Letter to Consumer Reports

[Ruth Weiner <rfweine@sandia.gov>]

     I have sent the following letter to Consumer Reports.  I do not 
     believe that the statements about irradiating poultry were made 
     because of either naivete or lack of information or access to 
     information.  The inherent distortion in these statements is too close 
     to what the magazine said about air pollutants and, for that matter, 
     ALAR.  I am beginning to mistrust Consuimer Reports altogether, and, 
     depending on their response to my letter, I will certainty let them 
     know that.  Here is the letter:
     
     Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
        7336 Lew Wallace Drive NE
        Albuquerque, NM 87109
     (505)  856-5011
     
     
     Letters
     Consumer Reports
     101 Truman Avenue
     Yonkers, NY  10709
     
     Dear Consumer Reports
     
     In your article on chicken in the March 1998 issue, you make the 
     statement "While [irradiation] may be useful, [it] isn't a panacea.  
     It could lead to unwanted public-health and environmental side 
     effects."
     
     Let me point out that (1) irradiation has never been presented as a 
     "panacea" and (2) the other methods you mention for getting rid of 
     campylobacter and salmonella aren't panaceas either.  Limiting the use 
     of antibiotics, testing for campylobacter, and lowering the salmonella 
     limit would still leave you with, as Ms. Foreman so gracefully put it 
     in your article, "poop," and it wouldn't even be sterile "poop."  It 
     is not clear that tightening enforcement and checkpoints would do 
     anything at all.  Irradiation will kill both campylobacter and 
     salmonella, and will result in pathogen-free chicken  more 
     consistently and reliably than any other method you mention, except 
     possibly a good vaccine. 
     
     Exactly what  ".unwanted public-health and environmental side 
     effects." are you talking about?  You are uncharacteristically vague 
     on this point. The occupational and public exposure to radioactive 
     materials and ionizing radiation has been regulated since 1954, and is 
     perhaps better regulated than any other potential public health threat 
     in the U. S.   Certainly the other solutions to the bacterial 
     contamination problem that you mention have ".unwanted public-health 
     and environmental side effects." It is hard to see how bacterial 
     contamination would be controlled without energy conversion, which 
     always includes ecosystem destruction and some air pollution.
     
     You state, without evidence, that " it's not clear that [irradiation] 
     is economically competitive.."  With what?  Vaccine development?  
     Additional regulation and enforcement?  If irradiation were not 
     economically competitive, I doubt the FDA would have been petitioned 
     to use it for red meat, or that it would be used at all.
     
     The statements you make about irradiating poultry display ignorance 
     and  are uncomfortably akin to mindless anti-nuclear hysteria.  Let me 
     make clear that I do not now and have never worked for the food 
     irradiation industry or the poultry packaging industry.   As a 
     researcher and analyst in the area of radiation chemistry, a former 
     environmental activist,  and a long-time member of Consumers Union, I 
     am disheartened and, indeed, appalled that such distortion has 
     pervaded the usually excellent analytical capabilities of Consumer 
     Reports to the extent reflected in this article.
     
     
     Clearly my own opinion and no one else's.