The theory of the “big lie” is that if you say it loud enough and long enough, people will believe it regardless of how ridiculous it is. Such is the case with Dr. Michel Odent’s claim that childbirth pain is necessary for mother-infant bonding. It is ridiculous, there is no evidence for it, which is not surprising since he made it up.

Odent went public with his fabrication in July 2006:

Women who choose to have Caesarean sections may be jeopardising their chances of bonding properly with their babies, a leading childbirth expert has claimed.

Obstetrician Michel Odent said that undergoing the planned procedure prevents the release of hormones that cause a woman to ‘fall in love’ with her child.

Speaking at a conference in Cambridge, Dr Odent warned that both C-sections and artificial inductions with drugs somehow interfere with the natural production of the hormone oxytocin.

The French expert said: “Oxytocin is the hormone of love, and to give birth without releasing this complex cocktail of love chemicals disturbs the first contact between the mother and the baby.

“The hormone is produced during sex and breastfeeding, as well as birth, but in the moments after birth, a woman’s oxytocin level is the highest it will ever be in her life, and this peak is vital.

“It is this hormone flood that enables a woman to fall in love with her newborn and forget the pain of birth.”

He added: “What we can say for sure is that when a woman gives birth with a pre-labour Caesarean section she does not release this flow of love hormones, so she is a different woman than if she had given birth naturally and the first contact between mother and baby is different.”

Why is this a big lie?

1. There is no evidence that oxytocin is required for bonding.
2. There is no evidence that a complex interaction like maternal-infant bonding is mediated simply by hormones
3.If oxytocin were the source of bonding, women who received pitocin would be more bonded to their babies than anyone else.
4. Odent and his supporters get around this difficulty by claiming that pitocin is different from oxytocin (false) or that the only oxytocin produced within the brain can have an effect on the brain (there’s no evidence for that).

The claim that childbirth pain is required for bonding is nothing but an offensive smear. No doubt Odent and his supporters wish it were true, so that simply asserted it.

Interestingly, this is not the only time that Dr. Odent has made up a theory to support his personal prejudices. Evidently, he could not stand to support his own wife when she was in labor, so he has made up a theory that the presence of fathers at birth is “dangerous.”

In April 2008, Odent declared:

That there is little good to come for either sex from having a man at the birth of a child.

For her, his presence is a hindrance, and a significant factor in why labours are longer, more painful and more likely to result in intervention than ever.

As for the effect on a man – well, was I surprised to hear a friend of mine state that watching his wife giving birth had started a chain of events that led to the couple’s divorce?

What is the genesis of this theory? Dr. Odent’s personally discomfort with attending the births of his children.

As it happens, at the exact moment our son arrived in the world, the midwife was on her way down the street and I, having made my excuses realising he was about to be born, was fiddling with the thermostat on the central heating boiler downstairs.

My partner did not know it, but I had given her the exceptionally rare, but ideal situation in which to give birth: she felt secure, she knew the midwife was minutes away and I was downstairs, yet she had complete privacy and no one was watching her.

I raise the issue to point out that Michel Odent fabricates his theories about childbirth out of thin air. In this case, as in the case of his offensive claims about childbirth and bonding, he announced a brand new scientific theory without any research and without any evidence. He seemed to think that it was enough that the theory made sense to him and confirmed his personal preferences.

It is easy for lay people to understand that Odent’s “theory” of fathers at birth is nothing more than a projection of his own anxieties and prejudices. It is important for lay people to understand that his “theories” of natural childbirth, waterbirth, and bonding are also nothing more than projections of his own anxieties and prejudices.

There has been considerable furor surrounding midwifery professor Denis Walsh’s assertion that women benefit from the pain of childbirth. It is important to understand that although Walsh attempts to ground his claim in science, the scientific evidence does not support him. That’s because “natural” childbirth has nothing to do with science; it is a philosophy, not an impartial result of scientific facts.

From it’s origin in Biblical injunctions that childbirth pain is punishment for women’s inherent sinfulness, to it’s modern adaptation by eugenicist Grantly Dick-Read, preoccupied as he was with racist, sexist fantasies, it has never had any basis in science. That didn’t stop 19th Century opponents of anesthesia for childbirth from insisting that it was “unnatural;” it didn’t stop Grantly Dick-Read from making up “science” to support his racist and sexist claims; and it certainly does not stop contemporary advocates of “natural” childbirth from insisting that unmedicated childbirth is better, despite the fact that the scientific evidence shows that unmedicated childbirth is not better, safer, healthier or superior in any way to childbirth with pain relief.

So if “natural” childbirth has no basis in science, what about it’s validity as a philosophy?

There are quite a few problems there, too. That’s because “natural” childbirth makes assumptions about the nature of women, science and pain, assumptions that most people do not support. Indeed the most powerful critique of the “natural” childbirth movement is to be found in feminist philosophy. Feminist philosopher Katherine Beckett, in Choosing Cesarean: Feminism and the politics of childbirth in the United States, (Feminist Theory, 2005, vol. 6(3): 251–275) writes:

..[Feminist] critics argue that the idealization of ‘natural childbirth’ rests on the assumption that both women and childbirth have a true essence or nature that is respected by the natural childbirth movement but violated by the medical establishment: birth activists then ‘assert a nature to which birthing women must conform’…

Beckett points out that the claim of “natural” childbirth advocates that pain relief is pushed on women to their detriment is in direct contradiction of actual historical fact:

…[H]istorical scholarship indicates that women had long expressed a great deal of fear and trepidation about the potential pain (and danger) of childbirth. Indeed, many first wave feminist activists saw the right to pain relief as an important political issue and argued strenuously for women’s right to relieve their suffering … through the use of drugs, and specifically, scopolamine. These activists were outraged by obstetricians’ reluctance to provide pharmacological pain relief …

Beckett also addresses belief that childbirth pain is good for women, the belief that Walsh promotes.

Pain is a recurring issue for feminist analysts of childbirth … First wave feminists saw the right to pain relief during childbirth as an important political issue… [T]hird wave scholars, drawing on their experiences with alternative ‘birth culture’, have criticized the alternative birthing community’s knee-jerk rejection of (pharmacological) pain relief and understand this rejection as indicative of a kind of machisma, a belief that birth is ‘an extreme sport’. ‘Isn’t it interesting’, one such writer comments, ‘that the movement that’s supposedly feminist is the one that insists on women feeling pain?’. Another suggests: ‘Today’s natural childbirth purists don’t see moral punishment in pain but they do see moral superiority in refusing pain relief’.

The idea that women do (or should) savour, enjoy, or feel empowered by the experience of labour and delivery, they argue, romanticizes women’s roles as lifebearers and mothers, and assumes an emotional and physical reality (or posits an emotional and physical norm) that does not exist for many…

In short, some feminists perceive the alternative birth movement as rigid and moralistic, insistent that giving birth ‘naturally’ is superior and, indeed, is a measure of a ‘good mother’. The perceived moralism of this stance is quite troubling to some; according to one feminist critic, the ‘natural’ philosophy … is as tyrannical and prescriptive as the medical model, but pretends not to be …

It is against this background that Walsh’s claim should be evaluated. It is not science; it is philosophy and even as philosophy it has serious problems. The obsession with unmedicated birth is based on flawed assumptions about women and about pain. It is inappropriately moralistic, and consciously or unconsciously serves only to elevate the personal choices of “natural” childbirth/homebirth advocates, while denigrating the choices of most women.

She has been called “an angel in a white coat.” She is a doctor and the first black woman and youngest person elected to the board of the American Medical Association. She received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. She’s been honored for her medical work on behalf of the poor by both Nelson Mandela and the Pope. The President has just appointed her to the job of Surgeon General

And around the web from the blogosphere to mainstream publications people are discussing … her weight!

There’s no quicker way to diminish the achievements of a powerful woman than to talk about her body. But don’t worry, it’s okay because prejudice against the overweight is the socially acceptable prejudice. It’s socially acceptable because it masquerades as a health issue although it is really a class, race and gender issue.

Let’s be completely clear on one point first. Those piously declaiming on Dr. Benjamin’s potential influence as a health role model are ignoring the scientific evidence. Decades of scientific evidence have already demonstrated that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, overweight people live longer than people of “ideal” body weight.

The hysteria about weight sweeping contemporary America is just that, hysteria. Of course morbid obesity is a serious health problem with potentially deadly consequences. However, simply being overweight is not only safe, but actually appears to be protective compared to “ideal” weight. That’s what the data really show.

Why is the conventional wisdom about weight completely unhinged from the actual scientific evidence? The answer, I believe, is prejudice. Weight has become a proxy for social class. And, as we all know, it’s always open season when it comes to criticizing the bodies of women, particularly black women.

When poor people were thin because they didn’t have enough to eat, being overweight was a sign of status. That’s changed now. Thin is a sign of wealth. Achieving and maintaining the favored body type requires access to healthy food and special diet foods. It also requires exercise equipment or membership in a gym or, most exclusive of all, a personal trainer. All these things cost money, so weight has come to be viewed, accurately, as a sign of economic class.

Much of this is perceived only on the unconscious level. Nonetheless, it leaves people feeling free to criticize those who are overweight, supposedly on “health” grounds, but in reality as a proxy for social class.

Let’s be brutally honest here: Regina Benjamin looks like the stereotypical fat, black welfare queen and therefore, a socially acceptable target for our class, race and gender prejudices.

The hypocrisy about health concerns is glaring. Did anyone dare to discuss C. Everett Koop’s weight when he was appointed Surgeon General? Has anyone declared President Obama unworthy of being a role model because he smokes? Of course not, but it socially acceptable to muse about the “suitability” of Regina Benjamin as Surgeon General because she is an overweight black woman.

I am so angry I could spit. An extraordinarily brilliant, compassionate, gifted individual has been nominated to take control of an important health organization in disarray and the mainstream media is talking about her body. Salon Magazine ran an article about it yesterday, and MSNBC has Arthur Caplan discussing the “bioethical” implications of Dr. Benjamin’s weight today. Have people lost their minds?

No, of course not. They’re just enjoying the socially acceptable occupation of criticizing black women’s bodies; there are so few politically correct forms of prejudice left that no one can refrain from indulging.

There are not many heartwarming stories about death, and even fewer about suicide. That small number is destined to grow with the addition of the true story of Sir Edward and Lady Downes, and elderly couple who chose to end their lives together as she faced imminent death from terminal cancer.

From The New York Times:

…[O]ne of Britain’s most distinguished orchestra conductors, Sir Edward Downes, [flew] to Switzerland last week with his wife and joined her in drinking a lethal cocktail of barbiturates provided by an assisted-suicide clinic.

Although friends who spoke to the British news media said Sir Edward was not known to have been terminally ill, they said he wanted to die with his ailing wife, who had been his partner for more than half a century.

According to their children:

Sir Edward, who was described in a statement issued earlier on Tuesday by [their son and daughter] as “almost blind and increasingly deaf,” was principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra … [and] a conductor of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London, where he led 950 performances over more than 50 years.

Lady Downes, who British newspapers said was in the final stages of terminal cancer, was a former ballet dancer, choreographer and television producer who devoted her later years to working as her husband’s assistant.

“After 54 happy years together, they decided to end their own lives rather than continue to struggle with serious health problems,” the Downes children said in their statement.

What could be more natural or more romantic? An elderly couple who had an unusually long and happy life together faced only debility, decline and life apart. They viewed this prospect as insupportable and chose to take control of their destiny by ending their lives now instead of suffering longer. Their deaths were quiet and peaceful, just as they had planned

…[T]he children said, they watched, weeping, as their parents drank “a small quantity of clear liquid” before lying down on adjacent beds, holding hands.

“Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes,” … the couple’s 41-year-old son, said in the interview after his return to Britain. “They wanted to be next to each other when they died…”

Of course Britain, like the United States, does not permit an elderly couple to control the timing and method of their own deaths, even when those deaths are inevitable. Sir Edward and Lady Downes were forced to leave their home and travel to Switzerland, where the organization Dignitas helped arrange the suicides.

Predictably, the news of the deaths has ignited controversy back home. The British Medical Association, in their wisdom, voted recently to deny the terminally ill the option of assisted suicide.

Not surprisingly, though, in a society that forces the terminally ill to live even if they are suffering, it is Sir Edward’s death that has sparked the most outrage. He may have been 85 years old, almost blind and losing his hearing, he was not terminally ill. He had lived a long time, longer than most men, and was satisfied with his length of life, but the British, like Americans, believe that death is far too serious a matter to be controlled by the person who is dying.

That’s the source of the outrage. It is certainly not about the deaths of this elderly couple for natural deaths at the very same moment would have provoked no concern. The outrage is directed at the temerity of Sir Edward and Lady Downes in arranging the time, place and manner of their deaths instead of taking their chances with cruel fate.

The concern is not for them, of course, but for us. As Rod Dreher writes on Beliefnet:

We shall very soon proceed from the “right” to die to the “duty” to die, when one is seen, or made to see oneself, as a burden on the living.

In other words, Sir Edward and Lady Downes’ continued suffering is a regrettable necessity to protect the rest of us. If they are allowed to die, the inevitable next step would be to force others to die. It’s the classic slippery slope argument. But as students of logic know, the slippery slope argument is an intellectual fallacy. The slippery slope is a fallacy because it denies the possibility that a middle ground can and does exist.

It does not follow logically that allowing people to control their own deaths will lead to forcing people to die. It is possible, but those who wield the slippery slope argument are obligated to prove a connection, and thus far, no one has done so.

Moreover, the slippery slope argument in this setting is incredibly cynical and selfish in the extreme. The underlying supposition is that any amount of suffering of any number of other people is allowed in order to prevent the chance that one of us may suffer inadvertently in the future. In other words, for Dreher, the Downes’ suffering is the price they have to pay to protect Dreher from a theoretical future where he might be forced to die.

But his fear of theoretical future suffering is not a justification for the very real and ongoing suffering of terminally ill and elderly people who are ready to die but are forced to live. I applaud Sir Edward and Lady Downes for having the strength of character and purpose to make their own most intimate decisions and carry them through. And I have deep respect and admiration for the intense love that makes surviving alone an unbearable prospect.

The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that Midwifery Professor Denis Walsh has declared that labor pain is good. According to the Daily Mail:

In an article for Evidence Based Midwifery, published by the Royal College of Midwives, Dr Walsh said the NHS was too quick to give in to requests for pain-killing injections.

He said: “A large number of women want to avoid pain, but more should be prepared to withstand it. Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing which has a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby.”

Dr. Walsh recycles an entirely fabricated claim:

[Epidurals] also led to lower rates of breast-feeding. He added: “Emerging evidence showsthat normal labour and birth prime the bonding areas of the mother’s brain more than Caesarean or pain-free birth.”

The belief that pain in labor is beneficial has a long and sordid history. A large body of scientific literature shows that women’s pain (of any kind) is much less likely to be taken seriously than men’s pain.

The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain (Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 29 (2001): 13–27) provides a disturbing description of the ways in which the pain of women is systematically devalued, disbelieved and undertreated.

…Women who seek help are less likely than men to be taken seriously when they report pain and are less likely to have their pain adequately treated…

The study by McCaffery and Ferrell of 362 nurses and their views about patients’ experiences of pain found that while most of the nurses (63 percent) agreed that men and women have the same perception of pain, 27 percent thought that men felt greater pain than women… The same study also found that almost half of the respondents (47 percent) thought that women were able to tolerate more pain than men …

These erroneous attitudes are particularly prevalent in regard to childbirth:

Bendelow found that “the perceived superiority of capacities of endurance is double-edged for women — the assumption that they may be able to ‘cope’ better may lead to the expectation that they can put up with more pain, that their pain does not need to be taken so seriously.” Crook and Tunks point to the influence of the psychoprophylaxis movement in the United States with its implicit assumption that it is good to experience childbirth without the aid of analgesia… [A]ccording to the authors, “these attitudes imply that we have a value system … that suggest women should be encouraged to keep a stiff upper lip.”

The authors believe that people discount women’s expressions of pain.

A deeper examination of why women are treated this way is explored by several feminist authors. They attribute it to a long history within our culture of regarding women’s reasoning capacity as limited and of viewing women’s opinions as “unreflective, emotional, or immature.” In particular, in relation to medical decision-making, women’s moral identity is “often not recognized…”

…These findings are consistent with studies reporting that female pain patients are less likely than their male counterparts to be taken seriously or are more likely to receive sedatives than opioids for the treatment of their pain.

It is not a coincidence that the philosophy of “natural” childbirth was promulgated by men steeped in the ethos that women’s pain was not worthy of serious consideration. Their claims that women can and should manage childbirth pain through psychological means, that women are “empowered” by pain or that the pain is “beneficial” are simply elaborate justifications for not acknowledging and not treating the pain of women.

Walsh’s claims are just the 21st Century version of the willingness to dismiss the pain of women. He has dressed up his claims in scientific jargon to make them more palatable to a more sophisticated audience, but there is no scientific basis for his claims. There’s NO scientific evidence that unmedicated childbirth is better, safer, healthier or superior in any way than childbirth with pain relief. And the claim about endorphins and bonding is entirely fabricated; it was made up by Michel Odent.

Walsh is merely the latest update in an endless string of men (and sometimes women) who discount, dismiss and disbelieve women’s suffering. The original reaction was to claim that pain was all in a woman’s head; the updated version is to claim that if she cared about her baby and herself she would gladly embrace the pain and be a better mother and woman for the experience.

Curiously, no one has been able to find a form of male pain that supposedly benefits men. I suspect that it is more than mere coincidence that the only pain that is supposedly beneficial is pain that only women can experience.

Many years ago I regularly received a free monthly publication called “Doctor, I’ve read …” Unlike much of what doctors receive for free, it was both interesting and extremely useful. It was a compendium of excerpts from newspapers and women’s magazines about women’s health. It alerted me to what my patients were reading so I would be prepared for the inevitable patient questions, and because I had read the same article, I could explain to the patient whether it was reliable or not.

I often thought that there should be a similar publication for patients, showing them how they could evaluate medical claims found in newspapers and magazines. Such information is even more important today when medical claims are widely disseminated on the web. There is a great deal of excellent medical information available on the web, but far more information is erroneous and even dangerous.

Unfortunately, there is no magazine like that, but there are publications for lay people explaining how to evaluate scientific claims. One of the best is Risk in Perspective: A Consumer Guide to Taking Charge of Health Information prepared by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Although it’s geared specifically toward risk, it has valuable information about any health claims.

It’s worth reading in full, especially because the cartoons are very funny. The text is serious, though.

Health information can be based on untested claims, anecdotes, case reports, surveys, and scientific studies. Scientific studies, which take samples and apply the results to the whole population, often provide the best clues about health. Nonetheless, many studies are needed to be confident about an answer. The following are some factors that might help you judge information:

Less reliable (less certain)	More reliable (more certain)
One or a few observations	Many observations
Anecdote or case report	Scientific study
Unpublished	Published and peer reviewed
Not repeated	Reproduced results
Nonhuman subjects	Human subjects
Results not related to hypothesis	Results about tested hypothesis
No limitations mentioned	Limitations discussed
Not compared to previous results	Relationship to previous studies discussed

If you read these guidelines, it is not difficult to understand that most of the “alternative” health literature falls into the category of less reliable, and is almost always superseded by scientific evidence that is more reliable.

So, for example, anecdotes, the mainstay of vaccine rejectionists, are not reliable since they tell us nothing about what happens to most people. Those ubiquitous “clinical studies” not published in peer review scientific journals, often used for touting herbs and “natural” remedies, are not reliable compared to information that has been published in a peer reviewed journal. Bits of information scavenged from a variety of studies that were unrelated to the claim being discussed, a favorite of “natural” childbirth advocates, are far less reliable than actual studies of the specific claim.

The first step in evaluating any claim is to ask some basic questions. Is the claim based on a few observations or a scientific study? Was the study published in a peer reviewed scientific journal? Have the results been repeated by anyone else? Do the authors discuss the limitations of their own study? How do the results of this study compare with other, similar studies?

If the claim is supported only by anecdote, has not been reported in the scientific literature, has not been repeated by others, and it inconsistent with existing scientific literature, the claim deserves the deepest skepticism.

Lobbyists for private package delivery services have been wining and dining members of Congress in an effort to undermine support for the US Postal Service.

“It’s an outrage, actually,” declares their spokeswoman Louise Harry. “The US Postal Service is practicing socialized mail delivery.”

A Republican Congressman agrees: “Because of its monstrous size, the Postal Service has an unfair competitive advantage. They can deliver mail from one coast to the other for less than 50¢ per letter. There’s no way that private enterprise can compete with that.”

A Republican Senator concurs and warns, “Socialized mail is just the first step to destroy America as we know it. No one can deny that the US Postal Service has taken choice away from consumers. Can you choose any stamp you want? Oh, no. Every American is forced to use only government-approved stamps to send their letters. It’s an outrage!”

In an effort to fight what it perceives as an unfair competitive disadvantage, private delivery services are rolling out a new program of mail insurance, ChoiceMail. For a flat monthly fee, private delivery services will provide all the mail service you need, subject to a few minor restrictions.

“As the name indicates, we feel that the most important component is choice,” explains Louise Harry. “The consumer will be free to affix any stamp of his choosing, and we will deliver that letter!”

We were able to obtain a copy of the ChoiceMail contract to share with our readers. For a flat monthly fee, ChoiceMail provides unlimited delivery from coast to coast, and you are not required to use only government-approved stamps. You can use any stamp of your choosing. We asked Ms. Harry about the restrictions.

“Yes, ChoiceMail does reserve the right to determine whether your letter needs to go to the address on the label. We’ve found that a consumer may think that a letter should go to Aunt Irma in Oregon, but cross country mail service is expensive. It’s more cost efficient to send the letter to Uncle Ed who lives in the consumer’s own state. If the news is important, he can call Aunt Edna to tell her.”

Ms. Harry emphasizes that ChoiceMail can offer unlimited choice for a flat monthly fee because they do their utmost to control costs. As Ms. Harry explains:

“You might think that you want to send a letter to your old high school friend Billy to tell him about your new baby, but that’s wasteful. After all, you’ll see Billy at the high school reunion next year and you can tell him then. That’s why we check every letter and send only the ones that we feel need to be sent.”

Ms. Harry is particularly proud of ChoiceMail’s most innovative form of cost cutting, charging the mail recipient:

“Sure, Grandma Sue wants you to send a birthday card. It costs her nothing to receive that card, and she benefits from every card she gets. Why should we pay for the consumer to send a card to Grandma Sue? Let Grandma Sue eat the cost if she thinks getting a birthday card is so important.”

Ms. Harry concludes:

“The most important thing is choice. The US Postal Service is socialized mail and it restricts consumers’ choice to government-approved stamps. ChoiceMail allows consumers unlimited choice of stamps. Sure, we might not deliver your letter to the person you specify in the address or we might decide that it doesn’t need to be delivered at all. But you’ll rest easy knowing that you have sent your mail by private enterprise, the patriotic way, the American way.”

This post originally appeared in March 2009.

It’s the holy grail of contemporary marketing: getting consumers to pay more for something that is worth less. When it comes to organic food, marketers have hit the jackpot.

How have consumers have been enticed to pay more for products that are potentially less safe than their conventional counterparts? The organic food scam depends on tapping into cultural myths about nature, playing upon widespread misunderstanding of risk, and flattering consumers into believing that those who choose organic food are “empowered.”.

The word “natural” is widely used to sell products. In Packaging as a Vehicle for Mythologizing the Brand researchers explore the connotations of “natural” in contemporary culture and the ways in these connotations are exploited to sell products.

Marketers of organic products depict the modern world as a deeply distorted reflection of what it originally was – the garden before agro-chemical technology. While the values of the past include family, tradition, authenticity, peace, and simplicity, the current era is associated with broken family ties that need to be restored, scientific “advances” that pose threats, constant pressure on the well-being of humans, and unnecessary complexity in everyday life.

Consider the concept of “naturalness”:

Naturalness appears as a rich emotional construct that connects with positive contemporary images of nature… People do not want to remember that nature can also be destructive as in deadly hurricanes and poisonous mushrooms … In a natural health context, Thompson also finds nature to be a positively framed powerful mythic construction; and his informants attribute magical, regenerative powers to nature. They firmly believe that aligning with what nature has to offer for one’s health lets them assert control over their lives and bodies versus losing control by being complicit in a scientized medical system.

There is nothing inherently better about “natural,” but contemporary mythology assumes that there is. The organic food industry exploits this mythology to imply that organic food is inherently better.

In addition, marketing professionals exploit the lack of understanding about risk. We routinely panic about insignificant health risks (high tension wires, X-rays) and routinely ignore large health risks (driving without a seatbelt, tanning). Hence, consumers routinely obsess about insignificant health risks that have never even been shown to occur (pesticides, hormones) and routinely ignored large health risks (foodborne illness caused by bacteria like E. coli and salmonella in the animal waste used as fertilizer) that have been associated with widespread outbreaks of illness and even death.

David Ropeik discusses the causes of misperception of risk in his article The Consequences of Fear. Two factors, control and origin, are especially relevant for understanding the misperception of food risks.

Risks over which we feel as though we exercise control are routinely perceived to be smaller than risks that are imposed from outside.

… Roughly 20% of Americans still do not wear safety belts in motor vehicles… [T]his is, in part, because we have a sense of control when we are behind the wheel, and the risk of crashing is both familiar and chronic—factors that make risks seem less threatening…

In other words, people not only tolerate the substantial risk of not wearing a seatbelt, but they perceive the risk to be relatively small, when, in fact, it is relatively large compared to risks that evoke more fear, like the risk of a plane crash or a terrorist attack. Similarly, consumers of organic food tolerate the real and substantial risk of illness from pathogens in manure, but fear the effects of pesticides, which have never been shown to cause illness.

Origin is important to consumers, too. The risks of technology are widely perceived to be greater than risks from nature, neatly dovetailing with the culture mythology surrounding “nature.” For example:

…many people fail to protect themselves adequately from the sun, in part because the sun is natural … However, solar radiation is widely believed to be the leading cause of melanoma, which will kill an estimated 7,910 Americans this year.

Hence the imagined and undocumented (and possibly non-existent) risk of pesticides in food are perceived as greater than the real and documented risks of serious illness and death associated with the bacteria found in manure fertilizer.

Ultimately, these myths are joined in service of the over-arching myth, that of the “enobled and empowered” consumer:

… [A]ll the significance attached by [marketing professionals] to the products transforms otherwise powerless consumers into the powerful marketplace players. As a result, newly empowered consumers can temporarily escape imposed world conditions by shaping their personal myths and servicing their individual lives. Thus, myths of the past are meaningfully used to serve the present.

Marketers of organic food are not allowed to claim that the food is safer or more nutritious, since it is neither. However consumers are led to believe that by choosing “natural” food grown with “no pesticides,” they are making an “empowered” choice of safer and healthier food. In that way, they can be induced to pay more for food that may actually be worth less.