This week the Associated Press reported some news that should be reassuring in the wake of the contaminated-spinach scare: Our food supply — especially meat and poultry — might be safer now “than at any other time in the last decade, with illness occurring at record-low rates, new federal statistics show.” Just about every major food-borne germ has gotten less threatening, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes listeria, campylobacter, salmonella, shigella, yersinia, and even E. coli.
But professional food scaremongers haven’t seemed to notice. Caroline Smith DeWaal, the foremost food-safety doomsayer at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), had this to say about the news: “The problems have changed. A decade ago, beef was at the top of our list of concern. Now we’re more concerned about produce.“
Notice what’s missing? Any admission that food safety has improved overall. Without batting an eye, CSPI’s DeWaal moves the goalposts and claims that American agriculture isn’t meeting her “concerns.” It shouldn’t be surprising that activists do this constantly — after all, who has the time to find a different job?
