David SchleiferDissertation Summary: "Getting Better for You: Trans Fats, Risk and Innovation" This dissertation examines trans fats in the American food system. Organizations may make scientifically rational decisions, but I find that these decisions may retrospectively seem irrational when scientific knowledge is amended. I also find that corporations may support regulation and seek to capitalize on perceptions of risk by pursuing technological and organizational innovation. These forms of innovation may have significant impacts on competitors, suppliers, and other industries. My archival research indicates that during the 1980s, consumer watchdog organizations and medical authorities lobbied corporations to replace saturated fat with trans fats, which at that time were perceived as healthy. Food manufacturers benefited from the functional properties of inexpensive trans fats. But they were also framed as doing the right thing for consumers by using trans fats in place of saturated fats. However, scientific knowledge is necessarily subject to revision: members of scientific communities regularly conduct research that may lead them to refine, elaborate or refute prior hypotheses. New and high-profile research eventually convinced the aforementioned watchdog organizations to seek federal regulation of trans fats. I conclude that organizations which campaign, give public advice or make business decisions based on scientific knowledge risk pursuing courses of action that may later be seen as mistakes. Most studies of pollution and other technological hazards assume that corporations would try to cover up mistakes, to reduce perceptions of risk associated with their products and to avoid regulation. My analysis of approximately five thousand comments submitted to the Food and Drug Administration between 1994 and 2003 on the proposed trans fat labeling rule leads to a different conclusion. A group of corporations and trade groups did fund a study that was intended to prove that trans fats were safe. Although the results of that study were not entirely conclusive, some corporations and trade associations cautiously supported trans fat labeling. I argue that corporations and trade groups may support certain forms of regulation, particularly if they can amass symbolic capital by innovating in a new regulatory environment. My interviews and archival research indicate that the largest food manufacturers, edible oil companies and trade groups began coordinating the development of alternatives to trans fats almost as soon as labeling was proposed in 1994. By tracking trade journals and patent data, I have found that many food manufacturers voluntarily eliminated trans fats from their products, which was not required by federal regulation. A case study of a major food manufacturer which began marketing trans fat free products before labeling was mandated illustrates how regulatory changes provide opportunities for companies to move early, with significant impacts on suppliers, competitors, and related industries. Product reformulations such as the elimination of trans fats are large, complex and costly intra- and inter-organizational projects that involve partnering with crop scientists, farmers, trade associations, and agricultural processors. They require technical changes in factories and extensive product testing. Although their goal may be to eliminate one substance perceived as hazardous, many other inputs and processes often have to be changed in order to make new products seem otherwise identical to old products. Public companies with significant purchasing power and large research capabilities seem best positioned to coordinate these projects. Limits on the patentability of supplies and manufactured foods means that research and decisions undertaken by one corporation can create what some may regard as a public good in the form of trans fat free oils and shortenings. Whether or not trans fats are truly hazardous is ultimately beside the point: industries seek to profit by shaping perceptions of risk and health, and by then doing what is perceived as right at a particular historical moment. Organizations sometimes find themselves on the wrong side of a shifting state of scientific knowledge. However, amplifying perceptions of risk can allow certain corporations to portray themselves as responsible and their products as desirable. Curriculum Vitae |
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