The Alar scare
Refresh my memory, I don’t remember being scared of that. Unfortunately I slumbered away in blissful ignorance, not realizing my pending destruction was nigh!
Definitely worth repeating.
;-)
My dad was doing some consulting work for a local apple growers/juice co-op that supplied a regional grocery chain when that Alar thing hit. Since they didn’t use the chemical in their orchards, he had them print “Alar Free” stickers to slap on the bottles before boxing them.
For a couple of weeks they were the #1 selling juice in those stores.
When the communist USSR was threatening to nuke us the newspapers had no problem selling circulation. Few readers had time to get involved in kook scares. That was a simpler time.