Prop 37 Loses, Scientists Cheer

It comes as no surprise to anyone who reads my blog regularly, follows my Twitter or Facebook feeds, or has talked with me in person lately that I’m pleased to see that Proposition 37 has failed to pass in California. I firmly believe that passing this legislation—as it was proposed—would have been a mistake.

The rallying cry for supporters of this proposition has been “The Right To Know.” It sounds so simple: why shouldn’t people know if their food is genetically modified? What does Monsanto have to hide? But couching the issue in terms of knowledge assumes one thing: that labeling will be in any way informative. In the case of Prop 37, it simply wouldn’t have been. Michael Eisen put it perfectly:

This language reflects the belief of its backers that GMOs are intrinsically bad and deserve to be labeled – and avoided – en masse, no matter what modification they contain or towards what end they were produced. This is not a quest for knowledge – it is a an attempt to reify ignorance.

The simple fact is that there is no evidence that GMOs, as a blanket group, are dangerous. There’s a simple reason for this: not all GMOs are the same. Every plant created with genetic technology contains a different modification. More to the point, if the goal is to know more about what’s in your food, a generic GMO label won’t tell you. Adding Bt toxin to corn is different than adding Vitamin A to rice or vaccines to potatoes or heart-protective peptides to tomatoes. If Prop 37 was really about informed decisions, it would have sought accurate labeling of different types of GMOs so consumers can choose to avoid those that they disapprove of or are worried about. Instead, anti-GMO activists put forward a sloppily written mandate in a attempt to discredit all genetic engineering as a single entity. The legislation was considered so poorly worded that most Californian newspapers rallied against it, with the LA Times calling Prop 37 “problematic on a number of levels”.

By all means, boycott Monsanto, or any food containing their products. Despite rumors to the contrary, I do not support Monsanto in any way (nor do they, in any way, support me). Like many big companies, I think they have had shady business practices at times and are more concerned with their own bottom line than the good of the people or the environment. I’ve already come out strong against RoundUp Ready crops. But my lack of love for Monsanto doesn’t tarnish the fact that GMOs have the potential to dramatically benefit people across the world by providing balanced nutrition and enhancing production in struggling areas. GMOs aren’t inherently evil, and they have the potential to address many of the very real concerns about our current and future food supply.

There’s also another reason that GMOs aren’t considered dangerous: decades of scientific research support their safety. As Pamela Ronald, a UC-Davis plant geneticist, phrased it last year in Scientific American: “There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops.” Or, as Ingo Potrykus, career plant scientist, put it in a review article for the Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology, “GE-technology has an unprecedented safety record and it is far more precise and predictable than any other “traditional” and unregulated breeding technology.”

And, despite the call to arms against GMOs on environmental grounds, a 20 year study published in Nature found that some GM crops can actually improve biodiversity. Because Bt crops reduce pesticide spraying, scientists saw increases in populations of ladybugs, lacewings and spiders. Even more impressive, these benefits weren’t just seen in Bt fields—these upsides spread to the fields near them. And it’s just one of many studies refuting the ecological argument against GMOs.

Based on the growing body of scientific literature, numerous scientists and scientific organizations have come out in defense of genetic engineering technologies and against labeling initiatives like Proposition 37, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization. The AAAS statement put it succinctly: “Legally mandating such a label can only serve to mislead and falsely alarm consumers.”

The proponents of Prop 37 sought to use rhetoric and language to sway against science. They used the word “right” to smother dissent—after all, how can anyone debate against someone’s “rights”? They tried to capitalize on people’s lack of knowledge of the science of genetic engineering to push their own political agenda. Instead of stimulating discussion and understanding of genetically modified foods, they sought to guilt or scare people into making rash decisions. So yes, I’m happy to see that they have failed. Californians have stood in defense of science, and should be applauded for it.

Taking Einstein’s Advice

Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Yet as scientists, we are taught to fundamentally question this assumption. We replicate and repeat with the express purpose of determining if a result is reproducible or merely the product of random chance. As social and emotional creatures, we do the same thing. We like to believe in second chances. We tell ourselves that stochastic circumstances are to blame when things don’t go the way we imagined, so when presented with the opportunity to try again, we often do. Or, at least, I do. But no matter how logical an argument I can make for do-overs, Einstein was right.

In retrospect, I feel like a fool. As I sit at the edge of my bed fumbling with my guitar, I can’t help but blame myself. Why did I choose time and again to trust a person whose actions have always betrayed it? Blinded by love, I had a slew of reasons, a variety of parameters I could change that I thought might affect the outcome. But now, with 20-20 hindsight, I cannot find any. I should have known better, I chide myself. I failed the scientist in me.

Yet still at the slightest mention of him, I flush with anger, jealousy and regret, and heart pounding, I fantasize about retaliation and justice. Evolutionary psychologists would tell me that the physiological experience of betrayal stems from the fact that humans, at our core, are a social species. Personal bonds were vital to our ancestors, and thus natural selection has reinforced emotional mechanisms that evaluate the connections we form with others. In a dangerous world, our ancestors had to know whom they could trust with their lives. Anyone who threatened the relationships we have with one another didn’t just wound pride or break hearts, they threatened our predacessors very survival. The reaction is strong and visceral: stress hormones spike, leading to twisting pain in our gut and heightened sensitivity. But at the same time, areas of our brain involved in deception detection activate. While we feel the rush of cortisol and adrenaline clouding our thinking, brain regions like the anterior insula process our physical and emotional state to make judgements of trustworthiness to inform future interactions.

My desire for retribution is primal, too. When we feel betrayed, our brains light up in areas associated with agression and testosterone levels rise. Scientists have found that other primates get upset when they feel that have been treated unjustly, and that people, when trust is broken, often will choose to punish the transgressor even if that punishment comes at a high cost to themselves. We want to lash out, to make things equal by returning the wrongs inflicted upon us. But instead of acting on instinct, I start to play. As calming notes pour from my fingertips, I feel the burning pain in my chest subside.

If only my previous judgements had been more permanent. A friend of mine likes to say “monkeys learn,” but clearly, I didn’t the first time. Though the rest of our evolutionary lineage seems to be quick to categorize friends from foes, I could not.

What’s done is done, though, and I am left to collect the pieces of my heart that they shattered so effortlessly. While I might not have learned my lesson as quickly as I should have, I have learned it now. I know that this time is different. There will be no more replicates, no more re-runs with the hope of a different result. There are no variables I can change to get what I want. The data are clear, and it’s time to stop trying to bias them toward the end I prefer. All that is left is to document what happened, so like a good scientist, I write and record my final results.

    (lyrics)

Like this post? Check out Time—And Brain Chemistry—Heal All Wounds and Biochemically, All Is Fair

Don’t forget to donate!!

I know you’re busy trick or treating or pegging houses with eggs, but the Science Bloggers Donors Choose drive is still going! And now, there’s even more incentive to give. If you enter the match code “SCIENCE” when you go to pay, your donation will be matched by DonorsChoose.Org*! That means every dollar you give equals two dollars for those kids. So go check out the Science Sushi page, or any of the SciAm donation pages and get generous!

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Falling in love with the world’s most endangered primates

Sixteen hours of traveling is exhausting. My trip out to North Carolina for Science Writers 2012 was broken into three flights, none of which was long enough for any sustained sleep. There was only one thing that could bring me out of that near-comatose state: lemurs.

I have been to Raleigh thrice before, and each and every time I have tried desperately to go to the Duke Lemur Center. Each and every time, I have failed. Friends and colleagues would regale me with furry tales (we all know what you did, Ed Yong) while I jealously listened, trying and failing to imagine what they experienced. No photo or video was enough—I knew that, like with most good things in life, I simply had to be there. So when I hopped on the tour bus on a cold, wet Friday morning, it didn’t matter that it had been more than 30 hours since I’d slept in a bed. I was ready for lemurs.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Duke Lemur Center is the world’s largest sanctuary for lemurs, rare and endangered primates endemic to the island of Madagascar. It covers a massive 85 acres of Duke Forest in Durham, NC, and is home to around 250 animals, including 15 species of lemurs and some of their prosimian relatives, the lorises and bushbabies. Many of the lemurs are “free range,” as they are given access to acres of forest to call their own. As Education Specialist for the center and my tour guide of the day Chris Smith explained, it is the second most incredible place on Earth, falling just short of the lemur’s native habitat.

Chris’ passion for these quirky relatives of ours is instantly evident. The tall, lanky blonde with just enough of a southern accent to hint at his Tennesseean roots couldn’t help but spend the entire bus ride gushing over the animals he’s been helping the Center take care of for the past three years. “Lemurs are entrancing. They have these big, expressive eyes that pull you in.” But to Chris, what makes lemurs even more bewitching is that they have so many human features, too. “They have this sort of basal mammal quality that makes them absolutely adorable… [but] they have hands, feet, fingerprints, and complex social behaviors just like we do.”

He’s not alone in being captivated by lemurs; all of the staff I met at the center seem to be fueled by their love for the furry little creatures. “Having had several roles at the DLC—work-study, volunteer tech, full-time paid tech, and educator—I honestly have to say that the best thing at the Center is the people,” explained Chris. The small staff of around 30 people pour their hearts and souls into caring for the animals, he says. It’s no wonder the center is known worldwide for its excellence.

The Duke Lemur Center has been caring for lemurs for over half a century. More than 85% of the animals were born on site, as a part of ongoing breeding efforts to support conservation. The center was the first in the world to reintroduce lemurs back into the wild through their breeding program, and has collaborations with scientists and communities in Madagascar to promote lemur conservation half a world away. Lemurs need all the help they can get; as a report just this year revealed, lemurs are the world’s most endangered primates, with over 91% of species listed as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN Red List, including twenty-three listed as critically endangered. Without the efforts of dedicated organizations like the Duke Lemur Center, most lemur species don’t stand a chance.

As soon as we neared the animal enclosures, I could feel my heart beat faster. I’d never seen a lemur in person before. I mean, sure, I’ve seen pictures and Discovery Channel specials, but never had I laid eyes upon a living, breathing lemur. Before we could see them, we could hear them, and they were all around us. The forests were filled with alarm calls, responding to the sight of large vultures in the sky. Though these birds pose no real threat to the animals, the lemurs weren’t taking any chances, and their eerie, echoing calls set the stage for the sights to come.

Once inside, I found myself face to face with more lemurs than I could count. There were Coquerel sifakas, blue-eyed black lemurs, red ruffed lemurs, ring tailed lemurs, black and white ruffed lemurs, mongoose lemurs, bamboo lemurs – the list goes on and on! I was introduced to many lemurs, and yet they were only a small portion of the animals on site, as many were free ranging in the forests around us. As we walked though, Chris explained little details about their unique biology, like how blue-eyed black lemurs are one of a very small number of primates (including us) to possess blue eyes, or how Coquerel sifakas can jump 30 feet in a single leap, though they seem to prefer a strange sidewards shuffle when moving around on the ground.

As a highlight of our tour, we not only got to see the lemurs—we got to take a glimpse at the kind of research they are involved with. The Duke Lemur Center is proud to be the best place in the world other than Madagascar to study lemurs. In truth, they may be the best place period, for even in Madagascar, it would be impossible to do the kind of up close behavioral research that scientists do at the Center. Scientists can come to the Center to study all aspects of lemur biology. Undergraduate students from Duke University showed us how they test the cognitive abilities of lemurs by seeing if they realize to take advantage of food placed behind a researcher’s back, while some grad students showed us how they test lemurs’ amazing sense of smell using sticks.

As much as lemurs need us, we need them, too. Lemurs represent one of the earliest lineages of primates, splitting from our ancestors some 60 million years ago. They are a unique glimpse at our own evolutionary history, and provide insights into how we developed into the super-smart primates we are today. Not only are they our relatives, they represent one of the most impressive adaptive radiations on Earth. Some twenty million years ago, a handful of lemur ancestors arrived on the shored of Madagascar by hitching a ride on floating debris. They then diversified to fill just about every niche the island had to offer. From the finger-sized mouse lemurs to the dog-sized Aye-Aye, lemurs dominated the forests of Madagascar for millions of years, until their bigger-brained relatives arrived on more well-constructed rafts and began clear cutting the only home the lemurs had ever known.

As cool as the science was, my favorite part of the tour by far was when Chris took us outside into one of the free-ranging enclosures. As I crossed the little bridge to the outer area, I stopped dead when out of nowhere came a ring-tailed lemur. He hopped up on the railing only inches from me. Suddenly, lured by the sound of a keeper shaking a food box, we were surrounded by lemurs. As incredible as any part of the tour had been up to that point, nothing prepared me to be in the midst of so many lemurs, scampering and jumping around as if I wasn’t even there. I was frozen, overwhelmed by a mix of fear, fascination and joy. When I saw the smug look on Chris’ face, I knew he gets this reaction from people all the time. “I get to share these incredibly amazing and endangered animals with people,” he explained later. “When people leave the Center totally stoked about lemurs, that makes my day. I was on cloud nine after the tours Friday because the positive response we received from everyone was so huge.” I would say ‘huge’ is a gross understatement.

As we boarded the bus to go home, black and white ruffed lemurs swung from the branches to send us off. I watched for a moment as they effortlessly lept from tree to tree, still amazed, even after everything I had experienced, that I was just standing by a road staring at lemurs. The Duke Lemur Center is a magical place, where even a seasoned biologist like me can be star struck by such rare and beautiful animals. Chris was right. Lemurs are entrancing—so foreign and mysterious, yet so undeniably familiar. If you’re ever in the Raleigh/Durham area, I strongly suggest you make the time stop by the Duke Lemur Center and see for yourself. You can bet that I will be back again whenever I can.

For more information on the lemurs, head over to the Duke Lemur Center website, or keep tabs on them on Twitter and Facebook. Like what you see? Donate to help the lemurs!

All photos of lemurs taken by me using my iPhone, with the exception of the photo of Chris Smith painting with a lemur, which was provided by Chris himself (he also provided the LOL caption for the blue-eyed black lemur photo)

On Measuring Social Media Impact

In case you’ve been wondering about the blog silence, it’s been a busy month. I turned in my over 20 page dissertation proposal, had my first PhD committee meeting, and just this weekend was off and away in North Carolina for Science Writers 2012. There, I helped Karyn Traphagen and Matt Shipman talk about quantifying social media impact. Expect to hear more on the incredible weekend shortly, but in the meantime, head over to NASW to read my recap of the session!

Donors Choose 2012 – help support the nation’s future!

It’s that time of the year again: time to give what you can to help students get the education they deserve.

Every year, science bloggers from around the interwebs team up with DonorsChoose.org to help teachers. Science blogging networks battle to raise the most money to buy supplies for needy classrooms across the country.

The challenge runs from now until November 5th. I sincerely hope you’ll follow this link here and join the crusade. I chose to focus my fundraising on projects here in Hawaii because the education system here is dismal – the teachers here need all the help they can get to rise above some of the worst public education infrastructure I’ve ever seen. You should also check out all the other SciAm bloggers and their projects – let’s show the other networks that our readers are the most giving!

Please consider making a donation, even if it’s small. And if you can’t afford to donate, you can still help out by spreading the word on Facebook, Twitter and beyond!

Donate through my Science Sushi giving page, or any of the other science blogs!

Do male limpets have cooties?

Working on Coconut Island has many upsides, but one of my favorite is getting to see science in action. I’ve been in the lab for the past few years, watching as Dr. Chris Bird’s research on the Hawaiian limpets (known locally as opihi) has unfolded. The tale they tell is already an intriguing one, as they seem to be one of the only organisms with solid evidence to suggest sympatric speciation (the splitting of species without any physical barriers). They’re also one of the only marine species to have radiated here in Hawaii. But on the most recent expedition, something else strange about these little mollusks was confirmed: they tend to separate based on sex.

The scientists found that female opihi live higher up on the shore than male opihi. Why? Well, we don’t know yet, but Chris is determined to find out. He thinks it likely has to do with spawning, and may prove valuable information for managers of the opihi fishery. The recent discovery was even featured on the local news – alongside some fantastic visuals of the perils these scientists undergo to conduct their research:

Hawaii News Now – KGMB and KHNL

Learn more about the ongoing opihi research though the Bird lab’s facebook page!

Are lower pesticide residues a good reason to buy organic? Probably not.

A lot of organic supporters are up in arms about the recent Stanford study that found no nutritional benefit to organic foods. Stanford missed the point, they say—it’s not about what organic foods have in them, it’s what they don’t. After all, avoidance of pesticide residues is the #1 reason why people buy organic foods.

Yes, conventional foods have more synthetic pesticide residues than organic ones, on average. And yes, pesticides are dangerous chemicals. But does the science support paying significantly more for organic foods just to avoid synthetic pesticides? No.

A Pesticide Is A Pesticide

 

I’m not saying that pesticides, herbicides, and insect repellants aren’t toxic. I certainly wouldn’t recommend drinking cocktails laced with insect-repelling chemicals, for without a doubt, they can be bad for you. Pesticide exposure has been linked to all kinds of diseases and conditions, from neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s to cancer. What we do know, though, is that natural isn’t synonymous with harmless. As a 2003 review of food safety concluded, “what should be made clear to consumers is that ‘organic’ does not equal ‘safe’.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there is nothing safe about the chemicals used in organic agriculture. Period. This shouldn’t be that shocking – after all, a pesticide is a pesticide. “Virtually all chemicals can be shown to be dangerous at high doses,” explain scientists, “and this includes the thousands of natural chemicals that are consumed every day in food but most particularly in fruit and vegetables.”

There’s a reason we have an abundance of natural pesticides: plants and animals produce tens of thousands of chemicals to try and deter insects and herbivores from eating them. Most of these haven’t been tested for their toxic potential, as the Reduced Risk Program of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) applies to synthetic pesticides only. As more research is done into their toxicity, however, we find they are just as bad as synthetic pesticides, sometimes worse. Many natural pesticides have been found to be potential – or serious – health risks, including those used commonly in organic farming.

In head-to-head comparisons, natural pesticides don’t fare any better than synthetic ones. When I compared the organic chemicals copper sulfate and pyrethrum to the top synthetics, chlorpyrifos and chlorothalonil, I found that not only were the organic ones more acutely toxic, studies have found that they are more chronically toxic as well, and have higher negative impacts on non-target species. My results match with other scientific comparisons. In their recommendations to Parliament in 1999, the Committee on European Communities noted that copper sulfate, in particular, was far more dangerous than the synthetic alternative. A review of their findings can be seen in the table on the right (from a recent review paper). Similarly, head to head comparisons have found that organic pesticides aren’t better for the environment, either.

Organic pesticides pose the same health risks as non-organic ones. No matter what anyone tells you, organic pesticides don’t just disappear. Rotenone is notorious for its lack of degradation, and copper sticks around for a long, long time. Studies have shown that copper sulfate, pyrethrins, and rotenone all can be detected on plants after harvest—for copper sulfate and rotenone, those levels exceeded safe limits. One study found such significant rotenone residues in olives and olive oil to warrant “serious doubts…about the safety and healthiness of oils extracted from drupes treated with rotenone.” Just like with certain synthetic pesticides, organic pesticide exposure has health implications—a study in Texas found that rotenone exposure correlated to a significantly higher risk of Parkinson’s disease. The increased risk due to Rotenone was five times higher than the risk posed by the synthetic alternative, chlorpyrifos. Similarly, the FDA has known for a while that chronic exposure to copper sulfate can lead to anemia and liver disease.

So why do we keep hearing that organic foods have fewer pesticide residues? Well, because they have lower levels of synthetic pesticide residues. Most of our data on pesticide residues in food comes from surveys like the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program (PDP). But the while the PDP has been looking at the residues of over 300 pesticides in foods for decades, rotenone and copper sulfate aren’t among the usual pesticides tested for—maybe, because for several organic pesticides, fast, reliable methods for detecting them were only developed recently. And, since there isn’t any public data on the use of organic pesticides in organic farming (like there is for conventional farms), we’re left guessing what levels of organic pesticides are on and in organic foods.

So, if you’re going to worry about pesticides, worry about all of them, organic and synthetic. But, really, should you worry at all?

You Are What You Eat? Maybe Not.

 

We know, quite assuredly, that conventionally produced foods do contain higher levels of synthetic chemicals. But do these residues matter?

While study after study can find pesticide residues on foods, they are almost always well below safety standards. Almost all pesticides detected on foods by the USDA and independent scientific studies are at levels below 1% of the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) set by government regulators. This level isn’t random – the ADI is based on animal exposure studies in a wide variety of species. First, scientists give animals different amounts of pesticides on a daily basis throughout their lifetimes and monitor those animals for toxic effects. Through this, they determine the highest dose at which no effects can be found. The ADI is then typically set 100 times lower than that level. So a typical human exposure that is 1% of the ADI is equivalent to an exposure 10,000 times lower than levels that are safe in animal models.

Systematic reviews of dietary pesticide exposure all come to the same conclusion: that typical dietary exposure to pesticide residues in foods poses minimal risks to humans. As the book Health Benefits of Organic Food explains, “while there is some evidence that consuming organic produce will lead to lower exposure of pesticides compared to the consumption of conventional produce, there is no evidence of effect at contemporary concentrations.” Or, as a recent review states, “from a practical standpoint, the marginal benefits of reducing human exposure to pesticides in the diet through increased consumption of organic produce appear to be insignificant.”

Reviews of the negative health effects of pesticides find that dangerous exposure levels don’t come from food. Instead, non-dietary routes make for the vast majority of toxin exposures, in particular the use of pesticides around the home and workplace. A review of the worldwide disease burden caused by chemicals found that 70% can be attributed to air pollution, with acute poisonings and occupational exposures coming in second and third. Similarly, studies have found that indoor air concentrations of pesticides, not the amount on foodstuffs, correlate strongly to the amount of residues found in pregnant women (and even still, there was no strong correlation between exposure and health effects). Similarly, other studies have found that exposures to toxic pyrethroids come primarily from the environment. Children on organic diets routeinely had pyrethroids in their systems, and the organic group actually had higher levels of several pyrethroid metabolites than the conventional one. In other words, you have more to fear from your home than from your food.

Your home probably contains more pesticides than you ever imagined. Plastics and paints often contain fungicides to prevent mold—fungi that, by the way, can kill you. Your walls, carpets and floors also contain pesticides. Cleaning products and disenfectants contains pesticides and fungicides so they can do their job. Ever used an exterminator to get rid of mice, termites, fleas or cockroaches? That stuff can linger for months. Step outside your house, and just about everything you touch has come in contact with a pesticide. Insecticides are used in processing, manufacturing, and packaging, not to mention that even grocery stores use pesticides to keep insects and rodents at bay. These chemicals are all around you, every day, fighting off the pests that destroy our buildings and our food. It’s not surprising that most pesticide exposures doesn’t come from your food.

That said, there are some studies that have found a link between diet and exposure to specific pesticides, particularly synthetic organophosphorus pesticides. Lu et al. found that switching children from a conventional food diet to an entirely organic one dropped the urinary levels of specific metabolites for malathion and chlorpyrifos to nondetectable levels in a matter of days. But, it’s important to note that even the levels they detected during the conventional diet are three orders of magnitude lower than the levels needed in animal experiments to cause neurodevelopmental or other adverse health effects.

While it might seem that decreasing exposure to pesticides in any way could only be good for you, toxicologists would differ. Contrary to what you might think, lower exposure isn’t necessarily better. It’s what’s known as hormesis, or a hormetic dose response curve. There is evidence that exposure to most chemicals at doses significantly below danger thresholds, even pesticides, is beneficial when compared to no exposure at all. Why? Perhaps because it kick starts our immune system. Or, perhaps, because pesticides activate beneficial biological pathways. For most chemicals, we simply don’t know. What we do know is that data collected from 5000 dose response measurements (abstracted from over 20,000 studies) found that low doses of many supposedly toxic chemicals, metals, pesticides and fungicides either reduced cancer rates below controls or increased longevity or growth in a variety of animals. So while high acute and chronic exposures are bad, the levels we see in food that are well below danger thresholds may even be good for us. This isn’t as surprising as you might think—just look at most pharmaceuticals. People take low doses of aspirin daily to improve their heart health, but at high chronic doses, it can cause anything from vomiting to seizures and even death. Similarly, a glass of red wine every day might be good for you. But ten glasses a day? Definitely not.

No Need To Fear

 

To date, there is no scientific evidence that eating an organic diet leads to better health.

What of all those studies I just mentioned linking pesticides to disorders? Well, exactly none of them looked at pesticides from dietary intake and health in people. Instead, they involve people with high occupational exposure (like farmers who spray pesticides) or household exposure (from gardening, etc). Judging the safety of dietary pesticide intake by high exposures is like judging the health impacts of red wine based on alcoholics. A systematic review of the literature found only three studies to date have looked at clinical outcomes of eating organic – and none found any difference between an organic and conventional diet. My question is: if organic foods are so much healthier, why aren’t there any studies that show people on an organic diet are healthier than people eating conventionally grown produce instead?

More to the point, if conventional pesticide residues on food (and not other, high exposure routes) are leading to rampant disease, we should be able to find evidence of the connection in longitudinal epidemiological studies—but we don’t. The epidemiological evidence for the danger of pesticide residues simply isn’t there.

If dietary exposure to pesticides was a significant factor in cancer rates, we would expect to see that people who eat more conventionally grown fruits and vegetable have higher rates of cancer. But instead, we see the opposite. People who eat more fruits and vegetables have significantly lower incidences of cancers, and those who eat the most are two times less likely to develop cancer than those who eat the least. While high doses of pesticides over time have been linked to cancer in lab animals and in vitro studies, “epidemiological studies do not support the idea that synthetic pesticide residues are important for human cancer.” Even the exposure to the persistent and villainized pesticide DDT has not been consistently linked to cancer. As a recent review of the literature summarized, “no hard evidence currently exists that toxic hazards such as pesticides have had a major impact on total cancer incidence and mortality, and this is especially true for diet-related exposures.”

The closest we have to studying the effects of diet on health are studies looking at farmers. However, farmers in general have high occupational pesticide exposures, and thus it’s impossible to tease out occupational versus dietary exposure. Even still, in this high-risk group, studies simply don’t find health differences between organic and conventional farmers. A UK study found that conventional farmers were just as healthy as organic ones, though the organic ones were happier. Similarly, while test-tube studies of high levels of pesticides are known to cause reproductive disorders, a comparison of sperm quality from organic and conventional farmers was unable to connect dietary intake of over 40 different pesticides to any kind of reproductive impairment. Instead, the two groups showed no statistical difference in their sperm quality.

In a review of the evidence for choosing organic food, Christine Williams said it simply: “There are virtually no studies of any size that have evaluated the effects of organic v. conventionally-grown foods.” Thus, she explains, “conclusions cannot be drawn regarding potentially beneficial or adverse nutritional consequences, to the consumer, of increased consumption of organic food.”

“There is currently no evidence to support or refute claims that organic food is safer and thus, healthier, than conventional food, or vice versa. Assertions of such kind are inappropriate and not justifed,” explain scientists. Neither organic nor conventional food is dangerous to eat, they say, and the constant attention to safety is unwarranted. Worse, it does more harm than good. The scientists chastise the media and industry alike for scaremongering tactics, saying that “the selective and partial presentation of evidence serves no useful purpose and does not promote public health. Rather, it raises fears about unsafe food.”

Furthermore, the focus on pesticides is misleading, as pesticide residues are the lowest food hazard when it comes to human health (as the figure from the paper on the right shows). They conclude that as far as the scientific evidence is concerned, “it seems that other factors, if any, rather than safety aspects speak in favor of organic food.”

If you don’t want to listen to those people or me, listen to the toxicologists, who study this stuff for a living. When probed about the risk that different toxins pose, over 85% rejected the notion that organic or “natural” products are safer than others. They felt that smoking, sun exposure and mercury were of much higher concern than pesticides. Over 90% agreed that the media does a terrible job of reporting the about toxic substances, mostly by overstating the risks. They slammed down hard on non-governmental organizations, too, for overstating risk.

What’s in a Name?

There’s good reason we can’t detect differences between organic and conventional diets: the labels don’t mean that much. Sure, organic farms have to follow a certain set of USDA guidelines, but farm to farm variability is huge for both conventional and organic practices. As a review of organic practices concluded: “variation within organic and conventional farming systems is likely as large as differences between the two systems.”

The false dichotomy between conventional and organic isn’t just misleading, it’s dangerous. Our constant attention to natural versus synthetic only causes fear and distrust, when in actuality, our food has never been safer. Eating less fruits and vegetables due to fear of pesticides or the high price of organics does far more harm to our health than any of the pesticide residues on our food.

Let me be clear about one thing: I’m all for reducing pesticide use. But we can’t forget that pesticides are used for a reason, too. We have been reaping the rewards of pesticide use for decades. Higher yields due to less crop destruction. Safer food because of reduced fungal and bacterial contamination. Lower prices as a result of increased supply and longer shelf life. Protection from pests that carry deadly diseases. Invasive species control, saving billions of dollars in damages—and the list goes on. Yes, we need to manage the way we use pesticides, scrutinize the chemicals involved and monitor their effects to ensure safety, and Big Ag (conventional and organic) needs to be kept in check. But without a doubt, our lives have been vastly improved by the chemicals we so quickly villainize.

If we want to achieve the balance between sustainability, production outputs, and health benefits, we have to stop focusing on brand names. Instead of emphasizing labels, we need to look at different farming practices and the chemicals involved and judge them independently of whether they fall under organic standards.

In the meantime, buy fresh, locally farmed produce, whether it’s organic or not; if you can talk to the farmers, you’ll know exactly what is and isn’t on your food. Wash it well, and you’ll get rid of most of whatever pesticides are on there, organic or synthetic. And eat lots and lots of fruits and vegetables—if there is anything that will improve your health, it’s that.

Before you say otherwise and get mad at me for mentioning it, rotenone is currently a USDA approved organic pesticide. It was temporarily banned, but reapproved in 2010. Before it was banned, it was the most commonly used organic pesticide, and now—well, without public data on pesticide use on organic farms, we have no idea how much it is being used today.

Food picture from FreeFoto.Com

Open Lab Is Here!

I’m so excited – finally, the newest collection of the best science blogging has arrived! In it are 50 of the best blogs about science that were written last year. My copy just arrived today, and I can’t wait to dig in. Although the list of selected posts has been up for a while, I’ve decided to wait to read them until I could do so with the added joy of page-turning. So, anyhow, I’m going to go lock myself in my room and read. I suggest you hop over to Amazon and get your own, so you can do the same!

Scientists play a large role in bad medical reporting

If you read the headlines, medical scientists are amazing. It seems every day, they discover a new cure for cancer or the genetic basis of some prominent disease. With all the cures, keys, breakthroughs and discoveries, it’s a wonder anyone still gets sick.

Of course, readers soon learn the truth: a lot of science reporting is sensationalized nonsense. Hyping science a vicious cycle. Scientists work hard, get results, and publish. Press officers try to publicize these results, then journalists build off the press releases, and before you know it, your grandmother is wearing a tin foil hat. This is predictably followed by angry scientists and science writers with their rolled up newspapers swatting the noses of the “churnalists” for their bad reporting. People like Ed Yong and I feel forced to don our latex gloves and clean up the crap left on the carpet, all the while sternly saying “Bad, journalist. BAD!”.

But are journalists, as a whole, really that bad at their jobs? No, actually, says a new paper published today in PLoS Medicine. It’s not all the writers’ fault: when they examined the language used in press releases and the studies themselves, instead, it was the scientists and their press offices that were largely to blame.

A team of French scientists led by Isabelle Boutron from the Université Paris Descartes sought to get to the bottom of why medical news is so over-spun. They examined the language in clinical trials along with their associated press releases and news reports for spin—defined as specific reporting strategies emphasizing the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment—to see exactly where the hype comes from.

As expected, they found that the media’s portrayal of results was often sensationalistic. More than half of the news items they examined contained spin. But, while the researchers found a lot of over-reporting, they concluded that most of it was “probably related to the presence of ‘‘spin’’ in conclusions of the scientific article’s abstract.”

It turned out that 47% of the press releases contained spin. Even more importantly, of the studies they examined, 40% of the study abstracts or conclusions did, too. When the study itself didn’t contain spin to begin with, only 17% of the news items were sensationalistic, and of those, 3/4 got their hype from the press release.

In the journal articles themselves, they found that authors spun their own results a variety of ways. Most didn’t acknowledge that their results were not significant or chose to focus on smaller, significant findings instead of overall non-significant ones in their abstracts and conclusions, though some contained outright inappropriate interpretations of their data.

The press releases often built off of the spin in the studies. Of the press releases that contained spin, 93% were from studies that had spin in their abstracts. In fact, spin present in the study was the only significant factor associated with spin in the press release. A whopping 31% of press releases misinterpreted the scientists’ findings, with the vast majority conflating the benefits of the study’s tested treatment.

It’s not news that press releases are skewed. Previous research found that most press releases left out important caveats on safety or applicability of the research, and many flat out exaggerated the importance of results. “Our study adds to these results showing that ‘‘spin’’ in press releases and the news is related to the presence of ‘‘spin’’ in the published article,” say the authors. In other words – the root of the problem lies in how we write up research results in the first place.

The authors were sure to note that while their results are striking, their study has limitations. They ended up with only 41 trials paired with press releases and news articles—a small sample size with which to examine the whole of medical news reporting. They also focused solely on randomized controlled trials, a small subset of all medical research. Still, they feel that their results require further investigation, and that the burden of ensuring scientific rigor in reporting falls on the peer review system. “Reviewers and editors of published articles have an important role to play in the dissemination of research findings and should be particularly aware of the need to ensure that the conclusions reported are an appropriate reflection of the trial findings and do not overinterpret or misinterpret the results.”

All of this is not to say journalists are entirely innocent. Good journalism requires that you look beyond the press release to get at the heart of the study, and great science journalists know to take anything that comes out of a press office with a grain of salt. They read the study itself, and talk to not only the scientists who wrote the study but also other scientists in the field to really understand the importance of the research involved. Churnalism is definitely a problem that needs to be addressed alongside concerns of scientist bias and hyped press releases. Researchers, press officers and journalists all need to take responsibility for accurate and informative science communication.

Citation: Yavchitz A, Boutron I, Bafeta A, Marroun I, Charles P, et al. (2012) Misrepresentation of Randomized Controlled Trials in Press Releases and News Coverage: A Cohort Study. PLoS Med 9(9): e1001308. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001308.t004