Risk Assessment: American Style

Professor J, 

Is it freedom we're fighting for? Is it terrorism we're fighting against? 


We are terrified, and we should be, but the fear we feel however is directed at the wrong things. A terrorist attack strikes fear into the hearts of entire nations causing people to cede personal liberties in the quest for (impossibly absolute) safety. The average American isn't likely to be overcome with fear while driving through their favorite fast food outlet where obesity, heart disease, and diabetes (among the biggest slayers of Americans) are on the menu. The diseases caused by any number of chemicals present in pesticides and preservatives, the damage done by hormones fed to poultry and beef or the effect of eating pink slime (doused with ammonia to kill the teeming bacteria) do not appear for years. The damage being done by things like genetically modified food may never be fully made known to the public since the key players can afford lobbyist to support their interests and launch massive ad (propaganda) campaigns. 

The consumer is not completely powerless (though sometimes nearly). These corporations would grind to a halt some of their more egregious ways of doing business if an informed citizenry simply stopped buying what they are selling. The consumer is however at a distinct disadvantage when ownership becomes a web of interlocking interests and holdings. We have in many ways created prisons of consumption for ourselves and forgotten where we put the key of self reliance.
The number one cause of death last year was (gasp!) heart disease. Homicide (which is something people greatly fear, by terrorists or anyone else, comes in at number 15. We seem unable to rationally look at risk assessment if numbers are scattered among the population over time.  We suffer from undo fear of things that are statistically highly unlikely events, while ignoring information about how our personal choices may decrease both quality and quantity of life.

It's a short step for Hedges from the defense industry and their corporate cronies to the insurance companies and health care:

"The grip of corporations on government is not limited to the defense industry. It has leeched into nearly every aspect of the economy. The attempt to create a health-care plan that also conciliates the corporations that profit from the misery and illnesses of tens of millions of Americans is naive, at best, and probably disingenuous. This conciliation insist that we can coax these corporations, which are listed on the stock exchange and exist to maximize profits, to transform themselves into social service-agencies that will provide adequate health care for all Americans. "(155)

Hedges clearly falls on the side of doing away with the privatized system we now have:  "The for profit health-care industry, like the defense industry, has vigorously fought to protect itself through campaign contributions and lobbying. They have placed profit before the common good." (156)

For me the health care discussion cannot be separated from the food discussion. It seems that in countries that provide their citizens one style of government health care or another, the rules about what can be done to or go into food are a bit more stringent.   The E.U. has much more strict guidelines about things like genetically modified food, herbicides, and pesticides. Many things widely used here (bovine growth hormone for example) are banned in Europe. 


Have the Europeans connected the health care-food dots in a way that we would never be able to given how corporatized our diets are?


"We eat corporate food." (Followed by a list of other things we depend on corporations for on p.162) And of course we take corporate medicine. In large part to combat the corporate food we've eaten all our lives. More than just a swap in the health care system would need to change.
The web is vast and sticky.

I'll admit to ranting and rambling this week. ;)