Risk on the Table

Angela N. H. Creager is the Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science at Princeton University, where she directed the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies from 2016–20. Her current work focuses on the role of genetic tests in environmental science and regulation during the late twentieth century.

“The book stands out for its multidisciplinary approach, integrating history, science, and policy analysis to explore the historical context and ongoing debates and challenges in food safety, including conflicting interests shaping policies and practices. The volume is particularly relevant in an era where food safety and environmental health are increasingly intertwined with global trade and industrial practices.” • Agriculture and Human Values“The editors have brought together enough international work to form a broad picture of changes in the global food system. This is an extremely welcome view of how those changes were received in different places at different times.” • Technology and Culture“This collection draws insightful genealogies of a persistently virulent problem: food safety. The book brings together a series of well-written and exciting historical cases that together create a picture of the scientific and political struggles for food safety and their obstacles.” • Alexander von Schwerin, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science“‘Risk on the Table’ is a perfectly apt title for a book which deals with a major concern of modern societies: What shall we eat? Combining perspectives of ‘food risk’ as a matter of health concerns; environmental issues; and economic, social and employment problems, this book is truly innovative.” • Karin Zachmann, The Technical University of Munich

• List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroductionAngela N. H. Creager & Jean-Paul GaudillièrePart I: Objectifying DangersChapter 1. Salad Days: The Science and Medicine of Bad Greens, 1870–2000Anne Hardy
Chapter 2. Radioactive Diet: Food, Metabolism, and the Environment, c. 1960Soraya de Chadarevian
Chapter 3. Poison and Cancer: The Politics of Food Carcinogens in 1950s West Germany
Heiko StoffChapter 4. “EAT. DIE.” The Domestication of Carcinogens in the 1980s
Angela N. H. CreagerChapter 5. Risk on the Negotiating Table: Malnutrition, Mold Toxicity, and Postcolonial Development
Lucas M. MuellerChapter 6. Contaminated Foods, Global Environmental Health, and the Political Recalcitrance of a Pollution Problem: The Case of PCBs from 1966 to the Present DayAurélien FéronPart II: Ordering RisksChapter 7. Trace Amounts at Industrial Scale: Arsenicals and Medicated Feed in the Production of the “Western Diet”Hannah LandeckerChapter 8. Between Bacteriology and Toxicology: Agricultural Antibiotics and US Risk Regulation (1948–77)
Claas KirchhelleChapter 9. Conflicts of Interest, Ignorance, and Hegemony in the Diethylstilboestral US Food Crisis
Jean-Paul GaudillièreChapter 10. Defining Food Additives: Origins and Shortfalls of the US Regulatory Framework
Maricel V. Maffini and Sarah VogelChapter 11. The Rise (and Fall) of the Food-Drug Line: Classification, Gatekeepers, and Spatial Mediation in Regulating US Food and Health MarketsXaq FrohlichAfterword
Deborah Fitzgerald Index