The 2nd big lie
Political influence and suspect science obscured tobacco’s role as a global killer for decades.
Tony Wardle asks if meat is being protected by similar techniques
the city, 1999. They stood together, posing, not a glimmer of shame or embarrassment on either of their faces. Journalists’ questions were all about profit and loss, growth and markets as the two directors announced a merger of their companies into one global, multi-billion dollar corporation. No one mentioned that their products will kill millions of people in the coming years.
The whole scenario was wreathed in a sickening stench of hypocrisy. While government wages war on drugs, it remains almost silent about these, the biggest drug peddlers of all – the tobacco barons.
The first scientific report linking smoking with lung cancer was published in the early 1950s. Since then, there has been a constant stream of science showing how tobacco kills people and destroys their health. And there’s been almost as much pseudo science desperately trying to contradict the facts.
Britain’s annual 120,000 death toll due to smoking compares with 605 deaths from heroin, methadone and all the other ‘recreational’ drugs. Of every 1,000 young people who start smoking today, one will be murdered, six will die in road accidents and 500 will die from tobacco. (About 300 will die from coronary heart disease, largely caused by eating animal products – but more about that in a minute). The barons are now spreading the contagion to the developing world.
How on earth was this allowed to happen? The tobacco industry has known for 40 years that their products cause cancer and are addictive. One company even intended to boost its profits by introducing a ‘learner’ cigarette for children. How were they able to sustain the lie that tobacco was neither harmful nor addictive for so many decades? With classic techniques of manipulation, that’s how! Resources were poured into ‘persuading’ politicians at the highest level, scientific research in Britain and the US was purposely perverted and untainted science was ruthlessly misinterpreted. The Press remained largely silent and their proprietors pocketed huge amounts of the industry’s advertising spend.
The second big lie, of course, is that animal products are ethical, natural and vital for good health and the myths seem to be propped up with similar techniques. Government – our new, third-way government – has shown a willingness to roll over before the meat industry’s lobbying onslaught with the same alacrity as the last lot.
BSE showed how the Tories put the profitability of their friends above human life. New Labour, however, showed early signs of honesty. It didn’t last! When its advisory committee (COMA) recommended that most people should reduce their meat consumption in order to save some 100,000 lives a year from cancer – and even more from heart disease – we cheered. It was premature. The meat industry went into a paroxysm of lobbying and just weeks later COMA said: “Sorry, folks, got it wrong, you can all carry on as before.” It was abject surrender.
Now we have the proposed Food Standards Agency, delayed, modified and emasculated after enormous pressure from the food industry. At the time of writing, its powers aren’t clear but it seems it will have no control over the use of pesticides, antibiotics and the appalling conditions of farm animals, the source of the majority of diet-related health problems – the very things which worry people most. Yet another round to the meat lobby!
The advertising spend of the meat industry is enormous – its claims sometimes cynically deceptive as Viva! has discovered. Viva! has won ten Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) judgements against the Meat and Livestock Commission (MLC) for misleading claims over iron deficiency anaemia, vitamin B12 and BSE. Not one of the newspapers which published the ads reported the fact, nor did they hand their advertising revenue back. It’s called freedom of the Press!
The main targets for the MLC’s propaganda are children and their mothers. It includes sending ‘nutritionally qualified’ speakers into schools.
Well that’s okay then, we can rest easy in our beds. These nutritionally qualified people will obviously tell children the truth about diet – little gems from bodies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO)!
“Diets associated with increases in chronic diseases are those rich in sugar, meat and other animal products, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol…“ Or recommendations such as: “Policies should be geared to the growing of plant foods including vegetables and fruits and to limiting the promotion of fat containing products.” Limit promotion? Don’t be silly, that’s the MLC’s raison d’etre.
Neither will you find anything from the world’s most authoritative dietary body, the American Dietetic Association (ADA). Certainly not its conclusion that vegetarians are less at risk from all the degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes nor that they live longer than meat eaters.
And if you can find the following ADA reference in any of the MLC’s school materials, you win a big clock. “Vegetarian diets offer disease protection benefits because of their lower saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein content and often higher concentrations of folate, antioxidant vitamins and plant nutrients”.
Even more difficult to come to terms with than the meat industry’s selective eye is how scientists allow themselves to be used in support of poorly-researched, anti-vegetarian propaganda. One eminent nutritionist in particular pops up quite regularly in the media, wagging a stern cautionary finger at vegetarians and helping to perpetuate the myth that a vegetarian diet is somehow second rate and sub standard.
He is Professor Tom Sanders BSc, PhD, DSc, Head of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Kings College, London University, member of the editorial board of the journal Vegetarian Nutrition and contributor to every international congress on vegetarian nutrition. He is probably the leading academic spokesperson on vegetarianism in Britain. He is not, however, a vegetarian.
In a recent article in The Guardian he maintained that vegetarians are at risk of vitamin B12 deficiency and face twice the risk of iron deficiency anaemia. On a previous TV programme he had lent support to the belief that there was a link between vegetarianism and anorexia. Pretty scary stuff – so I decided to tackle the Prof.
On anorexia he replied: “We conducted a survey of children with eating disorders and found that over 90 per cent claimed to be vegetarian. I have never suggested that becoming a vegetarian gives you an eating disorder. However, my colleagues in the Institute of Psychiatry tell me that the majority of patients they see with eating disorders are vegetarian.”
I think this comes under the heading of wanting to have your cake and eat it. He didn’t claim a link but certainly inferred there was some connection.
I dug around and found no research anywhere in the world to support the
inference. From Australia, however, came a study which established that only
six per cent of girls claimed to be vegetarian before the onset of their
disease – about the national average. After onset, the figure
went up to nearly 90 per cent. Reports from the US confirmed this and referred
to them as ‘pseudo’ vegetarians. But there was an even more important
finding from the ADA: “…recent data suggests that adopting a
vegetarian diet does not lead to eating disorders.” Bingo!
The Prof’s response was as limp as a vicar’s handshake: “…vegan and vegetarian diets can be and should be perfectly healthy. They should never be used as an excuse for faddy eating.” Yes… and?
So what about his claim on iron deficiency? He repeated: “We have found iron deficiency to be twice as prevalent in vegetarians compared with non-vegetarians”. A simple statement with no qualification. But he went on: “We have completed a survey of over 600 adolescent girls and have found approximately a fifth are iron deficient.”
Again very scary! So let’s bring a bit of science to bear.
If you survey any population of women of menstruating age, whether carnivore or vegetarian, you will find that at least one-fifth is lacking in iron.
The WHO estimates that some 750 million women world wide suffer from the problem. However, they don’t accept that vegetarians face a higher risk than meat eaters. What do other researchers have to say?
Well blow me down if I didn’t find a paper by the Prof himself: “Western vegans and vegetarians usually have high intakes of iron… these intakes must be adequate because their haemoglobin levels (the iron-rich red cells) are normal.” A little bit of contradiction, I think, Prof!
Just to prove it wasn’t a passing aberration, I found another of the Prof’s papers: “Haemoglobin concentrations are generally normal in SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) and British vegans and vegetarians.” So what’s going on?
I turned to the ADA. “…iron deficiency anaemia rates are similar in vegetarians and non vegetarians.” The British Medical Association (BMA) was no less absolute: “Iron deficiency anaemia is no more common in vegetarians and vegans.”
But the Prof wasn’t phased and countered by again quoting the research on adolescent girls carried out by his own department in 1997. He wasn’t to know, of course, that Viva!’s director had spoken to the researcher responsible 18 months earlier following scare headlines in the London Evening Standard which claimed that vegetarian girls were at greater risk of iron deficiency and of having lower IQs. Fortunately, Viva! kept a note of the conversation.
She said: “The study showed no evidence of increased levels of anaemia in vegetarians. Journalists have their own agenda and they have not reported our study accurately.” Professors also, it seems, have their own agenda! But Tom Sanders was not to be defeated that easily.
“The other researcher involved is a long-standing vegetarian and agrees there is a hazard associated with people following ‘untutored vegetarian’ diets.” Very interesting, Prof, but what about anaemia?
The Prof’s final ‘proof’ involved a very specific group of British Asians who buck all the world-wide trends for vegetarianism by having increased levels of heart disease, diabetes as well as iron deficiency.
“The community we have been studying is Gujarati. They are life-long vegetarians and the incidence of anaemia among these people is much higher than in other groups who are not vegetarian.” As John McEnroe would have said – you can’t be serious!
In disbelief I moved on to vitamin B12 deficiency. It affects vegetarians because milk and yoghurt are a poor source, claimed the Prof. He even provided me with a paper headed Vitamin B12 as proof. Far from being a poor source, milk and yoghurt are listed as a fair source. Of course most vegetarians who have milk and yoghurt also eat cheese and eggs – both listed as good sources.
Again I checked the Prof’s previous studies, particularly one on the
medical aspects of vegetarianism. He wrote:
“… ‘several’ cases of dietary vitamin B12 deficiency
have been reported among vegans.” Just ‘several’ cases, eh,
and only among vegans? He went on to explain that not only was the risk slight,
it was very easy to avoid all together. So, statistics please, Prof!
“There are no routine collected statistics… so we cannot estimate the incidence.” Too few to count! Research by Reed Mangels agreed: “B12 deficiency is ‘quite rare’, even among long-term vegans.”
When I put this to the Prof, he was no longer quite so adamant: “…we still continue to see ‘isolated’ cases of B12 deficiency”, apparently among vegans or vegetarians whose diets are close to being vegan. But it was only the sucker punch before the knock-out blow:
“Over 100,000 cases of optic nerve neuropathy resulted from vitamin B12 deficiency in Cuba over the last few years which was exacerbated by cyanide toxicity from cassava.”
So there we have it! If you can find 100,000 vegetarians or vegans in Cuba – with B12 deficiency or without – I will personally cover all your expenses for going there. The experiences of a besieged, poverty-stricken island, where people eat cassava laced with cyanide, has about as much relevance to the diets of people in Manchester, Manhattan and Munich as a course in how to knit a bungalow.
As his final defence, Prof Sanders claimed he had been careful not to take sides in the debate between vegetarianism and meat eating but added that vegetarian diets are defined on the basis of foods excluded from the diet, “whereas the nutritional quality of any diet depends upon which foods are included in it not what is excluded.” In other words – a meat diet is better than a vegetarian diet because it contains a wider variety of foodstuffs.
There’s someone who strongly disagrees with the Prof: “British vegans and vegetarians consume a very wide variety of plant foods. Indeed, their diets tend to contain more variety than that of the typical non-vegetarian. Consequently, the term omnivore to describe non-vegetarians is a misnomer.” Who said it? One Prof T.A.B. Sanders!
The Prof’s public pronouncements have provided the meat industry with some wonderful ammunition. It’s no accident that the health issues they push are iron deficiency, B12 and the euphemistic ‘teenage health problems’. Next time the Prof goes on air it would be helpful if he reminded everyone of some of his other findings: “Studies have failed to show that vegetarians or vegans are less healthy than non-vegetarians.” “Studies show that their growth and development is normal.”
The science is now incontrovertible – vegetarians and vegans are healthier than meat eaters and live longer. But the issues are wider than that. Many of the world’s great environmental catastrophes, from the abstraction of water to desertification, deforestation to dying oceans, have a direct causal link with diets based on animal protein. And yet these diets are still uncritically supported by governments, the Press and most academic institutions. The plague spreads as producers target the developing world with their factory farming technology and drugs and their actions are given legitimacy by selective science.
While some nutritionists tinker with research which lies at the very edge of vegetarianism and provide the media with the ‘shock horror’ results it wants, they unwittingly support an industry which abuses animals and people by the billions. Their cautions are like warning against the waste of paper used for cigarettes while ignoring the damage done to health by tobacco.
What we require from them is to qualify their advice, to caution against the diseases accelerated by meat consumption and to offer some support for people who are not only improving their health but are making an enormous environmental, humanitarian and ethical change in their lifestyles – changes which offer some hope to a world in frighteningly rapid decline.