Scientists Suggest That All Food Should Be Irradiated, Pasteurized and Sterilized by 2030

University of Notre Dame network physicists in collaboration with food scientists have recently published an analysis of the international food-trade network that claims to show a vulnerability to the fast spread of contaminants as well as the correlation between known food poisoning outbreaks and the centrality of countries on the network. The study is causing a new batch of fear mongers to reiterate what many others have already stated--specifically that all food should sterilized by 2030.

The primary claim by the food industry: As the world's population climbs past 7 billion, the sustainable production and distribution of food is balanced against the need to ensure its chemical and microbiological safety. The new paper maps the international agro-food trade network (IFTN) -- a highly complex and heterogeneous system formed around a core group of seven countries, each trading with more than 77 percent of the world's nations. Since any two countries in the IFTN have only two degrees of separation on the network, the fear is that the IFTN is capable of spreading a foodborne contaminant efficiently. They also claim it tends to mask the contaminant's origins once the system is compromised, since so many network paths run through the central nodes.

[link to preventdisease.com]