Food fears continue to plague Americans, whipped by chemophobia

In a recent issue of the journal Food Security, Dr. Gordon Gribble, Professor of Chemistry at Dartmouth College (and a long-time ACSH advisor) writes about Food Chemistry and Chemophobia. The latter is a term meaning an irrational fear of chemicals in the environment: that no matter how tiny an exposure one faces, it is to be avoided at all costs.

Dr. Gribble points out how unnecessary such fears are and how baseless, given the fact that we are all made of “chemicals.” He advised regulators that, rather than worrying about “toxins” and “carcinogens” of no valid public health import, to pay attention instead to real threats, the pathogens: microorganisms that send many thousands of us to the hospital each year and kill several thousands. He notes that the modern era of chemophobia actually began thanks to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring which was published in 1962. Based upon no science whatsoever, her work pictured a village devoid of animal life, killed off by deadly chemicals (mainly pesticides, focus on DDT). This was the birth of the “environmental” movement, which has been a strong drag on progress ….To Read More…….