Post-Harm Food Regulation

Post-harm food regulation is the reactive safety pattern criticized in The sneaky way companies get new chemicals into our food. The episode argues that the U.S. food-additive system can let new substances reach consumers first, then rely on illness reports, litigation, FDA action, and settlements after harm appears.

Tara Flour is the episode’s acute example. The source says hundreds of Daily Harvest consumers became ill, 42 people lost gallbladders, and the [[FoodAndDrugAdministration|FDA]] later banned tara flour without publicly declaring it the cause of the liver and gallbladder injuries.

The pattern also matters for Chronic Food Additive Risk, where delayed harm may be harder to trace than the Daily Harvest case. That makes post-harm correction weaker when disease emerges slowly over years.

Connections

• Premarket Food Safety Review - preventive alternative.
• Daily Harvest, Tara Flour, and Carol Reedy - concrete case.
• Food Safety Litigation Discovery and Bill Marler - accountability mechanism after injury.
• Secret GRAS and GRAS Self-Certification - upstream routes that can make post-harm discovery necessary.