E. coli conservatives (6): E. coli conservatism on campus

One of the stunning things I've learned since I started studying the assault on food safety is how deeply the E. coli conservatives have been able to infiltrate the so-called liberal universities.

I was researching the career of Lester Crawford (about whom I'll be writing about in depth), the Food and Drug Administration chief for two months in 2005 before it was revealed he'd lied about his investments in the very drug companies his agency was regulating. Once an idealistic crusader against the use of antibiotics in cattle feed, the former veterinarian had moved farther and farther to the right, and more and more on the take. By 1999 he was directing a "Center for Food and Nutrition Policy" at Georgetown University, which later moved to Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Sounds like a noble enough outfit, no? Disinsterested scientists, running around in lab coats, devising new and better ways to make us healthier?

Not so. The CFNP is one of the myriad "financially independent" research institutes which, though housed on college campuses, don't follow higher education's traditional standards. The CFNP is is heavily funded by the sugar and soft drink industries.

This erosion of the intellectual authority of America's universities is yet another poisoned gift conservatives have bestowed upon us.

They are all over the place. Some of them use the name of the university that hosts them in their titles. The "Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development," for example, gets 65 percent of its funding from drug companies.

They're pleased with their investment. Joseph P. Pieroni, CEO of Daiichi Sankyo, Inc., attests on TCSDD's sponsors page: “As a medium-sized, foreign-based pharma firm, we rely heavily on the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development for its scholarly research reports on drug development trends to help us assess our own performance and to understand the current regulatory environment." Robert Ruffolo of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals praises their "unbiased" work. I'm so sure.

Sounds great. Luckily, you can become a TCSDD sponsor, too; download this brochure to learn how, or learn how to contact their "Director of Strategic Marketing and Develompent" here.

One of the things you'll be buying is Tufts University's seal of approval for your company's political agenda: Director Kenneth Kaitlin was quoted in the Boston Herald on February 15, 2005, for instance, praising the Bush Administration's appointment of Lester Crawford to head the FDA, quoted alongside critics of the appointment who actually were disinterested, public-spirited experts. (The message: Some food safety mavens agree with the Bush Administration, some disagree; move along, nothing to see.)

Midwesterners, however, might prefer to direct their contributions to Kansas State University, and its "International Food Safety Network." They love food safety! Why else would Monsanto, the lobbying group the National Restaurant Association and the National Turkey Federation, and agribusinesses like Green Giant, Ontario Agri-Food Technologies dig deep to support its "mix of public, private, and foundation sources"? They're buying, the FSN's website promises, work "guided by evidence-based principles."

One of those evidence-based principles? According to this op-ed by the FSN's scientific director Douglas Powell, that the papers never report that good news about E. Coli. The stuff is natural (kind of like health food): "All ruminants—cows, sheep, goats, deer—can carry dangerous E. coli like the O157:H7 strain that sickened people in the spinach outbreak, as well as the Taco Bell and Taco John's outbreaks."

Farmers are working hard to keep it contained; "People not getting sick and not dying is just not that exciting." We can all pitch in to keep it that way—"and it has nothing to do with calls for government inspections. ... New manuals, guidelines, and plans are not required; what is essential is that farmers and their staffs follow established good agricultural practices on a daily basis."

Who's at fault? The consumer. "Every grower, packer, distributor, retailer and consumer needs to adopt a culture that actually values safe food."

Luckily, the market will take care of any problems that remain: "The first company that can assure consumers they aren't eating poop on spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, and any other fresh produce will make millions..."

Trust him! It's Kansas State University speaking, folks! "Rules and regulations look pretty on paper, but they are not comforting to those 76 million Americans who get sick from the food and water they consume each and every year."

As with many right-wing hustlers, he can't keep his deceptions straight—who could? "Any commodity is only as good as its worst grower," he writes.

Well, yes. That's the point. All it takes is one bad apple-grower to spoil the whole bunch. Which is why, in a saner time when conservative front groups hadn't taken over our universities and newspaper op-ed pages, Americans understood there was a better way to catch bad guys, and it wasn't "self-policing." How often do you hear of a highway patrolman giving himself a ticket for speeding?

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future