American Notes YUPPIES

In chic restaurants and athletic clubs, health-conscious Americans guzzled so much Perrier bottled mineral water in the 1980s that it became the drink of the decade. Some of the fizz may go out of Perrier's $450 million annual sales with word last week that the firm's U.S. distributor is recalling its entire inventory from store shelves nationwide because laboratory tests found benzene in a small number of bottles.

The potential carcinogen was discovered by North Carolina health officials, who so prize the purity of the water from an underground spring in Vergeze, France, that they use it as a standard test of other water supplies. Although the state advises the public not to consume the product, the federal Food and Drug Administration considers the risks of contracting cancer one in a million over a person's lifetime. The company is investigating its packaging and distribution centers to locate the problem. In the wake of doubts cast on oat bran's nutritional benefits, it's almost enough to drive yuppies back to pretzels and beer.