RE: Food Irradiation Alert - etc.

["Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS)" <jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov>]

For what it is worth, my feeling is that there are two issues.  One is the question of food sanitation and government regulations.  I feel that there is a significant problem due to a lack of sanitation inspections, due in large part to our current policy of self-inspection that began during the Reagan Administration.  This is compounded by questions of corporate desires to increase profits by not performing adequate determination of infection prior to shipment.  (How many recall the number of meat recalls before the 1980s compared to those today?)  

 

The second issue use of irradiation to sterilize food products to increase storage life.  That is the real purpose of irradiation of food.  I don't think any in this discussion object to the irradiation of food.  To substitute irradiation for poor inspections is malfestance by the processors.  What do you think would be the result of under irradiation of the food?  We put a lot of trust in our infrastructure to ensure our food supplies are uncontaminated.

-- John
John P. Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024

e-mail:  jenday1@msn.com

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: mark.hogue@SRS.GOV [mailto:mark.hogue@SRS.GOV]
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 10:05 AM
To: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Food Irradiation Alert - etc.

Ruth,

I've followed with some interest over the years the repeated recalls of e-coli contaminated beef and salmonella contaminated chicken. Once in a while there's an article about the hygiene efforts of producers and meat packers. Recently I heard about policies in Denmark where hygiene levels are orders of magnitude better than typical. But, of course, their prices are higher.

I wasn't quoting anybody's anti-nuke propaganda. It just seems logical that there's a trade-off in fast production and hygiene. If the latter can be solved with a quick trip through the irradiator, won't the faster production become the more competitive behavior? So if a producer decides to be conservative and slower with better hygiene, pretty soon that producer can't compete. If this is 'baseless,' please explain how you think the market response would work.

I admit, quality advocates would say that you can have both fast and clean, but that takes a lot of effort. I'm just trying to be realistic.

I have been a long time advocate of the free choice of food irradiation and continue to be.

Mark

Mark G. Hogue, CHP
mark.hogue@srs.gov
"But we surely overrate the usefulness of what we like to call "stimulation" and underrate the need for time, peace of mind, mature reflection." -  Susan Haack

"DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed are mine and do not necessarily represent Westinghouse Savannah River Co. or the United States Department of Energy."

RuthWeiner@aol.com 12/06/02 09:48 AM

To:        mark.hogue@srs.gov, radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu         cc:                 Subject:        Re: Food Irradiation Alert - etc.

In a message dated 12/6/02 6:18:35 AM Mountain Standard Time, mark.hogue@SRS.GOV writes:

I can sympathize with Franz on one thing: irradiation shouldn't be an excuse for sloppy food handling practices.


To my knowledge, the only source of this charge is anti-nuke propaganda.  It is a trumped-up charge.  No advocate of food irradiation has ever claimed that it would be used to cover up unsanitary handling.  I really don't like to see this kind of baseless assumption bandied about as if it were Gospel.

Ruth

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.
ruthweiner@aol.com