[ RadSafe ] The Burger That Shattered Her Life

[Steven Dapra]

Oct. 4

         Why are you "mystified"?  It's to protect diners from the 
'deadly radioactive poisons' that would reside in the food as a 
result of irradiating it.

Steven Dapra


At 12:05 AM 10/4/2009, ROY HERREN wrote:
>Radsafe Community,     I just finished reading the following 
>article, see 
>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 
>and I watched it's associated video.  I am completely mystified as 
>to why raw hamburger products aren't irradiated before leaving their 
>final processing plant.  Is there some rational reason why it's 
>preferable to risk millions of peoples lives with "potential" 
>exposure to the strain of E-coli O157:H7 strain then it is to 
>irradiate the food?  If this question  were subjected to a Risk Vs. 
>Benefit analysis it would seem to be a no-brainer as to the answer 
>to the question.  So, why are people still being poisoned and dying 
>from E-coli food outbreaks?  Is this an issue of the "Court of 
>Public Opinion", in other words are average people afraid of the 
>effects of food irradiation?  In the article they mention that some 
>of the hamburger ingredients are treated with ammonia.  Is the 
>public aware that some of their
>  hamburger ingredients are being treated with ammonia, and if so 
> are the effects of food products being treated with ammonia somehow 
> acceptable, but irradiation is abhorrent?  I don't think that the 
> public is aware of the treatment of their food with ammonia and I 
> don't think the public really appreciates the risk of food borne 
> illness, and I especially don't think that the public really knows 
> the under utilized benefits of food irradiation.  Based on this 
> article is would seem that ignorance isn't bliss...      I've heard 
> some of the arguments before, such as "the effects haven't been 
> adequately studied".  Did anyone do a scientific study of the 
> effects of cooking food before the first person in long ago 
> antiquity cooked a meal on an open fire or boiled a pot of 
> food?  No!  Humanity's descendants inherited various cooking 
> processes long before the initiation of the scientific method, and 
> that is a good thing given the world of bacteria and fungus we are 
> faced with on a daily basis.  I'm not saying that the effects of 
> irradiation shouldn't be studied, which they have been, and I'm not 
> saying that I want to expose people to some new unknown risk.  What 
> I'm saying is that if the risk from irradiation is less than the 
> risk of bacteria exposure then we should adopt wide spread use of 
> food irradiation (as opposed to the current system of "stealth" 
> irradiation of select foods.  Roy Herren