3 ms·

Latest data is Estimated annual number of episodes of illnesses caused by 31 pathogens transmitted commonly by food Domestically acquired foodborne [1] 9,388

• prepend 8y ago
  It’s pretty hard to compare the value lost to the lettuce industry vs the illnesses and deaths. The EPA values a life at $7.4M for policy purposes [0]. So 1351x7.4M is about $10B. In 2015, the value of all US farm output was $136B. [1] So you could argue that you’d want to save more value from lives than from market impact, if you wanted to be purely utilitarian (that I hope no one in thread does). But there’s a big impact from illness. I think many people underestimate the impact of food borne disease because they are young and healthy. I’m glad you pulled up the impact because it’s a big deal. Hopefully as people better understand the danger, we’ll be able to avoid reductive math where we only worry about things when they are big, and way harder to fix. [0] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-valuation https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v... [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/ag-and-food-sectors-and-the-economy/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...