Confusion and fear regarding a simple agricultural product were markedly evident in the summer and fall of 1991, when millions of dollars worth of cantaloupe rotted unsold in the fields of California's Central Valley, because consumers were afraid the melons might make them sick or even kill them.

The consumers' fears were not exactly unreasonable--they were based on official warnings issued by the federal government. But neither were they entirely reasonable. The warnings were issued by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control, after several hundred people who had eaten cantaloupe at commercial salad bars and banquet tables became ill with salmonella.

Salmonella infection, a disease to which an increasing amount of press attention has recently been paid, can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever, and headache. In extreme cases it can even be fatal.

In the outbreak in question there were no deaths. In fact, the outbreak was substantially less severe than its immediate predecessor, which in the winter of 1989-90 affected 25,000 people in 30 states, including 2 deaths. (All told, five outbreaks of salmonella have been linked to melons in the past 40 years.) Yet somehow, the most recent outbreak resulted in levels of public concern that were essentially unknown in the past.

Moreover, when all was said and done, the FDA and CDC acknowledged that properly handled cantaloupe poses little actual threat. The agencies went on to specify that improper handling involves such gross lapses as serving melons that have been cut and left unrefrigerated for periods in excess of four hours--conditions that are not typical of home use, or even of most people's outdoor picnics.

California's cantaloupe growers also stressed that the federal reports had pointed primarily at Texas melons, and said that their melons could not possibly have caused the outbreak, since the outbreak occurred before their harvest had begun.

Nonetheless, tons of California melons rotted unharvested in the fields, because consumers had become afraid of cantaloupe.

For the California cantaloupe growers, the experience was a jolting lesson in the complexities of the contemporary marketplace.

For consumers, the sense of anxiousness and uncertainty--of not knowing whether it was reasonable to be concerned, or to what degree, or based on what type of information or whose authority--was more or less business as usual.