Covid-19 is exposing serious problems with our food system. In this post, U.S. Right to Know is tracking important food news news related to the coronavirus pandemic.To receiveweekly updates and breaking news from the USRTK investigations, please sign up for our newsletter.

Topics (drop links)
Most Recent Articles
Obesity and Coronavirus
Eating Ultra-processed Food Increases Likelihood of Dying from Coronavirus
Inequalities In Our Food System
Risks Facing Farmworkers and Food Workers
Food Supply and Security
Toxic Chemicals and Coronavirus
Role of Factory Farming and Agriculture in Pandemics Like Covid-19
Food System Analysis
Food Safety
Junk Food Resurgence

Most recent articles

• My Great-Grandfather Knew How to Fix America’s Food System — by Grace Olmstead, New York Times (3.19.21)
• PFAS exposure found to increase risk of severe Covid-19, by Rebecca Trager, Chemistry World (1.12.21)
• Analysis-Hungry for change: Faulty food systems laid bare by COVID-19 and climate crises, by Thin Lei Win an Cormac O’Brien, Reuters (12.27.20)
• How retailers exploit Covid-19: high profits from low pay and food assistance for workers, by Marion Nestle, Food Politics Blog (12.1.20)
  Lawsuit: Tyson managers bet money on how many workers would contract COVID-19 , by Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch (11.18.20)
• Factory farms are an ideal breeding ground for the next pandemic, by Byrd Pinkerton, Sigal Samuel, and Amy Drozdowska, Vox(10.21.20)
• Halting workplace COVID-19 transmission: an urgent proposal to protect American workers, by David Michaels and Gregory R. Wagner, The Century Foundation (10.15.20)
• After meat workers die of Covid-19, families fight for compensation, by Jacey Fortin, New York Times (10.6.20)
• Food crisis grows amid coronavirus pandemic , by Jesse Newman, Wall Street Journal (10.6.20)

Obesity and Coronavirus

• Obesity and covid-19: the role of the food industry — The BMJ (6.10.20)
• Obesity and COVID-19: America’s Diet Takes Its Toll, by Deborah Grayson, Jonathan Russo,  Worth (5.21.20)
• COVID-19: underlying metabolic health in the spotliht, The Lancet (5.6.20)
• Covid 19 and the elephant in the room: Obesity and chronic metabolic disease is killing COVID -19 patients,  by Aseem Malhotra, European Scientist (4.16.20)
• Obesity Linked to Severe Coronavirus Disease, Especially for Younger Patients, by Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times (4.16.20)
• Obesity and its Implications for COVID‐19 Mortality, by William Dietz, Carlos Santos‐Burgoa, Obesity journal (4.1.20)

Eating Ultra-processed Food Increases Likelihood of Dying from Coronavirus

• Covid-19: What we eat matters all the more now, by Fiona Godlee, The BMJ(7.16.20)
• COVID-19 and metabolic syndrome: could diet be the key? by Maryanne Demasi, The BMJ (7.13.20)
• A Low-Carb Strategy for Fighting the Pandemic’s Toll, by Nina Teicholz, Wall Street Journal (5.30.20)
• What does junk food have to do with COVID-19 deaths? by Carey Gillam, Environmental Health News (4.28.20)
• How Industrial Food Makes Us More Vulnerable to COVID-19, by Kristin Lawless, Heated (4.13.20)
• Reevaluate your nutrition strategy amid COVID-19, doctors say, by Anika Sinha, Stanford Daily (3.31.20)
• Mexico Official Calls Diet a Factor as Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs,  Reuters (4.4.20)

Inequalities In Our Food System

• Junk Food Manufacturers Have Targeted Communities of Color, Increasing the Risks from COVID-19, U.S. Right to Know fact sheet
• Covid-19 and Disparities in Nutrition and Obesity, perspective by Matthew J. Belanger, M.D., et al., New England Journal of Medicine(7.15.20)
• Stark racial disparities emerge as families struggle to get enough food, by Helena Bottemiller Evich, Politico (7.6.20)
• Where Chronic Health Conditions and Coronavirus Could Collide, byNadja Popovich, Anjali Singhvi and Matthew Conlen, New York Times (5.18.20)
• When It Comes to Coronavirus Deaths, Race Matters : Pre-existing racial disparities in access to healthy environments have made COVID-19 particularly deadly to African Americans, by Brittany Gibson, The American Prospect (4.27.20)
• The Coronavirus Reveals The ‘Invisible Inequalities’ In Our Food System,  by Tom Levitt, HuffPost (4.13.20)

Risks Facing Farmworkers and Food Workers

• Lawsuit: Tyson managers bet money on how many workers would contract COVID-19, by Clark Kauffman, Iowa Capital Dispatch (11.18.20)
• Halting workplace COVID-19 transmission: an urgent proposal to protect American workers, by David Michaels and Gregory R. Wagner, The Century Foundation (10.15.20)
• After meat workers die of Covid-19, families fight for compensation, by Jacey Fortin, New York Times (10.6.20)
• Heat, smoke and Covid are battering the workers who feed America, by Somini Sengupta, New York Times (8.25.20)
• Meat industry campaign cash flows to officials seeking to quash Covid-19 lawsuits, by Lee Fang, The Intercept (7.24.20)
• How Trump Is Helping Tycoons Exploit the Pandemic, The secretive titan behind one of America’s largest poultry companies, who is also one of the President’s top donors, is ruthlessly leveraging the coronavirus crisis—and his vast fortune—to strip workers of protections, by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker (7.13.20)
• COVID-19 hit U.S. meat, poultry plant workers hard in April, May: U.S. report, Vishwadha Chander, Reuters (7.7.20)
• Who died for your dinner? by Albert Samaha, Katie J.M. Baker, Ryan Mac, Rosie Gray, BuzzFeed News (7.4.20)
• Emails Reveal Chaos as Meatpacking Companies Fought Health Agencies Over COVID-19 Outbreaks in Their Plants by Michael Grabell, Claire Perlman, Bernice Yeung,  ProPublica (6.12.20)
• Meatpacking industry hits grim milestone of 10,000 coronavirus cases linked to plants, by Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Kyle Bagenstose, USA TODAY (6.6.20)
• To understand the danger of COVID-19 outbreaks in meatpacking plants, look at the industry’shistory, by Jen Skerrit, The Conversation (5.6.20)
• To Keep Meat on the Table, Workers Need a Voice, by Nelson Lichtenstein, Dissent Magazine (4.30.20)
• “It’s Very Scary”: COVID Surges in Meat Plants as Activists Demand Worker Safety & Meatless Mondays , Democracy Now (5.4.20)
• As Workers Get Sick & Die from COVID-19, McConnell Demands Corporate Immunity in New Stimulus Bill , Democracy Now (5.4.20)
• Coronavirus: return to work divides US meat industry, by Gregory Meyer and Aime Williams, Financial Times (5.4.20) 
• The Human Cost of Cheap Meat Gets Higher in the Pandemic, by Peter Coy, Bloomberg (4.30.20)
• Tyson Foods Helped Create the Meat Crisis It Warns Against, by Jen Skerritt, Bloomberg (4.29.20)
• Powerful Meat Industry Holds More Sway After Trump’s Order, by Michael Corkery, David Yaffe-Ballany, Ana Swanson, New York Times (4.29.20)
• A global mask shortage may leave farmers and farm workers exposed to toxicpesticides, by Melanie Bateman, The Conversation (4.27.20)
• Coronavirus at Smithfield pork plant: The untold story of America’s biggest outbreak, by Jessica Lussenhop, BBC (4.17.20)
• I Harvest Your Food. Why Isn’t My Health ‘Essential’? by Alma Patty Tzalain, New York Times (4.15.20)
• With Coronavirus, Food Workers Face Threats From All Sides, by Sarah Jones, New York Magazine (4.15.20)
• Coronavirus Cases at D.C. Whole Foods Highlight Risks Facing Grocery Workers, by Zach Montague, New York Times (4.15.20)
• What grocery workers say stores have done wrong amid COVID-19, by Will Carlessand, Patrick Michels, Reveal News (4.15.20)
• Whole Foods staff protest against conditions as coronavirus cases rise, by Michael Sainato, The Guardian (4.15.20)
• Worries grow about health of employees in Iowa’s meatpacking plants, impact on food supply, by Barbara Rodriguez, Tommy Birch, Tyler Jett, Des Moines Register (4.14.20)
• As more grocery workers die, many supermarket employees fear showing up during pandemic, by Abha Bhattarai, Washington Post (4.12.20)
• Trump Moves to Slash Pay for Essential Migrant Farmworkers, Democracy Now!(4.13.20)
• Grocery workers are beginning to die of coronavirus, by Abha Battarai, Washington Post (4.6.20)
• Farmworkers putting food on America’s tables are facing their own coronavirus crisis, by Catherine E. Soichet, CNN (4.4.20)
• Farmworkers are in the crosshairs of coronavirus, by Gosia Wozniacka, Civil Eats (3.25.20)

Food Supply and Security

• My Great-Grandfather Knew How to Fix America’s Food System — by Grace Olmstead, New York Times (3.19.21)
• How retailers exploit Covid-19: high profits from low pay and food assistance for workers, by Marion Nestle, Food Politics Blog (12.1.20)
• The pandemic is exposing the rotten core of our industrial food system: While industrial farms have been thrown into chaos, local agriculture has proved to be a more resilient model, by Joseph Bullington, In These Times (8.14.20)
• Food crisis grows amid coronavirus pandemic: Humanitarian experts say hundreds of millions face food shortages, by Jesse Newman, Wall Street Journal (10.6.20)
• Beyond Big Meat:Just six companies control two-thirds of the nation’s meat production. It’s time to end their monopoly of our food supply, by Ted Genoways, The New Republic (8.4.20)
• Stark racial disparities emerge as families struggle to get enough food, by Helena Bottemiller Evich, Politico (7.6.20)
• Warren and Booker Press Meatpackers on Exports to China, by Michael Corkery, New York Times (6.23.20)
• During Pandemic, Community Supported Agriculture Sees Membership Spike, NPR (5.14.20)
• Soaring Prices, Rotting Crops: Coronavirus Triggers Global Food Crisis, by Yaroslav Trofimov and Lucy Craymer, Wall Street Journal (5.13.20)
• The Sickness in Our FoodSupply, by Michael Pollan, New York Review of Books(June 2020)
• The Geography of COVID-19 and a Vulnerable Global Food System, by William G. Moseley, World Politics Review (5.12.20)
• The COVID-19 Crisis Has Already Left Too Many Children Hungry in America, by Lauren Bauer, The Hamilton Project (5.6.20)
• A Wendy’s With No Burgers as Meat Production Is Hit, by David Yaffe-Bellany and Michael Corkery, New York Times (5.5.20)
• Day of reckoning dawns for industrial livestock farms, by Marc Heller, E&E News (4.28.20)
• Why Are Farmers Destroying Food While Grocery Stores Are Empty? by Claire Kelloway, Washington Monthly (4.28.20)
• Major US meat producer warns ‘food supply chain is breaking, ’ by Kenya Evelyn, The Guardian (4.27.20)
• ‘‘The Big Guys Get Bailed Out’: Restaurants Vie for Relief Funds, by David Yaffe-Bellany New York Times(4.20.20)
• The Food Chain’s Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses, by Michael Corkery, David Yaffe-Bellany, New York Times (4.17.20)
• ‘We may have to ration’: US food banks face shortages as demand surges, by Nina Lakhani, Maanvi Singh, Erum Salam, The Guardian (4.17.20)
• US food supply is strained as virus spreads, byMichael Corkery, David Yaffe-Bellany, New York Times (4.13.20)
• Dumped milk, smashed eggs, plowed vegetables: Food waste of the pandemic, by David Yaffe-Bellany, Michael Corkery, New York Times (4.11.20)
• As supermarkets feel hazardous and sparse, small farms deliver, by Tejal Rao, New York Times (4.3.20)
• The Effects of COVID-19 Will Ripple through Food Systems, by Laura Poppick, Scientific American (3.26.20)
• The coronavirus pandemic and future food security, by Patrick Holden, Environmental Health News (4.6.20)

Toxic Chemicals and Coronavirus

• PFAS exposure found to increase risk of severe Covid-19, by Rebecca Trager, Chemistry World (1.12.21)
• Scientists Pin Blame for Some Coronavirus Deaths on Air Pollution, PFAS and Other Chemicals, by Sharon Lerner, The Intercept (6.26.20)
• The toxic chemicals in our homes could increase Covid-19 threat, by Leonardo Trasande and Akhgar Ghassabian, The Guardian (4.29.20)
• Confronting the chemicals that are worsening COVID-19, by Pete Myers, Environmental Health News (4.27.20)
• Endocrine-disrupting chemicals weaken us in our COVID-19 battle: Linda S. Birnbaum, Jerrold J. Heindelm, Environmental Health News (4.23.20)
• How toxic chemicals contribute to COVID-19 deaths, by Frederick vom Saal, Aly Cohen, Environmental Health News (4.17.20)

Role of Factory Farming and Agriculture in Pandemics Like Covid-19

• Factory farms are an ideal breeding ground for the next pandemic, by Byrd Pinkerton, Sigal Samuel, and Amy Drozdowska, Vox (10.21.20)
• How Corporations Make Pandemics Deadlier , by Kate Aronoff, The New Republic (5.27.20)
• Coronavirus: Industrial animal farming has caused most new infectious diseases and risks more pandemics, experts warn, by Jane Dalton, The Independent (5.8.20)
• Halt destruction of nature or suffer even worse pandemics, say world’s top scientists, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian (4.27.20)
• Multinational Meat Farms Could Be Making Us Sick, by Austin Frerick and Charlie Mitchell, The American Conservative (4.21.20)
• We have to wake up: factory farms are breeding grounds for pandemics, by Jonathan Safran Foer and Aaron S Gross, The Guardian (4.20.20)
• Animal Viruses Are Jumping to Humans. Forest Loss Makes It Easier, by Caitrin Einhorn, New York Times (4.9.20)
• It takes a whole world to create a new virus, not just China, by Laura Spinney, The Guardian(3/25/20)
• Destruction of Habitat and Loss of Biodiversity are Creating the Perfect Conditions for Diseases Like Covid-19 to Emerge, by John Vidal, ENSIA (3.17.20)
• We Made the Coronavirus Epidemic, by David Quammen, New York Times (1.28.20)

Food System Analysis

• Analysis-Hungry for change: Faulty food systems laid bare by COVID-19 and climate crises, by Thin Lei Win an Cormac O’Brien, Reuters (12.27.20)
• COVID-19 and the crisis in food systems: Symptoms, causes, and potential solutions, International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (April 2020)
• Ecological Reflections on the Coronavirus: One Planet, One Health, Connected through Biodiversity, by Vandana Shiva, Jivad The Vandana Shiva blog (3.18.20)

Food Safety

• Inspections, citations, recalls slashed: Coronavirus is testing America’s food safety net, Kyle Bagenstose USA TODAY (5.12.20)
• Answers to Common Questions About Coronavirus and the Food You Eat, Consumer Reports (4.1.20)

Junk Food Resurgence

• Has Pandemic Snacking Lured Us Back to Big Food and Bad Habits? by Michael Moss, New York Times (6.16.20)
• ‘I Just Need the Comfort’: Processed Foods Make a Pandemic Comeback, by Julie Creswel, New York Times (4.7.20)
• Processed food undergoing renaissance amid coronavirus: ‘We can’t make enough mac and cheese, ’ by Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz, Chicago Tribune(4.3.20)

Please send us stories you think are important to include. You can email them to stacy@usrighttoknow.wpenginepowered.com.
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