Food poisoning from food contaminated with microorganisms is very common: 76 million cases and 5,000 deaths annually in the United States, according to government figures.

A couple of recent outbreaks have garnered a lot of attention. During the past two months, there have been three deaths and approximately 200 cases of illness from E. coli O157:H7 (traced to fresh, bagged spinach), and about 200 illnesses caused by Salmonella typhimurium.

Federal officials investigating the spinach outbreak have narrowed their search to a handful of ranches in California's Salinas Valley and appear to be focusing on wild hogs as the cause of contamination. The source of the Salmonella contamination is as yet unknown.

Americans are wondering who will protect us from future outbreaks of contamination and food-borne illness.

Although modern farming operations employ strict standards and safeguards, there is a limit to how safe we can make agriculture.

First, it's clear we can't rely on growers of fresh produce to protect us 100 percent of the time. Modern farming operations - especially the larger ones -- already employ strict standards and safeguards designed to keep food free of pathogens. And most often they work: Americans' food is not only the least expensive, but also the safest, in the history of humankind.

However, there is a limit to how safe we can make agriculture, given that it is an outdoor activity and subject to all manner of unpredictable challenges. If the goal is to make a field 100 percent safe from contamination, the only solution that guarantees this is to pave it over and build a parking lot on it. But we'd only be trading very rare agricultural mishaps for fender-benders.

It has also become painfully clear that we can't rely on processors to remove the pathogens from food in every case. This most recent outbreak of illness demonstrated that our faith in processor labels such as "triple washed" and "ready to eat" must be tempered with at least a little skepticism. Processors were quick to proclaim the cleanliness of their own operations and deflect blame toward growers. But all of those in the food chain share responsibility for food safety and quality.

In fairness to processors, there is ample evidence to suggest that no amount of washing will rid all pathogens from produce. The reason is that the contamination may occur not on the plant, but in it. Exposure to E. coli or other microorganisms at key stages of the growing process may allow them to be taken into the plant and actually incorporated into cells.

It has become painfully clear that we can't rely on processors to remove pathogens, such as E. coli or other microorganisms, from food in every case.

Citing this, advocates of food irradiation have stepped forward to claim that their technology can provide the assurance consumers demand and deserve. To be sure, irradiation is an important tool to promote food safety and is vastly under-used, largely due to opposition from the organic food lobby and government over-regulation.

But irradiation is no panacea. Although it quite neatly kills the bacteria, it does not inactivate the potent toxins secreted by certain bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium botulinum. This is a distinction you'd keenly appreciate should you become infected.

So, if consumers can't be protected by growers or processors or even irradiation, what can protect them?

There is technology available today that can inhibit microorganisms' ability to grow within plant cells and block the synthesis of the bacterial toxins. This same technology can be employed to produce antibodies that can be administered to infected patients to neutralize the toxins, and can even be used to produce therapeutic proteins that are safe and effective treatments for diarrhea, the primary symptom of food poisoning.

There is technology available today that can inhibit microorganisms' ability to grow within plant cells and block the synthesis of the bacterial toxins.

But don't expect your favorite organic producer to embrace this triple-threat technology, even if it would keep his customers from getting sick. Why? The technology in question is biotechnology, or gene-splicing -- an advance the organic lobby has vilified and rejected at every turn.

For organic marketers, the irony is more bitter than fresh-picked radicchio. The technology that affords them the best method of safeguarding their customers is the one they've fought hardest to forestall and confound.

Perhaps in the wake of at least three deaths and 400 illnesses from the recent E. coli and S. typhimurium outbreaks, the organic lobby will rethink its opposition to biotechnology. Perhaps they will undertake a meaningful examination of the ways in which this technology can save lives and advance their industry.

I'm not betting the farm on it. After all, admitting you're wrong is hard. Blaming others is easy.




Contributed by Dr. Henry I. Miller, a molecular biologist and research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was also the founding director of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Office of Biotechnology. Reprinted with permission from TCSDaily. Copyright © 2006 TCS Daily.

To read another Global Envision article about the relationship between food and technology, see GM Crops are not the Answer to Pest Control.



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