New Republic Attack on CSPI

Filled With Mistakes, Says CSPI Director

The current (Dec. 30) issue of The New Republic has an article ("Hazardous to Your Mental Health") that is a "irresponsible, error-filled" attack on the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), say CSPI officials. CSPI is the nonprofit health group that led efforts to win passage of a law requiring nutrition labeling on packaged foods and whose studies of restaurant meals have generated widespread attention .

The New Republic article charges that CSPI's work is unscientific and designed to increase subscription sales. The article is particularly critical of CSPI for its opposition to olestra, Procter & Gamble's controversial fat substitute.

Michael Jacobson, CSPI's executive director, said that "The New Republic 's charges are false and misleading. It is unfortunate that a magazine of The New Republic 's stature would sully its reputation by publishing an article that is loaded with mistakes and that totally fails to provide an accurate report of an organization that has a long history of credibility and respect."

"The article says that CSPI seeks publicity for its restaurant studies and other activities in order to sell subscriptions to its Nutrition Action Healthletter," Jacobson said, "but it fails to note that the major increase in circulation came before we began studying and publicizing the nutritional quality of restaurant meals.

"And while The New Republic charges that articles in Nutrition Action Healthletter concerning caffeine and food allergies contained errors, it was the New Republic 's writer, Stephen Glass, who didn't understand -- or misrepresented -- the research on which those articles were based."

The New Republic charges that CSPI's serious scientific research and demeanor gave way in the 1990s to hysteria and hype. As evidence for that allegation, the magazine cites two activities that actually occurred in the 1970s, twenty years earlier than CSPI's alleged descent into hype.

The New Republic 's Mr. Glass asserts that CSPI's opposition to "olestra is a case study in how CSPI advances its puritanical agenda by using shoddy data to inflate claims about a product's dangers." In fact, William Schultz, the Food and Drug Administration's Deputy Commissioner for policy, told The New York Times (May 29, 1996) that CSPI's input on olestra was "very irritating, but they were the only ones there raising the right questions."

CSPI opposed olestra because of evidence, provided by Procter & Gamble's own studies, that it washes nutrients out of the body and causes diarrhea and other gastrointestinal symptoms. Jacobson notes that CSPI's was "not a lonely voice, but part of a chorus that included such eminent scientists as Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. D. Mark Hegsted, the former chief of human nutrition at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and many others." None of these other critics were interviewed or even mentioned in the article.

Scientists are concerned about olestra because of the large body of evidence (though not categorical proof) that the nutrients (carotenoids) that olestra carries out of the body reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, and blindness. Ironically, just three weeks before the FDA approved olestra, its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Agriculture published Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which urges people to eat more vegetables and fruits, in part, "because of [carotenoids and other antioxidant nutrients'] potentially beneficial role in reducing the risk for cancer and certain other chronic diseases."

Jacobson noted that the article failed to inform The New Republic 's readers of CSPI's many accomplishments, including obtaining passage of the 1990 law requiring nutrition labeling of all packaged foods, stopping numerous deceptive food advertisements, obtaining restrictions on the use of dangerous nitrite and sulfite food preservatives, fighting successfully for the Department of Agriculture's recent improvements in meat and poultry inspection, and helping to combat problem drinking. CSPI's newsletter, other publications, and campaigns have provided tens of millions of Americans with information that they are using daily to improve their health -- and have encouraged companies to compete more on the basis of nutritional quality than package design.

Earlier this year FDA Commissioner David Kessler presented Jacobson with the FDA's highest award "For helping government, industry, and the public understand the relationship between diet and health, and, in doing so, accomplishing one of the great public health advances of the century."

"Clearly, if anything were 'hazardous to your mental health,' it is The New Republic 's misguided article, not CSPI's long, hard, and careful work," Jacobson concluded.

Journalists may obtain a copy of CSPI's 9-page rebuttal to The New Republic article by calling John Morrill, 202-332-9110, ext. 370, or clicking here.

CSPI was founded in 1971 and is supported largely by the 850,000 subscribers to its Nutrition Action Healthletter. CSPI accepts no funding from government or industry.

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