Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [5]
Underlying discussions of such matters of influence in Food Politics and in this present volume are several recurrent themes:
• The increasing concentration of food producers and distributors into larger and larger units
• The overproduction and overabundance of food in the United States
• The competitiveness among food companies to encourage people to eat more food or to substitute their products for those of competing companies
• The relentless pressures exerted by food companies on government agencies to make favorable regulatory decisions
• The invocation of science by food companies as a means to achieve commercial goals
• The clash in values among stakeholders in the food system: industry, government, and consumers
• The ways in which such themes demonstrate that food is political
Food safety, however, would seem to be the least political of food issues. Who could possibly not want food to be safe? Consumers do not want to worry about unsafe food and do not like getting sick. Unsafe food is bad for business (recalls are expensive, and negative publicity hurts sales) as well as for government (through loss of trust). As this book explains, food safety is political for many of the same reasons discussed in Food Politics: economic self-interest, stakeholder differences, and collision of values. At stake are issues of risk, benefit, and control. Who bears the risk of food safety problems? Who benefits from ignoring them? Who makes the policy decisions? Who controls the food supply? For the most part, these are political—not scientific—questions, and they demand political responses. Because billions of dollars are involved, food safety issues are “hot topics” demanding attention from everyone involved in the food system: producers, distributors, regulators, and the public.
I wrote this book for everyone—from general readers to scientists—who would like to know more about the issues underlying disputes about food safety issues. How concerned should we be about the safety of the food we eat? What aspects of food safety issues should concern us? What issues really are involved? The purpose of the book is to establish a basis for a better understanding of the issues, the positions of the various stakeholders, and the ways in which the political system operates in matters as fundamental as the safety of the food we eat. I hope this book will help everyone interested in food, whether trained in science or not, to develop more considered opinions about food safety issues.
In part because I want the book to reach a wide audience, I have worked hard to make it accessible, readable, and free of jargon, and have defined terms that might be unfamiliar whenever they appear. Although nontechnical discussions of science necessarily omit crucial details, I have tried to provide enough sense of the complexity to make the political arguments understandable. Because any discussion of government policy inevitably requires abbreviations, I define them in the text and in a list (page XV). For readers who might like a quick reminder of the science underlying genetic engineering, an appendix provides a brief summary.
Although I do not try to disguise my own views on the issues discussed in this book, I attempt to present a reasonably balanced account of them. Because any book expressing a political point of view is likely to be controversial, I extensively document my sources. I refer to articles in traditional academic journals and books, of course, but also to newspaper accounts, press releases, and advertisements. These days, many previously inaccessible documents are available on the Internet, and I cite numerous Web addresses in the notes that conclude this book. The notes begin with an explanation of the citation method and the definitions of whatever abbreviations