Myth-BUSTING
Exposing
Misconceptions
About Alleged
Increases in Cancer
Overview
Mainstream media’s coverage of the health and nutrition issue, pertaining to CANCER, is nothing more than BOGUS SENSATIONALISM.
A SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE SEARCH for articles EVALUATING THE CANCER RISK of 40 cookbook ingredients — everything from flour to pars-ley, lobster to duck ― REVEALED BORDER-LINE OR NO STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
Additional research has also shown that BIASES EXIST IN THE NUTRIENT CANCER LITERATURE.
One researcher described cancer as the result of a LOTTERY-LIKE ACCUMULATION OF STOCHASTIC MUTATIONS.
Faced with such a LOTTERY that none of us voluntarily enter, WE GRASP DESPERATELY FOR SIGNS OF CONTROLLABILITY.
There is a FUNDAMENTAL NEED AMONG RESEARCHERS TO PERCEIVE CONTROL OVER FEARED EVENTS.
The FIDELITY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS between nutrients and cancer may have been COMPROMISED in several ways ―
• They identified an OVERSTATING OF WEAK RESULTS ( most associations were only WEAKLY SUPPORTED )
• A LACK OF CONSISTENT COMPARISONS ( inconsistent definitions of exposure and outcomes )
• POSSIBLE SUPPRESSION OF NULL FINDINGS ( a bimodal distribution of outcomes, with a NOTICEABLE LACK OF NULL FINDINGS ).
It is therefore imperative that we SPEND LESS TIME REPEATING WEAK CORRELATIONS and invest the resources to vigorously investigate nutrient-cancer and other disease associations with STRONGER METHODOLOGY.
Does
Everything
You Eat
Give You
Cancer ?
December 3rd, 2012
American Council On Science And Health
Selected And Adapted Excerpts
American Council On Science And Health ( ACSH )
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan is President of the American Council On Science And Health ( ACSH ) and a member of its Board of Trustees. She founded ACSH in 1978. Whelan is a graduate of Connecticut College. She has a Masters’ Degree in Public Health from the Yale School of Medicine, a Master of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health , and a Doctor of Science from the Harvard School of Public Health. American Council On Science And Health ( ACSH ) is a consumer education-public health organization.
Is Everything We Eat Associated With Cancer ?
Reading the mainstream media’s coverage of the health and nutrition issue, you’d be forgiven if you thought EATING EVERYTHING FROM RED MEAT TO BURNT TOAST COULD CAUSE CANCER.
But a study by Michelle M. Bohan Brown, Andrew W. Brown, and David B. Allison shows many of these reports are nothing more than BOGUS SENSATIONALISM — just as we’ve been saying for years.
The study was published in American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, and provocatively entitled ―
Is Everything We Eat Associated With Cancer ? A Systematic Cookbook Review.
Drs. Jonathan Schoenfeld of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and John Loannidis of Stanford University randomly selected 50 ingredients from a popular cookbook.
They did a SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE SEARCH for articles EVALUATING THE CANCER RISK of 40 of the 50 ingredients — everything from flour to parsley, lobster to duck.
According to Dr. Jonathan Schoenfeld ―
When we examined the reports, we found many had BORDER-LINE OR NO STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
And even if one individual study did find a statistically significant link to cancer …
… it was very often DIFFICULT TO REPEAT that in other studies.
[ These studies are ] rife with EMOTIONAL AND SENSATIONAL RHETORIC that can subject the general public to INCREASED ANXIETY AND CONTRADICTORY ADVICE.
According to Dr. Ruth Kava of the American Council on Science and Health ( ACSH ) ―
This review underlines that, by and large, these SCARES we’ve been talking about for years are INSIGNIFICANT, to say the least.
It provides scientific backing for what we’ve said repeatedly — as exemplified by the American Council On Science And Health’s classic publication, the HOLIDAY DINNER MENU.
Holiday Dinner Menu
November 20th, 2008
American Council On Science And Health
Selected And Adapted Excerpts
The focus of this Holiday Dinner Menu is on so-called carcinogens, defined here as chemicals, either natural or synthetic, that cause cancer in rodents when consumed in large amounts.
A related topic, however, is that of so-called poisons, technically known as TOXICANTS.
Just as it is SCIENTIFICALLY UNWARRANTED to believe that the food supply is free of natural rodent carcinogens and mutagens, it is equally UNREALISTIC TO EQUATE SO-CALLED NATURAL WITH SAFE.
Foods abound in natural chemicals that are toxic or potentially toxic — because ALL CHEMICALS WILL BE TOXIC AT SOME DOSE.
Toxicologists have confirmed that food naturally contains a myriad of chemicals traditionally thought of as so-called POISONS ―
• CARROTS contain carototoxin, a NERVE POISON.
• LIMA BEANS contain hydrogen cyanide, a classic SUICIDE SUBSTANCE.
• NUTMEG, BLACK PEPPER, and CARROTS all contain the HALLUCINOGENIC compound myristicin.
• POTATOES contain solanine, arsenic, and, chaconine.
Moreover, all chemicals, whether natural or synthetic, are potential TOXICANTS at high doses but are perfectly safe when consumed in low doses.
• CAFFEINE, a familiar stimulant, is also a TOXICANT if consumed in high doses ( say, 50 to 100 cups of coffee per day ).
• COMMON TABLE SALT, an everyday chemical, when consumed in excess, can cause ELEVATIONS IN BLOOD PRESSURE in sensitive individuals; a couple of tablespoonsful can KILL A SMALL CHILD.
• IRON, an essential mineral supplement, all too often causes POISONING IN CHILDREN.
• SELENIUM, a mineral essential in the human diet, can cause nausea and nerve changes when chronically consumed in excess.
When it comes to TOXICANTS in the diet — natural or synthetic — THE DOSE MAKES THE POISON.
Nutritional Epidemiology In Practice : Learning From Data Or Promulgating Beliefs ?
First Published Ahead Of Print On December 5th, 2012
Michelle M. Bohan Brown, Andrew W. Brown, and David B. Allison
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Selected And Adapted Excerpts
The world can be a scary place.
Bad things sometimes happen to us and our loved ones, and few things are scarier than cancer.
When we are facing frightening things, a sense of controllability can ease our fears.
But experience and empirical evidence tell us that things are often more seemingly random and less predictable and controllable than we commonly think.
Before Benjamin Franklin’s scientific investigation of lightning and invention of the lightning rod, lightning was a terrifying, seemingly random and uncontrollable, and often deadly occurrence.
People sought explanations and control: they found those explanations in divine provenance and perceived control in the ringing of church bells.
Unfortunately, ringing church bells does not actually dissuade lightning and often led to the deaths of bell ringers who ascended the bell towers in the midst of storms.
One author described cancer as the result of a LOTTERY-LIKE ACCUMULATION OF STOCHASTIC MUTATIONS.
Faced with such a LOTTERY that none of us voluntarily enter, WE GRASP DESPERATELY FOR SIGNS OF CONTROLLABILITY.
Would it not be wonderful if food itself, the daily sustenance that we all take and one of our greatest pleasures, offered such controllability ?
For centuries, we have sought CAUSES AND CURES FOR CANCER, and FOOD HAS BEEN A PRIME CANDIDATE in that search.
Has this search and our collective conflict-of-interest in wanting to reduce our fear potentially affected our interpretation and reporting of research results, leading to BIAS in the scientific record ?
Are we like church-bell ringers in a storm ?
John Ioannidis has been a pioneer in creatively finding the skeletons in the epistemologic closet of the biomedical research community.
In this issue of the Journal, he and Jonathan Schoenfeld do so again with the provocative and innovative flair we have come to expect.
They raise an important question in NUTRITIONAL EPIDEMIOLOGY by asking …
Is Everything We Eat Associated With Cancer ?
As they noted in the Discussion, analyzing all nutrient-cancer interactions would be impossible.
Yet, by selecting 50 ingredients from a cookbook, they ensured that the analysis would be relevant to common, familiar foods, including specific dairy products, meats, vegetables, and spices and even tea and rum.
This method of selecting the subject of review was just as innovative as the question at hand.
They found that almost three-fourths of the articles they reviewed concluded that there was an increased or decreased risk of cancer attributed to various foods, with most evidence being at least NOMINALLY SIGNIFICANT.
It appears, then, that according to the published literature almost everything we eat is, in fact, associated with cancer.
However, Schoenfeld and Ioannidis proceeded to show that BIASES EXIST IN THE NUTRIENT CANCER LITERATURE.
The FIDELITY OF RESEARCH FINDINGS between nutrients and cancer may have been COMPROMISED in several ways ―
• They identified an OVERSTATING OF WEAK RESULTS ( most associations were only WEAKLY SUPPORTED )
• A LACK OF CONSISTENT COMPARISONS ( inconsistent definitions of exposure and outcomes )
• POSSIBLE SUPPRESSION OF NULL FINDINGS ( a bimodal distribution of outcomes, with a NOTICEABLE LACK OF NULL FINDINGS ).
Although Schoenfeld and Ioannidis showed that BIASES EXIST IN THE NUTRIENT-CANCER LITERATURE, it is unclear what causes these BREACHES IN SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVITY.
BIAS IS NOT NEW TO THE FIELD OF SCIENCE.
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier in the 1700s wrote about BIAS and its clouding of scientific findings, stating …
Imagination, on the contrary, which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions which are not immediately derived from facts; so that we become in some measure interested in deceiving ourselves.
White Hat BIAS, Confirmation BIAS, and Publication BIAS can lead to SELF-DECEPTION.
White Hat BIAS, defined by Cope and Allison as …
BIAS leading to distortion of research-based information in the service of what may be perceived as « righteous ends ».
This may be a factor in the OVERSTATEMENT of research findings.
In addition, OVERSTATEMENT of results can be influenced by Confirmation BIAS, in which the OVERSTATED results match preconceived views and hypotheses, leading to acceptance of the results, even if the results are WEAK OR NON-SIGNIFICANT.
When results are NULL, publishing can be difficult and can lead to Publication BIAS in which significant findings are more likely to be published, further distorting our view of what is known.
When results are presented in a BIASED manner, the DISTORTED RESULTS ARE DISSEMINATED TO THE PUBLIC THROUGH LAY MEDIA.
The implications of Schoenfeld and Ioannidis’ analysis may be important for NUTRITIONAL EPIDEMIOLOGY even more broadly.
Numerous food ingredients are thought to have medicinal properties that are NOT SUFFICIENTLY SUPPORTED BY CURRENT KNOWLEDGE — for example, COFFEE « CURING » DIABETES.
These DISTORTIONS can also be used to DEMONIZE foods, as shown by the long-standing PRESUMPTION that DIETARY CHOLESTEROL IN EGGS CONTRIBUTES TO HEART DISEASE.
Causative relations between various foods and diseases likely do exist, but the evidence for many relations is WEAK, although conclusions about these relations are stated with the certainty one would expect only from the most strongly supported evidence.
Important steps to improve the FIDELITY OF RESEARCH reporting include the following ―
• increased use and improvement of clinical trial and observational study registries
• Making raw data publicly available.
• Making supporting documentation such as protocols, consent forms, and analytic plans publicly available.
• Mandating the publication of results from human ( or animal ) research supported by taxpayer funds.
As Schoenfeld and Ioannidis highlighted, comprehensive approaches to improve reporting of nutrient-disease outcomes could go a long way toward DECREASING REPEATED SENSATIONAL REPORTS OF THE EFFECTS OF FOODS ON HEALTH.
However, none of these DEBIASING SOLUTIONS address the FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN NEED TO PERCEIVE CONTROL OVER FEARED EVENTS.
Although scientists may have ULTERIOR MOTIVES for looking for nutrient-disease associations, the public is always the final audience.
It is therefore imperative that we SPEND LESS TIME REPEATING WEAK CORRELATIONS and invest the resources to vigorously investigate nutrient-cancer and other disease associations with STRONGER METHODOLOGY, so that we give the public lightning rods instead of sending them up the bell tower.
The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
The contents of this editorial are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of any organization with which they are affiliated.
Background Information from an Independent Perspective
Cancer FACTS
Exposing Misconceptions About the Imaginary Threat of Pest Control Products.
There are NO pest control products that are known or probable carcinogens.
It is a MYTH to believe that pest control products somehow cause cancer.
There are THOUSANDS OF DEATHS per year from KNOWN CANCER-CAUSING SUBSTANCES such as cigarette smoke and alcohol.
There is NOT ONE KNOWN CANCER DEATH from the proper use of pest control products used in the Urban Landscape.
Canadian Cancer Society, through its promotional literature, continues to insist there is a link between pest control products and cancer, despite the fact that its U.S. counterpart, American Cancer Society, DOES NOT SHARE THE SAME VIEWPOINT.
Even Canadian Cancer Society’s own web-site states that scientific research does NOT provide a conclusive link between pesticides and human cancer.
In 2007, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency of Health Canada issued a ruling that products like 2,4-D Herbicide ARE NOT CANCER-CAUSING IN HUMANS.
The World Health Organization only lists the common pest control product 2,4-D in the SAME CANCER-RISK CATEGORY AS PICKLED VEGETABLES AND CELL-PHONES.
Pest control products are SCIENTIFICALLY SAFE, and NO HARM WILL OCCUR when they are used according to label directions.
No Conclusive Link With Cancer
Canadian Cancer Society’s own web-sites STATE REPEATEDLY that scientific research DOES NOT PROVIDE A CONCLUSIVE LINK between pest control products and cancer.
Even some of Canadian Cancer Society’s HIGHEST-RANKING LOBBYISTS states that the connection between cancer and pesticides is NOT CONCLUSIVE.
PESTICIDE TRUTHS — 2012 06 09 — PESTICIDES & CANCER — NO CONCLUSIVE LINK — CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY — BARBARA KAMINSKY ( Report )
PESTICIDE TRUTHS — 2012 06 09 — PESTICIDES & CANCER — NO DEFINITE CAUSE & EFFECT — CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY – PATTI MOORE ( Report )
ORGANIZATION – CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY – NO DIRECT PROOF PESTICIDES CAUSE CANCER ( Web-Page )
INDISPUTABLE AND CONCLUSIVE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH shows that, as reported through Health Canada’s VAST TOXICOLOGY DATABASE, NO HARM WILL OCCUR when pest control products are used according to label directions.
NORAHG is the National Organization Responding Against HUJE that seek to harm the Green space industry.
Communities and businesses are being HARMED and DESTROYED by PROHIBITIONS against the use of pest control products in the Urban Landscape.
NORAHG morally represents the VAST SILENT MAJORITY of people associated with turf and ornamental plant maintenance who are OPPOSED to Anti Pesticide PROHIBITION and the CLOSURE or ABANDONMENT of green spaces under the RIDICULOUS PRETEXT of somehow « saving » the environment.
NORAHG is a NATIONAL NON PROFIT NON PARTISAN organization that does not accept money from corporations or governments or trade associations, and represents NO VESTED INTERESTS WHATSOEVER.
NORAHG is dedicated to reporting the work of RESPECTED and HIGHLY RATED EXPERTS who promote ENVIRONMENTAL REALISM and PESTICIDE TRUTHS.
NORAHG pledges to deliver reports that are worthy of peoples’ time and of peoples’ concern, reports that might ordinarily never have breached the parapet.
NORAHG was the brainchild of William H. Gathercole and his colleagues in 1991. Mr. Gathercole is now retired, although his name continues to appear as founder.
For the original copy of this Force Of Nature Report, go to the following link …
NORAHG has archived more information about CANCER on The Pesticide Truths Web-Site …
THE MYTH OF CANCER – MYTH-BUSTING ( Web-Page )
THE MYTH OF CANCER – CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY – NO DIRECT PROOF PESTICIDES CAUSE CANCER ( Web-Page )
THE MYTH OF CANCER – THE WISDOM OF KABAT, GEOFFREY C. – 2012 11 20 – CONFLATION OF ADVOCACY WITH SCIENCE – HOW ACTIVISM DISTORTS THE ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH RISKS – INTERNATIONAL AGENCY FOR RESEARCH ON CANCER ( IARC ) ( Reports )
THE MYTH OF CANCER – THE WISDOM OF RITTER, LEONARD – PESTICIDES DON'T CAUSE CANCER – MYTH-BUSTING – 2012 01 26 ( Report )
THE MYTH OF CANCER – THE WISDOM OF WHELAN & AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH ( ACSH ) – MYTH-BUSTING – CANCER RATES DROPPING IN THE U.S. – 2012 03 30 ( Report )
THE MYTH OF CANCER – THE WISDOM OF WHELAN & AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH ( ACSH ) – MYTH-BUSTING — CANCER – RATES DECLINING – 2011 03 31 ( Report )
THE MYTH OF CANCER – THE WISDOM OF WHELAN & AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH ( ACSH ) – CANCER DOWN, CHEMOPHOBIA UP – 2010 07 08 ( Report )
NORAHG has archived more information about AGRICULTURE on The Pesticide Truths Web-Site …
AGRICULTURE – ORGANIC FOOD – NIGHTMARE & EXTORTION – DISMALLY BOGUS ( Web-Page )
AGRICULTURE – TARGETED BY ANTI-PESTICIDE ACTIVISTS … AND MORE ( Web-Page )
AGRICULTURE – AGRICULTURE IS NEXT ! – CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY WANTS TO ANNIHILATE THE AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY – JERILYNN MAKI – KAMLOOPS, BRITISH COLUMBIA – 2012 06 19 ( Reports )
AGRICULTURE – AGRICULTURE IS NEXT ! – CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY WANTS TO ANNIHILATE THE AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY – AGRICULTURE — EXPLORING THE CONNECTION – 2008 08 13 ( Reference )
AGRICULTURE – THE WISDOM OF WHELAN & AMERICAN COUNCIL ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH ( ACSH ) – UNMASKED — AGRICULTURE – PESTICIDES ON FOOD ARE SAFE – 2012 01 18 ( Report )
NORAHG has archived even more information on The Pesticide Truths Web-Site …
THE PESTICIDE TRUTHS WEB-SITE
PESTICIDE BANS ARE A FARCE ( Report )
REAL TRENDS AGAINST PESTICIDE BANS ( Web-Page )
CARNAGE CAUSED BY CATASTROPHIC ANTI-PESTICIDE PROHIBITION – MAIN WEB-PAGE
CARNAGE CAUSED BY CATASTROPHIC ANTI-PESTICIDE PROHIBITION – RE-DIRECT LINKS ( Web-Page )
GOLF DESTRUCTION – GOLF IS NEXT ( Web-Page )
WHITE PAPER – THE MYTHS ABOUT BANNING PESTICIDES ( Part 2 ) – LEADING SCIENTIFIC HEALTH AND POLICY EXPERTS
THE COMPLETE LIBRARY OF REPORTS & REFERENCES ( Web-Page )
PESTICIDE TRUTHS REPORTS ( Web-Page )
