Many of us have bought into the hope and belief that organic fruits and vegetables are not only less toxic to our health, thanks to lower pesticide residues, but they are also higher in nutrients that help to protect us from illness and disease.

Now we are confronted with this summer's release of a review of science studies, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, telling us that the $48 billion spent annually on organic foods is a waste of money, a huge scam against all consumers. "Organic food is not nutritionally superior to conventional food," concluded lead survey author Alan D. Dangour, a London public health nutritionist.

Funded by the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency, these findings generated a blast of global media attention, especially in the U.S., where corporate agricultural concerns are seizing on the findings as evidence that we need to apply even more synthetic chemicals to lower our overall food costs.

For a moment, let's cast a skeptical eye on this latest claim of organic fraud. What is the real story behind it and what explains the pathological willingness of many media outlets in this country to embrace anything negative as gospel?

Depending on the standards and parameters of evidence drawn for a science study, researchers can find just about any result they consciously or unconsciously desire. This doesn't necessarily mean the British researchers set out to undermine the organic food industry, but they decided to survey just 55 science studies done between 1958 and 2008 that compared organic and non-organic foods. This means they discarded many hundreds of other more positive studies that didn't meet their sniff test. Not only that, but the studies they chose to include involved livestock products as well as fruits and vegetables.

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