Ivan Parkin Lecture 'A Progress Paradox: If We Have the Safest Food Supply, Why Am I Working So Hard?'

摘要

The ultimate measure of the safety of the food supply is whether people are getting sick from the things they eat. From this perspective, the US has one of the safest food supplies in the world. Mortality and serious morbidity due to infectious diseases, in general, and foodborne diseases, in particular, have declined dramatically in the last 150 years. At the turn of the 20th Century, life in general was quite different than it is today. The country was beginning to urbanize and industrialize, but Americans were still a rural people. There was no running water, indoor plumbing, or electricity in homes. America ran on coal. In 1900, 38% of labor force was in farming; by 1990, the proportion had dropped to 3%. During the early 20th century, contaminated food, milk and water caused many foodborne infections. Major killers were typhoid fever, cholera, scarlet fever, and diarrhea. Contaminated people spread diseases such as measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, and rheumatic fever. Tuberculosis, the number one cause of death in 1900, was spread by both food and people. Cities were especially dangerous. Beginning in the mid-1800s through the mid-1990s, city dwellers paid an "urban penalty" because of increased gastrointestinal and respiratory disease associated with poor sanitation and crowding.