A number of fungi, yeast, and protozoa are inactivated or killed by lauric acid or monolaurin. The fungi include several species of ringworm (Isaacs et al 1991). The yeast reported is Candida albicans (Isaacs et al 1991). The protozoan parasite Giardia lamblia is killed by free fatty acids and monoglycerides from hydrolyzed human milk (Hernell et al 1986, Reiner et al 1986, Crouch et al 1991, Isaacs et al 1991). Numerous other protozoa were studied with similar findings; these findings have not yet been published (Jon J. Kabara, private communication, 1997).

Research continues in measuring the effect of the monoglyceride derivative of capric acid monocaprin as well as the effects of lauric acid. Chlamydia trachomatis is inactivated by lauric acid, capric acid, and monocaprin (Bergsson et al 1998), and hydrogels containing monocaprin are potent in vitro inactivators of sexually transmitted viruses such as HSV-2 and HIV-1 and bacteria such as Neisseria gonorrhoeae (Thormar 1999).

III. ORIGINS OF THE ANTI-SATURATED FAT AGENDA

The coconut industry has suffered more than three decades of abusive rhetoric from the consumer activist group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), from the American Soybean Association (ASA) and other members of the edible oil industry, and from those in the medical and scientific community who learned their misinformation from groups like CSPI and ASA. I would like to review briefly the origins of the anti-saturated fat, anti-tropical oil campaigns and hopefully give you some useful insight into the issues.

When and how did the anti-saturated fat story begin? It really began in part in the late 1950s, when a researcher in Minnesota announced that the heart disease epidemic was being caused by hydrogenated vegetable fats. The edible oil industry's response at that time was to claim it was only the saturated fat in the hydrogenated oils that was causing the problem. The industry then announced that it would be changing to partially hydrogenated fats and that this would solve the problem.

In actual fact, there was no change because the oils were already being partially hydrogenated, and the levels of saturated fatty acids remained similar, as did the levels of the trans fatty acids. The only thing that really changed was the term for hydrogenation or hardening listed on the food label.