Food Safety, Health, and Biological Risk Perception

Abstract

This chapter explores differing perceptions of health risks, as well as the role of experts and the state in mitigating such risks. Looking at food safety as a particular form of health risk management, this chapter examines diverging and converging trends in the EU and United States with regard to food regulation and the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods. Food safety in America and the European Union is greatly influenced by global trade in food commodities putting pressure on governments to adapt policies that will grant consumers cheap and immediate access to exotic foods.¹ Both the EU and the United States utilize their federal structures to control product access to their domestic or internal markets, but, as noted in chapter 1, considerable experimentation and testing of new food products and methods of food production is taking place at the state and member state levels. Consumer protection and the power that food producers have in the United States and the EU present different venues and conditions for monitoring food production and for consumers to make informed choices about the risks they expose themselves to.