I would say that the message of the article is "we need more regulations". My reaction was, basically, "you haven't shown that; at best you've suggested we nee

I would say that the message of the article is "we need more regulations". My reaction was, basically, "you haven't shown that; at best you've suggested we need better enforcement of existing regulations'. So while I disagree with the original linked article, I'm not sure you and I disagree. :) As for the studies, this is winding far afield, but there's two main ways you can do a study: Controlled and observational. Controlled is hard, but gives good data. Observational is easy, but gives unreliable data, especially when relating to people. To a first approximation, a controlled study can prove things about human health, while an observational study can suggest areas where a controlled study would be useful. It's not that these studies have methodological errors (as far as I know, they don't). It's that they're observational studies, and best case, they can't prove things in the way a controlled study would. If you want a good primer on "what are observational studies and why are they problematic for human health"...I don't actually have one handy. But there was some very good discussion floating around about the "Red Meat Consumption and Mortality" recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. A lot of headlines said, basically, "science proves meat will give you cancer", but again, it was an observational study, and it simply didn't show what people who didn't understand statistics thought it did. Some links discussing that: http://www.gnolls.org/2893/always-be-skeptical-of-nutrition-headlines-or-what-red-meat-consumption-and-mortality-pan-et-al-really-tells-us/ http://www.gnolls.org/2893/always-be-skeptical-of-nutrition-... http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritional-epidemiology-and-meat/ http://garytaubes.com/2012/03/science-pseudoscience-nutritio... http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-red-meat-kill-you/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-red-meat-kill-you... TL;DR: Observational studies are done all the time, but when it comes to humans, they are most definitely not interchangable with controlled studies.