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animal fats seemed to protect against can- cer. She noted that the analysts for the committee had manipulated the data in inappropriate ways in order to obtain men- dacious results. Enig submitted her findings to the jour- nal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in May 1978, and her article was published in FASEB's Federation Proceedings’ in July of the same year—an unusually quick turn- around. The assistant editor responsible for accepting the article, died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. Enig's paper noted that the correlations pointed a finger at trans fatty acids and called for further investiga- tion. Only two years earlier, the Life Sciences Research Office, which is the arm of FASEB that does scientific investiga- tions, had published the whitewash that ushered partially hydrogenated soybean oil onto the GRAS list and removed any lin- gering constraints against the number-one ingredient in factory-produced food. Enig's paper sent alarm bells through the industry. In early 1979 she received a visit from S. F. Reipma of the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers. Short, bald and pompous, Reipma was visi- bly annoyed. He explained that both his association and the Institute for Shortening and Edible Oils (ISEO) kept careful watch to prevent articles like Enig's from appear- ing in the literature. Enig's paper should never have been published, he said. He thought that ISEO was "watching out". "We left the barn door open," he said, "and the horse got out." Reipma also challenged Enig's use of the USDA data, claiming that it was in error. He knew it was in error, he said, "because we give it to them". A few weeks later, Reipma paid a second visit, this time in the company of Tom Applewhite, an adviser to the ISEO and representative of Kraft Foods, Ronald Simpson with Central Soya, and a repre- sentative from Lever Brothers. They car- ried with them—in fact, waved in the air in indignation—a two-inch stack of newspa- per articles, including one that appeared in the National Enquirer, reporting on Enig's Federation Proceedings article. Applewhite's face flushed red with anger when Enig repeated Reipma's statement that they had "left the barn door open and the horse got out" and his admission that low rate of breast and colon cancer. The Netherlands and Finland both used approx- imately 100 grams of animal fat per capita per day, but breast and colon cancer rates were almost twice in the Netherlands what they were in Finland. The Netherlands consumed 53 grams of vegetable fat per person compared to 13 grams in Finland. A study from Cali, Colombia, found a four- fold excess risk for colon cancer in the higher economic classes which used less animal fat than the lower economic classes. A study found that Seventh Day Adventist physicians, who avoid meat (especially red meat), had a significantly higher rate of colon cancer than non-Seventh Day Adventist physicians. Enig analysed the USDA data that the McGovern Committee had used and con- cluded that they showed a strong positive correlation with total fat and vegetable fat, and an essentially strong negative correla- tion or no correlation with animal fat to total cancer deaths, breast and colon cancer mortality and breast and colon cancer inci- dence. In other words, use of vegetable oils seemed to predispose to cancer, and 80 + NEXUS The Oiling of America Continued from page 23 DECEMBER 1998 - JANUARY 1999