don’t mean shit

I’ve stepped aside for two weeks and this has become painfully apparent: Most of everything I did in my 20-year academic career don’t mean shit.

It’s the food safety version of the liberal bubble.

I’ve been praised and criticized along the way for using new messages, new media and new ways of gauging food safety behaviour.

But it don’t mean shit.

We microbiologially-inclined folks look on with dismay as mere plebes engage in all kinds of risky food stuff, and then lament amongst ourselves at the uneducated public (I don’t, but many others do).

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), long considered the holy tome for all things food safety, has just published its 10 Most Talked About MMWR Reports of 2016:

CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain — United States, 2016

Interim Guidelines for Pregnant Women During a Zika Virus Outbreak — United States, 2016

Prevalence of Healthy Sleep Duration among Adults — United States, 2014

Possible Association Between Zika Virus Infection and Microcephaly — Brazil, 2015

Interim Guidelines for the Evaluation and Testing of Infants with Possible Congenital Zika Virus Infection — United States, 2016

Prevention and Control of Seasonal Influenza with Vaccines: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — United States, 2016–17 Influenza Season

Possible Zika Virus Infection Among Pregnant Women — United States and Territories, May 2016

Sleep Duration and Injury-Related Risk Behaviors Among High School Students — United States, 2007–2013

Interim Guidelines for Prevention of Sexual Transmission of Zika Virus — United States, 2016

Neisseria gonorrhoeae Antimicrobial Susceptibility Surveillance — The Gonococcal Isolate Surveillance Project, 27 Sites, United States, 2014

For all the outbreaks, deaths, tragedies, and criminal behaviour, microbial food safety doesn’t even make the top-10 at CDC.

Food safety fairy tales would probably rate higher.