The number of food-borne illness outbreaks has not been increasing. Food-safety agencies have been getting worse at identifying the causes of outbreaks.

Although critics assert that there is a place for CAFE standards, the authorssuggest that they have not provided any rationale for the CAFE program to exist.

Congress has consistently rejected efforts to revise health, safety, and environmental statutes to increase the consideration of economic effects in rulemaking.

Mercury is a persistent and naturally occurring metal that has provoked substantial concern because methyl mercury (an organic form) accumulates in fish and can cause subtle neurological deficiencies in children who have been exposed to it in the womb.