Origin: Slate Nov. 12, 2009

Arthur Allen, author of Vaccine (2007), looks in Slate at the FDA plan to ban consumption of warm weather oysters from the Gulf of Mexico. His conclusion is subtle: the science is good, the outlook for compliance bad. ”The ban seems particularly egregious in Louisiana, the unhealthiest, most obese place in the country. In New Orleans, which I visited last month, attitudes toward pleasure and health are weighted heavily toward the former. No raw oysters during Jazzfest in late April? Seems impossible to imagine. Like people nowhere else, Louisianans smoke, drink, and eat anything that doesn’t eat them first. This is especially true of raw-oyster lovers. The kind of risk/benefit ratios drawn up at the Harvard School of Public Health and the FDA are worthless to them.”He notes that “the FDA has done its scientific due diligence” and approves the pasteurization of warm weather oysters, as implemented in California.