If national security begins at home, America is in trouble.   The same administration which gave back $300 billion to the tobacco industry is making your food and water anything but safe.  The result is a compromised food supply which harms everyone, especially food workers.

Popcorn

         Is popcorn really that bad?  It is if you make it the stuff.  It can take your breath away – permanently.

         Workers who make microwave popcorn are developing bronchiolitis obliterans, a truly horrible disease that wipes out their lungs.  Sometimes the only “cure” is a lung transplant.

         It used to be that this was exactly the kind of issue that even a balky Occupational, Health and Safety Administration would decide to legislate.  A rare disease occurs in very specific work settings, pointing to a single cause.

         According to the New York Times, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health believes the popcorn workers are being felled by diacetyl, a component made by International Flavors and Fragrances that gives the “buttery” taste.  According to OSHA administrator Edwin G. Foulke, Jr., however,  “the science is murky” about diacetyl.

         Now doesn’t that sound familiar? According to the Administration, the science about global warming is murky, just like the studies showing mercury spewed into your water by coal plants.  It’s murky about what caused the deaths to spinach eaters a few months ago (more about that below).

         If the ends justify the means, the scientific results justify prior political convictions. OSHA director Foulke has a typical resume for a Bush administration supposed to protect the public health, with a background in political fund raising, and many years developing “voluntary compliance” programs for industry.

         “Voluntary compliance” is where companies “make their own rules” to avoid the “nasty economic consequences” of regulation.  Foulke became famous for delivering a speech which attributed job injuries to worker foolishness.  He explained that kids often know better than adult workers. Foulke failed to recognize that “worker carelessness” is a major reason why you have workplace rules.

         Otherwise people get killed. OSHA refuses to regulate, even with the evidence of its own scientists that people are dying from making microwavable popcorn (California may forge ahead on its own).  Voluntary compliance is often an oxymoron. We don’t want members of the mob running FBI investigations.  Yet somehow it’s okay if tobacco lobbyists control tobacco regulation at the EPA.  Many more will die from tobacco than mob violence.

Spinach

         The story on spinach is in fact cloudier, but not by much.  The same E Coli. strain that killed people across the nation was later traced to industrial cattle farms nearby.  As in the case of diacetyl, nothing has been done to fix the problem.

         The issue goes far beyond political payoffs and regulatory neglect. There are systemic defects in our agricultural policy and public health.

         The upcoming farm bill will probably be concocted by farm state congressmen and agribusiness interests, many of which are inimical to the “small farmers” they claim to aid.  The average food travels 2000 miles from farm, to industrial processing, to your plate.  Our highly subsidized corn, soy, and wheat destroy African farmers’ ability to compete, causing many to survive on American food aid.  As for what we ourselves eat, our “cheap,” subsidized processed foods often require tastes created by International Flavors and Fragrances to make them palatable. 

         IFF and others have done a highly effective job.  Many children now believe that fake flavors, like artificial lemon, are the real ones.

         Fake foods have many other costs.  Subsidized fast food and sodas make for an increasingly obese and sick population.  In one study a government subsidized can of soda per day may add 10-15 pounds a year to your weight.

         What does adding a pound to every American mean in energy costs? One study figured an added $2.2 billion dollars in added energy costs.  That’s $2 billion more onto our trade deficit.  Some of that money ends in the hands of petrodictators who openly predict the demise of the United States.

         Yet the increase in health care costs is more worrisome.  For the first time in decades, infant mortality is rising in the American south.  Part of the increase is due to parental obesity. 

         For some poor families, subsidized foods, that kind that make them fat, are the only kind they can afford. The future costs to our already overburdened health care system represent many billions of dollars a year, costs which American industry, with our payroll based health insurance, must pay for.

         Fake food and sick food cost us our health and impair our economic competitiveness.  Government should be protecting the public health, not worsening it. We need local foods and the end to subsidies that subsidize obesity and diabetes.   We should recognize the many benefits of “going green” to our national security, economic strength, and personal survival, and start reversing the process.         

Dr. Matthew Edlund, M.D., M.O.H., director of The Center for Circadian Medicine, is an expert on applied public health, sleep medicine and psychiatry. A former professor at Brown and University of Texas medical schools, he can be reached via email to DocME@DoctorEdlund.com. And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our new Fitcast, via the iTunes Store.