FOOD WITHOUT FEAR: IRRADIATING FOOD MAKES IT SAFER, SO WHY WON'T OUR POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS LET US BUY IT?
November 16, 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
Michelle Marcotte of Ottawa, a home economist, food irradiation expert and
consultant who has prepared food irradiation regulatory applications in
Canada, the U.S. and Australia, writes in this op-ed that for a few years
after irradiation was approved for meat and poultry in the United States,
most retailers said they did not want to be the first to sell irradiated
meat. Meanwhile, processors continue to distribute, and retailers continue
to sell, meat and poultry that are commonly contaminated with E. coli,
salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and other harmful bacteria. Not
coincidentally, thousands of people continue to become sick, and hundreds
die each year, from these preventable food-borne diseases.
Marcotte says that to the cynical businessperson, not selling irradiated
meat was a good business decision: using irradiation would cost more money,
while selling contaminated meat didn't cost as much. Processors also could
justify their decision by pointing to the small number of vocal consumer
activists who threatened them, played media stunts and who claimed consumers
do not want irradiated foods.
But as the U.S. Department of Agriculture tightened its enforcement measures
against harmful bacteria in food, recalls of contaminated meat became a
monthly, and now weekly, occurrence. Millions of pounds of meat were wasted,
and lawyers began winning huge lawsuits against the companies that processed
the meat and poultry that made people sick. Suddenly, it wasn't a good
business decision to avoid a technology that makes food safer.
U.S. retailers began tripping over each other with announcements of the
acceptance of irradiated meat in their stores. Huisken Meat Company of
Minnesota began marketing frozen irradiated patties in May 2000. From their
initial distribution in 84 stores, irradiated meat is now distributed to
thousands of stores in more than 30 states. Schwans and Omaha Meats rolled
out irradiated ground beef in their home delivery operations. Many U.S.
supermarket chains are selling irradiated meat. And fast-food giant Dairy
Queen tested irradiated ground beef patties in two stores in February 2001,
rolled them out to 60 stores in July and now makes irradiated beef burgers
available to all its U.S. outlets.
Sure enough, if you give people a choice, many will buy irradiated foods,
silly consumer activist pranks notwithstanding.
Marcotte says that in Canada, however, processors and retailers cannot make
the sensible business decision to offer irradiated meats, poultry or
anything else except spices. Consumers cannot look at the products, examine
the label and decide whether or not to buy. The reason is the same old
refrain: government foot-dragging.
Health Canada has been presented with several applications to allow the
irradiation of meat, poultry, shrimp and several fruits and vegetables (to
kill insects instead of using pesticides and the ozone-depleting fumigant
methyl bromide). The Canadian Cattlemen's Association has prepared a
petition for the irradiation of red meat, and Kanata-based MDS Nordion has
prepared petitions for shrimp, poultry and several fruits and vegetables.
Unlike their U.S. government counterparts who have to respond to regulatory
petitions within a reasonable time frame -- say, a year or two -- Health
Canada apparently does not. Applications to approve irradiated foods have
languished at the department for five or 10 years, and in some cases even longer.
In response to inquiries about their progress over the years, Health Canada
officials would only say the applications were being "reviewed." This is
patently nonsense, since even a Health Canada official, when given so much
time, can manage to read the science summaries and research papers required
in the application process.
For the past two years, however, Health Canada scientists have been off the
hook. At least some of their scientific reviews have been completed, with
new regulations written and kicked upstairs to the minister's office. On two
occasions, the reviews have gone to the cabinet council that must approve
all new regulations before they are published in the Canada Gazette for
comment. And there they continue to sit. It's not as if our government was
so busy promulgating new legislation that it didn't have time to get around
to approving the irradiation regulations.
Perhaps you're wondering whether our government is merely looking out for
our welfare in not approving a new food processing technology. Maybe, you
tell yourself, those activists who say irradiated foods are unsafe are right.
Marcotte says that anyone is free to believe that someone working for a
consumer activist lobbying organization might be more knowledgeable than the
host of chemists, nutritionists, toxicologists, food technologists,
biologists and medical doctors who've spent decades reviewing the safety of
food irradiation. So you can believe the activists -- who make their living
by selling fear, by telling you that if it weren't for them, your food
wouldn't be safe, although they've never tried processing food themselves --
or you can believe in the scientific reviews conducted by such bodies as the
World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the
American Medical Association and the other public-health organizations that
really do know what they're talking about.
If consumer activists really believed that you will not buy irradiated
foods, they would not work so hard to prevent you from being allowed to make your own choices.
If the federal government would approve food irradiation, it would take a
positive step toward improving food safety in Canada. Canadian food
processors could begin to make smart business decisions, conduct test
markets and inform Canadians about food safety risks with a real option for
avoiding harmful bacteria in food.
Irradiated foods are labelled. Consumers should have the right to make their
own food-buying choices.
Michelle Marcotte
Marcotte Consulting Inc.
31 Shadetree Cr.
Ottawa Canada K2E7R3
phone 613-727-1469
FAX 613-727-8541
marcotteconsulting@sympatico.ca
www.marcotte-consulting.com