I've seen the article, and consider it silly (yeah, "silly!") beyond
belief. In fact, I'm incredulous. I seriously wondered if the the
whole thing wasn't a scam. It belongs in the Annals of Improbable
Research
http://www.improb.com/
where everyone one should go for the comic relief from such articles.
People simply don't think the way the authors describe, and--like so
many other decisions humans make--consumers base their actions on
PERCEIVED TRUTH, which is all too often based on a CONSENSUAL REALITY
(the consensus of our "community" and peers). And because people
don't think or behave in the manner described in the paper, it is all
just so much mental masturbation prompted probably by the need of the
authors to get something published in a refereed journal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know--the authors understand that people don't
assess risk the way "risk assessors" do, and I s'pose they think
that's their point: If people thought as risk assessors do, they'd
clearly see that they're not getting their money's worth paying the
premium for organic foods. This is essentially how I read the paper:
"Most people report they love their dogs, but our clever multivariate
analysis led us to conclude that they just THINK they love their dogs."
Quick! Go to the AIR site http://www.improb.com/
before you take another stale breath!
> Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 10:11:24 -0700
> To: sanet-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu
> From: Jane Sooby <jane@ofrf.org>
> Subject: Re: the price of a life (was organic does pay off)
> > Can one put a price on good
> >health? Can one place a price upon cancer prevention?
>
> Actually, this is exactly what a recent article in the American Journal of
> Alternative Agriculture attempts to do.
>
> It surprises me that USDA ag economists pulled this together, along with a
> "chemical exposure assessor with Novigen Sciences." The citation is
> Kuchler, F., K. Ralston, and J. R. Tomerlin. 2000. Do health benefits
> explain the price premiums for organic foods? Am. J. Alt. Ag. 15:9-18.
>
> From the abstract: "This paper examines whether the dollar value of health
> benefits that consumers derive from organic food could account for the
> price premiums they pay. ... Our exploratory alternative method estimates
> the value of health benefits to a hypothetical consumer who assesses risks
> as risk assessors do and values a unit reduction in all fatal risks
> equally, regardless of the source of any risk. Under these assumptions, our
> estimates of the value of health benefits derived from substituting an
> organic diet for a conventionally produced diet approach zero."
>
> A section of the paper actually attempts to calculate the dollar value of
> avoiding cancer. Here is a quote: "We can treat the last 36.5 years of life
> as a capital asset with a current value of $5.67 million." I am not
> experienced in economics so it is difficult to evaluate this report myself.
> (Perhaps I am having a kneejerk reaction to the idea of quantifying the
> value of human life.) It appears as if they have a low value and a high
> value for "cancer death averted," which is $0.79 million and $1.92 million,
> respectively. When they divide the premium paid for organic apple juice by
> this cost over time, the organic premium ends up being much greater than
> the value of cancer death averted.
>
> The utility of this "research" eludes me--I wonder what others think.
> Jane Sooby
> technical program coordinator
> Organic Farming Research Foundation
> P.O. Box 440
> Santa Cruz, CA 95061
> 831-426-6606
> 831-426-6670 fax
> 831-460-9713 home
> www.ofrf.org
> jane@ofrf.org
>
> Variety may be the spice of life, but research demands rigid standardization.
>
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