The China Study (38 page)

THE (HINA STUDY
248
like a pig. Being overweight, I've always been self-conscious about what
I eat. Now I eat like a madman, and feel virtuous to boot. I can honestly
say I'm enjoying the food I'm eating now a lot more than before, partly
because I'm fussier now in what I eat. I only eat foods I really like.
The first month went by qUicker than I thought it would. I've lost
eight pounds and my cholesterol has dropped dramatically. I'm spend-
ing a lot less time on this now, particularly since I've found so many
restaurants I can eat at, plus I cook huge meals and then freeze them.
My freezer is stocked with vegan goodies.
The experiment is over but I stopped thinking of it as an experiment
weeks ago. I can't imagine why I would go back to myoid eating pat-
terns.

WHY HAVEN'T YOU
HEARD THIS BEFORE?
OFTEN WHEN PEOPLE HEAR of scientific information that justifies a radical
shift in diet to plant foods, they can't believe their ears. "If all that you
say is true," they wonder, "why haven't I heard it before? In fact, why
do I usually hear the opposite of what you say: that milk is good for us,
that we need meat to get protein and that cancer and heart disease are
all in the genes?" These are legitimate questions, and the answers are
a crucial part of this story. In order to get to these answers, however, I
believe that it is essential for us to know how information is created and
how it reaches the public consciousness.
As you will come to see, much is governed by the Golden Rule: he
who has the gold makes the rules. There are powerful, influential and
enormously wealthy industries that stand to lose a vast amount of
money if Americans start shifting to a plant-based diet. Their financial
health depends on controlling what the public knows about nutrition
and health. Like any good business enterprise, these industries do ev-
erything in their power to protect their profits and their shareholders.
You might be inclined to think that industry pays scientists under
the table to "cook the data," bribes government officials or conducts
illegal activities. Many people love a sensational story. But the power-
ful interests that maintain the status quo do not usually conduct illegal
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TH E CH I NA STU DY
250
business. As far as I know, they do not pay scientists to "cook the data."
They do not bribe elected officials or make sordid underhanded deals.
The situation is much worse.
The entire system-government, science, medicine, industry and
media-promotes profits over health, technology over food and confu-
s i o n over clarity. Most, but not all, of the confusion about nutrition is
created in legal, fully disclosed ways and is disseminated by unsuspect-
ing, well-intentioned people, whether they are researchers, politicians
or journalists. The most damaging aspect of the system is not sensa-
tional, nor is it likely to create much of a stir upon its discovery. It is a
silent enemy that few people see and understand.
My experiences within the scientific community illustrate how the
entire system generates confusing information and why you haven't
heard the message of this book before. In the following chapters, I have
divided the "system" of problems into the entities of science, govern-
m e n t , industry and medicine, but, as you will come to see, there are
instances where it is nearly impossible to distinguish science from in-
dustry, government from science or government from industry.

.................13 _..
...
Science-The Dark Side
WHEN I WAS LIVING IN A MOUNTAIN VALLEY outside of Blacksburg, Virginia,
my family enjoyed visiting a retired farmer down the road, Mr. Kinsey,
who always had a funny story to tell. We used to look forward to eve-
nings listening to his stories on his front porch. One of my favorites was
the great potato bug scam.
He told us of his farm days before pesticides, and recounted that
when a potato crop became infested with potato bugs, the bugs had
to be removed and killed, one by one, by hand. One day, Mr. Kinsey
noticed an advertisement in a farm magazine for a great potato bug
killer, on sale for five dollars. Although five dollars was no small sum
of money in those days, Mr. Kinsey figured the bugs were enough of a
hassle to warrant the investment. A short while later, when he received
the great potato bug killer, he opened the package and found two blocks
of wood and a short list of three instructions:
• Pick up one block of wood.
• Place the potato bug on the flat face of the wood.
• Pick up the second block of wood and press firmly onto the potato bug.
Scams, tricks and outright deception for personal gain are as old as
history itself, and perhaps no diScipline in our society has suffered more
from this affliction than the diScipline of health. Very few experiences
are as personal and as powerful as those of people who have lost their
health prematurely. Understandably, they are willing to believe and try
just about anything that might help. They are a highly vulnerable group
of consumers.
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252                          TH E CH I NA STU DY
In the mid-1970s, along came a prime example of a health scam, at
least according to the medical establishment. It concerned an alternative
cancer treatment called Laetrile, a natural compound made largely from
apricot pits. If you had cancer and had been unsuccessfully treated by
your regular doctors here in the United States, you may have considered
heading to Tijuana, Mexico. Washington Post Magazine documented the
story of Sylvia Dutton, a fifty-three-year-old woman from Florida, who
had done just that as a last attempt to thwart a cancer that had already
spread from her ovaries to her lymph system. 1 Friends and fellow
churchgoers had told her and her husband about the Laetrile treatment
and its ability to cure advanced cancer. In the magazine article, 1 Sylvia's
husband said, "There are at least a dozen people in this area who were
told they were going to be dead from cancer who used Laetrile and now
they're out playing tennis."
The catch, however, was that Laetrile was a highly contentious treat-
ment. Some people in the medical establishment argued that animal
studies had repeatedly shown Laetrile to have no effect on tumors. 1
Because of this, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had decided
to suppress the use of Laetrile, which gave rise to the popular clinics
south of the border. One famous hospital in Tijuana treated "as many
as 20,000 American patients a year."l One of those patients was Sylvia
Dutton, for whom Laetrile unfortunately did not work.
But Laetrile was only one of many alternative health products. By the
end of the 1970s, Americans were spending $1 billion a year on vari-
o u s supplements and potions that promised magical benefits. 2 These
included pangamic acid, which was touted as a previously undiscovered
vitamin with virtually unlimited powers, various bee concoctions and
other supplement products including garlic and zinc. 2
At the same time in the scientific community, more and more health
information, specifically nutrition information, was being generated
at a furious pace. In 1976, Senator George McGovern had convened
a committee that drafted dietary goals recommending decreased con-
s u m p t i o n of fatty animal foods and increased consumption of fruits and
vegetables because of their effects on heart disease. The first draft of this
report, linking heart disease and food, caused such an uproar that a ma-
j o r revision was required before it was released for publication. In a per-
sonal conversation McGovern told me that he and five other powerful
senators from agricultural states lost their respective elections in 1980
in part because they had dared to take on the animal foods industry.

253
SCIENCE-THE DARK SIDE
At the end of the 1970s, the McGovern report succeeded in prodding
the government to produce its first-ever dietary guidelines, which were
rumored to promote a message similar to that of McGovern's commit-
tee. At about the same time, there were widely publicized government
debates about whether food additives were safe, and whether saccharin
caused cancer.
PLAYING MY PART
In the late 1970s I found myself in the middle of this rapidly changing
environment. By 1975 my program in the Philippines had ended, and
I was well into my experimental laboratory work here in the United
States, after having accepted a full professorship with tenure at Cornell
University. Some of my early work on aflatoxin and liver cancer in the
Philippines (chapter two) had garnered widespread interest, and my
subsequent laboratory work investigating nutritional factors, carcino-
gens and cancer (chapter three) was attracting national attention. At
that time, I had one of only two or three laboratories in the country do-
i n g basic research on nutrition and cancer. It was a novel endeavor.
From 1978 to 19791 took a year-long sabbatical leave from Cornell to
go to the epicenter of national nutritional activity, Bethesda, Maryland.
The organization that I was working with was the Federation of Ameri-
can Societies for Experimental Biology and Medicine, or FASEB. Six in-
dividual research societies made up the federation, representing patholo-
gy, biochemistry, pharmacology, nutrition, immunology and physiology.
The FASEB sponsored the annual joint meetings of all six societies, and
upwards of more than 20,000 scientists attended. I was a member of two
of these societies, nutrition and pharmacology, and was particularly ac-
tive in the American Institution of Nutrition (now named the American
Society for Nutritional Sciences). My principle work was to chair, under
contract to the Food and Drug Administration, a committee of scientists
investigating potential hazards of using nutrient supplements.
While there, I also was invited to be on a public affairs committee
that served as liaison between the FASEB and Congress. The commit-
tee's charge was to stay on top of congreSSional activity and represent
our societies' interests in dealings with lawmakers. We reviewed poli-
cies, budgets and position statements, met with congressional staffs,
and held meetings around big, impressive "boardroom" tables in dis-
tinguished, august meeting rooms. I often got the feeling I was in the
citadel of science.

254                          TH E CH I NA STU DY
As a prerequisite to representing my nutrition society on this pub-
lic affairs committee, I first had to decide, for myself, how nutrition is
best defined. It's a far more difficult question than you may think. We
had scientists who were interested in applied nutrition, which involves
people and communities. We had medical doctors interested in isolated
food compounds as pharmacological drugs and research scientists who
only worked with isolated cells and well-identified chemicals in the
laboratory. We even had people who thought nutrition studies should
focus on livestock as well as people. The concept of nutrition was far
from clear; clarification was critical. The average American's view of nu-
t r i t i o n was even more varied and confused. Consumers were constantly
being duped by fads, yet remained intensely interested in nutrient
supplements and dietary advice coming from any source, whether that
source was a diet book or a government official.
One day in late spring of 1979, while doing my more routine work, I
got a call from the director of the public affairs office at the FASEB who
coordinated the work of our congressional "liaison" committee.
Ellis informed me that there was yet another new committee being
formed within one of the FASEB Societies, the American Institute of
Nutrition, that might interest me.
"It's being called the Public Nutrition Information Committee," he
told me, "and one of its responsibilities will be to decide what is sound
nutritional advice to give to the public.
"Obviously," he said, "there's a big overlap between what this new
committee wants to do and what we do on the public affairs commit-
tee."
I agreed.
"If you're interested, I would like to have you join this new commit-
tee as a representative of the public affairs office," he said.
The proposal sounded good to me because it was early in my career
and it meant getting a chance to hear the scholarly views of some of
the "big name" nutrition researchers. It also was a committee, accord-
i n g to its organizers, that could evolve into a "supreme court" of public
nutrition information. It might serve, for example, to identify nutrition
quackery.

255
SCIENCE-THE DARK SIDE
A BIG SURPRISE
At the time that this new Public Nutrition Information Committee was
being formed, a maelstrom was developing across town at the presti-
gious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) . A public dispute was taking
place between the NAS president, Phil Handler, and the internal NAS
Food and Nutrition Board. Handler wanted to bring in a group of distin-
gUished scientists from outside of the NAS organization to deliberate on
the subject of diet, nutrition and cancer and to write a report. This did
not please his internal Food and Nutrition Board, which wanted con-
trol over this project. Handler's NAS was being offered funding, from
Congress, to produce a report on a subject that had not been previously
considered in this way.
Within the scientific community it was widely known that the NAS
Food and Nutrition Board was strongly influenced by the meat, dairy
and egg industries. Two of its leaders, Bob Olson and Alf Harper, had
strong connections to these industries. Olson was a well-paid consul-
t a n t to the egg industry, and Harper acknowledged that lO% of his
income came from offering his services to food companies, including
large dairy corporations.3
Ultimately Handler, as president of the NAS, went around his Food
and Nutrition Board and arranged for a panel of expert scientists from
outside of his organization to write the 1982 report Diet, Nutrition, and
Cancer. 4 As it turned out, I was one of thirteen scientists chosen to be on
the panel to write the report.
As could be expected, Alf Harper, Bob Olson and their Food and
Nutrition Board colleagues were not happy about losing control of this
landmark report. They knew that the report could greatly influence na-
tional opinion about diet and disease. Mostly, they feared that the great
American diet was going to be challenged, perhaps even called a pos-
sible cause of cancer.
James S. Turner, chairman of a related Consumer Liaison Panel with-
i n the NAS, was critical of the Food and Nutrition Board and wrote, "We
can only conclude that the [Food and Nutrition) Board is dominated by
a group of change-resistant scientists who share a rather isolated view
about diet and disease."3
After being denied control of this promising new report on diet,
nutrition and cancer, the pro-industry Board needed to do some dam-
age control. An alternate group was quickly established elsewhere: the