Comments on: Are we all crash test dummies for the food industry? http://www.momsrising.org/blog/are-we-all-crash-test-dummies-for-the-food-industry/ Where Moms and the people who love them fight for a better America Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:18:11 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Daniel http://www.momsrising.org/blog/are-we-all-crash-test-dummies-for-the-food-industry/comment-page-1/#comment-14873 Daniel Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:45:19 +0000 http://www.momsrising.org/blog/?p=2738#comment-14873 I'm not an apologist for the food industry, but I do take issue with some of the numbers in that report--the *really important* numbers that give context as to whether this is a real health crisis or not. The CSPI says that there were 48,000 cases of food borne illness from these ten foods. They wait until the second to last page to tell us that these 48,000 illnesses occurred over the period from 1990 to 2006 (17 years!). That's only ~2800 illnesses a year, in a population of 300 million. Break out your calculator and calculate those odds and you'll see that this is not a public health crisis by any means. This report is designed to be highly inflammatory, I'll give the CSPI credit at least for that. But is it useful information? Not by a mile. Daniel Koontz <a href="http://casualkitchen.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Casual Kitchen</a> I’m not an apologist for the food industry, but I do take issue with some of the numbers in that report–the *really important* numbers that give context as to whether this is a real health crisis or not.

The CSPI says that there were 48,000 cases of food borne illness from these ten foods. They wait until the second to last page to tell us that these 48,000 illnesses occurred over the period from 1990 to 2006 (17 years!). That’s only ~2800 illnesses a year, in a population of 300 million. Break out your calculator and calculate those odds and you’ll see that this is not a public health crisis by any means.

This report is designed to be highly inflammatory, I’ll give the CSPI credit at least for that. But is it useful information? Not by a mile.

Daniel Koontz
Casual Kitchen

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