"* According to a study widely reported by the media and the Internet, French wines were contaminated with heavy metals. But if you look a little closer, it turns out that this study is far from reliable. The conclusions of members of the association "The four truths about wine"
A number of commentators took the opportunity to suggest or simply write the health benefits of consumption of moderate wine were then canceled by this contamination. Our group "The 4 truths about wine" was alerted by several oddities in this study and wanted more. True to our method, we wanted to know if this study was published in a scientific journal that met our criteria of Impact Factor (IF) of 5000 and was among the top 10 journals in his field, or this review, which publishes only online, is not yet listed, it is no Impact Factor as established in 2007. As the study is actually a meta-analysis (study of several other studies), we went to see how the studies were classified were the basis of research. To keep things simple we have only to study the three studies that scanned French wines. None of these studies had been published in a journal with an Impact Factor of at least 5000 and none was among the first decile. Nevertheless, we continued to search by telling us that everything had to see how well were doing these studies and their results were. We were very surprised to see that the two studies that talked about non-sparkling wines (also called quiet in the jargon of the profession), the Slovak study, had based its findings on three white wines purchased in a store in Bratislava : we can not say whether a representative sample of French wine production. The second study, it Spanish, had studied Spanish and French sparkling, and the method used and the measuring instrument are highly questionable. The third study is a Portuguese French wines where quiet study and lead-contaminated products had been before 1992, when the lead foil capsules were banned precisely because of this same risk, Portuguese researchers apologizing for use of so old analyzes.
Conclusion 1: in the end, all our fears came true: the study of metals, in addition to the bias to make only the wines of the ancient world (no wine from USA, Australia, South Africa or Argentina! ) is really not done with a serious protocol and conclusions are anything but reliable.
Conclusion 2: the press Anglo-Saxon gained nothing to disseminate information so unreliable as to newspapers and blogs French they did not shine by their prudence (a study which criticizes only the wines of ancient world that do not seem curious, ladies and gentlemen journalists?).
Conclusion 3: it is time to admit it: a so-called scientific study can completely fail to even be seriously biased, it would be wise to take a grid hierarchy of studies, the group "The 4 truths about wine "proposes one for anything that can have a relationship with human health: publication in a journal with IF of at least 5000 and contained in the first decile of his specialty; all be very demanding when it comes to health human.
Conclusion 4: The health theme is taken up by all groups of French food (especially dairy groups), except by those who watch over the success of the wine industry of course. It's a shame for viticulture has yet to support this communication very high quality.
5 Conclusion: we would have been well advised to consult with world specialists on wine and health ( Curtis Ellison , Serge Renaud , Dominique Lanzmann and Joël de Leiris) instead of letting rumors swell about French wine, if you want a sense of it: try searching Google or Yahoo with the following keywords: French wines + heavy metals. The fuss made over this study is really harmful for French winemakers.
Conclusion 6: we can continue to consume in moderation of French wine and enjoy its health benefits! We invite you to read our books and our blog for more details on this last point http://web.mac.com/quatreverites
Fabrice Delorme
President of the association "The four truths about wine"
http://web.mac.com/quatreverites
Friday, December 19, 2008
* Study reference: Naughton DP, Petroczi A. Heavy metal ions in wines: meta-analysis of target hazard quotients reveal health risks. Chemistry Central Journal 2008
Tags: winemaker , heavy metals , impact factor , media , central chemistry , communication , Serge Renaud , consumption , sample , blogs , contamination , wine , health , Curtis Ellison , press
Bravo for your critical reading.
Such scientific rigor would have been welcome for review of the movie "Our children will accuse us"!