Outbreak: Foodborne Illness and the Struggle for Food Safety

by Timothy D. Lytton

Foodborne illness is a big problem. Wash those chicken breasts, and you’re likely to spread Salmonella to your countertops, kitchen towels, and other foods nearby. Even salad greens can become biohazards when toxic strains of E. coli inhabit the water used to irrigate crops. All told, contaminated food causes 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths each year in the United States.
           
With Outbreak, Timothy D. Lytton provides an up-to-date history and analysis of the US food safety system. He pays particular attention to important but frequently overlooked elements of the system, including private audits and liability insurance.

Lytton chronicles efforts dating back to the 1800s to combat widespread contamination by pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella that have become frighteningly familiar to consumers. Over time, deadly foodborne illness outbreaks caused by infected milk, poison hamburgers, and tainted spinach have spurred steady scientific and technological advances in food safety. Nevertheless, problems persist. Inadequate agency budgets restrict the reach of government regulation. Pressure from consumers to keep prices down constrains industry investments in safety. The limits of scientific knowledge leave experts unable to assess policies’ effectiveness and whether measures designed to reduce contamination have actually improved public health. Outbreak offers practical reforms that will strengthen the food safety system’s capacity to learn from its mistakes and identify cost-effective food safety efforts capable of producing measurable public health benefits.
 

Genres: Food

384 pages, Paperback

Published April 16, 2019

Reviews

[Andreas Faraos · Rating 3 out of 5]

More law and regulation focused than food science.

[Susan Olesen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The depth of this book is immense; it leaves no stone unturned. A full half - half! - of the book is sources and appendices.

And because of that, unless you are deep into governmental regulation, epidemiology, or the technical history of food safety, this isn't the book for you.

I wound up skimming at least half the text. The alphabet soup of agencies and programs is eye-crossing - which, when you come down to it, is the second-biggest issue in food safety, 500 different agencies having a thermometer in the pot, and each one being responsible for just one tiny sliver of responsibility (ex: Consumer Reports found rodent hairs and insect bits in 8 major brands of pot pie [relax, this was 50 years ago]. FDA said that's the USDA's problem, they deal with meat. USDA kicked it back and said, it's not our meat, it's the spices, and that's an FDA issue. Eventually it was found to be the shells, which was grain, which *was* an issue of the FDA. Now there are 50 more agencies involved, and you find out the grain was grown in Mexico, shipped to its sister facility in Oklahoma, mixed with grain from 4 different suppliers, relabeled as Oklahoma-grown, and shipped to 10 different warehouses that went to 8 processing plants which were sold to 10 grocery chains and 120 restaurants... .) (The #1 issue is corporate greed and irresponsibility)

In short, every food safety law on the book has been the result of people getting sick and dying through poor - and profitable - handing of food. Food safety started because of adulterated milk, from sick cows who were fed the pressed mash from distilleries, which made them give a sickly bluish-gray milk, which was then further adulterated with whiteners - chalk, or plaster - to make it look healthy again. Needless to say, the infant mortality rate of New York City was around 25%, much of it due to drinking this toxic milk. When milk purity began to be regulated, children thrived, and a new industry was born.

This book is interesting, I did learn a lot, but I like case histories, and this doesn't focus on case histories or investigation; it focuses on laws and procedures, and that's just not what I want to read about.

For lawyers and epidemiologists only.

[A.M. Molloy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not worth the price of a hardcover for a Kindle edition. This book was expensive. And very repetitive and boring. And 43% of the book wasn't even part of the book. It was just Appendix, Index, and some notes. (Nothing wrong with that part, a book with this amount of research is going to need that, but I should be paying the price of a hardcover book for an eBook version where only 57% of the entire book is what I paid to read). The contents of the book should have been interesting. I've read plenty of non-fiction books before. But sadly the author wasn't able to keep my attention and I struggled with this book. Although if I ever have trouble falling asleep, I should re-read this book as it literally put me to sleep many times.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shockingly good. Lytton teaches at Georgia State University's College of Law, and this is a serious and exceptionally balanced academic treatment of the cultural, political, and legal history and nature of the U.S. food safety system. Rigorously footnoted and, I can confirm from the particular topics that I know well, thorough and careful. Chapter 2 on canned foods and the development of HACCP was, in a sense, the Covington chapter, and I read the endnotes with a smile. Well done. Worth reading.

[Catalina Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting little educational read that came as a recommendation from a cohort member for a food safety program I’m doing as that now largely entails what I do for work. Honestly fascinating how much the food industry gets away with and how much has changed from a regulatory landscape only in recent decades. It provided some helpful historical context to the landscape the food industry deals with today. I’m now also weary of ever eating melons or cantaloupes again.

[Elizabeth]

As seen on Food Safety News: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2019/0...