“According to recent data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, people who eat organic and natural foods are eight times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria,” said the article by Dennis Avery in the Fall 1998 issue of American Outlook, a publication of Hudson Institute. The Wall Street Journal, along with many newspapers around the country, picked it up and published the following sentences:
“Consumers of organic foods are also more likely to be attacked by a relatively new, more virulent strain of the infamous salmonella bacteria. Organic food is more dangerous than conventionally grown produce because organic farmers use manure as the major source of fertilizer for their food crops. Animal manure is the biggest reservoir of these nasty bacteria that are afflicting and killing so many people.”
Scary stuff, huh? But it’s completely bogus. Dr. Mitchell Cohen of the CDC subsequently made a public statement that “the CDC has not conducted any study that compares or quantifies the specific risk for infection with E. coli through eating either conventionally grown or organic and natural foods.” Sharon Hoskins of CDC added that the CDC did not have any such research currently in the works, nor was it planning to conduct any in the future because such research was “not warranted.” She said that “We have tried to contact the magazine and have never been able to speak with anyone at American Outlook, including the editor. There has been no response.”
Robert Tauxe, MD, chief of the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch of the CDC, said that there is no such data on organic food production at their centers. He issued a statement saying he had called Avery and asked him to stop attributing such data to CDC and that Avery responded by telling him, “That’s your interpretation, and I have mine.” Avery then attributed the information to Dr. Paul Mead who works in Dr. Tauxe’s branch. Absolute bunk, says Mead.
When investigators looked into funding for Hudson Institute, who showed up as the big backers? Monsanto, DuPont, DowElanco, Sandoz, Ciba-Geigy, ConAgra, Cargill, Proctor & Gamble, and on and on. What’s scary is not foodborne illness from organic food—organic rules mandate composting and fallowing that destroy harmful bacteria—but that Avery’s misinformation is picked up by newspaper editors and run under headlines like these: “Organic Just Means Dirtier, More Expensive,” “Organic Food—Eight Times
More Likely to Kill You,” and “Organic Food Link to E. coli Deaths.”
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