Re: irradiated food labels

["Robert Gunter" <rjgunter@icnpharm.com>]

Radsafers

I received this when I wrote an email (paraphrasing the letter below) to Public
Citizen about their clever use of words in the call for a letter writing
campaign.  I wondered in the letter if all their positions are based on a
similar foundation.  This was the reply in its entirety.

Rob Gunter

****************

Dear Sir:

The FDA docket on labeling is a thinly disguised attempt to dilute the
labeling requirement for irradiated food. Public Citizen wants to see a
meaningful label that consumers will recognize, so that they are informed
about how their food has been processed. This basic right-to-know is an
important consumer protection.

No long term studies exist that prove that irradiated food is safe. Food
irradiation is not the solution to the public health problems created by
unsanitary, inhumane, and environmentally  destructive factory farming
practices.

Wenonah Hauter
Director, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project


Wenonah Hauter
Director,
Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project
202-546-4996, ext.350
Visit our website: http://www.citizen.org/cmep




Bernard L Cohen <"blc+"@pitt.edu> on 05/06/99 06:55:30 AM

Please respond to radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu

To:   Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
cc:    (bcc: Robert Gunter/HQ/ICN)
Subject:  Re: irradiated food labels






On Wed, 5 May 1999, Michael C. Baker wrote:

>
> For everyone's information the docket item that Public Citizen is
> protesting does not remove the FDA requirement to label irradiated foods.
> What it does do is amend the requirements to state that a radiation
> disclosure statement, which is required along with the radura symbol, is
> not required to be any more prominent than the declaration of ingrediants
> required under other FDA rules.   Public Citizen apparantly would like the
> label to be the center piece of the product package which would "give rise
> to inappropriate consumer anxiety" (wording from the FDA Modernization Act
> conference report).

     --This should have been made clear when asking people to send
letters. My letter was already sent before I saw this.

Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu


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