June 29, 2004

Organic Style Magazine
Rodale, Inc.
33 East Minor Street
Emmaus PA 18098

Re: “Relax! Quit Worrying about Contaminated Food”, July/August 2004 Issue

Dear Editor,

Your magazine published appallingly misleading and dangerous information in its health news section on July/August 2004. Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.), an organization founded by victims of profound health and economic devastation caused by preventable foodborne diseases, requests that you take immediate action to correct this potentially deadly misinformation by

1) printing an immediate and prominently placed, full-page retraction
2) posting corrective text on your website
3) publishing a series of articles talking about the REAL risks to consumers from the biohazardous microbial contamination of their food, beginning in your next issue.

Foodborne diseases are the greatest known food safety dangers to consumers, with far more imminent and far-reaching health consequences than any other food-related toxin - including pesticides. The overwhelming risk from food contamination is not death - it is illness. One in three Americans contracts a disease from contaminated food each year. More than two million cases yearly result in crippling long-term injuries, including but not limited to diabetes, kidney damage, neurological damage, gastrointestinal injury, reactive arthritis, acute paralysis, high blood pressure, learning disabilities, and blindness.

The fact is, your readers need to be MORE concerned about food contamination, not less. Foodborne illness is the leading cause of acute kidney failure in U.S. children, the leading cause of reactive arthritis in U.S. women, and the leading cause of acute infectious paralysis in the U.S. Yet most foodborne disease is preventable.

It is inexcusable to dismiss (a mere) 5,000 American deaths per year from foodborne disease.* Even one needless death from foodborne disease that could have been prevented is unacceptable. The excruciating suffering of hundreds of thousands of others, mostly children and the elderly, who bear the consequences of the systemic pollution of our food supply is even more so.

“Excruciating suffering” is not an overstatement. In the words of one S.T.O.P. parent:

“the images of our tiny toddler, bleeding all over the floor, whimpering in pain and confusion, will never leave me. I can't imagine the images haunting those who have lost a child. We wouldn't wish the nightmare we endured on anyone, let alone the much worse nightmares endured by others.”

And another:

“For those of you not familiar with the carnage that E. coli 0157:H7 can provide, it is an experience that none of us is prepared to endure, much less observe. After excruciating pain ten fold, all of [my daughter’s] main organs [fell] victim to this deadly toxin that is E. coli O157:H7… Three heart attacks, the first of which I was left helpless to witness… Her brain waves no longer active… Her body tormented and beaten… Her kidneys, liver and heart ravaged… [My daughter] fell into a coma and was taken from my arms forever. Death is not a viable alternative for a previously perfectly healthy almost 7- year-old.”

The risk table you published contains nonsensical reassurances. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assert that less than 2% of American illnesses from contaminated food ever get reported. Tables like the one in your magazine that take into account only reported illnesses routinely crop up in food industry press materials that are designed to mislead; however, any magazine truly focused on consumer health, particularly one such as yours which is centered around food safety, should know to look askance at blatant attempts to whitewash very real public health threats.

Your readers trust your magazine to provide accurate health information. You owe it to them and their families to let them know they MUST demand stronger federal and local standards for food quality, reject industry attempts to obscure the problem or dump full responsibility on the shoulders of household cooks, and help deflate the deadly twin myths of the “stomach flu” and the “safest food supply in the world”.

We urgently seek your assurance regarding your anticipated corrective actions - which we hope will go above and beyond the measures we have requested.

Sincerely,

Karen Taylor Mitchell, MPA
Executive Director

P.S. One of the nations’ leading writers on food contamination, its causes and costs is Organic Style Advisory Board member Eric Schlosser. For more information on the topic, see Fast Food Nation, Chapter 9 - or S.T.O.P.’s website at www.safetables.org.