Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

"Scientists are learning that eating organic might be tied to a lower cancer risk, but there are some big caveats." I'll say. As in: that headline could, with equal plausibility, say: "Scientists discover that eating organic causes cancer." businessinsider.fr/us/could-eatin…

Because usually, there's a *much* bigger difference--like 35-45 percent--between group A (wealthier, more educated, doesn't smoke, exercises more, drinks less, eats more fruit and vegetables and eats less red and processed meat ) and group B (the opposite.)

Standard caveats, correlation≠causation and all that, but if Group A's *massively* lower risk of developing cancer was reduced to a mere 0.6 percent, then ceteris paribus, it must be the organic food that's doing them in. This stuff must be like asbestos.

Fortunately, the study offers no meaningful definition of "organic," except "less likely to contain pesticide residues," so probably that means they don't understand the EU regulations on the "organic" label--and they certainly don't understand farming. So no need to be alarmed.

What they probably think they mean is "synthetic pesticide residues," but who knows. (You can still be certified "organic" if you use those, btw.) Also, the study design is ridiculous--a self-selected sample group self-reporting on the Internet--

--resulting in a sample that was 78.0% female: And oh, wow: Dietary intake was assessed "using three 24-hour records, randomly allocated over a 2-week period." All self-reported. As were all subsequent cancer diagnoses. "Strictly quantitative consumption data were not available."

So--they used non-quantitative data?

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr. Lairon (one of the four people responsible for the study's "concept and design" works (without honoraria or personal funding) for two nonprofits devoted to promoting organic food. Not a huge conflict--

nor is she or he the lead researcher, but this is exactly why double-blind research is the gold standard: You want a sample that *does not know* which food is organic, and researchers who *do not know* which group ate the organic food. (And a definition of "organic.")

You also want someone who is *not* the subject to keep track of what they're eating--people are terrible at self-reporting--and not just for three days. You need to find out what happened to all of them, not just those who reported they had cancer.

Among things that would not be high on the priority list of someone newly-diagnosed with cancer would be "calling the people who asked me to take a survey 4.56 years ago." And you'd want a study time longer than 4.56 years.

In fairness, that's asking the impossible.

This methodological problems with studies like this are pretty much insurmountable: You can't separate a control from a sample group at birth, keep every other variable the same, and never let either group (or the researchers) know which one is which. Even if you could,

You'd be creating a world so unlike ours it would have no relevance. In the footnotes, they link to a paper examining the difference between their e-cohort and a representative sample of French people who had their food intake measured by someone else: academic.oup.com/aje/article/18…

They're significant. The researchers say they "adjusted for confounders," but they don't tell us how they did that. I'd sure like to know, given that they report correlations between organic eating and *specific* cancers: postmenopausal breast cancer and all lymphomas, to wit.

Their cohort is comprised of largely of peri-menopausal women. So how have they properly un-confounded the relationship between eating organic food and being averse to treatment for menopausal symptoms such as hormone replacement? Or, perhaps, more likely to use a wide array--

of herbal supplements and quack potions sold in France to alleviate said symptoms--all of which are presumed safe, but none of which, I assume, have been as rigorously tested for carcinogenicity as plant fertilizers.

Shiitake mushrooms, e.g., might be contaminated by aflatoxins (highly carcinogenic). A middle-aged woman walks into an organic grocery in France, fanning herself frantically and complaining of "bouffées de chaleur" will have those useless mushrooms thrust into her sweating hands.

"They're totally natural," she'll be assured. (Ask me how I know.)
Same group of women may be more likely to eat soy or other phytoestrogens to alleviate these symptoms because they're "natural."

I'm not really faulting the researchers. Epidemiological research of this kind--

--is so difficult it's almost impossible. It's maybe worth doing *one* study like this to see if anything just leaps right out. But nothing did. Now they're saying, "We need to study this more." Meaning: "We need more money to establish what we already know."

We know we have no a priori reason to think "organic" fertilizers (and yes, your organic food *is* fertilized and the pests who would otherwise eat it *are* killed)) are safer than synthetic ones. The overwhelmingly large source of pesticides--

--like, 99.99 percent--are made by the plants themselves. Plants try not to be eaten. Many of them are carcinogens. If you give them to rodents in large doses, the rats are goners. "Organic," by which I presume people mean "naturally-occurring" carcinogens are often vastly more--

--carcinogenic in small amounts than the synthetic compounds we use as fertilizers and pesticides. We've subjected the synthetics to a lot of testing. Legions of rats have died to prove that you need not fear the fertilizer, used in correct dosages. Not where cancer is concerned.

(The Bugpocalype is another story: We don't know, but it's plausible to think the pesticides are doing what pesticides do and killing bugs. Maybe in numbers sufficient to seriously screw up the food chain. But that's a separate argument.)

We've only recently begun to study "organic" fertilizers, and they're real rat-killers. But we're a lot less sure about the safe dosage. We *do* know with the synthetics. There's a good argument for steering clear of organics until we know as much about them as we do synthetics.

Nature is full of carcinogens and toxins. If you think it's good for you because it comes from Mother Earth, bad news: Mother Earth hates you. She thinks you're a predator. She's spent the last billion years dreaming up ingenious ways to kill you.

This paper's even sillier if you know that EU-approved organic fertilizers include Pyrethrins and copper.

(Notice something weird about that, by the way? Class? Anyone?)

To be continued ...

Continued: Copper? An *organic* fertilizer? No Cu has not a single carbon atom. It is, however, essential to anyone who likes breathing. You can't make cytochrome c oxidase without it, and that's a key respiratory enzyme complex.

So: If you're using the word "inorganic" to mean, "not carbon based," and arguing that eating anything that's not carbon based is bad for you, abandon this theory before you kill yourself. But you're probably not. By "organic," you probably mean "natural," so copper's okay.

Except guess what, folks? Too much of it and you've got a nasty carcinogen on your hands. And EU organic produce is awash in it.

I object to this research because it's always followed by the words, "more research is needed." Meaning: Keep that funding spigot on!

There is so much truly urgent cancer research that could be funded with the money they got to do this. The funding came from the French Ministry of Health, the French Institute for Health Surveillance, the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education,

the National Institute for Agricultural Research, the National Institute for Health and Medical Research, the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (?), Paris 13 University, and the French National Research Agency.

I have friends who are dying of cancer. How about pulling the plug on bullshit research like this and putting it into, say, this?

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

As fast as possible? Because for some of us, time's running out.