Friday, September 5, 2008

Science Insurance and food safety

This article is a bit too pushy on radiation, but the whole food safety issue is running on power law, and we just had a Magnitude 8 Listeria disaster. Turns out that all the previous breakouts may be following power law, and we are in for an M9, whatever that's going to do!

The chance of being killed by your hotdog has all the elements of what I have talked about before. It's run by a big political hierarchy, and all decisions are political. They don't pay their Science Insurance in order to properly defined the risk. Much like steriods, people assume everything is fine, as long as they don't hear anything.

Now, in response, they may build up the bureaucracy, more brainless inspectors, more management, more secrecy. Now, everything will be assumed to be 'handled', until the next time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just in time for election season.

Harold Asmis said...

I think the big guy has a lot to answer for.