Food Safety
Are consumers adequately protected from tainted food?
By Mary H. Cooper

An outbreak of food poisoning last January has raised disturbing questions about the nation's food supply. After eating hamburgers at Jack in the Box restaurants in several Western states, three children died and some 500 people became ill. The culprit was a virulent strain of Escherichiacoli, a bacteria that has been linked to other recent food-poisoning outbreaks. E. coli is one of many toxic organisms. . . .

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Does current FDA policy protect consumers from the potentially harmful effects of bioengineered foods?

David A. Kessler Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration,. From Testimony Before The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, And Related Agencies, April 20, 1993.	Michael K. Hansen Research Associate, Consumer Policy Institute, Consumers Union,. From statement on a proposed New York City law to require labeling of bioengineered foods, March 1993.

What Americans Say About Food Safety

Many pesticides are believed to be potentially cancer-causing. But statistics don't say how many cases of cancer have been caused by pesticide residues. When it comes to food poisoning, on the other hand, statistics are quite clear: Tainted food kills some 9,000 Americans each year and causes millions to become ill.

Despite the absence of statistics, American consumers apparently worry more about the health risks posed by pesticides than by food contamination. Of 800 consumers polled in March by Public Voice for Food and Health Policy, a Washington food-safety group, 71 percent were very concerned about agricultural chemicals getting into the water supply. But only 61 percent expressed the same level of concern over the risk of severe food poisoning from bacterial contamination of meat, although the poll was taken less than two months after the widely publicized Jack in the Box food-poisoning outbreak on the West Coast. Just over half the respondents -- 54 percent -- cited antibiotics and growth hormones in meat and milk products as a source of great concern.

Almost all respondents called for labeling requirements showing how much of what chemicals were used on foods sold in grocery stores, and nine out of 10 said they likely would support policies and political candidates working to reduce the use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.

A similar preoccupation with pesticides was the main finding of another survey, conducted in January 1992 by the Food Marketing Institute, a Washington-based association of food wholesalers and retailers. Although 71 percent of the 1,000 respondents said food- product safety was very important, food spoilage was their main concern (among 36 percent of the respondents), followed by pesticide residues (18 percent), germs that cause spoilage (15 percent) and chemicals (13 percent). Concern about bacterial contamination (9 percent of respondents) ranked eighth among the threats to food safety. Respondents to the Food Marketing Institute poll showed varying levels of concern about food safety and the following specific aspects of food production:

Something Not a

Serious of a Hazard Not

Hazard Hazard At all Sure Area of Concern: Residues, such as

pesticides and

herbicides 76 19 2 3 Antibiotics and

hormones in poultry

and livestock 5 36 5 6 Irradiated

foods 35 28 10 27 Nitrites in

food 40 38 4 18 Additives and

preservatives 26 62 9 4 Artificial

coloring 21 50 24 5 Source: Food Marketing Institute, Trends 92: Consumer Attitudes and the Supermarket 1992