Posted: Wednesday, March 1, 2000
LETTER
Publication Date: March 1, 2000
"Absolutely Ridiculous Arguments"?
I would like to respond to [Dr.] Jarvis's article " Why I Am Not a Vegetarian" [Priorities, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1997, pp. 32-42], because—and don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely for freedom of speech (and expression), but I'm also for freedom of response—I feel his extreme examples and generalizations are misleading readers and are not "helping" educating humanity, because I feel you have some responsibility in that too, especially educating U.S. citizens, 'cause they have some catching up to do. The author is prejudiced because of his beliefs; in Europe we would call him a religious fanatic, but I guess that is why most pioneers went to the States in the first place.
Jarvis is trying to convince readers with absolutely ridiculous arguments. I only found two missing, but they would fit in quite nicely. You should be a vegetarian:
- Eating meat will slowly change you into a filthy animal yourself! You are what you eat! I heard some old woman say this once—guess Dr. Alzheimer just came by.
- What if aliens come and do to us what we do to cows, pigs, etc.
OK, these are somewhat lame, but Mr. Jarvis's are not really better; he just hasn't understood what it is about. Excuse me for exaggerating, but this comes close to asking a Nazi about his ideas on the Resistance back in WW2. In his frame of mind, they are the ones that are wrong, but he is just not the one who can judge this objectively.
I think you know what my opinion is on the subject of vegetarianism, so my vision may also be troubled by some ideas of my own, but if he gets the chance to spread them, so should I.
I hope Mr. Jarvis will contact me, so we can share some thoughts.
Michiel Beijer
Michiel.Beijer@student.kuleuven.ac.be
Brusselsestraat 118
3000 Leuven, Belgium
Winter for Hitler
This refers to the excellent article " Nazis Versus Cancer: The Flip Side of Fascism?" [PfH, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1999, p. 12], by Dr. Thomas R. DeGregori. Dr. DeGregori and you are to be commended for debunking the significant number of flaws in Prof. Robert N. Proctor's latest book, The Nazi War on Cancer (Princeton University Press, 1999). Overall, I much appreciate Dr. DeGregori's article and commentary.
There is one sentence that must be seriously questioned, however: "Still, Proctor's crediting the Nazi regime with inaugurating the field of tobacco-cancer research and the scientists under this regime with producing evidence of a fact then not widely recognized outside Germany—i.e., that tobacco use is carcinogenic—is correct."
Sadly, Prof. Proctor is wrong even there! Dr. DeGregori is too kind! I am doing a survey of commentaries on the tobacco link to cancer long predating the Nazi era. For example, here are a couple of citations: Frederick Hoffman, Third and Fourth Quarterly Report of the San Francisco Cancer Survey (Prudential Press, 1925) and the 1928 summary thereof by Drs. Herbert L. Lombard and Carl B. Doering, in "Cancer Studies: Habits, Characteristics and Environment of Individuals with and without Cancer," New England Journal of Medicine 198 (10): 481-487 (April 26, 1928).
The tobacco-cancer link was already sufficiently known in America to be the subject of commentary by a lay author in 1885, under the pseudonym of Meta Lander. She wrote The Tobacco Problem, 6th ed. (Boston: Lee and Shepard Pub., 1885), discussing tobacco and cancer.
More information is available on 19th century awareness of tobacco hazards, now seemingly forgotten as per the myth, promoted (as a bottom line) by Prof. Proctor and others, that evidently our ancestors of a mere century ago were really quite ignorant people and had no idea that tobacco was hazardous! This disrespectful view of our ancestors' knowledge is debunked even by lay writings, and by case law of the era, exposing aspects of the tobacco hazard pursuant to known medical data (see, for example, http://medicolegal.tripod.com/cancerstats1925.htm and http://medicolegal.tripod.com/dangeroustobacco.htm). Indeed, even clergymen of the 19th century had a role in opposing tobacco use, due to concerns now, sadly, mostly forgotten (see http://medicolegal.tripod.com/bibvcigs.htm).
In addition, contrary to further mythology nowadays being promoted by some, Hitler was a smoker for 22 years, was expelled from school when he was eight years old for smoking, and had typical smoker symptoms (see http://medicolegal.tripod.com/hitlersmoker.htm). Hitler described himself in ex-smoker terms.
Again, thank you for the excellent material! Others may well have a different view on this, but, to me, you and Dr. DeGregori are too kind! You can hit harder next time!
Leroy J. Pletten, Ph.D.
The Crime Prevention Group
Sterling Heights, Mich.
Dr. DeGregori responds:
I am grateful to Dr. Pletten for his generous commendation to me and to this magazine for the critical review of Robert Proctor's latest book. It is Dr. Pletten who is too kind towards this reviewer, in demonstrating that the Nazis were not the pioneers on issues of tobacco and cancer that many of us were led to believe even before publication of the Proctor book.
Though I do not believe, as Dr. Pletten suggests, that our 19th century ancestors were "ignorant," I must confess my ignorance of the literature he cites and indicate my expectation of pleasure and information in his further writing on the subject. My only excuse, other than that I am an economist and not a medical historian, is that my particular ignorance has been widely shared by many, even without the Proctor book, which of course makes Dr. Pletten's work that much more important.
I hope Dr. Pletten will be sharing the results of his research with ACSH.
"Not Profitable to Pharmaceutical Industries"?
In the article " Homeopathy and Its Founder" [PfH, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1999, p. 24], there is the following statement: "The placebo effect and that most diseases short-circuit themselves are almost certainly responsible for virtually all of homeopathy's apparent therapeutic successes."
How then can you explain that homeopathic medicine has been successfully used to heal small children and also was effective when applied to pets? That is not placebo effect. How can you explain that homeopathy has been used so effectively in Germany, France, and other countries. In order to write about homeopathic medicine, someone has to study long enough before he or she is capable to make an honest judgment. Homeopathic medicines are relatively inexpensive, so promoting them is not profitable to pharmaceutical industries.
Lester M. Dobosz, M.Sc.
Jack Raso responds:
I do not doubt that "homeopathic medicine has been successfully used to heal small children . . . ." Even preschoolers are not necessarily immune to the placebo effect. The key question here is whether there is reliable evidence, or ample quality evidence, for the claim that homeopathy can cure disorders in children. There is not. There also is no public scientific evidence that homeopathy-induced healing has been large-scale among pre-schoolers, children, or pets. In some cases, homeopathic treatment of a mammalian pet may benefit the animal by having the equivalent of a placebo effect on its owner.
As for your statement that the relative inexpensiveness of homeopathic "medicines" makes promoting them unprofitable to pharmaceutical companies, such manufacturers profitably promote aspirin and many other relatively inexpensive (and nonpatent) products.
By the way, have you heard the one about the homeopath who ascribed the death of a patient of his to an overdose of not taking his "remedy"?
"Incomplete and Misleading"?
As an acupuncturist I find your website most incomplete and misleading. Acupuncture does not lend itself to western types of studies/research, as each treatment is tailored to the patient. Because of this, acupuncture is somehow looked down upon by your type (fearful people who are slow to accept change) as in some way inferior.
Why is it bad to give a patient specific treatment? I'd like to ask you about doctors using leeches and gold injections. Perhaps your time might be better spent investigating dangerous western drugs like phen-fen, or keeping an [eye] out for medical malpractice (which killed 130,000 people last year). You certainly have no idea about acupuncture.
Ken Smith, L.Ac.
shuken@uswest.net
Jack Raso responds:
Below I address your statements one by one.
- As an acupuncturist I find your website most incomplete and misleading.
It is reasonable to assume that most practicing licensed acupuncturists have a vested interest in acupuncture that predisposes them to finding bodies of literature skeptical of their craft incomplete and misleading. Thus, it befits such critics to specify instances of incompleteness and misrepresentation. You did not do so in your message.
- Acupuncture does not lend itself to western types of studies/research, as each treatment is tailored to the patient.
I assume that "western types of studies/research" denotes biomedical research. Although acupuncture in which treatments ostensibly are geared to individuals renders quality biomedical research on it demanding, such acupuncture can indeed be tested both biomedically and reliably. In any event, scientific research is indispensable if one's goal is to learn whether a mode of acu-puncture is more effective than (a) another of its many modes, (b) a scientifically tried-and-true treatment, or (c) a placebo.
- Because of this [i.e., because acupuncture "does not lend itself to western types of studies/research"], acupuncture is somehow looked down upon by your type (fearful people who are slow to accept change) as in some way inferior.
First, I doubt that many persons (fearful and/or old-fashioned or neither) would scorn acupuncture merely (or even mostly) because of the difficulty of investigating it biomedically. Second, you are off base in typing me as "slow to accept change." And, incidentally, it seems that acu-puncture is especially attractive to this type, particularly fearful persons leery of advances in medical technology.
- Why is it bad to give a patient specific treatment?
I assume that "specific treatment" denotes a treatment tailored to an individual. I do not consider such treatment intrinsi-cally bad. In my opinion, this question is inane.
- Perhaps your time might be better spent investigating dangerous western drugs like phen-fen, or keeping an [eye] out for medical malpractice (which killed 130,000 people last year).
Perhaps, but I tend to be more interested in the philosophical aspects of alternative medicine than in pharmaceuticals or in medical malpractice. Maybe your time would be better spent in needlepoint.
- You certainly have no idea about acupuncture.
This remark is self-evidently absurd.
"Cheap Name-Calling and Flawed Reasoning"?
I've just finished reading the article " Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World?" (Priorities, Vol. 8, No. 4, 1996, p. 12), by Dr. Thomas R. DeGregori, and feel compelled to ask you who bought Dr. DeGregori's opinion. This article is an absolute sham, as I am sure you realize. Right off the bat, Dr. DeGregori resorts to cheap wordplay and demagoguery by talking about "romantic notions" and "difficulties these organizations create [that] originate in their antiscience, antitechnology worldview." How quickly the guise of independence (if there indeed is one) is lifted. While time keeps [me] from picking apart every aspect of the article (which would essentially be a line-by-line critique), the bulk of Dr. DeGregori's critique centers on mere semantics, resorting to picayune points about what is "true" organic and sustainable farming and resorting to unsubstantiated cheap shots against it by citing such laughable examples as: "[C]ertain molds (fungi) on vegetables and grains can be hazardous even when the infestation is not visible to the naked eye." Is he kidding? This is supposed to be taken as serious journalism? Where did this guy get his Ph.D.? We're talking about trace amounts in fertilizer.
He states: "Aflatoxins have brought vast misery to humans throughout history and remain causes of misery and death in developing countries." Well, interestingly enough, the average peanut-butter sandwich contains trace amounts of aflatoxin. Are the nation's school children dying off in droves? Where is his proof? As such a champion of (bio) technology, why doesn't Dr. DeGregori remind [us] of some of technologies' better uses. You know the ones: DDT, Agent Orange, thalidomide. His statements on DDT are again ridiculously underdocumented. He states:
British scientist Norman Moore was the first person to postulate, in the 1950s, that the decline in the population of eagles was due to DDT use. (Whether DDT causes thinning of eagle eggshells is uncertain.) In a 1991 issue of New Scientist, Tom Wakeford described Dr. Moore as the initiator of research that "showed how pesticides damage wildlife." However, according to Wakeford, Moore "refuses to condemn all uses of pesticides, pointing out that they have increased food production and saved millions of people from insect-borne diseases." Wakeford also wrote: "If I were living in a hut in Africa, I would rather have a trace of DDT in my body than die of malaria."
So "whether DDT causes thinning of eagle eggshells is uncertain?" Yes, I suppose just like we still aren't quite sure that smoking causes cancer, correct? What is the proof? A simple refusal to "condemn all uses of pesticides?" That's quite a reach and tantamount to a misquote, if not a bald-faced lie (not to mention just logically incorrect) . . . . This is in no way a tacit endorsement of thalidomide use, though, is it? We here in the supposedly advanced United States don't live in a malaria-infested region; therefore, I fail to find or follow the logic (if there in fact is any) in this statement.
Here's another beaut:
In the 1970s, "small-is-beautiful," "back-to-nature" types told us that we could sustain resources only if they were "renewable." Two decades later, the "nonrenewable" resources we allegedly were exhausting are generally abundant and often available at historically low real prices—while the "renewable" biological resources, such as rain forests, are in danger.
Again, Dr. DeGregori resorts to cheap name-calling and flawed reasoning. Just because these resources are "generally abundant" (what does "generally" mean, anyway?) and cheap means they are a good choice for our planet? Really, are you kidding? Is this a joke? And to go one step further, I feel compelled to remind you that the bulk of the renewable resources being destroyed are being destroyed for things such as cattle-grazing and real-estate development. Cattle-grazing for the meat which Dr. DeGregori wants you to eat. He contradicts himself. He says meat eating (and by association the necessary grazing of cattle) is OK, and then seems to dismiss the rain forest issue as something nonrelated. Give me a break.
Were U.S. corporations (many of them "non-renewable" corporations like Monsanto—which is another story unto itself) not funding this massive destruction, it wouldn't be an issue. For the record, I'm far from a Luddite and in fact have no problem with carefully thought, well-researched use of technology. But jumping into the brave new world of biotechnology without even a slight bit of discretion is a recipe for disaster. An ounce of prevention . . .
In closing, I suggest you ask your writers to do a bit more research or present the piece as what it is—one person's opinion. Hell, he's a Professor of Economics— passing him off as an expert on a health website with no medical credentials is shameful. I'd be very interested to see what corporations Dr. DeGregori has an interest in, as well as what corporations fund his work at the University and overseas. Full disclosure is never a problem unless you have something to hide.
Matt Mizenko
mmizenko@frymulti.com
Dr. DeGregori responds:
Although I welcomed the opportunity to revisit my article on organic agriculture, I was tempted not to take the trouble to respond to Mr. Mizenko's message and simply to let it collapse under the weight of its venom and spleen. How can one engage in intelligent discourse with someone who in a short message hurls invectives such as "absolute sham," "cheap wordplay and demagoguery," "unsubstantiated cheap shots," and "bald-faced lie." If one cuts through the rhetoric of Mr. Mizenko's message, one will find nothing of substance to which one can respond.
Nevertheless, I will attempt to respond to the points therein:
In challenging my statement about aflatoxins, is Mr. Mizenko denying what is not reasonably deniable—that aflatoxins have been a scourge of humankind throughout history (as attests a massive historical record) and are a major public health problem in the Third World (as attests extensive field experience and data from the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and USAID)?
The statement Mr. Mizenko made in conjunction with his rhetorical question "Are the nation's school children dying off in droves?"—i.e., "the average peanut-butter sandwich contains trace amounts of aflatoxin"—makes a point he evidently did not intend to make: In the United States, fungicides hold down infestation of peanuts from the field to the factory, and modern technology sorts out all those peanuts with aflatoxins exceeding 20 parts per billion. This, in essence, is a point I made in "Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World?"
Varied technologies have made the American food supply the safest, most abundant, and least expensive that humankind has ever had in recorded history. Many epidemiologists have argued that the decrease in the incidence of stomach cancer since World War II has resulted partly, if not largely, from the chemical control of microorganisms such as those molds that produce aflatoxins. I trust that Mr. Mizenko is aware that organic agriculture is an outstanding nourisher of such organisms. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that, in the U.S., it is eight times likelier that organic produce will become contaminated with dangerous microorganisms than will "non-organic" produce. Furthermore, according to data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, rates of contamination with natural toxins are higher among organically grown crops than among other crops. It is mainly because American medical technology and healthcare are advanced that believing in the ideology of organic agriculture has resulted in few deaths in the U.S. But since organic agriculture offers no health benefits in this country, even one such death would be exorbitant. Are Mr. Mizenko and his comrades willing to take responsibility for the consequences of their advocacy?
Mr. Mizenko, evidently sarcastically, says he supposes that whether DDT causes thinning of eagle eggshells is just as uncertain as whether smoking causes cancer. This is ironic. The renowned epidemiologist Sir Richard Doll, who first definitively demonstrated the link between smoking and lung cancer, has conducted numerous studies with Prof. Richard Peto on manufactured chemicals (including pesticides) and cancer and has found no causal link between them. Indeed, these researchers have consistently found that, except for tobacco-induced lung cancer, age-adjusted cancer rates have been steady for humans altogether—and have been decreasing for young adults.
Furthermore, Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan (ACSH's president) and many others—including Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore, who has left that organization—have been publicly asking why those environmentalist organizations that misproclaim a cancer epidemic and seek bans on innumerable chemicals disregard tobacco, the smoking of which is expected to become the top cause of cancer worldwide by 2020.
Although I did not so much as allude to biotechnology in the article in question, Mr. Mizenko touches on the subject and "accuses" me of championing biotech. Well, at least on this point he is correct (see www.iea.org.uk/env/gmo.htm). I "plead guilty" to advocating enabling adequate nutrition of the world's increasing population.
Is Mr. Mizenko unaware of those studies published in The British Medical Journal, and of those from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in which researchers found that DDT use has saved hundreds of millions of human lives? Is he ignorant of the many panel studies, conducted under the aegis of the world's most prestigious scientific organizations, in which experts found the evidence lacking for various claims that DDT is harmful to humans. As for the claim that DDT induces in raptors defects in eggshell production, see Dr. Whelan's book Toxic Terror (Prometheus Books, 1993).
Mr. Mizenko states: "We here in the supposedly advanced United States don't live in a malaria-infested region . . . ." Have constricted beliefs so fossilized him intellectually that he is blind to how this country became free of malaria? It was during World War II that DDT was first used for mass vector control. In the U.S., the elimination of malaria resulted; in the European theater, the prevention of millions of typhoid deaths.
Mr. Mizenko states that, because the U.S. is not infested with malaria, he "fail[s] to find or follow the logic (if there in fact is any)" in the first passage he excerpted from my article. It seems he has tacitly refuted an argument I didn't make in that paper!
The endeavor to form a treaty for a global ban on DDT and other alleged persistent organic pollutants (POPs) was temporarily sidetracked as public health workers worldwide protested it. The Director of the World Health Organization—Gro Harlem Brundtland, whose environmentalist credentials are impeccable—maintained cogently that DDT use continues to be vital to preventing malarial deaths, mostly of children and particularly African children. (I have visited malarial areas often, most recently in November 1999, and have contracted malaria at least once.) For the sake of argument, let's assume that DDT use does endanger eagles and that banning it worldwide would reduce their endangerment. With current capabilities, a global reduction in the use of DDT for vector control would definitely mean an increase in malarial deaths among African children. How many of these children might Mr. Mizenko be willing to sacrifice per eagle saved?
A key point of my article was that technology is a wellspring of resources. This seems obscure to Mr. Mizenko. The real price (i.e., the price adjusted to purchasing power) of resources has been de-creasing for over 200 years. The real price of food has been decreasing for 150 years. For example, the real price of rice is half of what it was in the 1950s, though the number of rice eaters has increased by more than two. Without the green revolution there would have been enormous destruction of natural resources such as rain forests, partly because of attempts to cultivate marginally cultivatable lands. Such attempts—not "things such as cattle-grazing and real-estate development"—are mainly responsible for the diminishment of rain forests and other natural habitats. To preserve such habitats, would Mr. Mizenko endorse control of population growth through noncontrol of vectors?
In residents of developing nations, consumption of animal products has been contributing to health improvement and to increases in longevity. Increases in animal-product consumption in developing countries have not resulted from the diminishment of natural habitats; they have resulted largely from the exportation of feed materials (e.g., coarse grains) from Canada, the U.S., and other agriculturally advanced countries.
Although his message provides no information on his credentials or lack of credentials, nor on his organizational ties or loyalties, Mr. Mizenko depreciates my credentials and indicates curiosity about what "corporations" I (supposedly) have "an interest in" and what "corporations" fund my professorial and overseas work. To be a science professional requires that one make known in detail any organizational ties that would at least give the impression of prejudicing one in one's work. I have not had such ties.
My curriculum vitae is viewable at http://www.uh.edu/~trdegreg/vita.htm. Suffice it to say that I have been literarily prolific; that I have worked in over 40 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean; that I have worked in the field in every phase of project development; that, for the last 15 years, most of my work in agricultural development has been as a policy advisor to high-level officers; and that I have directly observed the stupendous nutritional advances that have dramatically improved human existence in Asia and the Caribbean.
Source Notes:
Priorities Volume 12 Number 1 2000
