Food Irradiation: Article by Richard Rhodes

["baumbaug@nosc.mil" <baumbaug@nosc.mil>]

>From: "baumbaug@nosc.mil" <baumbaug@nosc.mil>
>Subject: Food Irradiation: Article by Richard Rhodes

>
>        Group,
>
>        This was a good article...jb
>
>.
>Subject: Food Irradiation: Article by Richard Rhodes
>
>Opinion: Food Safety's Waiting Weapon
>
> By RICHARD RHODES 
>
>
>  MADISON, Conn. -- It's a good rule of thumb that technological solutions
>work better than increased regulation. Before 1920, thousands of babies died
>annually in New York and other large American cities from drinking
>contaminated milk. The solution wasn't more Federal dairy inspectors or a
>merger of Government agencies. It was pasteurization. 
>
>  The solution to the problem of food poisoning -- whether the food involved
>is hamburger, strawberries, raspberries, cider or some other product
>susceptible to bacterial contamination -- has been sitting on the shelf for
>most of 40 years while hundreds of thousands of Americans have been sickened
>and thousands have died. It is the equivalent of pasteurization, and its
>neglect is a disgrace. 
>
>  The technology is food irradiation. The Army pioneered its development
>beginning in 1943, and it has since passed into commercial application in
>some 40 countries, including limited use in the United States. 
>
>  Irradiation uses gamma rays from a solid radioactive source to disrupt the
>DNA of, and thus to kill, noxious bacteria, parasites, mold and fungus in
>and on agricultural products. Gamma rays are similar to microwaves and X-rays. 
>
>  Irradiation doesn't make food radioactive, nor does it noticeably change
>taste, texture or appearance. Depending on dose and on whether the food is
>packaged to prevent recontamination, irradiation can retard spoilage, kill
>germs or even completely preserve. The World Health Organization, the
>American Medical Association and the American Veterinary Medical Association
>all endorse the process. 
>
>  The Food and Drug Administration has approved irradiation of pork,
>poultry, fruits, vegetables, spices and grains, although its use remains 
>limited. Mostimported spices are preserved with irradiation. Tropical fruits 
>like mango and papaya from Hawaii are treated to kill exotic pests. Irradiated 
>chicken is served in hospitals in the Southeast. Astronauts aboard the space
>shuttle eat irradiated food, including steak. 
>
>  Food irradiation would have prevented the illnesses caused recently by
>contaminated hamburger from Hudson Foods and the several deaths linked to
>Jack in the Box restaurants in the Northwest in 1993. It could kill the
>salmonella that infects up to 60 percent of the poultry and eggs sold in the
>United States; the deadly mutant E. coli strain 0157:H7, which the Centers
>for Disease Control and Prevention have characterized as a major emerging
>infectious disease, and such ugly stowaways as beef tapeworms, fish
>parasites and the nematodes that cause trichinosis in pork. 
>
>  Yet the new meat inspection system now being phased in by the United
>States Department of Agriculture does not even mention, much less mandate,
>irradiation. Neither Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman nor the Food and
>Drug Administration invoked food irradiation as a solution to the Hudson
>Foods situation, preferring instead to press for destruction of 25 million 
>pounds of meat that could have been made edible with the technique. 
>
>  A petition for authorization to irradiate red meat has languished at the
>F.D.A. since 1994. Several states, including New York, have responded to
>pressure from citizen groups by either banning or imposing a moratorium on
>the sale of irradiated food without reviewing scientific evidence of the
>technology's safety and value. 
>
>  Why the gap between promise and application? Because food irradiation --
>like cancer treatment, medical diagnostics, sterilization of medical
>disposables, aircraft maintenance and many other technologies -- uses
>radioactivity, which Americans have been taught to fear. Commercial
>irradiators use metallic cesium-137 or cobalt-60 as sources of gamma
>radiation in heavily shielded processing plants; when the radioactive
>sources are not being used to sanitize food, they are stored safely 
>underground. 
>
>  Some anti-nuclear and environmental groups have campaigned against food
>irradiation, even imagining a conspiracy among the Food and Drug
>Administration, the World Health Organization and the nuclear power industry
>to use the process to dispose of nuclear waste. 
>
>  Similarly fanatic resistance plagued the introduction of vaccination,
>water chlorination, pasteurization and fluoridation -- comparable 
>technologies that have reduced disease and saved millions of lives. The
>unsupported fears of the Luddite opposition are making people suffer
>needlessly. 
>
>  Mr. Glickman has said that the Hudson Foods case highlights the need to
>better educate the public on how to prepare food properly, but we can't all
>become sterile technicians at home. Thermometers won't protect us from E.
>coli-contaminated alfalfa sprouts.  
>
>  Public health has been a primary responsibility of Government for more
>than a century. Inspection and testing alone, however responsibly applied, 
>can never assure consumer safety where invisible pathogens are concerned. 
>
>  Pasteurization saved the babies. Irradiation can save our food. 
>
>  Richard Rhodes is the author of ``Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a
>Terrifying New Plague'' and ``The Making of the Atomic Bomb.'' 
>
>
>
>Copyright 1997 The New York Times
>
>
>
>
>>
Joel T. Baumbaugh (baumbaug@nosc.mil)
Naval Research and Development (NRaD)
San Diego, CA., U.S.A.

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