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Organic Food vs Conventional Food Study – Political Misinformation Campaign

Organic food just became political.

organic food stanford university

Last week mainstream media, including leaders like the New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR, were very quick to report verbatim, the questionable conclusions of a Stanford University study, “Are Organic Foods Safer and Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?”.  Like sheep, the press has participated in a misinformation campaign intended to influence the outcome of California’s Proposition 37 in November. You might have seen headlines like these: Stanford Scientists cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce (New York Times); Organic, conventional foods similar in nutrition, study finds (Washington Post); Why Organic Food May Not Be Healthier For You (NPR).

The Stanford study was published September 4 in The Annals Of Internal Medicine and it has taken less than one week to blow it apart. Misleading conclusions, faulty math, and now suspect financial ties to cigarette maker Phillip Morris, global food processor Cargill, and GMO crop manufacturer Monsanto have cast the study in a whole new light, one of propaganda and misinformation.

The study’s timing is curious, as Proposition 37  is on the ballot in California this November and companies like Cargill and Monsanto have a lot to lose if Prop 37 passes. The source of the report, Stanford University, is a venerated California institution, and the paper was published in a highly respected medical journal, which is why the story got so much traction within days of its release.

Proposition 37, Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food  is a voter initiative which will:

  • Require labeling on raw or processed food offered for sale to consumers if the food is made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways.
  • Prohibit labeling or advertising such food as “natural.”
  • Exempt from this requirement foods that are “certified organic; unintentionally produced with genetically engineered material; made from animals fed or injected with genetically engineered material but not genetically engineered themselves; processed with or containing only small amounts of genetically engineered ingredients; administered for treatment of medical conditions; sold for immediate consumption such as in a restaurant; or alcoholic beverages.”

Stanford’s faulty conclusions on organic food

Dr. Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., last week published a response to the Stanford University study, â€œInitial Reflections on the Annals Of Internal Medicine Paper Are Organic Foods Safer and Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives? A Systematic Review”.

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Benbrook is a scholar’s scholar of food safety and agriculture. He worked in Washington, D.C. on agricultural policy, science and regulatory issues from 1979 through 1997; served on the Council for Environmental Quality for the Carter Administration; was the Executive Director of the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Agriculture; and was the Executive Director, Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences for seven years. Dr. Benbrook has a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an undergraduate degree from Harvard University. He holds an adjunct faculty position in the Crop and Soil Sciences Department, Washington State University.

In Benbrook’s response, (which has been removed from the website), he blasts the conclusions of the Stanford study as “…flawed in several ways. The basic indicators used to compare the nutritional quality and safety of organic versus conventional food consistently understate the magnitude of the differences reported in high quality, contemporary peer-reviewed literature.” and, “In its analysis, the team does not tap extensive, high-quality data from the USDA and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on pesticide residue levels…  toxicity and dietary risk… as well as a persuasive body of literature on the role of agricultural antibiotic use in triggering the creation of new antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.” 

Benbrook comments, “When an individual decides to switch to healthy dietary choices from clearly unhealthy ones, and also consistently chooses organic foods, the odds of achieving “clinically significant” improvements in health are substantially increased.”

He also takes the Stanford team to task over their conclusion that organic food contains a “30% lower risk” based on a complicated mathematical formula referred to as ‘RD”, which Benbrook says makes little practical or clinical sense (and a metric which appears to have been chosen to downplay the organic benefits).

The paper is fascinating and blows gigantic holes in the Stanford study. Please read it.

Stanford’s ties to Big Food and Big Tobacco

One also cannot ignore the potential influence of Stanford’s donors and Board Of Directors.

Dr. Ingram Olkin, chair of statistics and of education at Stanford is the author of the organic foods study. Note that Olkin is a professor of statistics and does not hold a degree in medicine, food safety, agriculture, or any similar field. Olkin’s ties to Philip Morris date as far back as 1976 when PM funded Olkin’s statistical research on extracting multiple results from the same set of data. The research, “A Study Of The Models Used in the Analysis of Certain Medical Data”, were used to cast doubt on the Framingham Heart Study which named cigarette smoking as a leading cause of heart disease. Olkin’s study was used to support articles in the press which downplayed the adverse health effects of cigarette smoking.

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Sitting on the Stanford Board Of Directors is Dr. George Poste, Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford (a think-tank). Dr. Poste also serves on the Board of Directors of Monsanto, and the Scientific Advisory Board of Synthetic Genomics (a company spearheading R&D in plant genomics, a.k.a., GMO’s).

Global food processor Cargill pledged five million dollars to fund Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment. A significant amount of research done at FSE Stanford concerns the advancement of GMO crops in developing nations. Cargill makes hundreds of products, among them animal feed, ethanol, and oils from grains (such as canola oil). Slapping a “contains GMO’s” label on their consumer products might create a significant economic impact.

There’s no overt proof that Cargill, Monsanto, Dr. Poste, or Synthetic Genomics directly influenced Dr. Olkin’s results. But the ties are too close to ignore.

The Stanford organic food study is at best scientifically and statistically flawed, and at worst, misinformation intended to influence the vote on Proposition 37 in California. It’s a classic case of media manipulation to protect the bottom lines of behemoth companies. The fear at these companies is that a successful Prop 37 opens the door to similar initiatives in other states and possibly at the FDA.

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