The art of governing public policy pathologies

This article examines how a food additive associated with elevated cancer risks and persistent water pollution can be maintained at the heart of contemporary food systems. Drawing on a qualitative, comparative case study of Canada, the United States, and Europe, the analysis mobilizes legal and regulatory texts, agency opinions, litigation, NGO and industry positions, as well as the scientific literature on E251. The theoretical framework combines bounded rationality and incrementalism (Simon, 1959; Lindblom, 1984), path dependence and gradual change (Pierson, 2000; Mahoney & Thelen, 2010), blame avoidance and non-decision (Bachrach & Baratz, 1963; Weaver, 1986), regulatory capture and advocacy coalitions (Dal Bó, 2006; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1999), as well as policy instrumentation and the biopolitics of acceptable risk (Almas, 1999; Foucault, 1976; Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2004). Three main findings emerge: the accumulation of health and environmental evidence without substantial revision of the standards applicable to E251; the structuring role of pro-additive coalitions in stabilizing regulatory compromises that constrain the scope of reform; and the construction, through regulatory instruments, of a carcinogenic risk rendered politically manageable and socially differentiated. On this basis, the article advances the notions of tumor policies, toxic continuity, and delinquent oncology in public action to capture regulatory regimes that organize the chronic management of toxicity rather than its effective reduction.