Fw: Avery's Lies Exposed about Organic Food

["Guy Clark" <guyclark@socket.net>]

Hey Ho-
	The talking heads for the Agro/Pharmo/Petro/Genetic Industry are on the
march. We need to keep our eyes on the balls.
Namaste',
Guy Clark
Community Garden Coalition
Fertile Crescent Farm
Missouri Organic Association
Columbia Farmers' Market
Heart of Missouri Master Gardeners
Columbia Area Food Circle
Callaway Food Circle
310 Hartley Court
Columbia, MO  65201
573.449.GROW
guyclark@socket.net
"Live like you are going to die tomorrow, but
farm like you will live forever!"

----------
From: Natl. Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture <campaign@magiccarpet.com>
To: Recipient list suppressed
Subject: Avery's Lies Exposed
Date: Friday, February 19, 1999 4:01 AM

>From: Mark Lipson <mark@ofrf.org>
>Subject: Avery's Lies Exposed
>
>
>FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
>February 17, 1999, Wednesday 
>          Dining In, Dining Out/Style Desk 
>
>
>
>
>          EATING WELL; Anti-Organic, And Flawed 
>
>
>          By Marian Burros 
>
>          DENNIS T. AVERY wants organic food to go away. And he doesn't
>care what it takes. Four years ago, he said that organic food could
>          not feed the world without destroying the environment. Now, he
>says it's lethal. 
>
>          In an article in the fall issue of American Outlook magazine,
>published by his employer, the Hudson Institute, a conservative research
>          group, Mr. Avery wrote, ''Organic foods have clearly become the
>deadliest food choice.'' This is the case, he said, because organic farms
>          use animal manure and do not use chemicals or permit
>pasteurization. The last assertion is untrue, as were several other
>statements in the
>          article. 
>
>
>          The accusation might have gone unnoticed, but excerpts from the
>article were published in The Wall Street Journal and continue to be
>          picked up around the country, by The Associated Press, The Tampa
>Tribune and trade industry publications. 
>
>          The simplest definition of ''organic'' is food grown without
>hormones, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. But Mr. Avery, whose work
is
>          financed by agribusiness, used the terms ''organic,'' ''free
>range,'' ''natural'' and ''unpasteurized'' interchangeably. 
>
>          ''I grant you that I've mixed together natural and organic,''
Mr.
>Avery, the author of ''Saving the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic''
>          (Hudson Institute, 1995), said in an interview last week. ''But
>to me they are distinctions without significant difference in terms of
public
>          health.'' 
>
>          His most combative accusation is based on his reading of 1996
>data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
>          showing, he said, that ''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 (O157:H7).'' 
>
>          Yet, some of the foods that caused the outbreak, which he called
>organic, were not, like unpasteurized Odwalla apple juice. 
>
>          Mr. Avery's claim that ''consumers of organic food are also more
>likely to be attacked by a relatively new, more virulent strain of the
>          infamous salmonella bacteria'' was based on a Consumers Union
>study in 1998 showing that ''premium'' chickens had higher levels of
>          salmonella than regular supermarket chickens. But the premium
>chickens were not organic. 
>
>          In the article, Mr. Avery took the Food and Drug Administration
>to task for failing ''to issue any warnings to consumers about the higher
>          levels of natural toxins their researchers regularly find in
>organic foods.'' In the interview, he said that that assertion was based
on a
>          statement by Dr. Robert Lake, an official in the agency's Center
>for Food Safety and Nutrition. 
>
>          Dr. Lake denied making such a statement, saying, ''We don't go
>out of our way to sample organic food, and hence I don't think we are in
>          a position to say anything one way or another about it.'' 
>
>          Mr. Avery wrote that because ''organic farmers use animal manure
>as the major source of fertilizer,'' there are higher levels of harmful
>          bacteria in organic food. Katherine DiMatteo, the executive
>director of the Organic Trade Association, said that manure is not the
major
>          source of fertilizer on organic farms (it is also used in
>conventional farming) and that when it is used, certain rules must be
>followed for
>          safety. 
>
>          Mr. Avery said he had never ''bothered that much about consumer
>safety aspects of organic food until O157:H7.'' His goal, he continued,
>          is to prevent organic agriculture from becoming the norm. ''My
>big concern is that we do not have room on the planet to feed ourselves
>          organically,'' he added. 
>
>          The attack on organic food by a well-financed research
>organization suggests that, though organic food accounts for only 1
percent of
>          food sales in the United States, the conventional food industry
>is worried. 
>
>
>Organic Farming Research Foundation
>Mark Lipson, Policy Program Coordinator
>ph: 831-426-4006 or -6606; fax: 831-426-6670
>PO Box 440, Santa Cruz, CA 95061
>
>