Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [23]
Sharing of responsibility, however, also permits sharing of blame. As these chapters explain, producers blame processors for foodborne illness, and processors blame producers; government regulators blame both, and everyone blames consumers. The role of government in food safety demands particular notice. Current laws grant regulatory agencies only limited authority to prevent microbial contamination before food gets to consumers. Federal oversight of food safety remains unshakably rooted in policies established almost a century ago, in 1906. Congress designed those policies to ensure the health of animals, in an era long before most of the current microbial causes of foodborne illness were even suspected, let alone recognized. Although food safety experts have complained for years about the gap between hazards and oversight practices, attempts to give federal agencies the right to enforce food safety regulations have been blocked repeatedly by food producers and their supporters in Congress, sometimes joined by the agencies themselves, and more recently by the courts. Some progress has occurred, driven by the appearance in common foods of new and more deadly pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, an exceptionally virulent strain of an otherwise normal and relatively harmless bacterial inhabitant of the human digestive tract. The multimillion-dollar costs of product recalls, legal counsel, and liability payments, and the associated costs of damaged reputation and loss of sales, have made the need for more forceful government oversight of food safety apparent to all but the staunchest protectors of food industry self-interest.
For the most part, the events described in this part of the book are political and outside the daily experience of most people in our society. Most of us do not worry much about the possibility that foods in our supermarkets might be contaminated and dangerous, and we act on the basis of what Nicols Fox calls the “unspoken contract” among food producers, government regulators, and the public to ensure that food is safe.2 On a daily basis, most of us think the risks are so small, so familiar, and so voluntary that we can ignore them. Microbial risks generate little dread and virtually no outrage.
I most clearly recognized the extent of our collective denial about the hazards of food pathogens in the summer of 1999 when I served as a member of an American Cancer Society committee developing dietary guidelines for cancer survivors—people diagnosed with cancer and treated for it. Because surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy can cause a temporary decline in immune function, our committee wanted to stress the importance of preventing microbial infections during periods of treatment and recovery. This advice, we realized, firmly precludes even a taste of raw cookie dough, not to mention avoidance of a host of other foods: Caesar salads, homemade ice cream, and anything else made with raw or partially cooked eggs; rare or medium-cooked hamburger and beef tartare; sushi and other raw seafood; raw milk and cheeses made from it; freshly squeezed juices; unpeeled vegetables and unwashed salad greens and berries; and raw sprouts. For people with weakened immune systems, eating uncooked and unpasteurized foods means taking a risk, and not just of minor discomfort but perhaps of hospitalization, long-term disability, or death.3
But what about those of us with healthy immune systems? As these