Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Can the food industry police itself?
The Wall Street Journal, that increasingly surprising newspaper, wants to know whether whether food companies can be expected to police their own food safety procedures. Hardly, says the excellent writer of yesterday’s article, Jane Zhang. “…this system of ‘preventive controls’ has worked in the past only with adequate regulatory enforcement and industry support–neither of which is guaranteed.” She quotes Mike Taylor, a former official in FDA and USDA: “The reason you have regulation is some companies don’t have the market incentive to meet high food-quality standards…the public doesn’t trust a system that leaves it entirely to the industry.” Indeed. If the Wall Street Journal thinks we need better food safety regulation, maybe its time has come?
