Challenging the subtle distortions of our salt and health promotion
The Salt Institute tries to correct the subtle distortions of our defense of the healthfulness of dietary salt. One common slander is that the Institute sued the federal government challenging the validity of the DASH-Sodium study. Regular readers will recall that the government claimed that the study proved that "every American" would be healthier if they reduced salt intake. While we strongly dispute this conclusion, we don't actually challenge the study; it seems of high quality -- only the interpretation of the findings. This is a small distinction with an important difference. Let me illustrate the way the case was put today by unbossed.com by repeating our response (also posted on unbossed.com):
As the president of the Salt Institute, which you mention as the plaintiff for the DQA test case, I feel I must correct an error incorporated into your blog. You repeat Chris Mooney's erroneous statement that the lawsuit challenges "a National Institutes of Health study on diet" that is "state-of-the-art scientific work."
Actually, we agree that the study is "state of the art" -- and vitally important. But our lawsuit did not challenge the study at all. The lawsuit challenged the fact that the government had not made the data available for independent experts to validate its "insider" interpretation of the data as required by the DQA. We asked, specifically, that the beginning blood pressure and the standard deviations of the subgroup analyses be disclosed; they have not been published and it is impossible to determine the accuracy of the conclusions being drawn without these statistics that could be provided in a millisecond from the data of the study's authors. The data are fine, but incompletely divulged and we asked only a tiny bit of information. As it is, published data by the authors have already confirmed that the agency has mischaracterized the findings. The government says the health of "all Americans" would be helped by cutting back on salt. Not only does this study not address that question at all (it is confined to blood pressure, not the net health effects of salt reduction) but in six of the eight reported subgroups -- representing the vast majority of Americans -- even blood pressure lowering is not statistically significant. This says nothing of the adverse impacts on glucose metabolism and the heart attack-stimulating production of the kidney hormone renin.
So, to set the record straight: we challenged the agency's application of its own DQA guidelines, not the study which seems to be first-rate (if not fully understood).
Dick HannemanPresidentSalt Institute
The half-truth allegation (we DID, after all, sue the government), if unchallenged, would have the effect of undermining the credibility of our argument; if people believe the DASH-Sodium study is a quality study, they would be less willing to listen to our complaint about the twisting of its findings. And if you're in the knowledge business as we are, your credibility is a huge factor in your effectiveness. Ignore the little things and you lose the ability to influence the big things. It's like the policing strategy adopted in New York City by "America's mayor," Rudy Giuliani. Mayor Giuliani started enforcing against breaking windows and painting grafitti on buildings and it helped unravel the hopelessness the public felt about obeying the law and led quickly to a dramatic fall in violent street crime. Same principle.
Sometimes we all get so busy that challenging the distortions pales in importance with the urgent priorities we all face, but responding not only preserves our credibility as salt industry advocates, but helps erode less-informed or even malicious distorters of the facts. Take time to become informed and speak out!
