US:For the first time, the US department of agriculture's report on Americans' access to food, published last week, has omitted the word "hunger" in describing the condition of 11 million people who at times cannot afford to feed themselves in the US.
These people, among a group of 35 million who had trouble keeping food on the table at least part of last year, shall heretofore, according to the government, be described as experiencing "very low food security". Not surprisingly, that has raised hackles among Democrats on Capitol Hill, 64 of whom have signed a letter of protest to the department.
Mark Nord, a department sociologist and the lead author of the report, repeated this week that "hunger" is not a scientifically quantifiable term.
He had made that contention earlier in a Washington Post article, saying that the word was removed after a panel of scientists recommended doing so.
Representative Jim McGovern (Democrat, Massachusetts), co-chairman of the Congressional Hunger Caucus and a signatory of the letter to the department, said that especially in countries such as the US, which grows more food than it needs, "hunger is a political condition".
Mr Nord has denied that removing the word from the report was a political act. - ( LA Times-Washington Post service)