Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth about a Food Chain Gone Haywire

Fox's well-researched book will make readers think twice before they eat. While news reports of ""mad cow"" disease and children killed by E. coli bacteria in fast-food hamburgers may seem like horrific aberrations, Fox, an investigative journalist, shows that these are only the more notable cases among an increasing incidence of food-borne disease. ""Changes in the way we produce, process, and distribute food""-from intensive livestock factory farming to importing foreign-grown fruits-provide environments in which emerging pathogens can thrive. Most cases of stomach flu are actually caused by food poisoning; in addition to familiar names like salmonella, there are the little-known microbes such as the campylobacter (which is found in most chicken and kills up to 700 people a year). Fox exposes the powerful food industry's influence over regulatory agencies like the USDA; one especially disturbing chapter recounts how the egg lobby eradicated a program meant to combat the spread of salmonella in eggs. The book questions the status quo and our modern drive to use ""efficiency as the premier standard and value by which every human activity, every process, every undertaking must be judged."" Throughout, Fox keeps the science accessible when discussing the detective work of epidemiologists on the trail of disease, and offers cautionary accounts of families faced with mysterious illnesses. Despite some repetitive stressing of main points, this is an important--and unsettling--contribution to public awareness. (July)