By Calvin Palmer
It never fails to amaze me how any wacko manages to hold center stage in America but they do. I guess it goes to prove just what a freedom-loving democracy the country is. Of course, it is not just any old wacko who is permitted by the mainstream media to hold forth on their loony views. Tag the words science or medicine in your resume and a compliant media that know next to nothing about science will swallow your message hook, line and sinker, providing it with the oxygen of publicity it scarcely deserves.
Following swiftly on the heels of the warning by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, regarding the high calorific value of children’s meals at popular restaurants, comes an attack by The Cancer Project, an offshoot of the anti-meat group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, on one of America’s greatest food icons, the hot dog.
This great American gastronomical invention comes under attack because of research that shows consuming 50 grams a day of processed meat, for several years, increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 21 percent. This research was contained in a report issued last November by the American Institute for Cancer Research.
Based on those findings, The Cancer Project has released a TV ad that has aired in several American cities and is due to be shown in September in Chicago and Denver. The TV commercial features a group of young boys eating hot dogs in a school cafeteria and one of them says, “I was dumbfounded when the doctor told me I have late-stage colon cancer.”
In a less freedom-loving democracy such as Britain, say, an ad of this nature would never see the light of day and would remain, as it should, in the fantasy world of its perpetrators. Britain has an independent body called the Advertising Standards Authority whose aim is to ensure all ads do not mislead, cause harm or offend.
The boy in this anti-hot dog ad does not have colon cancer and it would thus be deemed misleading and not be aired. Common sense would prevail, with the wackos sent packing back to the weird and warped reality they inhabit.
In Britain these kinds of people are described as nutters and they are rarely, if ever, given the kind of publicity that America affords such people. The one exception is election time when people representing The Moon Is Made Of Green Cheese Party garner 20 votes, if they are lucky. That, however, is real democracy.
It is frightening that these organizations are given credibility under the pretense of having the health interests of the public at heart. In reality, they are simply putting forward the agendas of the people behind them.
The heads of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine/The Cancer Project are both vegetarians. Neither one of them has any specialization in nutrition. They are just anti-meat.
Michael F. Jacobson co-founded the Center for Science in the Public Interest in 1971 with two other colleagues who have since left. He now serves as secretary to the board of directors but he loves the limelight and will be the face seen and the voice heard spouting his dogma at press conferences.
Jacobson is not a medical practitioner. He holds the courtesy title of Dr. due to his Ph.D. in microbiology. He has no academic accreditation in the field of nutrition and yet he assumes he, and he alone, knows what is best for all of us regarding our diet. Jacobson also leads the campaign to ban the airing of alcohol commercials on TV during college football games. That probably speaks volumes as to the nature of this man and his agenda.
Neal Barnard, M.D., who heads the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and is one of three directors on the board of The Cancer Project, is a psychiatrist. But Barnard clearly feels he suffers no disadvantage when it comes to lecturing the public on what it should or should not eat.
I doubt many nutritional experts would agree with Barnard when he stated in a 1997 publication, “The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all the natural disasters, and all the automobiles accidents combined. If beef is your idea of “real food for real people,” you had better live real close to a real good hospital.”
A statement such as that should have any reputable media organization asking the question whether Barnard is the kind of person worthy of airtime. But his money is as good as anybody’s and money talks, especially in these days of falling advertising revenue.
The Cancer Project TV commercial has drawn fire from the American Cancer Society, which states that the occasional hot dog is not going to increase the risk of colon cancer. Just how “occasional” is occasional? The latest figures from the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council show that Americans spent more than $4 billion on hot dogs last year. Needless to say, the council condemns this TV ad for being alarmist and a scare tactic.
What Jacobson and Barnard represent is something that does fall within Barnard’s field of medical expertise – burgeoning egos. But why should the American public be hounded for the sake of the vanity of these two men?
[Based on a report in USA Today.]
4 Comments
August 28, 2008 at 7:55 am
$4 billion?! On hotdogs? The argument that they are linked to cancer may not be proven but that’s a worringly lot of money to spend on something with little nutritional value. The reports you mention may lack credibility but there are findings to show that the eating of red meat does increase the risk of cancer. Here’s a report from the Guardian that cites the Harvard Medical School, hardly a body of rampant vegetarians I’m sure: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/nov/14/health.healthandwellbeing
In a country like America where medical care is down to the individual there is greater scope to say the individual’s eating habits are entirely their own business – if it makes them sick they pay for it. But in the UK where we contribute to the NHS , a universal heath care system, there is a greater call for the Government to encourage and promote healthy eating and lifestyles so the future demand for health care can be met by our taxes not the unfair private route. Taking a holistic view, a healthier society in both mind and body will be a better place to live, and the individual has to play their part too along side governments, and change eating habits for the better. The report may be cobblers, but the reduction in hotdog and burger sales across the USA can only be a good thing.
August 28, 2008 at 9:30 am
I haven’t mentioned that the reports lack credibility. What I object to is self-appointed “amateurs” promoting their own personal agenda, vegetarianism, and forcing it down the throats of everyone else.
August 28, 2008 at 11:59 am
If I gave you a lovely lentil burger Calvin you wouldn’t have to force it down your throat, you’d be drooling
September 10, 2008 at 2:58 pm
It’s one of the worrying things here in the UK, that those sort of nutters are starting to creep in…
Legal cases, for example, especially those dealing with pro-life issues, are being funded by US christian groups and protests were organised which still filled the newspapers…
They were there during the debate over same sex marriage too, funding campaigns and creating publicity.
Oddly, the cosmetics companies do get away with advertising exaggerated claims based on little evidence, they are still even allowed to make up names for pre-existing chemicals…
Your point is valid though, about democracies that have less emphasis on freedom. Take France, now there’s a country that even refuses to let people invent new words at all.