This period of conflict may last for decades, particularly if the new paradigm comes, not from some of the existing leaders of the current scientific establishment but rather from some unexpected and peripheral source, e.g. the dramatically different theory of genetics coming from Gregor Mendel in Moravia or a revolutionary theory of stomach ulcers from Barry Marshall in Perth, Australia.
To be sure, the hazards of food-related miscommunication were painfully evident in this current crisis after German officials prematurely identified Spanish cucumbers as the source of the E. coli, victimizing an already economically burdened farming community.