Showing posts with label junk science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label junk science. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Industry views: The U.S. doubles down on solar subsidies while Europe retreats

The U.S. doubles down on solar subsidies while Europe retreats
IER, Oct 19, 2009

The cap and trade bills circulating in Congress (such as H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey bill) not only “tax” the people of the nation for the right to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country, but they contain additional energy-related “tax” provisions.[i] One of these is a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that requires 20 percent of electricity generation to come from qualified renewable technologies by 2020.[ii] This is a “tax” because it requires those utilities unable to meet the required percentage to purchase renewable credits from those that can exceed the targeted amount. The higher generating costs incurred from constructing and operating the renewable technologies, or buying renewable credits, will be passed on to the users of the electricity. These “taxes” are in addition to the generous tax-funded subsidies already provided to many qualified renewables.

The concept of an RPS is not new. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia currently have some form of RPS[iii], but few states are meeting their mandates,[iv] and these states have often tailored their “qualified renewables” liberally to what makes sense to their area. Texas, a state that has met its mandates mainly from wind-generated power, the least-cost qualified renewable, is now considering expanding into more costly renewables, such as solar power. Houston, for example, is considering using solar to generate 1.5 percent of its government’s needs from a 10-megawatt plant to be built by NRG and to be operating by July 2010. When the sun is not visible, the plant will be backed-up by the city’s natural gas-fired generating units.

The proposed 10-megawatt Houston plant is estimated to cost $40 million[v], $4,000 per kilowatt, which is a smaller cost figure than many other solar project estimates and most probably speculative. And, that $4,000 per kilowatt is also far more costly than other generating technologies that are more reliable to boot. For example, the Energy information Administration (EIA), an independent agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, is estimating the cost to build a coal-fired plant at about half the estimated cost in Houston, or just over $2,000 per kilowatt, and a natural-gas fired plant at less than a quarter of that cost, at below $1,000 per kilowatt. [vi] EIA’s estimate for a photovoltaic plant, which is what is being proposed in Houston, is just over $6,000 per kilowatt, 50 percent higher than the NRG cost estimate.[vii] In fact, photovoltaic solar is the highest-cost generating technology of EIA’s slate of 20 potential technologies for generating this country’s future electricity needs.[viii]


European Experience

However, we do not have to use EIA’s cost figures to know that solar is non-competitive with conventional grid generation. Several countries in Europe have already implemented RPS type programs with hefty subsidies funded by the country’s taxpayers. They include Spain, Germany, and Denmark. For example, in Alvarado, Spain, the energy firm Acciona inaugurated a 50-MW concentrating solar power plant in late July. The cost is €236 million, about $350 million U.S., or about $7,000 per kilowatt.[ix] Construction of the plant began in February 2008, with an average of 350 people working throughout the 18-month construction period. The plant will be run by a 31-person operation and maintenance team. This is the second solar plant of this type built in Spain. Its predecessor has been operating since June 2007.[x]

Spain ranks second in the world in installed solar capacity, second only to Germany.[xi] To achieve that ranking, Spain initiated legislation that requires 20 percent of its electricity generation to be from renewable energy by 2010. To make renewable energy attractive to investors, Spain also subsidized its renewable technologies. In 2008, for instance, when solar power generated less than 1 percent of Spain’s electricity, its cost was over 7 times higher than the average electricity price. Due to feed-in tariffs, utility companies were forced to buy the renewable power at its higher cost. And not only is solar power more expensive, jobs that could have been fostered and continued elsewhere in the Spanish economy were foregone to meet the government’s renewable mandates. A Spanish researcher found that while solar energy employs many workers in the plant’s construction, it consumes a great amount of capital that would have created many more jobs in other parts of the economy. In fact, for each megawatt of solar energy installed in Spain, 12.7 jobs were lost elsewhere in the Spanish economy.[xii] Recently, the Spanish government decided to slash subsidies to solar power. Spain will subsidize just 500 megawatts of solar projects this year, down sharply from 2,400 megawatts last year.[xiii]

Germany—the world’s highest ranking country for installed solar capacity and the largest market for solar products—is also slashing its subsidies for solar power in order to ease costs for electricity users. Owners of solar panels receive as much as 43 euro cents (64 U.S. cents) per kilowatt hour of power they generate.[xiv] The Energy Information Administration calculates the levelized cost of electricity[xv] from solar photovoltaic power to be 39.57 cents per kilowatt hour (2007 dollars) in 2016,[xvi] far less than the German subsidy. According to some German researchers, the feed-in tariff for solar is 43 euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), making solar electricity by far the most subsidized technology among all forms of renewable energy. This feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaic power is more than eight times higher than the electricity price at the power exchange and more than four times the feed-in tariff paid for electricity produced by on-shore wind turbines. Because of solar power’s low capacity factor, solar generated only 0.6 percent of Germany’s electricity in 2008.[xvii] Since the sun doesn’t always shine on solar plants, solar power cannot compete with more mature generating technologies. The EIA estimates the capacity factor for solar in 2008 to be 17 percent.[xviii]


U.S. Subsidies

While the U.S. does not have feed-in tariffs at this time, it does subsidize solar power through investment tax credits that are as high as 30 percent currently and until 2016. Solar also benefits from a permanent investment tax credit of 10 percent in the U.S., and a 5-year accelerated depreciation write-off. The Energy information Administration estimates that total federal subsidies for electric production from solar power for fiscal year 2007 were $24.34 per megawatt hour, compared to 25 cents per megawatt hour for natural gas and petroleum fueled technologies—98 times higher.[xix] Yet, even with these subsidies, solar generated only 0.02 percent of U.S. electricity in 2008.[xx] That is because solar at around 40 cents per kilowatt hour is more than 4 times as expensive on a levelized cost basis than its fossil competitors. (EIA estimates that levelized costs for conventional coal are 9.46 cents per kilowatt hour and those for natural gas combined cycle are 8.39 cents per kilowatt hour (in 2007 dollars) for 2016.[xxi])

Of course, the U.S. is slow in learning from Europe’s experiences. On October 12, 2009, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law S.B. 32, a feed-in tariff that requires California utilities to buy all renewable generation under 3 megawatts within their service territories, until they hit a state-wide total cap of 750 megawatts.[xxii] How California will monitor this program is yet to be seen. It has yet to achieve its renewable generating mandates from its RPS program.[xxiii]


Conclusion

Solar power has it place in certain applications. As always, the individual citizen or company should be able to choose if solar works for their energy needs. But using solar power to generate electricity for the electrical grid is very expensive. Requiring ratepayers to buy solar power, either through renewable energy mandates or through feed-in tariffs, will only increase the price of electricity. The last thing the economy needs is higher energy prices, but that is exactly what solar energy’s supporters are promoting.


References

[i] Robert J. Michaels, The Other Half of Waxman-Markey: An Examination of the non-Cap-and-Trade Provisions, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/pdf/Other_Half_of_Waxman-Markey–FINAL.pdf
[ii] H.R. 2454, section 101
[iii] Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), North Carolina State University, http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/index.cfm?SearchType=RPS&&EE=0&RS=1
[iv] Traci Watson, States not meeting renewable energy goals, USA Today, Oct. 8, 2009, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2009-10-08-altenergy_N.htm.
[v] “Solar forecast: expensive”, Loren Steffy, Houston Chronicle, September 29, 2009, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/6643904.html
[vi] Energy information Administration, Assumptions to the Annual Energy outlook 2009, Table 8.2.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Ibid.
[ix] Sonal Patel, Power Digest, Power Magazine, Sept. 2009, http://powermag.com/business/2144.html.
[x] Sonal Patel, Interest in Solar Tower Technology Rising, Power Magazine, http://powermag.com/renewables/solar/Interest-in-Solar-Tower-Technology-Rising_1876.html.
[xi] Solar Energy Industries Association, http://www.seia.org/cs/about_solar_energy/industry_data
[xii] Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, March 2009, http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
[xiii] Wall Street journal, “Darker Times for Solar-Power Industry”, May 11, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124199500034504717.html .
[xiv] “Merkel’s Coalition to “Definitely” Cut German Solar subsidies”, Brian Parker and Nicholas Comfort, Bloomberg, October 12, 2009, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206011
[xv] The levelized cost of a generating technology is the present value of the total cost of building and operating the generating plant over its financial life.
[xvi]“Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies” , Institute for Energy Research, May 12, 2009, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/05/12/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-technologies/
[xvii] “Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies”, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaft sforschung
[xviii] “Solar forecast: expensive”, Loren Steffy, Houston Chronicle, September 29, 2009, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/6643904.html
[xix] Energy information Administration, Federal Financial interventions and Subsidies in Energy markets 2007, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/index.html .
[xx] Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review, Table 7.2a, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec7_5.pdf
[xxi]“Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies” , Institute for Energy Research, May 12, 2009, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/05/12/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-technologies/
[xxii] Greenwire, “California: Schwarzenegger signs feed-in tariff, spate of enviro bills”, October 12, 2009, http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2009/10/12/4/
[xxiii] Robert J. Michaels, “A National Renewable Portfolio Standard: Politically Correct, Economically Suspect,” Electricity Journal 21 (April 2008)

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

The Organic Food Nutrition Wars

The Organic Food Nutrition Wars. By Joseph D. Rosen, Ph.D.
ACSH, Sep 08, 2009

A few weeks ago, the world of organic food proponents was rocked by new research that organic food was not any more nutritious than conventionally-grown food. Consumers have long been interested in knowing if the extra money they have been shelling out for organic food is justified and the subject, therefore, is of much interest.

A Little Bit of Background

Food nutrients include minerals (trace elements), vitamins and antioxidants. Up until about ten years ago, people interested in nutritional differences between organic and conventional food concentrated on nutrients such as minerals and vitamins. Nitrates were not thought of as a nutrient but were included in many studies. In recent years, emphasis has shifted to differences in antioxidant content.

Dating back to 1924, numerous studies dealing with the nutritive advantages, or lack thereof, of organic food have been published. These studies were reviewed by Katrin Woese and her colleagues in 1997 (Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture Volume 74, pp. 281-293), Virginia Worthington in 2001 (Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, Volume 7, pp. 161-173), Diane Bourn and John Prescott in 2002 (Critical Reviews in Food science and Nutrition, Volume 42, pp. 1-34) and Faidon Magkos and co-authors in 2003 (International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, Volume 34, pp. 357-371). Except for higher nitrate content and lower vitamin C content in some conventionally-grown vegetables, Woese et al. concluded (after examining about 150 publications) that “with regard to all other desirable nutritional values...no major differences were observed” between organically- and conventionally-grown vegetables. Worthington’s review of forty-one publications noted increased vitamin C, magnesium, iron and phosphorus as well as lower nitrate content in organic vegetables. She found no differences between organic and conventional vegetables for any other minerals or vitamins.

Bourn and Prescott looked at forty-nine publications and found that “with the possible exception of nitrate content, there is no strong evidence that organic and conventional foods differ in concentrations of various nutrients.” (They also reported that organic food did not taste any better than conventional food in blind taste tests.) The Magkos review concluded that “a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables, and adequate in foods from the other groups, is unequivocally able to maintain and improve health, regardless of its organic or conventional origin.” A recent article in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture concluded organic food did not contain any more trace elements than conventional food.

In recent years, the emphasis has shifted to antioxidants. It is widely believed that antioxidant chemicals may be important in the control of free radicals, chemical species that we produce as part of normal metabolic processes, which may be responsible for the initiation of certain cancers as well as contributing to hardening of the arteries. There are several types of antioxidants found in food: beta-carotene, lycopene, vitamin C; phenolic acids such as caffeic acid and flavonoids such as quercetin. Phenolic acids and flavonoids are many times measured together and the results are referred to as total phenols.

The Soil Association

The Soil Association is a British charity (roughly the same as a not for profit organization in the US) dedicated to the growth of the organic food industry. According to the latest available figures, the association derives its annual income, about $31M, from grants, certification of organic farms, membership dues, sales of agricultural reports and donations. More than one-third of its income is derived from certifying organic farms.

The association was founded in 1946 by Lady Eve Balfour who had become a convert to organic farming. She started a thirty-year experiment at her farm at Haughey in order to prove the nutritional superiority of organic food. Experimental results, however, failed to provide any evidence for this hypothesis. In spite of that setback, the association has, over the years, claimed that organic food is nutritionally superior to conventional food.

The current policy director of the association is Lord Peter Melchett . He is the owner of an 890-acre organic farm in the UK and served as Executive Director of Greenpeace UK between 1989 and 2000. He is the grandson of the founder of Imperial Chemicals Industry and the son of the founder of the British Steel Corporation. In 1999, Lord Melchett was arrested for trespassing and destroying crops on a farm where genetically modified crops were being experimentally grown. He beat the rap by convincing the jurors he feared that pollen from the GM crops would “contaminate” the crops on his own farm.


A Great Day for Lord Melchett

October 30, 2007 was a great day for Lord Melchett. For the past few days, the major London newspapers had carried stories about new discoveries proving the nutritional superiority of organic food. These results had been announced by Dr. Carlo Leifert, Professor of Ecological Agriculture at the University of Newcastle and the head of the Tesco Centre for Organic Agriculture which he set up in 2001 with an $870,000 investment from Tesco, the largest seller of organic food in the UK. Dr. Leifert also headed the Quality Low Input Food (QLIF) Project, a four-year, $25M project funded by the European Union that “aims to improve quality, ensure safety and reduce cost along the organic and low input food supply chains through research, dissemination and training activities.” The project included scientists from thirty-three research institutions, companies and universities throughout Europe

According to information supplied by Dr. Leifert, organic fruits and vegetables were grown alongside conventional produce on a 725-acre experimental farm near Newcastle University, and their nutritional qualities were compared. Professor Leifert said that the organic produce contained “up to 40% more beneficial compounds in vegetable crops and up to 90% more in milk.” High levels of minerals such as iron and zinc were also found in organic produce.

In addition, Leifert said that moving to organic food was like “eating an extra portion of fruit and vegetables every day” and implied that conventional produce was responsible for obesity and heart disease. He told the BBC that the study, whose results were “due to be published over the next twelve months,” showed “more of certain nutritionally desirable compounds and less of the baddies in organic foods,” but “the study showed some variations,” the nature of which he did not explain.The UK media were ecstatic. “Eat your words, all who scoff at organic food,” headlined The Times; “Organic food is healthier and safer, four-year EU investigation shows,” wrote The Independent; “Organic produce ‘better for you,’” said the BBC. The Telegraph chimed in with “Organic food better than ordinary produce,” while The Guardian used the more subdued headline “Organic food is healthier: study.” None of the media reporters asked Leifert for independent proof of these findings, which he claimed would be published within the next twelve months (i.e., by November 1, 2008).

The fact that Leifert had no data to back up his claims did not appear to bother the media reporters, who were much more interested in the running battle between the UK government and the Soil Association, intimating that the government would soon have to recognize that it was wrong. In an opinion piece that appeared in the The Guardian on October 30, Melchett chided the FSA and its chief scientist, Andrew Wadge to admit that organic food was better.

By this time, the FSA had commissioned an independent group of scientists to study and evaluate the relevant literature dealing with nutritional differences, a. study that was vitally needed to confirm or to counter assertions by the Soil Association and the media that organic food was nutritionally superior to conventional food.

A Press Release from the Soil Association -- October 30, 2007

Also on that day, the Soil Association weighed in with a demand that the FSA “publicly acknowledge the nutritional benefits of organic food,” a demand that was based on five points that essentially summarized the Soil Association’s case:

1-a 2001 report written by an “independent nutritionist” who “reviewed over 400 scientific papers” and found “indicative evidence” for higher levels of “vitamin C, minerals and trace elements”

2-three presentations by French and Polish scientists at a QLIF Symposium held at the University of Hohenheim in Germany March 20-23, 2007 (according to the UK press, higher concentrations of antioxidants were found in organic peaches, tomatoes and apples)

3-a peer-reviewed article written by University of California scientists suggesting that organic kiwis had more vitamin C and antioxidants than conventional kiwis

4-research at several UK farms that found higher levels of “beneficial” vitamins, antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids in the milk of cows that were raised on grass and clover

5-the results from the QLIF study announced by Dr. Leifert just a day or two earlier that were going to be published in peer-reviewed journals during the next twelve months.


A Closer Look at the Soil Association October 30, 2007 Press Release

1. The 2001 Report

In 2000, Sir John Krebs, at that time Head of the UK Food Standards Agency (the FSA was set up to ensure food safety and to protect consumer interest) said that there was not enough scientific information available to be able to say that organic food is nutritionally different from non-organic food. In order to counter the damage done by the FSA pronouncement, the Soil Association commissioned a report titled “Organic Farming, Food Quality, and Human Health: a review of the Evidence.” The author, Shane Heaton, was described as a nutritionist, but there is no record of his ever graduating with a degree in nutrition or any other scientific discipline, for that matter.

An August 6th press release (no longer available on the Internet) accompanied the report and claimed that “over 400 published papers” were examined and that “on average” organic crops “are not only higher in vitamin C and essential minerals,” but also higher in chemicals that “are often beneficial in the treatment of cancer.” A second press release claimed that “alternative cancer therapies have achieved good results relying on the exclusive consumption of organic food.” One would think that the report would spend more than 105 words discussing a subject of such import. The major UK newspapers treated the report favorably, using only the Soil Association August 6th press release for information.

Had the reporters read the actual report instead of relying on the Soil Association for analysis of its own publication, they would have found that of the over 400 published papers only ninety-nine compared organic to conventional food and seventy of these were rejected by the author because they did not fit his self-imposed criteria for valid comparisons or for proper organic certification. Of the twenty-nine remaining studies, only sixteen had been published in peer-reviewed journals. Five publications dealing with antioxidant differences were found, but only two of them were published in scientific journals and the reported differences were not statistically significant.

Note: Pre-publication peer review is extremely important in science because it allows other scientists to examine the research methodology that was used and to determine if the manuscript’s conclusions are warranted based on the data submitted. Responsible scientists do not pay attention to published information that has not gone through the peer-review process. In addition, results must show statistical significance to be considered as meaningful.

So what had been touted as a thorough review of the literature turned out to be a review of only sixteen articles. And even in these precious few studies, the results were inconsistent. Combining all reports that fit the author’s criteria for consideration revealed that organic produce had higher levels of minerals in only seven out of fourteen studies and higher levels of vitamin C in only seven out of thirteen studies, hardly a reason to rush out to the store for over-priced organic food.

2. Reports from the QLIF Symposium

On March 28, 2007, The Daily Mail (“Proof at last that organic apples can be better for you”) said that studies in several countries had shown organic tomatoes, apples and peaches contained greater concentrations of nutrients “said to protect the body against heart attacks and cancer-causing chemicals.”

Later that week, The Independent (“It’s not just a fad -- organic food is better for you, say scientists”) reported new research that organically grown peaches and apples contained higher levels of chemicals that “protect against heart attacks and cancer” than conventional fruits. Both newspaper articles implied that UK government officials were wrong in not admitting how healthful organic food was, and both articles contained errors which indicated to me that neither newspaper reporter had ever attended the symposium at which these results were presented or had even spoken to the scientists who made the presentations.

Reading the summaries written by the scientists, however, provides more accurate accounts of the symposium. For example, one QLIF investigator wrote that organic peaches grown in 2004 had 46% higher total phenol content than conventional peaches, but there were “no significant differences in 2005.”

If you do a little simple algebra with the data provided by the investigators, you can calculate that conventional peaches contained 30% more total phenolics than the organic peaches in 2005. This information is available on the Internet but was not in any of the newspaper stories, Soil Association writings or the 2008 Organic Center report (which will be discussed later).

A second lecture compared organic and conventionally-grown tomatoes cultivated at different farms in Poland. But the distance (thirty-six miles) between the farms and the fact that the organic tomatoes were grown in a soil of a different type than the soil in which the conventional tomatoes were grown made meaningful interpretation of the results impossible. A graduate student involved with this research “found different levels of the nutritional compounds in every year of her studies” and “concluded that organic production methods did not guarantee a higher quality product”

A third presentation reported higher antioxidant capacity in three different varieties of varieties of organic apples, but no statistical data was given, making the data useless. Some of the data made no sense. For example, total polyphenol content, an important factor in antioxidant capacity, was not significantly higher in the organic than in the conventional apples.

More than two years have passed since these three presentations were made but none has ever been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

3. Comparison Between Organic and Conventional Kiwis

The University of California investigators made two serious errors. First, the test they used measured not only antioxidants but also vitamin C. They did not subtract vitamin C content (which was 14% higher in the organic kiwis) from the antioxidant (17% higher in the organic kiwis) content, thus coming up with too high a value for organic kiwi antioxidant content. Second, antioxidant concentrations are usually higher in the peel of a fruit than in the flesh. In this experiment, the organic kiwi peels were 35% thicker than the peels from the conventional kiwis, suggesting that most, if not all, of the antioxidant increase observed in the organic kiwis were in the peel. Since kiwi peels are inedible, it would have been more meaningful to measure only the edible portions of the kiwi.

4. Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Research published between 2003 and 2006 reported increased (about 64-71%) amounts of an omega-3 fatty acid, alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), in the milk of cows that had grazed on red clover and grass as opposed to those cows that were fed corn and hay. Omega-3 fatty acids have gotten good press in recent years, and there is some evidence that two of these acids, eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoinoic acid (DHA), which are found in salmon and tuna fish, may be helpful in preventing cancer and heart disease. ALA is also an omega-3 fatty acid but is not the same as EPA or DHA. A publication authored by world-class epidemiologists has warned that while EPA and DHA may reduce the risk of advanced prostate cancer, ALA may increase the risk. True, ALA is converted to EPA and DHA in humans, but the conversion is very low (about 8%). The bottom line is that a huge ALA increase in cow milk is meaningless because ALA is found in very small amounts in milk to begin with and increasing that small amount by 71% will not result in any appreciable health benefit.

For example, nutritionists recommend that we eat two three-ounce portions of salmon per week. If we preferred instead to get our EPA and DHA from conventional milk, we would have to drink 185 quarts of conventional milk every week. Drinking organic milk would cut our weekly intake to 110 quarts.

But the pro-organic folks were undaunted. Sally Bagnal of the UK’s Organic Milk Suppliers Cooperative called on the FSA to “start recommending organic milk as part of a healthy diet.” Kathryn Ellis, a University of Glasgow scientist who was the lead author on one of the studies, published an open letter signed by thirteen other scientists requesting the FSA change its stance on organic milk and “recognize that there are differences that exist between organic and nonorganic milk.”

In the USA, the Whole Foods website proclaimed that the UK studies confirmed that “organic milk is a good source of omega-3”, neglecting to mention that the organic milk you would need to drink was also a good source of saturated fat and that ALA had been linked to advanced prostate cancer.

(Another article on this subject was published in 2008 in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture by scientists from Newcastle University and the Danish Institute for Agricultural Science (DIAS). Large increases in contents of vitamin E (33%), beta-carotene (30%), lutein (67%), zeaxantin (45%) conjugated linoleic acid (60%), and the omega-3 fatty acid, ALA (39%) were found in milk from cows that had been raised on pasture grass and clover as compared to cows fed standard grain. Again, the UK media sprang into action. “Drinking organic milk may cut the risk of heart disease and cancer” headlined the Daily Mail. Similar reports were also published in the other major UK newspapers except for The Guardian, which apparently had caught on to the scam. An article published by the UK National Health Service explaining that it had “not been demonstrated that any type of milk protects against cancer or heart disease” was totally ignored by the media. And, as I pointed out in The Guardian, a person would have to drink between 3 and 170 quarts of organic milk every day in order to get the currently recommended quantities for these nutrients. What’s more, the consumer would have to drink milk that contained a full complement of saturated fats. There is nothing magical about the organic milk produced at the Newcastle University farm -- when you remove the artery-clogging saturated fats you also remove all the “beneficial” constituents.)

5. The QLIF Four-Year European Union Project “Results”

By the end of this August, it will have been twenty-two months since Dr. Leifert told reporters that peer-reviewed publications detailing the nutritional superiority of organic produce would be published within a year. If any of these reporters had bothered to ask just a few questions, they would have discovered, as had Dr. Todd Carroll of the Skeptik’s Dictionary, that there was no new data for produce! (Note: you will have to scroll down to the section headed by “update Nov. 2, 2007” in the Skeptik’s Dictionary for this information). About a year later, Leifert confirmed this when he told the Montreal Gazette that “the data are quite clear on livestock products,” but there was less evidence for the nutritional benefits of organic produce. “It’s not as clear a story on the cropping side,” Leifert said. And if there is still any doubt, the QLIF Workshop 1 Report of June 2008 stated, “while there is a trend for more of the nutritionally desirable secondary metabolites (i.e., antioxidants) to be found at higher levels...some compounds were unaffected and some were increased when conventional fertilization and/or crop protection schemes were applied.” In other words, when ALL the data are examined, conventional crops are just as high in beneficial nutrients, if not higher, than organic crops.

A Summary of the Soil Association’s Five Points

The five points picked by the Soil Association to advance its argument that organic food is nutritionally superior fall apart upon examination. The 2001 report turned out to be eighty-eight pages of nothing; the milk studies demonstrated that organic production methods give much higher quantities of chemicals that some consider good for us, but not high enough to make us healthier; the kiwi study had two serious flaws that made its conclusions questionable; there was a wide gulf between the Soil Association interpretations of the QLIF peach, tomato and apple studies and what the scientists actually reported; and the Leifert study was actually a classic study of media manipulation.

The Empire Strikes Back

The conclusions of the scientific review commissioned by the FSA to respond to the Soil Association attacks were made public on July 29, 2009. According to Dr. Alan Dangour, a senior lecturer in nutrition at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, after a thorough review of all the available literature, he and his research group found “no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs.” Unlike Dr. Leifert and some of the QLIF investigators, Dr. Dangour laid out his results in a respected, peer-reviewed publication, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition for comment and criticism.

Criticism was not long in coming. Leading the charge, of course was the Soil Association. Their major complaint was that the study “failed to include the results” of the QLIF project and the “publication, so far, of more than 100 scientific papers.”

Never mind that these publications are not concerned with nutritional differences between organic and conventional produce. Writing in The Guardian on August 1, Dr. Ben Goldacre found that almost all of these publications were “irrelevant” and the overwhelming majority of them were “unpublished conference reports.” But this had no effect whatsoever on Melchett who wrote that “The full results of the five years of EU research, presented at a conference in April, and including a positive review of nutritional differences, will be peer-reviewed and published next spring.”

The Soil Association also complained that the Dangour study failed to consider pesticides, but Dangour was asked to look only at Soil Association claims about nutritional superiority. In fact, it was the Soil Association’s unfounded claims about nutritional superiority that led to this study in the first place. Lord Melchett had the chutzpah to tell the BBC that the Dangour review “rejected almost all of the existing studies of comparisons between organic and non-organic nutritional differences,” ignoring that many of those studies were of poor scientific quality, omitted important information or found large increases of constituents that would be of no benefit to human health. Leifert, for his part, thought the “conclusions of the study were selective” -- apparently because his non-existent data was not included.

The Organic Center is Heard From

On this side of the Atlantic, the Organic Center (OC) has also been trying to convince us of the nutritional superiority of organic food. The OC is a “not for profit” organization supported mainly by the organic food industry which is now controlled by the same large food companies we were previously told were poisoning us. These relationships may be found here.

The Organic Center is an entity set up by the Organic Trade Association (OTA) for the promotion and the sale of organic food. According to the Organic Center’s website, donors of $50,000 or more include Aurora Organic Dairy, Horizon Organic, Organic Valley Cooperative, Silk Soy, Stonyfield Farm, White Wave and Whole Foods Market, the leading organic food retailer in the world. Individual donors of $50,000 and above include Walter Robb, co-president of Whole Foods; Eugene Kahn, a General Mills vice president and founder of their subsidiary, Cascadian Farm; Mark Retzloff, founder of Horizon Dairies; and Steve Demos, president of combined operations for White Wave, Horizon Organics and Dean Foods.

In a 2008 report, the OC claimed organic food was 25% more nutritious than conventional food, a finding at odds with the Dangour study. That finding is also at odds with my own evaluation of the OC’s report, in which I pointed out how they erroneously arrived at conclusions based on results from publications that had not been peer-reviewed and contained data that was not statistically significant. And, just like the Soil Association, the OC report ignored results not to their liking. A detailed version of my criticisms was published in July 2008 by the American Council on Science and Health. The OC rebuttal is here and my reply to their rebuttal is here.

The OC had several complaints about the Dangour report. One complaint was that an important nutrient quality, total antioxidant capacity, was not addressed by the British scientists. However, the OC listed only eight publications in this category in their own report. One was favorable to conventional food; five were not peer-reviewed; one contained data favorable to both organic and conventional pac choi, but the OC did not include the latter; one was the questionable kiwi study that I discussed earlier.

A second complaint was that the Dangour study found no differences in the phenolic content of the “twenty-five” matched crops that the OC had studied. But according to the OC report, they had identified only twenty-one such studies. There were no statistically significant data for thirteen of the matched crops. Of the remaining eight studies, two were not peer-reviewed; one was the kiwi study; another was a study of organic flea- beetle infested pac choi, which may have contained more phenolics but was inedible.

Dietary Nitrate Is Not Only Safe...

A third complaint was that Dangour and his group did not consider lower nitrate concentrations in organic crops, supposedly a nutritional advantage. The problem with nitrate, according to the OC is that “most scientists” (was there an election I missed?) regard nitrate “as a public health hazard because of the potential for cancer-causing chemicals to be formed in the human GI tract.”

Several months ago I called the OC’s attention to the fact that nitrate in conventional food was not as bad as they were making it out to be, but they chose to ignore my arguments. Several months later they still maintain this fiction, so I’ll try again. Perhaps some of the references I’ve added will cause them to change their minds.

There is no epidemiological evidence for a connection between nitrate in food and human cancer. Current scientific belief is that people who eat lots of fruits and vegetables (even with nitrates) have lower cancer rates than those who do not. The European Food Safety Authority has declared that “the estimated exposures to nitrate from vegetables are unlikely to result in appreciable health risks.”

Carlo Leifert, when he was still publishing results in peer-reviewed scientific journals was a key member of a team that found no epidemiological evidence for an increased risk of gastric and intestinal cancer in population groups with high nitrate intake.

...It’s Good for You!!

He and his co-workers also discovered that nitrate fueled an important mammalian resistance mechanism against infectious disease. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported a statistically significant drop in systolic blood pressure after ingestion of sodium nitrate. Drinking a glass or two of beet juice substantially lowered blood pressure. Scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that mice fed a high nitrate/nitrite diet were more likely to survive an induced heart attack.

Nitrate has also been shown to protect against stomach ulcers and the gastric side effects of aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. A comprehensive review in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concludes that “the data on nitrate and nitrite contents of vegetables and fruit bolster the strength of existing evidence to recommend their consumption for health benefits” and that plant origin nitrates and nitrites “play essential physiologic roles supporting cardiovascular health and gastrointestinal immune function.” An on-line article published recently in _Medical Hypotheses_ suggested that ingestion of high nitrate-containing fruits and vegetables such as pomegranates, lettuce, spinach and beets might be useful in lowering obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease.

If any group has reason to complain to Professor Dangour, it’s the conventional farmers who use fertilizers that deliver high nitrate doses to soil. It turns out that high dietary nitrate is not only safe, but provides a health benefit that the Dangour team was apparently unaware of.


Conclusions

Table 1 gives a concise summary of the numerical claims for the nutritional superiority of organic produce, claims that have no basis in fact. Organic food proponents have learned that they do not need to provide evidence for their assertions. All they have to do is publish any plausible evidence, keep on repeating it ad infinitum and it will be magnified by news organizations and their self-serving commercial organic and environmental allies on the Internet.

Table1. Numerical Estimates for Nutritional Superiority of Organic Produce

AUTHOR: Brandt, 2001
CLAIM: 10-50% more nutrients
COMMENT: No data, just a “guess”

AUTHOR: The Organic Center, 2005CLAIM: 30% more nutrientsCOMMENT: Only 5 studies: 2 did not meet standards for inclusion in 2008 OC report; 1 not peer-reviewed; 1 comparison invalid

AUTHOR: Leifert, 2007
CLAIM: “up to 40%” more nutrients
COMMENT: No data to support claim and it appears that there never will be

AUTHOR: The Organic Center, 2008
CLAIM: 25% more nutrients; a good part of this number depends on mistaken claim that nitrate is harmful
COMMENT: Included key publications that were not peer reviewed; many results were not statistically significant; included several invalid comparisons; ignored some unfavorable data; entire report not peer-reviewed

AUTHOR: Rosen, 2008
CLAIM: Essentially no difference
COMMENT: Not peer-reviewed either

AUTHOR: Dangour, 2009
CLAIM: No difference
COMMENT: Methods and results peer-reviewed

Organic food proponents such as the Soil Association and the Organic Center are organizations with missions to promote and sell organic food and they have done an incredible job, as borne out by the large year to year increases in organic food sales.

But in their zeal to fulfill their missions they many times stretch the truth. In my opinion, any reporters who rely on organizations such as the Soil Association or the Organic Center for information without checking the facts are complicit in defrauding their readers.

Organic food proponents do more than act as unreliable sources of information. They may actually cause harm. For example, in order to obtain the supposed nutritional benefits of organic milk, you must drink copious quantities of high-fat milk. And then there is the alarm sounded by the epidemiological study that too much ALA may increase the risk of advanced prostate cancer. Those who are so concerned with human health should stop promoting the sale of organic milk until that question is resolved.

Organic food proponents are so concerned with distinguishing their products from conventional food that they have campaigned against useful practices such as food irradiation and genetic engineering. In addition, organic food proponents cause unnecessary guilt and angst in parents who cannot afford to buy overpriced (and completely useless) organic food for their children.

In the United States, some food activists have demanded that because organic food is “more nutritious,” it should be provided to mothers and children in the government–funded WIC Program. WIC stands for “Women, Infants and Children” and its mission is to support low-income women who are at nutritional risk by providing food to supplement diets. Government funding is a zero-sum game, and if money is provided for more expensive (and unneeded) organic food there will be less food to go around. Although it is a federally-funded program, WIC is administered separately in each state. Washington State was assailed earlier this year for not giving organic food to the program participants. Their replies provide a perfect way to end this article:

1-The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association have not supported the need for organic food.
2-The Mayo Clinic and the American Dietetic Association state that there are no benefits from organic food.
3-The US Department of Agriculture states there is no conclusion about the need for or benefit from organic food.
4-After a thorough study of WIC foods, the National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine made no reference to the need for organic food.

Joseph D. Rosen, Ph.D., is Emeritus Professor of Food Toxicology at Rutgers University School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and an ACSH Advisor.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Mount Sinai's Scare Campaign

Mount Sinai's Scare Campaign (and John Stossel's reaction). By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H. ACSH, August 19, 2009

ACSH's view on this issue was noted by John Stossel on his blog [http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/2009/08/teach-dont-scare.html] today:

It is nothing new for junk science to make it onto the New York Times op-ed page. But some agendas are so far outside the mainstream they have to buy their way onto the page. That's what the Mount Sinai School of Medicine did in buying a platform for their Dr. Philip Landrigan, an activist who has dedicated his career to raising anxieties about "chemicals" in the environment.

In an August 4 "op-ad" likely costing around $50,000, Dr. Landrigan rails against thousands of new, synthetic chemicals introduced over the last few decades.

He says they are responsible for a full spectrum of diseases in our children -- including cancer, hyperactivity, asthma, reproductive difficulties, and even autism. There is not a shred of evidence to back up such claims. He cites some specific chemicals that have been in the news of late: PCBs (industrial chemicals used until 1977 in fireproofing and insulation ), phthalates (plastic softeners used in a wide variety of consumer products and medical devices), and bisphenol-A (BPA, used to harden plastics and in food and beverage packaging).

He states that these and other chemicals are routinely found in the bodies of both adults and children -- and that this itself is a cause for alarm. In an attempt to gain some legitimacy for his scientifically bereft claims, Dr. Landrigan throws in for good measure the actual documented health risks from exposure to high levels of lead in paint and gasoline (which was the case decades ago but is no longer an issue) and the actual link between asthma and exposure to cigarette smoke. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

But for all his claims that "chemicals" are not safe and have not been tested, he does not acknowledge these basic facts:

•Everything in our universe consists of chemicals. Our natural foods (yes, even organic ones) are 100% chemical in composition -- and come replete with myriad natural toxins (otherwise known as poisons) and carcinogens (usually defined as chemicals which cause cancer in high doses in animal studies). Such natural carcinogens and toxins are of no health consequences because they occur at such low doses.
•Nearly all the health claim Dr. Landrigan makes -- regarding chemicals causing cancer or "toxic effects," for example -- are based on high-level animal studies. By that criterion, he should be worried about nutmeg (which contains a natural hallucinogen and the carcinogen safrole), potatoes (which contain a toxicologically significant level of arsenic), and apples (with their own natural carcinogen quercetin glycosides)
•That we can detect traces of myriad "chemicals" in the human body should be no surprise. With today's sophisticated analytical techniques, we can basically find anything in anything. The mere ability to detect a substance does not mean that the substance poses a hazard.
•Landrigan mentions something called "endocrine disruption" and reproductive defects -- but these phenomena have absolutely no practical application to human risk. Again, the claim that trace levels of chemicals adversely affect hormone production is based only on high-dose animal studies. The allegation that synthetic chemicals cause abnormalities in reproductive potential -- including allegedly chemically-induced penis shrinking -- is derived from observations of alligators growing up in polluted Florida lakes. The human data provide no evidence of reproductive problems linked to chemicals.

In short, the paid-for Landrigan piece is alarmist propaganda masquerading as science and represents a great disservice to parents, children, and public health. One cannot help wonder why Mount Sinai let its good name be associated with this unscientific diatribe -- even allowing its logo to be included in the op-ad.

Dr. Landrigan says that our children need our protection. I could not agree more. Dr. Landrigan's false alarms contribute nothing to our children's health but do create needless distractions. Instead of scaring parents about phantom risks, we should, among other things, advocate basics such as seatbelts, bike helmets, smoke detectors, childhood vaccinations, nutritious diets, and healthy recreation. Parents who provide their kids with these should not be needlessly terrified by Mount Sinai about imaginary chemical menaces.

Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org).

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Vegetables don’t want to be eaten and other lessons from Britain's organic food war

Vegetables don’t want to be eaten and other lessons from Britain's organic food war. By Trevor Butterworth
STATS.org, August 4, 2009

A major British study recently turned conventional wisdom on organic food on its head, triggering a war between science writers, reporters, activists and chefs. Was it a “myth” that organic produce was nutritionally superior to conventional food – or did an agency with an agenda cook up some flawed science to appease big agribusiness?

Bad Science, a book by Ben Goldacre, has become an unusual bestseller in the British Isles, powering its way into the higher reaches of nationally and locally compiled bestseller lists since its publication in the Fall of 2008. Goldacre is a doctor for Britain’s National Health Service (though he plays this down on the grounds that arguments from positions of expertise are often self-defeating with the public), and the book is a continuum of a column by the same name he writes for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper. The Royal Statistical Society awarded him first prize in their inaugural 2007 award for statistical excellence in journalism, and the British Medical Journal, in reviewing “Bad Science,” declared that Goldacre “is fighting what sometimes seems like a one man battle against a tide of pseudoscience and an army of quacks,” and that the country was lucky to have him.

The book’s popularity seems to speak to increasing consumer frustration with information promoted as “scientific,” whether in news stories, government pronouncements, or advertisements for pills and panaceas, and to the hopeful sign that people want to know – or want someone to examine on their behalf – the underlying principles that determine whether such research claims can be considered reliable or unreliable.

These principles came to the forefront in Britain last week – and the rest of the world – with the publication of a new study claiming that there was no reliable evidence that organically-produced food was better, nutritionally, than conventionally-produced food.
The study, “Nutritional quality of organic foods: a systematic review,” was funded by Britain’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), and conducted by researchers from the Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit at the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; it was published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Senior reporter Karen McVeigh told readers of the Guardian in the opening paragraph of its news report on June 30 that the review’s “conclusions have been called into question by experts and organic food campaigners,” and more than half of the article focused on criticisms of the study, namely that the researchers had been “selective in the extreme,” used “questionable methodology, were contradicted by numerous other studies, and neglected to mention the risks of pesticides and fertilizers in conventional farming. As Peter Melchett, policy director at the Soil Association, the non-profit that advocates for and certifies organic farming in Britain, told the paper, “The review rejected almost all of the existing studies of comparisons between organic and non-organic nutritional differences.”

Given the way the story was reported, with the validity of the study immediately questioned in the opening paragraph (and with the paper being home to Goldacre’s column), readers could have been forgiven for concluding that the FSA had indeed funded some dodgy research, peer-review notwithstanding.

But at the Guardian’s sister, Sunday paper, The Observer, science editor, Robin McKie, defended the study. “[I]t is certainly not the work of dogmatic and intractably hostile opponents of the cause,” he wrote before weighing in on one of the key criticisms of the study, namely, that it did not take pesticide and fertilizer residues on conventional food into consideration.

“For a start, the idea that organic fruit and veg contain no harmful chemicals compared with non-organic produce is simply wrong, scientists argue. Certainly, there are pesticide residues in the latter but there is no evidence these are cumulatively harmful.

More to the point, organic crops - because they are untreated with chemicals - have correspondingly high levels of natural fungal toxins. Thus they balance out: artificial pesticide residues in non-organic crops, natural fungal toxins in organic.”

As Professor Ottoline Leyser, a molecular biologist at York University told McKie:

“People think that the more natural something is, the better it is for them. That is simply not the case. In fact, it is the opposite that is the true: the closer a plant is to its natural state, the more likely it is that it will poison you. Naturally, plants do not want to be eaten, so we have spent 10,000 years developing agriculture and breeding out harmful traits from crops. ‘Natural agriculture’ is a contradiction in terms.”

Over at the Times of London, science editor Mark Henderson took a similar position, as well as noting that

“Research that appears to support health claims for organic food also suffers from a quality problem. Many studies lack proper controls or fail to detail the organic regime and crop variety being evaluated or the analytical techniques used for assessment.

Studies that fail to meet these standards cannot provide useful evidence and are rightfully excluded from systematic reviews. It is no coincidence that the school had to throw out about two thirds of the available literature.”

The Times also noted that previous reviews by the French and Swedish food standards agencies had come to the same conclusion as this new study.

But as the Observer called into question the thrust of the Guardian’s initial news report, so the Times sister paper, The Sunday Times seemed to question the daily paper’s characterization of the study.

“We dig out the facts from the manure,” said the article’s sub head, but as reporter Chris Gourlay dug away, he seemed less convinced by the FSA’s evidence: The new study’s findings were “controversial” and the Food Standards Agency “claimed a comprehensive review,” but as Carlo Leifert, Professor of Ecological Agriculture at Newcastle University told Gourlay, the researchers “have ignored all the recent literature as well as new primary research which show the health advantages of organic.” He added that he intended “to rip their study apart in scientific journals.”

Other newspapers, such as the Daily Mail, warned that “studies have found” that children born to farmers in summer, when pesticide use was highest, were “less intelligent.” One columnist rued the focus on nutrition in the Daily Telegraph noting that “All food is nutritious; having no food is what kills. The wider benefits of organic foods are still worth pursuing. It is what food does not contain and the effects that it does not have that really matter.” The Telegraph’s gossip columnist warned that the pro-organic produce Prince Charles had reportedly taken a dim view of the FSA study and was girding for battle.

One notable pattern emerged in the coverage: If the reporter specialized in science, they thought the study well done and conclusive; if the reporter was a generalist, the study was flawed and controversial. So what did the scourge of bad science make of the review and the media coverage?

Goldacre began his column by noting that news coverage had given organic advocates a blanket right of reply to the study. This, he said, was “testament to the lobbying power of this £2bn [$3.38 billion dollars] industry, and the cultural values of people who work in the media.”

He pointed out one of the salient aspects of the study, namely, that it was only about the nutritional content of organic and conventional food, and not about any other kind of benefit. Critics of the study, however, only wanted to talk about other kinds of benefits to prove that the study was flawed; this was, he said, “gamesmanship.” And it was gamesmanship that worked to undermine the public’s understanding and ability to engage in a debate on the evidence by claiming that key evidence was ignored by the FSA.

“The accusation is one of ‘cherry-picking’, and it is hard to see how it can be valid in the kind of study conducted by the FSA, because in a ‘systematic review’, before you begin collecting papers, you specify how you will search for evidence, what databases you will use, what types of studies you will use, how you will grade the quality of the evidence (to see if it was a ‘fair test’), and so on.

What is it that the FSA ignored which so angered the Soil Association? As an example, from their press release, they are ‘disappointed that the FSA failed to include the results of a major European Union-funded study involving 31 research and university institutes and the publication, so far, of more than 100 scientific papers, at a cost of €18m [$25.9 million dollars], which ended in April this year’. They gave the link to qlif.org.

I followed this link and found the list of 120 papers. Almost all are irrelevant. The first 14 are on ‘consumer expectations and attitudes’, which are correctly not included in a systematic review of the evidence on food composition. Then there are 22 on ‘effects of production methods’: here you might expect to find more relevant research, but no.

The first paper (‘The effect of medium term feeding with organic, low input and conventional diet on selected immune parameters in rat’), while interesting, will plainly not be relevant to a systematic review on nutrient content. The same is true of the next paper, ‘Salmonella infection level in Danish indoor and outdoor pig production systems measured by antibodies in meat juice and fecal shedding on-farm and at slaughter’: it is not relevant.

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of these are unpublished conference papers, and some of them are just a description of the fact that somebody made an oral presentation at a meeting. The systematic review correctly looked only at good-quality data published in peer-reviewed academic journals.”

This is a devastating indictment, not just of the Soil Association’s position, but the degree to which reporters did little more than act as stenographers to its criticisms of the FSA study. [Yes, we too followed the link to http://www.qlif.org/ and found that Goldacre was correct in his categorization of the research]. Readers of the Guardian may have been forgiven for wondering why they bothered to read the initial news story, given that the reporter’s focus on what was wrong with the study turned out to be more spin than science.

The uncomfortable question for the media – and the Guardian in particular – is to what degree would Goldacre’s rearguard defense of science be needed if the journalists who reported on the latest data did a better job of analysis before presenting it to the public?

Monday, August 3, 2009

Is the White House's Organic Garden Toxic to Kids?

Is the White House's Organic Garden Toxic to Kids? By Jeff Stier, Esq.
No, according to toxicologists. It ought to be, according to environmentalists.
Thursday, July 23, 2009

This piece first appeared on July 23, 2009 on Forbes.com:

Michelle Obama's "organic" White House garden was designed to promote a green agenda. In order to provide safe food to children in the community, the First Lady wouldn't use chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Green groups cheered. In an ironic twist, all of that has now backfired.
The garden was created using a "green" approach, based on the belief that exposure to even minute levels of synthetic chemicals and contaminants such as lead is dangerous. Indeed, when environmental activist groups lobbied for a drastic consumer product safety law known as the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), they repeated the frightening but unscientific mantra that "there is no safe level of exposure" to the synthetic chemicals and contaminants they sought to ban.

The law passed, but it won't make anyone safer; the idea that the level of exposure doesn't matter flouts every known precept of toxicology. CPSIA is putting the squeeze on already threatened small businesses, forcing them to discard products with the tiniest trace of forbidden substances -- and it turns out the White House is getting a taste of the same medicine.

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that the National Park Service found lead in the White House garden soil. In fact, tests found somewhere between 450% and 900% of the normal amount of lead in U.S. soil. The White House did not dispute the findings but defended the lead in the garden, calling it "completely safe." They are right. Though lead at higher levels can be dangerous, the garden, like the products banned by CPSIA, is well within safety limits. But the White House's defense rings of self-serving hypocrisy. Where were the White House reassurances when environmentalists were pushing CPSIA restrictions on other fronts?

Greenpeace, the Environmental Working Group, and others who were behind CPSIA -- along with their allies in Congress and in the administration -- manipulate the fears of concerned parents by contradicting established rules of toxicology, claiming that all lead needs to be eliminated. Aside from causing needless panic, their agenda could end up taking an expensive toll on industry and driving up prices for consumers.

The consequences of environmentalist fear-mongering are already spreading quickly. Bisphenol-A (BPA) and phthalates in plastics have been thoroughly demonized by junk-science reports -- so much so that people forget these chemicals have never been shown to be harmful to humans. Likewise, the organic approach endorsed by the White House unjustly contests the proven safety of properly applied chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Now that they've seen the light, will the White House join thousands of small businesses and consumers calling for the repeal of the CPSIA? The Bush Food and Drug Administration found BPA to be safe, but the Obama FDA called for a do-over. Will their findings be consistent with the White House's newfound appreciation for basic tenets of toxicology? Will the new regime at the EPA halt its trumped-up health claims and halt their unprecedented attack on America's producers?

If so, something truly beneficial will have grown out of the White House's "organic" garden after all.

Jeff Stier is an associate director of the American Council on Science and Health.

Friday, July 31, 2009

Farmers Can Feed the World - Better seeds and fertilizers, not romantic myths, will let them do it

Farmers Can Feed the World. By NORMAN E. BORLAUG
Better seeds and fertilizers, not romantic myths, will let them do it.
WSJ, Jul 31, 2009

Earlier this month in L’Aquila, Italy, a small town recently devastated by an earthquake, leaders of the G-8 countries pledged $20 billion over three years for farm-investment aid that will help resource-poor farmers get access to tools like better seed and fertilizer and help poor nations feed themselves.For those of us who have spent our lives working in agriculture, focusing on growing food versus giving it away is a giant step forward.

Given the right tools, farmers have shown an uncanny ability to feed themselves and others, and to ignite the economic engine that will reverse the cycle of chronic poverty. And the escape from poverty offers a chance for greater political stability in their countries as well.

But just as the ground shifted beneath the Italian community of L’Aquila, so too has the political landscape heaved in other parts of the world, casting unfounded doubts on agricultural tools for farmers made through modern science, such as biotech corn in parts of Europe. Even here at home, some elements of popular culture romanticize older, inefficient production methods and shun fertilizers and pesticides, arguing that the U.S. should revert to producing only local organic food. People should be able to purchase organic food if they have the will and financial means to do so, but not at the expense of the world’s hungry—25,000 of whom die each day from malnutrition.

Unfortunately, these distractions keep us from the main goal. Consider that current agricultural productivity took 10,000 years to attain the production of roughly six billion gross tons of food per year. Today, nearly seven billion people consume that stockpile almost in its entirety every year. Factor in growing prosperity and nearly three billion new mouths by 2050, and you quickly see how the crudest calculations suggest that within the next four decades the world’s farmers will have to double production.

They most likely will need to accomplish this feat on a shrinking land base and in the face of environmental demands caused by climate change. Indeed, this month Oxfam released a study concluding that the multiple effects of climate change might “reverse 50 years of work to end poverty” resulting in “the defining human tragedy of this century.”

At this time of critical need, the epicenter of our collective work should focus on driving continued investments from both the public and private sectors in efficient agriculture production technologies. Investments like those announced by the G-8 leaders will most likely help to place current tools—like fertilizer and hybrid seeds that have been used for decades in the developed world—into the hands of small-holder farmers in remote places like Africa with the potential for noted and measured impact.

That investment will not continue to motivate new and novel discoveries, like drought-tolerant, insect-resistant or higher-yielding seed varieties that advance even faster. To accomplish this, governments must make their decisions about access to new technologies, such as the development of genetically modified organisms—on the basis of science, and not to further political agendas. Open markets will stimulate continued investment, innovation and new developments from public research institutions, private companies and novel public/private partnerships.

We already can see the ongoing value of these investments simply by acknowledging the double-digit productivity gains made in corn and soybeans in much of the developed world. In the U.S., corn productivity has grown more than 40% and soybeans by nearly 30% from 1987 to 2007, while wheat has lagged behind, increasing by only 19% during the same period. Lack of significant investment in rice and wheat, two of the most important staple crops needed to feed our growing world, is unfortunate and short-sighted. It has kept productivity in these two staple crops at relatively the same levels seen at the end of the 1960s and the close of the Green Revolution, which helped turn Mexico and India from starving net grain importers to exporters.

Here, too, the ground seems to be slowly shifting in the right direction, as recent private investments in wheat and public/private partnerships in maize for Africa re-enter the marketplace. These investments and collaborations are critical in our quest to realize much needed productivity gains in rice and wheat to benefit farmers around the world—and, ultimately, those of us who rely on them to produce our daily food.

Of history, one thing is certain: Civilization as we know it could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply. Likewise, the civilization that our children, grandchildren and future generations come to know will not evolve without accelerating the pace of investment and innovation in agriculture production.

Mr. Borlaug, a professor at Texas A&M University, won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the world food supply.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

The Latest Toxin Activists Want to Ban - BPA

The Latest Toxin Activists Want to Ban. By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
This article first appeared on June 24, 2009 on Forbes.com

The "toxin du jour" these days is bisphenol A, otherwise known as BPA. Environmental activists claim BPA harms babies as it dissolves out of the sides of baby bottles and sippy cups, causing everything from cancer to learning disabilities and even obesity. Spurred by consumer groups, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wants Coca-Cola, Del Monte and other companies investigated for trying to stop anti-BPA legislation.

In fact, BPA has been used safely for about 60 years to make plastic bottles hard and shatter-proof, for the coatings of metal food containers and even in cellphones and medical devices. Nonetheless, the California Senate recently passed a law to ban the sale of sippy cups and baby bottles that contain BPA, and Chicago recently banned such products from city shelves.

There are two distinct ways of looking at the hysteria about BPA and the quest to purge it from our universe.

First, we can take the rational, scientific approach. There is no evidence that BPA in consumer products ever harmed a child or adult. The FDA has confirmed the safety of BPA in consumer products, as have scientific bodies around the world. The levels of BPA that may leach into food or liquid are so incredibly small that they can barely be measured.

In fact, even the cautious Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has pointed out that merely detecting a substance in our bodies does not mean that it's harmful or toxic. The only "evidence" that BPA is a hazard comes from high-dose animal studies (which have little relevance for humans) and from studies that measure BPA in urine.

But we can detect minute levels of virtually any chemical in blood and urine, and the presence of such an amount is not synonymous with a hazard. BPA as a health hazard is best described as only a "phantom risk."

But rational, scientific facts have taken a back seat in the debate about BPA and health. That brings us to the second, purely emotional case against the toxin.
Psychiatrists have long told us that we fear what we do not understand and cannot see. Further, parents are instinctively on high alert against potential threats to their infants and children. Thus, if an activist group makes a claim that BPA--or almost any other substance--in bottles poses an imminent danger to an innocent baby, the "fear factor" takes over.

Mom and dad are not familiar with this chemical; they can hardly pronounce it; they cannot see it; thus they fear it. And now they are perfect targets for manipulation by the toxic terrorists. Scientists or FDA officials--and certainly industry spokespeople--who dismiss the scare sound callous and unreliable.

Consider this further irrational dimension of the calls to ban BPA: Few people ever ask what the alternative to BPA would be. In their irrational state, they are willing to purge this chemical--a product with a decades-long safety record--from substances they use and instead accept some unknown, untested substitute without even asking what it might be and what its safety profile is.

Perhaps it is time we started responding to the public's irrational fears differently than we do to rational fears. For example, if you have a fear of flying--not a phobia, but a mild, rational concern--you might have your mind changed by a slew of statistics showing that flying from New York to Los Angeles is far safer than covering the same territory by car. We could reason with you on this issue, discussing your odds of injury and death in each scenario. You would then, most likely, choose to fly.

But a national panic about a "chemical"--be it Alar on apples 20 years ago or phthalates (plastic softeners used in rubber duckies and other products) and BPA today--is a different story.

Irrational fears of the sort conjured up in parents by weird-sounding chemicals do not respond well to a truckload of scientific facts. So what might work?

For one, inform parents that their instinct to protect their children is normal, indeed admirable--but subject to manipulation by agenda-driven activists.

And state the obvious. There is no end in sight to the anti-chemical witch hunt against "toxins" in products. Once BPA is banned, the activists will move onto another scare: Are there trace levels of dioxin in the paper cups your toddler drinks out of? Ban paper cups!

Could there be lead in the playground sand box? Close all sandboxes! If in five years the alternative to BPA is shown to cause cancer in rodents--well, ban that too.

Finally, underscore the fact that chemicals like BPA, which have been used for decades with no deleterious health consequences, may well be safer than hastily introduced alternatives.

Irrational fears need to be recognized for what they are--and treated with compassion and understanding but also a big dose of reality. Caring, loving parents have become victims of fear mongers and that, certainly, is one danger about which they deserve to be warned.

Elizabeth M. Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

New Bisphenol A Study is of Very Limited Relevance to Human Health

New Bisphenol A Study is of Very Limited Relevance to Human Health. By Steven G. Hentges
ACC, Jun 18, 2009

The following statement can be attributed to Steven G. Hentges, Ph.D. of the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group. Dr. Hentges’ comments are in regard to a study from researchers at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The study, "Neonatal bisphenol-A exposure alters rat reproductive development and ovarian morphology without impairing activation of gonadotropin releasing hormone neurons," was funded by NIEHS and published online June 17 by the journal Biology of Reproduction. The study was co-authored by Heather B. Patisaul and Heather B. Adewale of NCSU and Wendy N. Jefferson and Retha R. Newbold of NIEHS.

ARLINGTON, VA (June 17, 2009) – “The American Chemistry Council (ACC) and its member companies have long-supported research to advance scientific understanding about chemicals and promote public health. To achieve these goals with limited resources, including limited use of laboratory animals, study designs should be based on sound scientific principles and data so as to be directly relevant to human health. This new study fails to meet these basic study design principles and practices.

“It is a continuing disappointment to see that researchers – including scientists from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) – conduct studies that involve injection of laboratory animals with bisphenol A (BPA). This experimental technique has recently been acknowledged by the NIEHS to have very limited value for assessing human health effects since people are orally exposed to BPA, not by injection. It is well-known that BPA is efficiently metabolized and rapidly eliminated from the body after oral exposure.

“The researchers also state, incorrectly, that their study is significant because it used a dose equal to the EPA reference dose for BPA, which is a science-based lifetime daily intake level determined to be safe by EPA. However, the EPA reference dose is specifically applicable only to oral exposure, not to injection exposure. Consequently, this study does not call into question the validity of the EPA reference dose.

“Although the researchers correctly note that ‘the research was done on rats, making it difficult to determine its applicability to humans...’, the study is of very limited relevance to human health, according to the NIEHS guidelines, due to these inherent study design flaws.

“Eleven regulatory bodies around the world have recently assessed the science on bisphenol A (BPA) and uniformly determined that BPA is safe for use in food contact products. In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in regard to their ongoing review, stated: ‘With regard to BPA generally, based on all available evidence, the consensus of regulatory agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan is that the current levels of exposure to BPA through food packaging do not pose an immediate health risk to the general population, including infants and young children.’ ”

Learn more about BPA.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Mother Nature, Serial Polluter

Re: Mother Nature, Serial Polluter. By Drew Thornley
Planet Gore/NRO, Jun 09, 2009

Oil rigs and tankers are always to blame, when it comes to oil polluting our oceans. But, as I highlighted in my recent Energy Myths report for the Manhattan Institute, more oil enters our nation's ocean waters from natural ocean-floor seepage than from human activities:

For example, ocean floors naturally seep more oil into the ocean than do oil-drilling accidents and oil-tanker spills combined. (However, such seepage generally does not rise to the surface or reach the coastlines and, thus, is not as apparent as oil-drilling spills.) According to the National Academies’ National Research Council, natural processes are responsible for over 60 percent of the petroleum that enters North American ocean waters and over 45 percent of the petroleum that enters ocean waters worldwide. Thus, in percentage terms, North America’s oil-drilling activities spill less oil into the ocean than the global average, suggesting that our drilling is comparatively safe for the environment.

Ironically, research shows that drilling can actually reduce natural seepage, as it relieves the pressure that drives oil and gas up from ocean floors and into ocean waters. In 1999, two peer-reviewed studies found that natural seepage in the northern Santa Barbara Channel was significantly reduced by oil production. The researchers documented that natural seepage declined 50 percent around Platform Holly over a twenty-two-year period, concluding that, as oil was pumped from the reservoir, the pressure that drives natural seepage dropped.

If you're interested in learning more, Stop Oil Seeps California is taking a little field trip this Saturday, June 13. From their e-mail:

We invite you to get a first hand look at the natural gas and oil seeps in the Santa Barbara Channel. At 25 knots, the Condor Express will calmly whisk you up the coastline to Coal Oil Point, the site of Santa Barbara County's prolific natural offshore seeps — the largest in the western hemisphere! Next you will motor over to Platform Holly for an up-close view of a working oil platform. The size of this facility is astounding and the marine life it supports is unique and fun to watch. The 25 minute ride back to the beautiful Santa Barbara Harbor should be relaxing and quite possibly filled with more marine surprises.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Solar Dreaming: Power at 7x the Cost

Obama's Solar Dreaming: Power at 7x the Cost. By Ronald Bailey
Reason Hit & Run, May 28, 2009, 10:15am

During a Democratic Party fundraising swing out West, President Barack Obama dropped by Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada for a photo op with a 140 acre array of 72,000 solar photovoltaic panels. The president praised the installation, declaring it

"a shining example of what's possible when we harness the power of clean, renewable energy to build a new firmer foundation for economic growth."

The Nellis solar facility cost $100 million and can produce 15 megawatts of electricity when the sun shines. So how does this compare with conventional sources of power? The Electric Power Research Institute recently released a report which found that a 1,000 megawatt conventional coal-fired plant would cost about $2.8 billion to build.

A rough scaling up the Nellis solar facility to a 1,000 megawatts at $100 million per 15 megwatts would mean that a comparable solar plant would cost $6.6 billion to build. But wait, there's more. Coal-fired plants operate at about 90 percent capacity, so a truly fair comparison would take into account that a solar plant generally operates at 30 percent of its rated capacity. That would mean that a solar photovoltaic plant using the technologies available at Nellis would actually cost nearly $20 billion to build in order to produce the same amount of power that a conventional coal-fired plant would.

Of course, new breakthroughs in renewable energy technologies may make those costs go way down in the future, but using the current Nellis-type technologies (even with production economies of scale) do not seem to be a way "to build a firmer foundation for economic growth."

But doesn't this fulfill President Obama's much touted promise of creating "five million new green jobs that pay well, can't be outsourced, and help end our dependence on foreign oil"? Well, the solar panels at Nellis were manufactured in the Philippines and assembled in China. Don't get me wrong, if American taxpayers and ratepayers are going to be forced to use solar power, by all means, let's buy the panels from the cheapest sources possible. Even if it increases our dependence on foreign solar.

See also President Obama's praise for a similarly costly facility in Denver here. That array of panels reportedly has a pay back time of 110 years.