Posted on 06/14/2004 3:41:40 AM PDT by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - A new study on food safety reveals that organic produce may contain a significantly higher risk of fecal contamination than conventionally grown produce.
A recent comparative analysis of organic produce versus conventional produce from the University of Minnesota shows that the organically grown produce had 9.7 percent positive samples for the presence of generic E. coli bacteria versus only 1.6 percent for conventional produce on farms in Minnesota.
The study, which was published in May in the Journal of Food Protection, concluded, "the observation that the prevalence of E. coli was significantly higher in organic produce supports the idea that organic produce is more susceptible to fecal contamination."
In addition, the study found the food-borne disease pathogen salmonella only on the organic produce samples. There was no evidence found of the deadly strain of bacteria, E. coli O157:H7, in either type of produce tested. The study looked at fruits and vegetables at the "preharvest" stage, not at the retail store level.
The principle investigator of the University of Minnesota study, Francisco Diez-Gonzalez, told CNSNews.com that "organic agriculture was more susceptible to carry fecal indicators."
"In many ways it is confirming what is believed, indeed, if you are using animal manure for fertilizer, the chances that you are going to get fecal bacteria on the product are greater," Diez-Gonzalez said.
The higher incidences of fecal contamination in organic foods were linked to heavy reliance on composted animal manure for fertilizer. While conventionally grown produce may use some manure, it chiefly relies on chemical fertilizers. Past research has shown that Animal manure is the principal source of pathogens such as salmonella, campylobacter, and E. coli 0157:H7
But Diez-Gonzalez cautioned that his study does not show organic produce to be a higher risk food choice. "What the data is telling organic agriculture is there is some room for improvement," Diez-Gonzalez said.
"I don't think we need to be more concerned about organic vegetables. Based on the epidemiological evidence, we can say that both organic and conventional vegetables would pose the same [food borne pathogen] risk for consumers," he added.
But Diez-Gonzalez did acknowledge that a higher presence of generic E. coli could mean higher risk for deadly pathogens."We use E. coli as indicator that the potential could be there [for food borne pathogens]," Diez-Gonzalez explained.
Asked about how consumers -- who buy organic food for health reasons -- will react to his study showing higher fecal contamination, Diez-Gonzalez responded, "The consumer perception may not be very favorable and that is a potential consequence."
'Facade is crumbling'
Alex Avery, director of research and education at the free-market Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, says the latest scientific study confirms years of research that organic produce may pose a higher risk for food-borne illness.
"Organic food activists, which include many activist researchers entrenched in liberal university halls, have claimed organic food superiority for years in their efforts to mold society and scare consumers into buying their politically correct fare. Now their farcical facade is crumbling," Avery told CNSNews.com.
Avery was particularly concerned about a possibly elevated risk for pathogens such as salmonella and the deadly E. coli O157:H7 in organic produce. E. coli O157:H7 can attack the kidneys and liver, causing severe internal damage and even death, especially among the elderly and young children.
Avery called the risk of contracting salmonella from organic food a "crap shoot," with the pay off being "diarrhea, typhoid fever, and Reiter's Syndrome that causes joint pain and painful urination that can last for years after the initial salmonella infection."
The University of Minnesota study found salmonella in one sample of organic lettuce and one sample of organic green peppers. The researchers collected 476 Minnesota produce samples from 32 organic farms and 129 samples from eight conventional farms. The produce analyzed included unwashed tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, apples, and strawberries.
The study reported that "an increasing number of gastrointestinal disease outbreaks have been linked to the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables," accounting for a total of 148 outbreaks between 1990 and 2001.
The study found organic lettuce had the highest rate of fecal contamination, with a rate of over 22 percent. And Avery says consumers can't assume they can simply "wash off" the fecal matter from the lettuce.
"Past research shows that E. coli 0157 can enter into the lettuce through the roots and be inside the lettuce, meaning you can't wash it off," Avery said.
Organic: 'Most especially at risk'
The controversy over the safety of organic food began in 1997, when Robert Tauxe, chief of the food-borne illness division of the Centers for Disease Control, addressed pathogens that thrive in manure. Tauxe was quoted in the Journal of the American Medical Association as saying, "Organic means a food was grown in animal manure."
The article in the 1997 Journal of the American Medical Association implicated "organically grown, unprocessed foods produced without... pesticides or preservatives" as an increasing source of food-borne illness.
The nationally syndicated television news program American Investigator also quoted the Food and Drug Administration's Virlie Walker as warning Americans that, "Most especially at risk [for food borne pathogens] are your organic products because they could be fertilized with manure."
Walker, the spokesperson for the FDA's Denver district, told the news program in June 1998, "We do encourage folks to pay special attention to cleaning their organic products."
In 2000, ABC's John Stossel, followed up with a similar television report on 20/20 about the potential bacterial dangers of organic produce.
Diez-Gonzalez believes his findings of increased fecal contamination in organic food will not surprise consumers "if they have been following the media [reports]."
"Most likely, [our study] is going to serve to prove that some in media were right in terms of the E. coli, the fecal contamination, but not in terms of pathogens," Diez-Gonzalez said.
'Lightening rod for public officials'
Avery sees the issue of organic food politics as being too hot to handle for most food regulators.
"Organic food production has become a lightening rod for public officials. The CDC does not want to touch this with a ten foot pole," Avery said.
Referring to the CDC's Tauxe -- and his comments about organic food in 1997 -- Avery said the organic lobby "went ballistic and inundated the CDC with phone calls."
"This research continues to raise the red flags that have been raised in the past by credible food safety experts like Tauxe at the CDC. How many red flags have to be raised in order to get stricter manure regulations?" Avery asked.
Avery also believes that the driving force behind organic produce, the fear of chemical pesticides, is completely unwarranted.
"The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, found in 1999 that the cancer risk from pesticide residue is theoretically lower than the risk from naturally occurring carcinogens. Both types are too low to be appreciable cancer risks," Avery explained.
"We are still looking for the first cancer death victim from pesticide residues. But we have several examples of children killed by pathogenic bacteria on organic produce," he added.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
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Well shoot, don't tell liberals, they would hate to lose something to fear. Fear is neccessary for their existance.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
The United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency, a government food safety watchdog, initiated a nationwide recall of organic oatmeal after every sample tested showed high levels of a natural cancer-causing toxin.
That’s a 100% failure rate, said Alex Avery, plant physiologist and Director of Research at the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues in Churchville, Virginia, USA.
The organic cornmeal products contained high levels of fumonisin, a cancer-causing fungal toxin produced by a natural mold that can grow on corn in the field. Recently, the European Commission established a new safety limit for fumonisin in foods of 500 parts per billion (ppb).
Horrorfied organic food adherents discovered that their favorite cornmeal munchies were contaminated at an average of nearly 20 times the EC safety limit (9,000 ppb), with two brands having more than 30 times the safety limit (16,300+ ppb). In comparison, twenty non-organic cornmeal products tested by the FSA averaged only 130 ppb fumonisin.
GM insect-resistant corn has been shown to have 30-40 fold lower fumonisin levels than conventional corn, let alone in comparison to the higher fumonisin levels found in organic corn, said Avery.
Fumonisins may contribute to liver and kidney disease. Fumonisins are suspected to be a cause of liver and esophageal cancer in developing countries, where organic farming methods are the norm.
One can only imagine the uproar from the organic food and anti-bio-tech crowd if GM foods had totally failed a serious food safety standard by such a huge margin, instead of organic products. The mainstream “media” has been silent.
For years organic activists have claimed, without evidence, that "organic" methods were better for the environment and produced safer, healthier food. In fact, said Avery, the Soil Association buried its own research from the 1960s that failed to show any nutrition or health superiority of organic foods.
Why worry, it is only natural bacteria they can not be harmful. They are only producing organic toxins, and not chemicals like the ones produced and tested on animals by profit-seeking companies.
Pay more for organic food as it is more expensive to produce, say no to technology and development.
It's really not. Each year over 5000 people are treated for E Coli poisoning that is directly atributed to the manure use on organic food.
There are exactly ZERO cases of poisoning from the chemicals used on food that is mass produced.
Do the math, make an educated choice.
I'm under the impression that if manure is properly composted, it shouldn't contain much bacteria at all. Fresh manure, on the other hand, is likely to contain all sorts of stuff. Hence, only aged, composted manure should be used.
Unfortunately, rather than have the desired effect of making liberals "back off" the technically liberated farmer, this may play into the hands of the liberals once again. Already, farmers are being sued for using manure as fertilizer, because liberals have claimed it is "noxious" and "unsanitary". Farmers are being shut down because their cattle are "polluting" streams and the atmosphere with "methane".
The reason? ANY farming practice, to environmentalists, is bad practice; in the name of "environmentally safe practice", they are intent on shutting down all food production by the "common man". There ideal world is one where all farm production is large-scale, and all people live in "urban corridors". This can only be done if the small farmers and rural people are regulated out of existence... and a BIG part of that cleansing includes the regulation of manure and animals as "polluters".
Be careful what you celebrate, folks. In this case, what you consider to be helpful today will be used to put small farmers out of business tomorrow...
A good friend of mine runs county health department. "organic" and "natural" foods have been a major source of trouble for them.
Reminds me of when I went to a bar in the DC area. Young guy, mid 20's, smoking a cigar and drinking whiskey found out that my friend and I were from the midwest and thought we should be experts on food quality. He really wondered if he should be eating organic food.
First off, being in he 20's he should have still felt he was indestructable (I wondered what propaganda he was getting). Second, the whiskey and cigars were probably doing him more harm than any food he was eating(but that didn't register with him). Third, just because I was from the midwest, he thought I was an expert on food.
The most amazing part to me was that in my 20's I felt indestructable and food was the least of my concerns.
Folks, organic food is a choice NOT A RELIGION. It has pros and cons. If people want to pay higher prices for it, let them. Personally, I don't think it is worth the extra cost. We will spend extra money for quality food, but organic doesn't always mean quality.
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
I don't know that it's a smear. I think it's like a lot of articles, restating the obvious: wash your food. But perhaps you should wash it more carefully if it's labeled "organic." Bear in mind, people from some countries consider human waste perfectly fine for fertilizer. When they come to this country, they bring their gardening practices with them. Technically, it would be organic, but dangerous (in my opinion) to eat.
Tell that to the ER Doctors. Besides, the people who say organic food is good for you are SURPRIZE! The Organic Farmers Assoc. Hey, people are free to do as the choose, I choose to save money by not buying organic. You're right though....wash first. Have a good day Owl.
Pete
Also, there is no way of guaranteeing that those expensive veggies are actually organic. There are laws, yes, but inspections and enforcement are low on the state to-do lists.
Agreed. The popularity of organic food rises every year. The traditional farmer and the food processors who have much to lose are funding studies like these. I'm not buying it. Sadly, big food processors are buying up small organic companies and changing their landscape. They feel the fear and move to squash the rolling tide.
Ah..no wonder those organic tomatoes I bought tasted like sh_t!
It may be dangerous to eat for some people. You read about people getting deathly ill from e. coli from a burger that got a a drive-thru. You never hear about anyone that works on a cattle or dairy farm getting sick from it, and they're exposed to it every day. The reason it's dangerous is that some people have gone overboard "sanitizing" everything, and running to the doctor for antibiotics at the first sign of infection. The end result is they've crippled their own immune systems from disuse.
Wash those vegetables. It seems the simple lessons taught thru the years by our parents concerning safe food handling and cleanliness are being ignored to create a market for "organic" or "natural" customers. Seems there is a sucker born every day now.
More likely, it's because of an impaired immune system. Sadly, people with chronic conditions (which impair immune systems) are the ones who usually flock to the "organic" food counters, and they are the ones who are most at risk if they don't wash it carefully.
I don't buy the farmer comparison--you can walk through acres of cow manure, but I don't know of any farmer would actually EAT the stuff. We live on a farm--you clean it off your boots, and even then you don't wear the boots into the house. You leave them outside and change to regular shoes before you come into the house. I think the reason so few farmers get these diseases is because they (we) have more common sense.
You don't intentionally eat it, but you still get it on your hands working. From there, it's just a matter of having an open cut, or rubbing your eyes, or touching the edge of a drinking cup or glass. You don't get a lot at once, but enough that your immune system learns how to recognize and stomp on it, and gets some practice on a regular basis.
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