Bad eggs...

Of course you'd expect that I'm following the massive egg recall that is underway.  Explanations are proliferating (very similar to the peanut butter product recall), ranging from blaming industrial/factory farming, weak regulation, greedy CEOs, and national distribution.  There are some success stories emerging around the detection of outbreaks, with some state public health departments doing crack detective work with limited resources.  New food safety legislation has still not passed, mired in cross-state politics, battles over different visions of food safety, different views on who is to be blamed, and how producers of different sizes and localities will be affected. 

So what can I add to the plurality of voices here?  It is important to think about all of the above factors, and even more that I haven't mentioned, but I believe that more attention should be paid to two things: 1) clearer evidence chains that emphasize who is producing evidence and how this evidence is produced should be made publicly available.  2) if we indeed have "bad egg" companies that endanger the whole food system, what kinds of structural factors produce these "bad eggs" (ahem ahem ahem contract farming)?  A simple focus on greed and moral failing does not address deeper issues regarding the conditions that produce "bad eggs."