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« We apologize for the inconvenience | Main | The Jeopardy Jedi » Friday, April 6, 2007Score one for the WikisA concerned citizen read a March 27 Personal Health column in the New York Times, whose closing paragraph said "that soy milk cannot be legally fortified with vitamin D and provides only 75 percent of the calcium the body obtains from cow's milk." Our reader, known on Wikipedia as Toytoy, brought a question to something called the Wikipedia Reference Desk: "What's going on in the United States that you don't have the freedom to make your soy milk more nutritious?" The Wiki volunteer team went into action and discovered that the Times's source was a journal article published in 1971. Wikipedian Michael Snow wrote, "Whether or not it was true then that soy milk could not be legally fortified [couldn't find that one out, I guess--EH], it certainly is not true today -- fortification is common and specifically recommended by the federal Food and Nutrition Service." Fellow Wikipedian Jfarber notified the Times, leading to the following correction posted March 31: "The Personal Health column in Science Times on Tuesday about healthful beverages included incorrect information from the Beverage Guidance Panel about soy milk. It can indeed be legally fortified with vitamin D." Snow shows a certain swagger in recounting the story, but that's understandable: the famously unreliable set the professionals straight. Posted by Evan Hughes at 06:15 AM
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