AP Photo/ Altaf Qadri, FILE
This article is the fourth of a four part series looking at how the United States' food system may be fueling a global health crisis. Many trust that the Food and Drug Administration can adequately protect them as consumers. A recent report put out by a subcommittee of the FDA itself, however, doubted its ability to serve its mission. Follow parts I-IV through a hypothetical example of how motivated groups could successfully disrupt and undermine the health of the United States and countries abroad.
Lastly, a group interested in wreaking havoc on the American food system could lobby congress heavily with their enormous profits. They could intimidate competitors with trivial legal schemes often for just the sake of instilling fear, but with ulterior motives like bankrupting and silencing close competitors. They could push for initiatives that could patent "new to nature" compounds. This process would include taking natural chemicals, altering them slightly and then patenting them for their health benefits. Once owned, the company could then flex their new property and licensing rights in the legal arena. The could then also take a portion of their profits and support philanthropic efforts that focus on cleaning environmental waste, and solving health problems that they helped to create in the first place. In fact, in selling their deception, they could be so kind as to provide “health claims” on their labels: helping consumers to rationalize poor diet decisions. They could also add specific nutrients back into the food and then make health claims on their packaging. They could even promote nutrition education programs as to increase demand for their new premium product line containing health-damaging foods with flecks of carrots and heavily subsidized and processed ingredients.
By this time economic demand will have risen exponentially, pushing prices even lower and providing the impetus for yet even more food chemicals, more food industry, and more economic exploitation. This terrorist network could champion how inexpensive and safe the food supply has become because of these new food technologies. They would promote their ability to provide sufficient calories to formerly famished nations. They could systematically provide a seemingly endless supply of calories to formerly famished nations and limit famine to areas such as sub-Saharan Africa where their survival ultimately now depends on the developed world’s profits for charity.
These groups could also make sure that very little of the aid actually trickles down to those who need it most and that meaningful projects are ill-funded. It would be best if these groups could promote and even fund evidence-based research proving that these chemicals would not be linked to cause disease…at least in the short-term. If poor effects are found, they could outsource processing to less regulated areas of the world, and then import those products back into their own countries. If all else fails, they could simply create new food chemicals to meet new demands.
The incubation time for these disease processes would take 10-30 years or more depending on the genetic susceptibilities of individuals. The development of these conditions would be subclinical and easily masked by new drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry. This would give the facade of "health" in the greater public and this network of motivated individuals could blame genetics for exceptions to the rule. Meanwhile, the rates of diet and lifestyle-related epidemics of obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes would continue to sky-rocket. Food costs as a percentage of income would be lower than any time in history, and the energy content of that food would be the highest, (Meade and Rosen, 1996). This group would effectively drive the life expectancy of the United States to be lower for the first time in history (Olshanksy, et al, 2005).
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References:
FDA Science Board. (2007). FDA science and mission at risk. Retrieved July 13, 2009 from FDA Web site: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/AC/07/briefing/2007-4329b_02_01_FDA%
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Glanz, K., Basil, M., Maibach, E., Goldberg, J., & Snyder, D. (1998). Why Americans eat what they do: taste, nutrition, cost, convenience, and weight control concerns as influences on food consumption. J Am Diet Assoc, 98, 1118-1126.
Hart, P. (1994). Groupthink in government: a study of small groups and policy failure. John Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.
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Meade, M., & Rosen, S. (1996). Income and diet differences greatly affect food spending around the globe. Food Review, 19(3), 39-43.
Olshansky, S. J., et al. (2005). A potential decline in life expectancy in the United States in the 21st century. N Eng J Med, 352(11), 1138-1145.
US Department of Health and Human Services (2009a). Building a stronger defense against bioterrorism. Retrieved July 13, 2009 from FDA Web site: http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/
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US Department of Health and Human Services (2009b). What we do. Retrieved July 13, 2009 from FDA Web site http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/WhatWeDo/default.htm
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