Re: Food Irradiation

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

At 09:58 AM 8/21/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Eric Denison replied:
>I'm all in favor of continued investigation of and expanded use of food
>irradiation, but I wonder if there's a simpler solution.  Couldn't folks
>just COOK the blasted burgers?  During my time in a clinical lab, I don't
>recall meeting up with any e. coli varieties that could handle more than a
>few seconds at stove-top temperatures.  Are the new strains that much
>tougher, or are we seeing a new paranoia in action?  Reminds me a bit of the
>"any radiation is too much" crap we keep seeing.
>
>At the risk of straying off topic slightly, three comments:
>a. home cooking of burgers sometimes results in food rather overdone 
>on the outside in order to get it thoroughly cooked inside, and some folks 
>don't like their food that well done; trivial I suppose.
>b. What's the infective dose?  A well-contaminated burger not cooked 
>to sterilization may still harbor enough live bacteria for an 
>infective dose.
>c. Error Cost.  Botulism toxin is easily destroyed by boiling.  
>Should we then not worry about contaminated canned vegetables?  The 
>new strains of coli are not more heat resistant (probably), it's just 
>that they're better at causing disease.  If 5 people buy contaminated 
>meat and 1 person, for whatever reason, doesn't cook it well enough, 
>you have a potentially serious health problem.
>
>When we cover disinfection and prevention of disease spread this 
>semester, I'll be sure to discuss food irradiation.  College students 
>are the ones just about to establish food buying habits... a good age 
>to educate.
>
>David F. Gilmore
>Assistant Professor of Environmental Biology    0  0 
>P.O. Box 599, Dept. of Biological Sciences       __    "have a day" 
>Arkansas State University 
>State University, AR 72467
>dgilmore@navajo.astate.edu
>ph  501-972-3082    fax 501-972-2638
>
Radsafers:
At the risk of stating the obvious that many (most?) of you are already well
aware of with regard to food irradiation, let me observe that this is an
outstanding example of a perception problem fomented by  zealous antis who,
in my judgement, are reluctant to sanction any use of radiation, no matter
how demonstrably of great benefit and little (if any) risk.  Some years ago,
there was an editorial in Fortune entitled "It's time to end the holy war
against nuclear power", which can be extended to the beneficial uses of
nuclear technology in general.  As the numerous holy wars around the world
demonstrate, there is no simple way to mitigate, let alone turn around,
religious zealots of any conviction.  Any suggestions??

Andy Hull
SEP-BNL
Upton, N.Y. 11973
Ph. 516-344-4210
Fax 516-344-3105