Fact Sheets: Food Safety

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its latest attempt to create a national animal traceability program, despite close to a decade of widespread opposition from ranchers and $100 million allocated on a previous, failed attempt.

When an earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated Japan’s northeastern coast on March 11, 2011, a nuclear crisis began unfolding at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi plant. The Japanese government estimates it could be several months before the cooling systems, damaged by the natural disasters, are fully functional. In an effort to thwart a nuclear meltdown at the plant while the cooling system is damaged, hundreds of tons of water has been sprayed into four of the six reactors to cool fuel rods and spent fuel. The radioactive water is pooling in various locations around the plant, inhibiting work to bring the damaged cooling systems back into operation.

The full impact of the Japanese nuclear crisis remains to be seen, but the health risks posed by radioactive contamination are well documented. In 2006, the National Academies of Science issued a definitive report on radiation exposure that concluded that even low levels of radiation can cause human health problems, including cancer, heart disease, or immune disorders. Children are especially susceptible to the impact of foodborne exposure to radioactive materials, making safeguards of food and water particularly critical.

In early 2008, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it considered meat and milk from cloned animals to be safe to eat despite years of controversy and a long list of unresolved ethical, health and animal welfare concerns. In concert with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), regulators asked the livestock industry to continue a voluntary moratorium on allowing meat and milk from cloned animals into the food supply. As early as January 2008, the USDA identified potential concerns about clones entering “export channels,” saying, “industry will implement its livestock cloning supply chain management program which will establish protocols for tracking animal clones” — although this does not appear to yet be in place. Equally disconcerting, animal products derived from clones have no labeling requirements, depriving consumers of their right to choose or the ability to avoid cloned products if they are concerned about this technology.

Our current food system is broken, and it didn’t happen by accident. Many people don’t have access to safe, nutritious, affordable food; farmers can’t make a living; many regions of the country can no longer produce the food they consume; and large-scale industrial agriculture pollutes our soil and water. Decades of bad food policy designed for agribusiness and mega-farms, combined with unchecked corporate mergers, have wreaked havoc on family farmers, public health and rural communities.

Consumers get a lot of information about the things they buy, whether it’s monitoring the progress of a package making its way across the country or the label in a shirt. So should consumers expect any less when it comes to food? Everything from public opinion polls to the explosive growth of programs that connect consumers directly to farmers show that consumers don’t want mystery meat — they want to know what they’re eating and whether it is safe.