http://healthfactsandfears.com/high_priorities/vs/2003/journal030703.html
The Journal of Obvious
Results
March 7, 2003
by Thomas R. DeGregori
A new journal is needed. It should be titled The Journal of
Obvious Results — and Unwarranted and Spectacular Conclusions. The readers
of ACSH's webpages have by now seen headlines that read "Organically grown foods
higher in cancer-fighting chemicals than conventionally grown foods." Like souls
in a Hollywood hell, forced to sit through a bad movie for eternity, we will
undoubtedly be having this "finding" thrust at us ad infinitum, as we are in the
case of this latest article meant to prove the superiority of "organic" food.
The press releases about the article tell us that the its "findings appear in
the Feb. 26 print edition of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry,
a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest
scientific society." So far, so good!
In the press release, we are told: "Fruits and veggies grown organically show
significantly higher levels of cancer-fighting antioxidants than conventionally
grown foods, according to a new study of corn, strawberries, and marionberries.
The research suggests that pesticides and herbicides actually thwart the
production of phenolics — chemicals that act as a plant's natural defense and
also happen to be good for our health."
What is strange is that the article implies that any naturally-produced plant
chemicals must be _good thing_ — and the more the better. The authors would
never make such a sweeping — and unwarranted — assumption about manmade
chemicals, of courses, so why make it about plant chemicals?
Obvious Results
We have thus been provided with an article that would be perfect for an issue of
The Journal of Obvious Results — and Unwarranted and Spectacular Conclusions.
What the article says is that plants in agriculture (or elsewhere) are attacked
by a variety of insects and microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, and viruses) as
well as rats, birds, and other creatures. Since plants can't run from predators,
their main line of defense is to respond by producing toxins to ward them off.
Obvious result number one is the confirmation that the less agricultural plants
are protected from predators, the more they produce toxins. This is not only
obvious and already very well known but is clearly stated in the press release
and the article (I downloaded it and read it) — but it's not stated as clearly
as it could be. The chemicals are not referred to as "toxins" by the writers but
as "phenolics" and "antioxidants." The article itself refers to "secondary plant
metabolites" and "secondary phenolic metabolites" that "play an important role
in plant defense mechanisms." Fine, but imagine how quickly these same chemicals
would be clearly labeled as "toxins" if they were created by some high-tech
process. It reminds me of the anti-biotech propaganda that refers to the protein
in Bt corn as "toxic" when it is put there through biotech and then refers to
the same protein as harmless when it is in live, "natural" Bt microorganisms.
If these chemicals are so good for us when produced the "natural" way and if
plants make more of them when threatened, an obvious policy move would be to
release additional insects and other plant predators into "organic" agricultural
fields to get even more "nutritious" food. Why hasn't someone thought of that
before?
Well-Known Facts about Plants and Chemicals
For some time now, Bruce Ames and others have been arguing that the vast
majority of the toxins we ingest are the natural products of plants themselves,
a conclusion shared by two different National Academy of Science panel reports.
One man's meat is another man's poison, and one organism's deadly toxin is
another's nutritious protein. No one would deny that in the enormous range of
plant toxins, some are beneficial to humans while others could well be harmful
and even carcinogenic. In fact, a number of the naturally produced plant
chemicals, including secondary plant metabolites, have been shown to be
carcinogenic. If one goes back to Ames' 1983 article in Science (vol.
221, no. 4617:1256-64), "Dietary Carcinogens and Anticarcinogens," one finds
that plants produce both carcinogens and anticarcinogens, and it is the balance
between the two that determines whether a food is anti-carcinogenic.
Our proposed journal, The Journal of Obvious Results — and Unwarranted and
Spectacular Conclusions, should have a special section called "The Stacked
Deck" for articles biased in the way that the organic study under examination
was. There was no stated attempt to test for secondary metabolites except
those that were considered beneficial. Even though it was clearly indicated
that insect infestation was the likely cause of higher "phenolic" production,
there was no stated attempt to test for the fungus or other microorganisms that
the insects may have carried or the toxins that these organism produce. Nor was
there any statement of bioavailability — simply the announcement that it was in
the plant.
I have no quarrel with the authors doing such research or the journal publishing
their results, but both could have been more responsible in how they did it. The
article and the press release should have clearly stated that this was at best
only a partial finding and that a fuller account would require detailing the
production of carcinogenic compounds (including those produced by the insect
infestation) and the bioavailability of each type, not just anti-carcinogens.
Some estimation of the costs and benefits to consumers, given the likely price
of the plants in the marketplace, would also help. The authors call for "further
studies" (and, to their credit, note that mundane factors such as fertilizer use
can affect the nutrient and protein content of plants), but they limit their
call for new research to a proposed look at "total phenolic" content.
Surprising Conclusions, to Say the Least
The conclusions being touted about the research — particularly that plants
creating more chemicals create health benefits for human consumers — clearly win
classification as "Unwarranted and Spectacular Conclusions," particularly when
the opposite conclusion is a very real possibility, if tests were done for it.
It would be interesting to learn why the editors of a reputable journal and the
peer reviewers did not request some kind of brief statement indicating that only
limited conclusions could be drawn from the article.
We will no doubt be seeing this article's conclusions show up as non-sequiturs
at the end of many articles in the future. The "organic" folk will not let you
forget them.
Thomas R. DeGregori is a member of the ACSH Board of Directors and the author
of two recently published books, The Environment, Our Natural Resources, and
Modern Technology (Ames: Iowa State Press, A Blackwell Scientific Publisher)
and Bountiful Harvest: Technology, Food Safety, and
the Environment (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute).