ALAR NOUN (ENVIRONMENT)

A trade mark for daminozide, a growth-regulating chemical used as a spray on fruit trees to enable the whole crop to be harvested at once. History and Usage: Alar has been manufactured under this brand name since the mid sixties and is used by commercial growers to regulate the growth of fruit (especially apples), so larger, unblemished fruit which remains on the tree longer can be produced. The chemical does not remain on the surface of the fruit, but penetrates the flesh, so that it cannot be washed off or removed by peeling. The results of research published in the second half of the eighties showed that, when the apples were subsequently processed (in order to make apple juice, for instance), Alar could be converted into unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (or UDMH), a potent carcinogen. This discovery brought Alar unwelcome publicity during the late eighties: mothers anxious to protect their children from harmful chemicals in foods (among them some famous mothers such as film star Meryl Streep in the US and comedian Pamela Stephenson in the UK) led a campaign to have its use discontinued. Alar was voluntarily withdrawn by its manufacturers, Uniroyal, from use on food crops in the US and Australia in 1989; in the UK the Advisory Committee on Pesticides declared it safe. Some products which have been publicised as Alar-free by retailers and manufacturers were still found to contain Alar. She Oct. 1989, p. 18 Most people are far more frightened of the threat of cancer than of the flulike symptoms that they associate with food poisoning. Fanning their anxieties are frequent alerts: about dioxin in milk, aldicarb in potatoes, Alar in apples. New York Times 7 May 1990, section D, p. 11