second. I'll give you a chance to criticize the report in a minute, but I want to ask you -- you heard what Dr. Winick said -- what could the doctors do to help change people's eating habits that they're not doing up till now?

MR. JACOBSON: They should learn something about foods and nutrition. Too few doctors know about foods and nutrition. Medical schools should all teach it. Doctors should read reports like this. Previous governmental reports, Heart Association reports, there's no popular books. You know, there's no end of good, solid information.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Winick, he's right. Go back to my question earlier. Is this a major thing now -- will it now become a major thing within the medical profession, do you think?

DR. WINICK: I wish I could say yes. I think that the changes in the medical profession in terms of teaching nutrition and teaching preventive medicine in general are coming slowly. Now the major impact that nutrition has is in prevention. There's some nutrition that we use in the treatment of disease, but for the most part it's in prevention, and that's going to come slowly, but I think one of the major criticisms that I hear at medical schools from faculties is show me the hard information.

MR. LEHRER: So now you think that will do it?

DR. WINICK: And I think this will do it.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Now the federal government and the Surgeon General's Office, you think they're not doing enough and this report doesn't help?

MR. JACOBSON: Well, the first thing the report should have been is more specific. For instance, a few years ago the National Cancer Institute said cut your fat to 30 percent or less of calories and eat twice as much dietary fiber, eat 20 to 30 grams a day. Those are good specific recommendations to dieticians and the public. This report is vague. It doesn't give those specifics.

MR. LEHRER: Why are they not in there, Dr. McGinnis?

DR. McGINNIS: We looked very carefully at the issue of quantification, at the issue of whether or not we could develop scientific standards for optimal health, and decided that the research base just wasn't there. We don't have any quarrel with work of the Cancer Society or the National Cancer Institute or the American Heart Association in setting practical targets that is used for targets for consumers of 30 percent of calories derived from fat, but there's a big difference between a practical target and a scientific standard, and the fact is that at this time there is no scientific standard that can be developed. In fact, it may be that the scientific standard for dietary fat may be below the 30 percent that's targeted by these groups.

MR. JACOBSON: It may well be but the Department, the Surgeon General's report could have listed some practical targets the way MCI has, so the specific numbers would have been useful.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Winick.

DR. WINICK: There are two very very important things here. First of all, it seems to me that it -- as Mr. Jacobs has said -- it seems to me that we've got to get started and start the process which is going to come slowly, and this is certainly a perfectly good way to start it, but the other thing is, which is very important, that if this became too specific and if one could not support the specificity by the evidence, I can't think of anything which would turn off the scientific community, physicians, medical students, et cetera, as to be given a whole lot of recommendations which could not be supported by the evidence.

MR. JACOBSON: I think one could -- as the National Cancer Institute has made I think supportable recommendations, but you know, let's be frank, there are political decisions that go into this. Never in the report are the major sources of saturated fat mentioned, hot dogs, hamburgers, baloney, whole milk, cheese. Those are never mentioned. You know, the only word, the strongest criticism of anything that goes down our throats is vitamin pills. See your doctor before you take a vitamin pill.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. McGinnis, why didn't you take out after hamburgers and hot dogs, the obvious things, the obvious targets?

DR. McGINNIS: Well, the report is clearly a scientific review of the evidence, as all surgeon generals reports are. It's an extensive review of the issues scientifically. It is not intended to be a how-to manual in terms of taking action on that scientific review. It's not intended to develop a specific legislative proposal. You don't find that in any surgeon general's report. it's not intended --

MR. LEHRER: It's for other people to take the surgeon general's findings --

DR. McGINNIS: That's exactly right. It's intended to be --

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. Mr. Carey wanted to say something.

MR. CAREY: Yes. I think that point needs to be emphasized that it can be extremely useful as a base for policy decisions by others. You're not going to change the dietary habits of more than a fraction of the public by specific regulations. But what we have said and what we have advocated in the pending rules that FDA is considering is that industry would be very happy to participate in this process if the rules could be changed to permit them to do so and to use the tools of advertising, to use the tools of labeling, to not only scare people with the problems of certain components of the diet, but to attract them to the foods that would serve as a better alternative.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Jacobson, I assume you'd support that.

MR. JACOBSON: To some extent. Unfortunately, the National Food Processors Association and other trade associations have opposed mandatory nutrition labeling on food. And the Department of Health & Human Services could be supporting mandatory nutrition labeling, warning notices on alcoholic beverages, ingredient labeling on fast foods so consumers know that they're fried in beef fat. The Department isn't supporting any of this. There's no crackdown in deceptive labeling, deceptive advertising. There's no money for nutrition education. If this report had come along with a package of action items, we'd welcome it, but it disappoints.

MR. CAREY: Excuse me. I think the point is missed there, because of the processed foods, I think the last report of the FDA showed that 75 or 80 percent of them are nutritionally labeled, so I don't think the lack of nutritional labeling on some of the processed foods presents a problem. Certainly there is no nutritional labeling on fresh produce, and I'm not sure what purpose it would serve in the present format to try and introduce it into restaurants.

MR. LEHRER: Let me come back to Dr. McGinnis to a question that Robin asked you at the very beginning. Who is now supposed to do something about the Surgeon General's report?

DR. McGINNIS: Well, we're supposed to do something about it for one.

MR. LEHRER: We meaning --

DR. McGINNIS: We meaning the public health service, the Department of Health & Human Services, and in a broader sense, various agencies throughout the Administration, the Department of Agriculture --

MR. LEHRER: Are you going to stay on them and try to get them to do it?

DR. McGINNIS: You bet.

MR. JACOBSON: Will the Department support warning labels on alcoholic beverages?

DR. McGINNIS: We're going to look across-the-board at labeling issues. We think that there's no question that labeling can be used better and needs to be used better.

MR. LEHRER: Go on with your list.

DR. McGINNIS: The Department of Defense has a huge range of clientele that they serve food to and they're I'm sure going to play an important role in whatever follow up. We're forming a partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Heart Association, the Cancer Society, to develop a major public education campaign around the issue of dietary fat. The school systems, again to emphasize a point I made earlier, can do a lot better in providing education to our school children and we need to work through the Department of Education to provide help in that regard.

MR. LEHRER: Dr. Winick, in a word, do you see this as a major event?

DR. WINICK: Yes, I see it as a major event.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Jacobson.

MR. JACOBSON: I think it's a one day thing that will blow over and we really need an Administration that will implement the kind of recommendations that are suggested.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Carey.

MR. CAREY: We attach enormous importance to it.

MR. LEHRER: All right, gentlemen, all four, thank you very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the Newshour, fish that may be bad for your health a conversation with poet Richard Wilbur. FOCUS - FOUL FISH

MR. MacNeil: If you've been convinced to substitute seafood for red meat in your diet, we now say not so fast. We have a story that says seafood can be unhealthy if it's not been handled properly or inspected by knowledgeable authorities. Unlike both meat and poultry, the federal government does not inspect most fish before it reaches the dinner table. Consumer advocate saythousands of Americans may be getting sick as a result. We have a report from Peter Graumann of public station KQED San Francisco.

PETER GRAUMANN: San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf has long been a favorite place for tourists to sample fresh cracked crab and shrimp cocktails. Today consumers expect to get fresh seafood almost anywhere in the country. Fresh fish is very much an in food in the 1980's.

BOB VOGEL, Tourist: That's all I ever eat really. It makes me feel a lot better than eating, you know, red meat. It's much much better. You don't feel full and you just feel clean after you're done.

MR. GRAUMANN: Sales figures from the Safeway supermarket chain illustrate the boom in seafood consumption. While meat and poultry sales are flat or even declining, Safeway's fish sales have jumped 97 percent in the last five years. If the fish is labeled "fresh", most people assume that it's also wholesome. Bob Duncan and Curt Larabelle found out that's not always a safe assumption. They came down with a violent case of food poisoning after eating shrimp cocktails at a high priced San Francisco restaurant.

CURT LARABELLE, Seafood Poisoning Victim: It was terrible. I could not break the fever and it ranged from 102 to 104. The stomach cramps were just horrendous. I had constant diarrhea, and as I said, I could keep nothing down.

BOB DUNCAN, Seafood Poisoning Victim: And mine started the same as his with an awful lot of stomach cramps. In fact, it was to the point where you almost felt like somebody had stabbed you in the stomach. It was 10 times worse than a working ulcer or anything like that

MR. GRAUMANN: The man's illness was caused by a food born bacteria, campelo bacter, one of many occurring in fish and shellfish. While most seafood is perfectly safe to eat, the Centers for Disease Control report that bad seafood is responsible for a fourth of all food poisoning cases in the United States. California health officials estimate that 3500 people suffered bouts of seafood poisoning here last year alone. The symptoms of seafood poisoning range from a mild case of indigestion to paralysis to death.

ELLEN HAAS, Consumer Advocate: There's no question that the current situation today for consumers is the great American fish scandal. Consumers are at unnecessary risk from eating a potentially healthy food.

MR. GRAUMANN: Ellen Haas is Executive Director of the Public Voice For Food and Health Policy in Washington, D.C., the public interest group that's spearheading the campaign for mandatory federal inspection of the seafood industry.

MS. HAAS: We don't need to inspect every fish, but we need to have a statistical sampling program that checks on the fish for microbiological problems. Those are the biggest kinds of problems for food born illnesses. In addition to that, we think it's essential that there be an imported fish program, that we monitor the fish that comes into the United States, which is probably about 60 to 65 percent of the fish.

MR. GRAUMANN: There's never been a national seafood inspection program comparable to the extensive system certifying red meat and poultry. The small percentage of fish that is checked is surveyed by a patchwork of local, state and federal agencies. In California, the State Department of Health inspects seafood processors just once a year. The only federal program is voluntary. For a fee, the U.S. Department of Commerce will check processors weekly. Central Fish Company in Oakland is one of two Northern California processors participating in the federal program, yet, owner Mike Flanagan is finding the extra expense isn't paying off in increased sales.

MIKE FLANAGAN, Central Fish Company: Our restaurants and our retail markets don't seem to care that we're federally inspected and yet we put up little brochures, we put up little fliers, and everything else that we are federally inspected and nobody seems to really care about it.

MR. GRAUMANN: What do they care about?

MR. FLANAGAN: Low price and good quality merchandise.

MR. GRAUMANN: Flanagan would welcome a mandatory inspection system, believing it would force his competitors to pay as much attention to hygiene as he does in his plant.

MR. GRAUMANN: Do you think anybody is out there selling bad fish?

MR. FLANAGAN: Intentionally, no, but bad fish is being sold in the hopes of get it out of my market and give it to somebody else, maybe he won't catch it, and he'll push it on to somebody else, sure.

MR. GRAUMANN: San Francisco Airport is a major port of entry for fish and shellfish flown in from foreign countries, as well as other states. Yet, state and federal inspectors lack the personnel required to check incoming shipments more frequently than every other month. 10 percent of the fish they look at is rejected. On the night we accompanied them, the very first box they opened turned out to be bad.

WARREN CRAWFORD, California Health Services Department: We have opened up a shipment of clams from Washington and we found that they were improperly packed with very little ice or refrigeration. The temperature was high and now we're in the midst of writing up an embargo notice to the consignee and we'll restrain the product and we'll take samples of it and determine the bacteriological content.

MR. GRAUMANN: The lab tests later revealed the Washington State clams contained high counts of fecal bacteria which can carry such diseases as cholera, salmonella and hepatitis. The clams were destroyed, but it took California authorities several weeks to report their findings back to Washington State so that further shipments of the tainted clams could be stopped. Beyond the individual states, the federal Food & Drug Administration conducts its own limited sampling of imported seafoods, at times employing an old fashioned technique known as organoleptic analysis, in other words, using the senses to detect bad fish.

LELAND LEE, Sniff Tester: People just say, oh, you don't have to put your nose that far, yes, you do. You bury your nose in there. You do not take your nose away from that fish or shrimp.

MR. GRAUMANN: Leland Lee is the sniff tester in the FDA's San Francisco Lab. It took him seven years to educate his nose to detect spoiled seafood.

MR. GRAUMANN: Do you think your nose can get fooled very often?

MR. LEE: No. I'd better not be, right? I would not get fooled at all.

MR. GRAUMANN: 100 percent accurate?

MR. LEE: 100 percent accurate.

MR. GRAUMANN: But no matter how good Mr. Lee's sense of smell, federal and state agencies only test a fraction of the 3 billion pounds of seafood Americans eat every year.

WARREN CRAWFORD, California Health Services Department: Well, in California, we do I feel an effective job of inspection. I can't answer for the rest of the country but here we were instrumental in removing 80,000 pounds of salmon and shellfish from the market last year and we continue to do that.

MR. GRAUMANN: Nevertheless, the FDA recently faulted California as one of nine states with major deficiencies in its shellfish sanitation program. The State Department of Health says it's hiring more inspectors to bring the California program into conformity. Meanwhile, most consumers just assume that someone is checking the fish and shellfish that they're eating.

MR. GRAUMANN: Are you aware of the fact that most seafood is never inspected by federal inspectors the way meat is, did you know that?

CONSUMER: No, I didn't. I assumed it was.

MR. GRAUMANN: But in this day and age, you just assumed that somebody is out there checking the safety of this stuff?

CONSUMER: Seems like they check everything else.

MR. GRAUMANN: Large retailers like Safeway Stores argue that mandatory national inspections are now needed to guarantee the integrity of the seafood supply Bob Bradford is a Safeway spokesman.

BOB BRADFORD, Safeway Stores: 13 billion meals of seafood are going to be consumed in 1988, but if we go by last year's figures only 13 percent of that gets inspected by any government, state, federal or local.

MR. GRAUMANN: Do you have any particular notion of who should conduct that inspection and who should pay for it?

MR. BRADFORD: Well, who should conduct it could be the Commerce Department, the FDA. I think that's relatively unimportant. Who pays for it, to assure the integrity of the program, we think that the federal agency that ends up with the responsibility should be the one who pays for it.

ELLEN HAAS, Consumer Advocate: We estimate that a fish inspection program would be approximately 75 million dollars.

MR. GRAUMANN: Until a mandatory seafood inspection program is in place, Ellen Haas cautions people to buy fish only at a reputable fish market and warns people away from eating any seafood raw.

MS. HAAS: What I would advise people to begin with is to stay away from raw fish. That means oysters and clams on the half shell, because of the bacteria that could be there that don't get cooked away, or sushi, which has become so popular with so many people.

MR. GRAUMANN: Many fish merchants and the seafood industry's trade association, the National Fisheries Institute, object to such warnings as unfounded fear mongering, saying the actual risks of eating fresh fish are minimal. And judging by the growing popularity of fresh seafood, few consumers seem to be very worried about what they might catch from ordering the catch of the day. CONVERSATION - RICHARD WILBUR

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight a conversation with the outgoing poet laureate of the United States, Richard Wilbur. After one year on the job, a lifetime appointment, he has announced he's leaving because he doesn't have enough time to write poetry. Charlayne Hunter-Gault has more on Richard Wilbur.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: He's been called one of the best poets of his generation, writing with wit and paradox, elegance and grace.

RICHARD WILBUR: A thrush, because I'd been wrong, burst rightly into song, in a world not vague, not lonely, not governed by me only.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Richard Wilbur is a man who made his mark early in his generation. At 35, he already had it all. His book of poems "Things of this World" won both the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award in 1956. Wilbur then embarked on a second profession, gaining as much praise for translations as for his poetry. He started with Moliere's Misanthrope. [Scene from Misanthrope]

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After that, he was tapped to do the lyrics of Leonard Bernsteins musical adaptation of Candide and then went on to win awards for his translation of the scathing satire Tartouf. [Scene from Tartouf]

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Last year, Wilbur was honored as the nation's second poet laureate, hailed as a poet's poet, among the best the country has to offer. Now almost one year later at 68 years old, Wilbur is making plans to return to the environment he loves best, here in Cummington, Massachusetts, where he's inspired by his garden of ordinary and exotic herbs and vegetables, cultivating mint and oregano and an overgrown edible called Levage. In these surroundings, we spoke of many things, including Richard Wilbur's year as the nation's poet laureate.

RICHARD WILBUR: This is the first time I've ever been a public servant and I took that seriously. I felt that I really was however marginally and obscurely a servant of anyone in the 50 states who wanted to write me and say something or ask something about poetry.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Did the public take it seriously?

MR. WILBUR: I got a lot of mail, and some of it, as you would expect, was the sort of thing which said congratulations on being poet laureate, by the way I enclose some 50 of my poems and would you please tell me should I go on with this, do I deserve encouragement, if I do, to what kind of publisher should I send it, in what magazine should I hope to print.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Did anything ever leap out on the page?

MR. WILBUR: Yes, yes. That's one reason why you have to take this kind of mail seriously. There are people not necessarily of vast talent but of real talent, sitting out there all over the country who don't know for sure what their potentialities are and it's a great pleasure to find something that's genuine in their work and say this you can do quite well, why don't you go for that, why don't you emphasize that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's reminiscent of how you were discovered as a poet, isn't it?

RICHARD WILBUR, Poet Laureate: Yes, I really was discovered. I had a sort of passive relationship to becoming a poet. At the time I turned out to be a poet, I was proposing to become a scholar at Harvard Graduate School just after World War II, but my wife showed a few of the poems I had in a bureau drawer to our friend Andre Bouchez who sent them to a New York publisher who published them, and --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Does that give you a certain sympathy for people who would inundate you with letters as the poet laureate?

MR. WILBUR: I think perhaps it does. I think I'm the more aware that somebody can have some genuine ability and not be dead sure of it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: One writer said recently that he wasn't very happy with the two poet laureates, you and Robert Penoire, and that you never did any laureating and that you should be writing about things like baseball.

MR. WILBUR: The national pastime or whatever it's called. Well, I did get at least one perfectly serious letter from a professor in a Middle Western university saying Robert Penoire and now you have both said that the American laureate should not feel bound to write poems about public matters, why don't you? We haven't, he said, had any very good public poetry since Longfellow and a lot of people would appreciate some, and I don't regard that as a ludicrous letter. I think that Longfellow did perform a great duty for the American people. He gave them little mythifying poems like the Paul Revere's Ride poem which made a great difference to our sense of history and of belonging somewhere in history. And it would be nice if someone could perform the same office at present.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But you didn't feel so moved?

MR. WILBUR: On the whole, I've not felt so moved, although when I look over my past performance, I think that I have written more public poems than most of my contemporaries. Back in 1985, I guess it was, the composerWilliam Schuman got me on the phone one day and asked if I would write a cantata for the Statue of Liberty so that he could set it. He had a commission from a number of symphony orchestras to do something about the statue. And I said, good Lord, Bill, no, what a terrible hackneyed subject, how could I possibly say anything fresh about it? He's a clever man and he simply said, well, sleep on it and probably by tomorrow you'll have discovered that it's an intriguing and challenging idea. And so I did do it and he set the suite of poems I wrote very beautifully and we celebrated the Statue of Liberty in Lincoln Center in October of '86. That's a very public poem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You also did a paper on one of your favorite subjects.

MR. WILBUR: Yes. I've always been very fond of the riddle form and I've always thought that there was much more depth and seriousness in it than was commonly allowed. I've been translating riddles on and off for 30 years. And so I thought I would capitalize at last on my obsession and talk to people about riddles for an hour, and people seemed to be rather surprised by the subject and to enjoy it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is it about riddles?

MR. WILBUR: Oh heavens. It's too much for me to explain actually. It took me an hour to say what was serious and radically exciting about riddles. I don't think I can just blurt it out. But I was dealing with the riddle as a kind of hidden metaphor. When you guess a riddle you arrive at a hidden comparison between this and that and that's the fundamental structure. But I'd better not get off on this or I'll become totally incoherent.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you have a coherent riddle you'd like to share with us?

MR. WILBUR: The most beautiful riddle I know, which is in its English language form is Elizabethan I think, although there's a tenth century Latin version of it. This is a riddle the answer to which is the sun and the snow, the snow and the sun. "White bird featherless flew from paradise, pitched on the castle wall. Along came Lord Landless, took it up handless, and bore it off horseless to the king's white hall." Isn't that a beauty? And obviously, that's not just a little nursery puzzle. It's a good poem too. When you call the sun "Lord Landless", that's superbly intentive, it seems to me.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you see any new fresh poetry and poets coming along on the scene?

MR. WILBUR: Yes. There's no sort of herd movement that I can point to but there's a good bit of talent there and I think there's enough. How much, how many good poets does a country need, you know? I have a feeling that if you can say that a country of our size has 50 really fine poets whose next work you would be interested to see, that that's a description of a healthy situation.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: As you know, there's been a lot of discussion recently about the decline of literacy. What's your feeling about that and how that affects the development of poets?

MR. WILBUR: I suppose that some fundamental damage was done to a national feeling for the language during the great troubles of the 1960's and early 1970's. There were so many young people who began all their sentences with "like" and broke up all their sentences with "you know", and were very scornful really of eloquence. They thought that anything eloquent, anything adequate to whatever was under discussion, must be dishonest, phony, artificial. Tell it like it is was what some of them said. And I too believe in sincerity but I think that that period in which so many people were mistrustful of anybody or anything well said, well spoken, is something from which we have never recovered.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Can we?

MR. WILBUR: Oh, I'm sure that we can recover, but we've not done so as yet. Our public figures, our Senators, our Congressmen, are on the whole not as eloquent as they used to be, and a lot of writing, a good deal of poetry, is done with a small and unresourceful vocabulary.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how do you intervene in that?

MR. WILBUR: I suppose that all that poets can do is to insist on the ancient exactness of poet language which always leads, I think, to the careful use of common words and the use when necessary of unusual or difficult words. If you're always trying to be as precise as possible, it's going to lead finally in English at any rate to a substantial vocabulary and if poetry of that kind is written well, it will have a certain effect on all those exposed to it.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is your next project?

MR. WILBUR: My next project is a pretty passive one. I'm going to sit around and hope to be visited by poems once again and --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean, poets do wait for the muse?

MR. WILBUR: Yes, they do. I certainly always have and I'm going to be pretty firm about not complicating my life with other things for a time. I shall slack off on letter writing and not trot around reading my poems to audiences, just try to be rural and quiet, play a little tennis, work in my garden, and hope to be hit over the head with a poem. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again the main points in the news today, a bill to provide about $6 billion in aid for the drought overwhelmingly passed both Houses of Congress. The Administration said the upcoming budget deficit will not be high enough to trigger automatic cuts, and Iran claimed 4,000 were killed or wounded in two days of fresh fighting in the war with Iraq. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.