Initial Reflections on the Annals of Internal Medicine Paper “Are Organic Foods Safer and Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives? A Systematic Review”

By: Charles Benbrook
Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources Washington State University

In a comprehensive paper published in the September 4, 2012 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine (Smith-?Spangler et al., Vol. 157, Number 5: pages 349–369), a Stanford University Medical School team surveys the global literature for evidence of differences between the nutritional quality and safety of organic and conventional foods. The team’s two major conclusions are that:

“The published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.”

“Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-?resistant bacteria.”

The analysis supporting these conclusions is flawed in several ways. The basic indicators used to compare the nutritional quality and safety of organic versus conventional food consistently understate the magnitude of the differences reported in high-quality, contemporary peer-?reviewed literature. In the case of pesticides and antibiotics, the indicator used—the percent of samples of organic food with a trait minus the percent of conventional samples affected—is not a valid indicator of human health risk.

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