Old Man Chokes, FDA Pulls Supplements From Shelves
An Introduction by Gene Franks
Not long ago I bought a big bottle of mineral supplements at a health food store. It was a big bottle because it had big pills in it. Minerals aren't magic but have a physical size, so if you want lots of minerals in a single pill, the pill has to be big. On the bottle, in a conspicuous place, underlined, printed in bold type and highlighted in yellow, the manufacturer admonishes the user to "exercise prudent caution" when taking the pills because of their considerable physical size. I did not exercise prudent caution.
Anxious to mineralize my body as quickly as possible, without so much as a sip of water at hand, I gulped down two large pills on my way out of the store's parking lot. I choked. While I was stopping my truck and trying to dislodge the pills, the headline above flashed before my eyes and I knew that the future of the health food industry lay in my throat. All that saved me, and the industry, was knowing that if I choked on the pill, the FDA would surely rush in to save the rest of humanity by removing all mineral supplements from the market.
Prescription drugs kill 180,000 Americans each year. At least, that's the total they admit to. This seems to be accepted as a fact of life--just the price we pay for all the advantages drugs offer us. But if some zealot swallows three whole bottles of Vitamin A at a single sitting and sometime within the next month develops a rash under his left arm, the FDA is quickly on the spot, anxious to close down the whole vitamin industry. At least that's my perception of it. You'll get a different view of whose side federal bureaucrats are on from the article that follows.
I lifted this article from the Global Food Quarterly, a publication of the Hudson Institute. The Quarterly is very interesting reading. It has its own take on issues many of us thought were pretty clear. For example, it is generally accepted that nitrates in drinking water, a growing reality in many agricultural areas where fertilizers and feedlots are common, are an undesirable thing. Not so, says the Quarterly. Nitrates in the water are actually good and indicate that the land is fertile. Also very good is the practice of exploiting seasonal workers who harvest 90% of agribusiness crops. And while many of us have complained for years about our government's doling out corporate welfare to the nation's wealthiest "ranchers," who graze their cattle almost free on government lands and degrade the environment mightily in the process, the Quarterly takes the view that we're charging them unfairly since they should really be paid for improving the land with fences and ponds, "preventing soil erosion, thinning out noxious weeds, and placing salt licks on [government owned] land." Cattle preventing soil erosion?
The unsigned article below is from the Summer 1998 issue (#25) of Global Food Quarterly. I think you'll be surprised. The publication is free, I believe, if you care to write for it: The Hudson Institute/ Herman Kahn Center/ 5395 Emerson Way/ Indianapolis, IN 46226.
Draft EPA Food Safety Leaflet Misleads Consumers, Pushes Organic Foods, Though Manure-Borne Toxins Can Endanger Kids
People who eat organic foods are apparently at least eight times as likely to be attacked by the deadly new E. coli bacteria as are people who eat mainstream foods.
Organic food consumers are also at increased risk from natural toxins produced by fungi, some of which cause cancer. Organic foods also carry far more of the dangerous bacteria—such as salmonella, campylobacter, and listeria— that kill thousands of people every year.
But you'd never know of such dangers from reading the draft of the first in a series of new food-safety leaflets the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to distribute in U.S. supermarkets.
Instead, the EPA' s new leaflet talks about "dangers" (undocumented) from pesticide residues in our food.
The leaflet draft warns parents that "some pesticides have been shown to cause health problems such as birth defects, nerve damage, cancer and other toxic effects in laboratory animals. In addition, infants and children may be more vulnerable to pesticides because their bodies are not fully mature."
To combat these perceived chemical dangers, the EPA leaflet draft urges homemakers to wash, peel, boil, and skin their food to get rid of pesticide residues--or to buy organic foods.
The EPA draft leaflet does not report that the U.S. National Research Council and Canada's Cancer Institute recently declared that pesticide residues pose no significant danger to consumers (or their kids).
Nor will the leaflet tell you that:
- The most deadly of the health threats in our food today is a virulent new strain of E. coli bacteria--0157:H7. It can attack kidneys and liver, causing permanent internal damage or death. Animal manure is the primary reservoir of this bacteria--and organic farmers rely heavily on manure to fertilize their crops.
- The Centers for Disease Control has confirmed 2,471 cases of 0157:H7 in 1996--and estimates at least 250 deaths. CDC says that this was only a small fraction of the total poisonings that occurred. Organic foods made up barely 1 percent of the U. S. food supply--but were implicated in at least 8 percent of the confirmed 0157:H7 cases.
- Consumer Reports recently found that free-range chickens are more likely to be infected with dangerous bacteria. Free-range chickens pick up almost anything, including parasites and bacteria from each other's wastes.
- The U. S. Food and Drug Administration says that organic crops have higher rates of infestation by natural toxins--including aflatoxin, one of the most violent cancer agents known to man. Organic foods suffer more damage from insects and rodents, which lets toxin-causing fungi get into the organic crops.
- Raw and unpasteurized milk and ''natural" juices may claim to be "fresher" but are potentially contaminated with dangerous bacteria and diseases such as tuberculosis. More than 1500 companies scll such products in the U.S.
"I was really horrified that something supposed to be so safe for my kids could really almost kill them," says Rita Bernstein, a Connecticut woman whose two daughters became seriously ill from E. coli after eating triple-washed, organic lettuce in 1996. Her younger daughter, Halee, still suffers severe vision problems and reduced kidney function.
An 18-month-old Colorado child, Anna Gimmestad, died after drinking Odwalla brand unpasteurized apple juice, also in 1996. (The Odwalla Company now pasteurizes its juice.)
Organic farmers are fond of claiming they use "no chemicals whatsoever. " But, in fact, says Dr. Robert Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control, "organic means the food was grown in animal manure."
Organic producers too often compound the animal manure risk by refusing to use chemical washes, disinfectants--or even chlorinated water--to prepare their products for market.
Dr. Dean Cliver of the University of California/Davis says that most organic farmers compost manure rather than putting it directly on the crops. However, the growers' guideline has been to compost wastes for two months, at temperatures of 130 to 160 degrees. Cliver found that 0157:H7 E. coli can survive at least 70 days in a compost pile, and that it takes at least 160 degrees of temperature to kill it. But organic farmers do not routinely check their compost piles with thermometers.
Why hasn't the public been warned about these dangers? Apparently, organic food is too politically correct to be criticized. The CDC has never even officially released the data on the high proportion of 0157:H7 cases involving "natural" foods.
Dr. Tauxe, Chief of the CDC's Foodborne Diseases Branch, is one of the few government officials who has dared to publish statements implicating organic foods as a significant health hazard. But even Tauxe has since backed away from his statements--apparently under pressure from supervisors or activists. (EPA Administrator Carol Browner formerly worked for Vice President Al Gore, who is an ardent supporter of organic food production.)
Ironically, technology has already produced a way to make organic food safe: irradiation. But when the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently proposed that irradiated foods be permitted within its new organic food standards, it was flooded with thousands of protests from organic believers.
The EPA's new leaflets will be a danger to the public. They will frighten people about nonexistent cancer risks in safe fruits and vegetables--while pushing them to buy the most dangerous foods in the marketplace.
Why is the EPA recommending organic food and farming? Why hasn't the EPA taken the Food and Drug Administration's recommendation to warn also of the health risk from manure-laden, organic foods? Why is the CDC holding back data about risks of "natural" farming? And why are government agencies keeping quiet about the need for irradiation?
The proposed EPA leaflet on produce should be radically revised. Let us hope that its draft language does not mean that a radical, enviro-political agenda outweighs concerns for children's health.
Please send comments to gene@pwgazette.com