The China Study (39 page)

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new Public Nutrition Information Committee. Who were the leaders of
the new Public Nutrition Information Committee? Bob Olson, Alfred
Harper and Tom Jukes, a long-time industry scientist, each of whom
held a university faculty position. I was initially innocent of the group's
purpose, but by our first meeting in the spring of 1980, I had discovered
that, of the eighteen members on that committee, I was the only indi-
vidual who did not have ties to the commercial world of food and drug
companies and their coalitions.
This committee was a stacked deck; its members were entrenched in
the status quo. Their professional associations, their friends, the people
they fraternized with, were all pro-industry. They enjoyed the meaty
American diet themselves and were unwilling to consider the possibility
that their views were wrong. In addition, some of them enjoyed hand-
s o m e benefits, including first-class travel expenses and nice consulting
fees, paid by animal foods companies. Although there was nothing il-
legal about any of these activities, it certainly laid bare a serious conflict
of interest that put most of the committee members at odds with the
public interest.
This is analogous to the situation, as it unfolded, surrounding ciga-
rettes and health. When scientific evidence first emerged to show that
cigarettes were dangerous, there were hordes of health professionals
who vigorously defended smoking. For example, the Journal of the
American Medical Association continued to advertise tobacco products,
and many others played their part to staunchly defend tobacco use. In
many cases, these scientists were motivated by understandable caution.
But there were quite a few others, particularly as the evidence against
tobacco mounted, whose motivations were clearly personal bias and
greed.
So there I was, on a committee that was to judge the merit of nutri-
tion information, a committee that was comprised of some of the most
powerful pro-industry scientists. I was the only one not hand-picked by
the industry cronies, as I was there at the behest of the director of the
FA5EB public affairs office. At that point in my career, I had not formed
any particularly strong views for or against the standard American diet.
More than anything, I was interested in promoting honest, open de-
b a t e - s o m e t h i n g that would immediately put me at odds with this new
organization.

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THE FIRST MEETING
From the first moment of the first meeting in April 1980, I knew I was
the chicken who had wandered into a fox's den, although I went in with
high hopes and an open, though naive, mind. After all, lots of scien-
tists, myself included, have consulted with companies while working to
maintain an objective mind in the best interest of the public health.
In the second session of our first committee meeting the chairman,
Tom Jukes, passed around a proposed news release, handwritten by
himself, regarding the mission of the committee. In addition to an-
n o u n c i n g our formation, the news release listed examples of the kind of
nutrition frauds that our committee intended to expose.
As I scanned the list of so-called frauds, I was stunned to see the
1977 McGovern dietary goals5 on the list. First drafted in 1976, these
relatively modest goals suggested that less meat and fat consumption
and more fruit and vegetable consumption might prevent heart disease.
In this proposed news release, they were described as nothing more
than simple quackery, just like the widely condemned Laetrile and
pangamic acid preparations. In essence, the recommendation to shift
our eating habits to more fruits and vegetables and whole grains was a
fraud. This was the committee's attempt to demonstrate their ability to
be the supreme arbiter ofreliable scientific information!
Having looked forward to my membership on this new committee,
I was shocked to see what was emerging. Although I had no particular
predilection toward anyone type of diet at the time, I knew that the
landmark diet, nutrition and cancer panel that I was on at the National
Academy of Sciences would likely recommend something similar to Mc-
Govern's goals, this time citing cancer research instead of heart disease
research. The scientific results with which I was familiar very clearly
seemed to justify the moderate recommendations made by McGovern's
dietary goals committee.
Sitting next to me at our first meeting was Alf Harper, whom I had
held in high esteem since our days at MIT where he was the General
Foods Professor of Nutritional Sciences. Early in the meeting, when
this handwritten proposed news release was passed out to the commit-
tee members, I leaned over to Harper and pointed to the place where
it listed McGovern's dietary goals amongst other common scams and
whispered incredulously, "Do you see this? "
Harper could sense my unease, even disbelief, and so quickly spoke

258                         THE CHINA STUDY
up. In a patronizing tone, he said to the group, "There are honorable
people in our society who may not necessarily agree with this list. Per-
haps we should put it on hold." A reluctant discussion ensued, and they
decided to forgo the proposed press release.
With the conclusion of the news release issue, the meeting came to
an end. As far as I was concerned, it was a dubious beginning, at best.
A couple of weeks later, back in upstate New York, I turned on a
morning TV news show and Tom Brokaw appeared on the screen and
started talking about nutrition with Bob Olson, of all people. They were
discussing a recent report that Olson and friends had produced at the
National Academy of Sciences called "Toward Healthful Diets." This
report, which was one of the briefest, most superficial reports on health
ever produced by the NAS, extolled the virtues of the high-fat, high-
m e a t American diet and basically confirmed that all was well with how
America was eating.
From a scientific point of view, the message was a doozy. I remem-
b e r one exchange where Tom Brokaw asked about fast food, and Olson
confidently stated that McDonald's hamburgers were fine. With millions
of viewers watching this "expert" praise the health value of McDonald's
hamburgers, it's no wonder that consumers around the country were
confused. Only a handful of insiders could possibly know that his views
did not even come close to reflecting the best understanding of the sci-
ence at the time.
THE SECOND MEETING
We were back for round two in Atlantic City at our annual meeting in
late spring of 1981. From our correspondence over the past year, the
committee already had an informal agenda in place. First, we were to
establish the proposition that nutrition scams were eroding the public's
trust in the nutrition research community. Second, we needed to pub-
licize the idea that advocating more vegetable and fruit consumption
and less meat and high-fat foods was, itself, a scam. Third, we intended
to position our committee as a permanent, standing organization. Up
to this point, our group had only served in a temporary capacity, as
an exploratory committee. Now it was time to get on with our job of
becoming the permanent, principle source of reliable nutrition informa-
tion in the U.S.
Within the first few days of arriving at the convention, a fellow mem-
b e r of the committee, Howard Applebaum, told me of the developing

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gossip. "Did you hear?" he whispered. "Olson's decided that they're go-
ing to reconstitute the committee and you are going to be removed." At
that time, Olson was still serving his one-year term as president of the
parent society, the American Institute of Nutrition, and had the power
to do such things.
I remember thinking that this news was neither surprising nor dis-
appointing. I knew I was the black sheep of the committee and had al-
ready stepped out of line at our inaugural meeting the previous year. My
continued involvement in this particular group was going to amount to
nothing more than trying to swim up Niagara Falls. The only reason I
was involved in the first place was because the director of the public af-
fairs office at the FASEB had secured me the spot.
I had thought the first year's committee meeting was dubious, but I
ran into an even more bizarre beginning at that second meeting a year
later, before Olson had the chance to remove me. When the proposal
to become a permanent organization within our society was put forth,
I was the only one to challenge the idea. I expressed concern that this
committee and its activities reeked of McCarthyism, which had no place
in a scientific research society. What I was saying made the chair of the
committee intensely angry and physically hostile, and I decided it was
best to just leave the room. I was clearly a threat to everything the com-
mittee members wanted to achieve.
After relating the whole ordeal to the newly-elected incoming presi-
d e n t of the society, Professor Doris Calloway of UC Berkeley, the com-
mittee was abolished and reformed, with me as the chair. Fortunately, I
persuaded our six-member committee to disband after less than a year,
and the whole sorry affair came to an end.
To stay and "fight the good fight," so to speak, was not an option. It
was early in my career and the awesome power wielded by the seniors in
my society was stark and intellectually brutal. For many of these char-
acters, searching for a truth that promoted public health over the status
quo was not an option. I am absolutely convinced that had I busied
myself with tackling these issues so early in my career, I would not be
writing this book. Research funding and publications would have been
difficult if not impossible to obtain.
Meanwhile, Bob Olson and some of his colleagues turned their at-
tention elsewhere, focusing on a relatively new organization founded
in 1978 called the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) .
Headquartered in New York City, the ACSH bills itself, still today, as a

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260
"consumer education consortium concerned with issues related to food,
nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the environment and
health." The group also claims to be an "independent, nonprofit, tax-ex-
e m p t organization,"6 but they receive 76% of their funding from corpo-
rations and corporate donors, according to the National Environmental
Trust who cite the Congressional Quarterly's Public Interest Profiles. 7
According to the National Environmental Trust,? the ACSH has
claimed, in their reports, that cholesterol is not related to coronary
heart disease, "the unpopularity of food irradiation. .. is not based in
science," "endocrine disruptors" (e.g., PCBs, dioxins, etc.) are not a
human health problem, saccharin is not carcinogenic and implementa-
t i o n of fossil-fuel restrictions to control global warming should not be
implemented. Searching for a serious critique of the food industry from
the ACSH is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Although I believe
that some of their arguments may have merit, I seriously question their
claim to be an objective broker of "consumer education."
FALLING ON MY PETARD
During the entire experience with the Public Nutrition Information Com-
mittee, I continued to work on the National Academy of Sciences report
on diet, nutrition and cancer, which was released in June 1982.4 As might
have been expected, when this report was published all hell broke loose.
Being the first such report on diet and cancer, it received extensive public-
ity; fast becoming the most sought-after report in NAS history. It was estab-
lishing high-profile goals for the dietary prevention of cancer which were
very similar to those of the 1976 McGovern Committee report on diet and
heart disease. Principally; we were encouraging the consumption of fruits,
vegetables and whole grain cereal products, while decreasing total fat in-
take. The fact that this report was concerned with cancer instead of heart
disease, however, elevated emotions. The stakes were high and getting
higher; cancer incites a far greater fear than heart disease.
Given the stakes, some powerful enemies came out of the woodwork.
Within two weeks, the Council on Agriculture, Science and Technology
(CAST), an influential lobbying group for the livestock-based farming
industry, produced a report summarizing the views of fifty-six "experts"
who were concerned about the effect of our NAS report on the agricul-
ture and food industries. Olson, Jukes, Harper and their like-minded
colleagues on the now defunct Public Nutrition Information Commit-
tee weighed in as experts. Their report was quickly published, then

SCIENCE-THE DARK SIDE                         261
placed in the hands of all 535 u.s. congressional members. It was clear
that the CAST was deeply concerned about the possible impact that our
report might have on the public.
The CAST wasn't the only group that stepped up to criticize the
report. In addition, there were the American Meat Institute, National
Broiler Council, National Cattlemen's Association, National Livestock
and Meat Board, National Meat Association, National Milk Producers
Federation, National Pork Producers Council, National Turkey Fed-
e r a t i o n and United Egg Producers.3 I wouldn't presume to know how
much cancer research the National Turkey Federation conducts, but I'm
guessing that their criticism of our report was not born out of their de-
sire for truth in science.
It was ironic that I had learned some of my most valuable lessons
growing up on a dairy farm, and yet the work I was doing was portrayed
as being at odds with agricultural interests. Of course, these mammoth
corporate interests were far removed from the farmers I knew growing
up-the hardworking, honest families that maintained small farms, just
big enough to get by comfortably. I often have wondered whether these
Washington agricultural interests truly represent America's great farm-
i n g tradition, or whether they only represent agricultural conglomerates
with operations worth tens of millions of dollars.
Alf Harper, who had written a strong letter of support for my first
faculty position after leaving MIT, wrote me a stern personal letter in
which he declared that I had "fallen on [my] own petard." A petard is a
type of bomb or firecracker. Apparently, my involvement in the Public
Nutrition Information Committee and the NAS Diet, Nutrition and Can-
cer report was finally too much for even him to bear.
Times were hot, to be sure. Congressional hearings, in which I testi-
fied, were held on the NAS report itself; People magazine featured me in
a prominent article, and an endless series of news media reports contin-
u e d over the next year.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCH
It seemed that for the first time in our history, the government was seri-
ously thinking about what we eat as a means of controlling cancer. This
was fertile territory for doing something new, and something new did
indeed fall into my lap. I was invited to assist a new organization called
the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) in Falls Church,
Virginia. The founders of this organization were fund-raisers and had