Read Online Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety by Marion Nestle - Free Book Online
Authors: Marion Nestle
Ads: Link
meat industry exploits the relatively low level of organized public outrage about microbial safety to oppose federal regulations and, instead, to argue that
consumers
bear the principal burden of ensuring safefood. Part 1 also describes the fragmentation of government oversight as a basis for developing a more coherent approach to dealing with problems of food safety.
Part 2 shifts the discussion to a different issue: genetically modified foods. By the standards of scientific risk assessment—counting cases of illness and death—such foods appear no less safe than foods developed through traditional plant genetics, but, as the StarLink affair indicates, they present many reasons for distrust and alarm. These chapters describe how the food biotechnology industry, in dismissing dread-and-outrage factors as emotional and unscientific, lobbied for—and won—a largely science-based approach to regulation of its products. The chapters explain how the dismissal of consumer concerns about value issues related to food biotechnology forced advocacy groups to use safety as the only “legitimate” basis of discussion. In the StarLink affair, for example, advocates could not use concerns about corporate control of the food supply as an argument against approval of genetically modified foods. They could, however, use the remote risk of allergenicity as a basis for opposition because of the double negative: it is
not
possible to prove that the StarLink protein is
not
allergenic. These chapters describe the origin of disputes about genetically modified foods that arise from conflicting interests and values.
The concluding chapter takes up a third area: food bioterrorism—the deliberate poisoning or contamination of the food supply to achieve some political goal. Questions about food bioterrorism take us into the realm of emerging food safety hazards that might be used as biological weapons: mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and anthrax. From a science-based perspective, these problems are of uncertain or low overall risk to human health, but they rank high as causes of dread and outrage. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 increased the level of anxiety, particularly about the country’s vulnerability to bioterrorism in general, and to food bioterrorism in particular. In concluding this discussion, I offer suggestions for ways in which the government, the food industry, and consumers might engage in political action to deal with this and the other food safety issues raised in this book. Finally, a short appendix briefly summarizes some of the basic scientific concepts that underlie the debates about food safety issues.
With this introduction, we can now begin our discussion by examining the historical and modern reasons why government attempts to keep harmful bacteria out of food have proved so controversial and why they raise issues of politics as well as of science.
PART ONE
RESISTING FOOD SAFETY
FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES, KNOWING THAT I WAS WRITING about harmful bacteria in food, wondered why anyone would care about things so invisible, tasteless, unpronounceable, and, for the most part, innocuous. Like most people, they view occasional episodes of food “poisoning” as uncomfortable (sometimes
very
uncomfortable), but certainly more a matter of random bad luck than of decades of industry and government indifference, dithering, and outright obstructionism. They accept at face value the endlessly intoned mantra of industry and government: the United States has the safest food supply in the world.
Whether this assertion is true is a matter of some debate. Safety is relative. The most authoritative estimate of the yearly number of cases of foodborne disease in the United States defies belief: 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, 5,000 deaths. As the chapters in part 1 explain, such numbers undoubtedly
underestimate
the extent of the problem. Although the most frequent causes of these illnesses are viruses
consumers
bear the principal burden of ensuring safefood. Part 1 also describes the fragmentation of government oversight as a basis for developing a more coherent approach to dealing with problems of food safety.
Part 2 shifts the discussion to a different issue: genetically modified foods. By the standards of scientific risk assessment—counting cases of illness and death—such foods appear no less safe than foods developed through traditional plant genetics, but, as the StarLink affair indicates, they present many reasons for distrust and alarm. These chapters describe how the food biotechnology industry, in dismissing dread-and-outrage factors as emotional and unscientific, lobbied for—and won—a largely science-based approach to regulation of its products. The chapters explain how the dismissal of consumer concerns about value issues related to food biotechnology forced advocacy groups to use safety as the only “legitimate” basis of discussion. In the StarLink affair, for example, advocates could not use concerns about corporate control of the food supply as an argument against approval of genetically modified foods. They could, however, use the remote risk of allergenicity as a basis for opposition because of the double negative: it is
not
possible to prove that the StarLink protein is
not
allergenic. These chapters describe the origin of disputes about genetically modified foods that arise from conflicting interests and values.
The concluding chapter takes up a third area: food bioterrorism—the deliberate poisoning or contamination of the food supply to achieve some political goal. Questions about food bioterrorism take us into the realm of emerging food safety hazards that might be used as biological weapons: mad cow disease, foot-and-mouth disease, and anthrax. From a science-based perspective, these problems are of uncertain or low overall risk to human health, but they rank high as causes of dread and outrage. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 increased the level of anxiety, particularly about the country’s vulnerability to bioterrorism in general, and to food bioterrorism in particular. In concluding this discussion, I offer suggestions for ways in which the government, the food industry, and consumers might engage in political action to deal with this and the other food safety issues raised in this book. Finally, a short appendix briefly summarizes some of the basic scientific concepts that underlie the debates about food safety issues.
With this introduction, we can now begin our discussion by examining the historical and modern reasons why government attempts to keep harmful bacteria out of food have proved so controversial and why they raise issues of politics as well as of science.
PART ONE
RESISTING FOOD SAFETY
FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES, KNOWING THAT I WAS WRITING about harmful bacteria in food, wondered why anyone would care about things so invisible, tasteless, unpronounceable, and, for the most part, innocuous. Like most people, they view occasional episodes of food “poisoning” as uncomfortable (sometimes
very
uncomfortable), but certainly more a matter of random bad luck than of decades of industry and government indifference, dithering, and outright obstructionism. They accept at face value the endlessly intoned mantra of industry and government: the United States has the safest food supply in the world.
Whether this assertion is true is a matter of some debate. Safety is relative. The most authoritative estimate of the yearly number of cases of foodborne disease in the United States defies belief: 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, 5,000 deaths. As the chapters in part 1 explain, such numbers undoubtedly
underestimate
the extent of the problem. Although the most frequent causes of these illnesses are viruses
Similar Books
