Re: Fwd:New York Times - Red Meat Irradiation Rules

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@ucdavis.edu>]

February 12, 1999
Davis, CA

If less radiosensitive bacteria survive food irradiation, there needs to be
host mechanism to recycle these bacteria into cattle/meat contamination
chain, whatever that is. In the case of antibiotics, the surviving bacteria
remain in the host person and can multiply and be transmitted to others. It
is not clear to me that bacteria in meat that is irradiated will find it to
be a good vector for creating less sensitive bacteria unless the meat is
fed under-cooked to cattle or in some other way can get back into the
original contamination pathway. Therefore, it seems unlikely that
irradiation of red meat will result in recycling of less sensitive bacteria
or the efficient development of less sensitive strains.

Otto 
		*****************************************************
		Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
              Institute of Toxicology & Environmental Health (ITEH)
		     (Street address: Old Davis Road)
		University of California, Davis, CA 95616
		Phone: 530-752-7754  FAX: 530-758-6140
		E-mail ograabe@ucdavis.edu
              *****************************************************
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