Comments on: To Market! To Market! http://scienceprogress.org/2010/01/to-market-to-market/ Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:59:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Don Strong http://scienceprogress.org/2010/01/to-market-to-market/comment-page-1/#comment-6782 Don Strong Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:56:42 +0000 http://www.scienceprogress.org/?p=5158#comment-6782 I applaud you for this article, which takes basic science and all of its powerful objectivity into the realm of social science, with all of its powerful subjectivity. The first commenter makes a good point that could be the subject of an entire article, how do thriving local producers (with lots of very intelligent customers) of such products as unpasteurized cider and milk deal with the chance that sooner or later someone will be harmed by their product. Unpasteurized cider that sits out for a day or so, with the cap off, is consumed by a neighbor's child...and the next steps are food poisoning and a lawsuit. One might say, that food is inherently dangerous just as many other products (pesticides on your garage shelf, lawnmowers, hot coffee, etc); how does this wash in our society? I would like to see an expansive treatment of these topics, one that goes beyond the narrow perspective of the first commenter. I applaud you for this article, which takes basic science and all of its powerful objectivity into the realm of social science, with all of its powerful subjectivity. The first commenter makes a good point that could be the subject of an entire article, how do thriving local producers (with lots of very intelligent customers) of such products as unpasteurized cider and milk deal with the chance that sooner or later someone will be harmed by their product. Unpasteurized cider that sits out for a day or so, with the cap off, is consumed by a neighbor’s child…and the next steps are food poisoning and a lawsuit. One might say, that food is inherently dangerous just as many other products (pesticides on your garage shelf, lawnmowers, hot coffee, etc); how does this wash in our society? I would like to see an expansive treatment of these topics, one that goes beyond the narrow perspective of the first commenter.

]]> By: Evan Henke http://scienceprogress.org/2010/01/to-market-to-market/comment-page-1/#comment-6778 Evan Henke Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:35:55 +0000 http://www.scienceprogress.org/?p=5158#comment-6778 As a reader of ScienceProgress for about a year, I'm deeply confused by this article. The scientific claims made here are not science progress nor are they anything near "food safety". The opinions found in this article seem antithetical to the mission of scienceprogress.org Pasteurization saves lives by removing harmful foodborne pathogens from raw juice, raw cider, and raw milk. That scientific fact was completely absent in this food safety article! A quick pubmed scan for "outbreak apple cider" yields 17 hits, among which are at least 5 high profile outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 and Crytosporidium associated with unpasteurized apple cider since 1993. E. coli O157:H7 can cause severe kidney failure, especially in children, and can be fatal. State laws that prohibit the sale of raw milk protect public health, especially those who would purchase such products without any knowledge of the associated risks. With all due respect to the author, the introduction of this article, with it's cheering of a farm that has willingly abdicated it's responsibility for the safety of their food products and the health of its customers, smacks of ideological propaganda while completely shrugging off the role of science in this heated controversy. Local and organic products are no more traceable by our health and agricultural agencies than any other foods on the market. Products sold at impromptu farmer's markets are extremely difficult if not impossible to trace back in an outbreak investigation. Does that head of lettuce come with a production date, lot code, and farm of origin? Raw and organic products are by no means more healthy than their conventional counterparts. If anything, organic products are riskier than conventional foods to consume because of the use of manure in growing produce and the lack of standard food safety techniques like irradiation or pasteurization applied to the product before market. This information is easily found on FDA, USDA, and CDC websites. An article on food safety on a reasonable site like science progress ought to include food safety facts when discussing controversial social and political policies, not deflections of the truth. Instead, I read ideology that ignores scientific input. As a graduate student of food safety and infectious disease epidemiology, I'm personally disgusted that this scientifically misleading article was published on this website. As a reader of ScienceProgress for about a year, I’m deeply confused by this article. The scientific claims made here are not science progress nor are they anything near “food safety”. The opinions found in this article seem antithetical to the mission of scienceprogress.org

Pasteurization saves lives by removing harmful foodborne pathogens from raw juice, raw cider, and raw milk. That scientific fact was completely absent in this food safety article! A quick pubmed scan for “outbreak apple cider” yields 17 hits, among which are at least 5 high profile outbreaks of E. coli O157:H7 and Crytosporidium associated with unpasteurized apple cider since 1993. E. coli O157:H7 can cause severe kidney failure, especially in children, and can be fatal.

State laws that prohibit the sale of raw milk protect public health, especially those who would purchase such products without any knowledge of the associated risks. With all due respect to the author, the introduction of this article, with it’s cheering of a farm that has willingly abdicated it’s responsibility for the safety of their food products and the health of its customers, smacks of ideological propaganda while completely shrugging off the role of science in this heated controversy.

Local and organic products are no more traceable by our health and agricultural agencies than any other foods on the market. Products sold at impromptu farmer’s markets are extremely difficult if not impossible to trace back in an outbreak investigation. Does that head of lettuce come with a production date, lot code, and farm of origin?

Raw and organic products are by no means more healthy than their conventional counterparts. If anything, organic products are riskier than conventional foods to consume because of the use of manure in growing produce and the lack of standard food safety techniques like irradiation or pasteurization applied to the product before market. This information is easily found on FDA, USDA, and CDC websites.

An article on food safety on a reasonable site like science progress ought to include food safety facts when discussing controversial social and political policies, not deflections of the truth. Instead, I read ideology that ignores scientific input. As a graduate student of food safety and infectious disease epidemiology, I’m personally disgusted that this scientifically misleading article was published on this website.

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