Food irradiation

[Stephen McGuire <SAM2@nrc.gov>]

There are some topics on food irradiation that I would like to respond to:

1.  By law, irradiated food in the US must be labeled as such by word and by using a
special symbol that denotes food irradiation.  

However, there have been suspicions that some fresh gourmet food imported from
Europe is being irradiated but not being given the required labeling (because the
shelf life seems longer than it ought to be), but that is another story.

2.  Until the leak of the cesium source in Georgia, at least 4 US wet-source-storage
irradiators used cesium.  Cesium is still used in a large number of
dry-source-storage irradiators (hundreds), but these irradiators are all small and
would not be economical for food irradiation.

3.  Cobalt irradiator sources have also leaked in the US on several occasions, but
the activities that escaped were quite small compared to the cesium leak.

4.  NRC regulations (10 CFR 39.59) require a system to detect radioactivity from
source leakage in pool water.  If not continuous, the check must be at least daily. 
Except in very rare instances there is no leakage and no contamination on product. 
In the US no product with contamination is known to have ever gotten to the end
user.

5.  This was a story I heard about why chicken producers are not wild about
irradiation.  The consumer asks, "Why were the chickens irradiated?"  The
producer answers, "To kill salmonella."  The consumer asks, "Then, what about
those chickens over there that were not irradiated?  Do you mean they still have
salmonella?

6.  Isn't this enough on food irradiation already?