Hi Rich. Should of taken the pop. This article from NYTimes
didn't help much. Janet
Is Irradiation the Magic Bullet Against Food Poisoning?
By GINA KOLATA with CHRISTOPHER DREW
MULBERRY, Fla. -- Five years ago, Harley Everett envisioned a burgeoning
industry that would rid meats, fruits and vegetables of harmful bacteria by
bathing them briefly in gamma rays. His company built an irradiation plant,
tucked away on a dusty road in this phosphate mining town. But business is
hardly thriving.
His plant remains the only one in the nation built solely to irradiate
food. Down the hall from Everett's office on a recent day, behind 6-feet-thick
concrete walls, slender rods of radioactive cobalt glowing ice blue waited
uselessly in a deep pool of water. The plant was silent, its parking lot all
but empty. There was no food to irradiate.
Everett, the executive vice president of Food Technology Service, said the
plant irradiates a few items for people who cannot take a chance on food
poisoning: poultry for hospital patients with weakened immune systems, all the
food the astronauts eat. It treats some strawberries, in season, spices and a
few potatoes and onions. That is about it.
But Everett is newly hopeful that the nation's long indifference to
irradiation may be about to change. As politicians and the public grow
increasingly alarmed by a new series of outbreaks of food poisoning,
scientists and the food industry have renewed their search for a magic bullet.
Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of irradiation
on red meat, the first step in the regulatory process that could allow beef
companies to start using this tool by next summer.
Everyone agrees that Everett's system works, and irradiation is not
expected to add more than a few pennies to the cost of a pound of ground beef
at the largest meat plants. The meat industry lobbied hard for approval of it
and some leading companies see it as the a sure-fire way to eliminate any
deadly E. coli O157:H7 bacteria and other new hazards from hamburgers and
other popular foods.
But the public has shown little confidence in scientists' assurances that
irradiated food is safe. There is almost no demand for irradiated chicken,
fruits and vegetables, even though such products were approved years ago. One
vocal consumer group, fanning fears about radiation hazards, has threatened to
boycott any store that sells irradiated foods.
And the big question now is whether the recent outbreaks, dramatized by a
huge recall of hamburgers at Hudson Foods last August, have convinced
consumers that the dangers outweigh their fears about the cure.
As an incentive for processors and consumers, the Agriculture Department is
considering allowing companies to label irradiated products as free of
dangerous bacteria, said Dr. Daniel Engeljohn, who is writing final
regulations on irradiation.
But even the nation's largest beef producer has reservations.
Although many scientists have said that irradiation does not cause
significant changes in meat, the meat producer, IBP Inc., based in Dakota
City, Neb., has found that the process slightly alters both the flavor and
color of ground beef. Irradiation darkened the color of the meat and changed
its taste in a "noticeable enough" way to cause concerns within the company,
said Gary R. Mickelson, an IBP spokesman.
The company will need to test-market irradiated beef before deciding
whether to adopt the process, Mickelson said, adding, "It will ultimately be
up to the consumer to determine if it is acceptable."
Mark Klein, a spokesman for the nation's second-largest beef company, Excel
Corporation, a subsidiary of Cargill Inc., said: "We're in favor of
irradiation as an additional tool. And if the technology works, we will use
it."
Irradiation has run into some practical problems with other foods,
especially with the most delicate fruits and vegetables, which can wilt under
the doses needed to kill harmful bacteria. But other new safety methods are
drawing attention as well.
Some meat and produce companies are adopting new technologies that kill
pathogens, or microorganisms that can cause disease, with blasts of steam,
light beams or ozone, a disinfectant long used in drinking water. And
scientists are working on a vaccine to wipe out harmful bacteria carried by
cattle and chickens at the safest point possible, before they ever leave the
farm.
But in recent months, attention has increasingly turned to irradiation. The
continuing battle over irradiation, whose supporters long for a more
appetizing name, like "cold pasteurization," illustrates the difficulties that
lie ahead as scientists and the food industry search for the best way to
eliminate such dangerous pathogens as E. coli from the nation's food supply.
New safety methods -- no matter how much support they have -- are likely to
face a variety of hurdles, including financial risks, intensive politicking by
mighty industry lobbyists and consumer groups, and, ultimately, a wary public.
"Everyone wants to be second" to try irradiation, said an executive at a
large restaurant chain, who asked not to be identified because his company's
plans are not public. Moreover, he added, "the bigger they are, the more they
want to be second."
If it catches on, irradiation might end up being used as the ultimate
insurance for the most vulnerable products, like ground beef and poultry. But
in the end, many experts say, no one method is likely to be a panacea for
food.
"Irradiation may be helpful, and it may play a very important role in the
future," said Dr. David A. Kessler, a former FDA commissioner. "But I don't
think it's going, by itself, to get us where we need to be. It's not going to
work if companies think they don't have to keep up with basic sanitary
practices, and that they can just zap it all at the end."
But even as the questions persist, many regulators and food industry
executives agree that this is irradiation's moment, a time when the
government's attention, and the public's, are focused to an unusual degree on
a method with an unappealing name that, its supporters hope, will eventually
be on labels in supermarkets across America.
Irradiation: What It Is, How It Works
The idea of irradiating food first surfaced just after the turn of the
century, and it began to take hold during World War II, when scientists
working for the Army found that ground beef stayed fresh longer if it was
exposed to X-rays.
The concept is simple: Irradiation can kill bacteria that can cause food
poisoning by shattering their genetic material. Radioactive rays from sources
like rods of cobalt are aimed at containers holding food and kill the bacteria
as they pass through the food, leaving no residual radioactivity behind,
scientists say.
The FDA approved several limited uses of irradiation -- the first was to
help the Army preserve canned bacon -- in the early 1960s. But it rescinded
the approval for canned bacon after a few questions were raised about
irradiation's effect on laboratory animals in the late 1960s, casting
suspicions on the process that persist even though most leading medical and
scientific associations have since declared that it is safe.
Since then, the FDA has changed its view. The agency approved the
irradiation of spices, fruits and vegetables in 1986 to destroy insects and
mold, and it authorized the irradiation of chicken in 1990 to kill bacteria
like salmonella or campylobacter, which are the two biggest causes of food
poisoning in the United States.
The petition seeking FDA approval to irradiate red meats was submitted in
August 1994 by Isomedix, a company based in Whippany, N.J., with 16 plants
that irradiate medical devices and food cartons. Few people realize it, but
there are about 60 irradiation plants in the United States and they sterilize
a surprising array of items, from nipples on baby bottles to tiny containers
holding coffee cream.
Studies show that irradiation can essentially eliminate the disease-causing
bacteria like the E. coli O157:H7 that has killed people who ate infected
hamburger meat. It also can kill salmonella in fish, just as it does in
chicken, and the FDA also is examining whether to approve it for seafood.
Industry officials say it is less likely to be used on steaks, roasts and
other slabs of meat, where any contamination lies on the surface and can
easily be washed off in the plant or killed through cooking.
But there is growing pressure from fast-food restaurants and consumers to
improve the safety of ground beef. A single hamburger can contain bits of meat
from dozens of cattle, the primary source of E. coli, and the bacteria can
survive inside the hamburger patty unless it is thoroughly cooked at a high
temperature.
The government became so concerned about the new strain of E. coli that in
1994 it classified it as an adulterant in ground beef, meaning that processors
would have to recall any raw hamburger containing the bacteria.
And increasingly, scientists have been saying that the food industry should
eliminate such hazards, rather than leaving safety up to the diligence of each
consumer.
The Safety Debate
Most infectious-disease specialists and public health experts say the
science and benefits of irradiation are well established.
Over the years, researchers have focused on two main concerns -- whether
irradiation can strip food of vitamins or create dangerous byproducts that
could cause cancer or other health problems in people who eat the food.
But scientists who have studied irradiation say neither issue poses a
serious problem, and irradiation has been endorsed for years by groups like
the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association.
"My sense is that there is no rationality to the arguments against it,"
said Dr. Sherwood Gorbach, a professor of community health and medicine at
Tufts University School of Medicine.
There is no doubt that irradiation -- just like roasting, frying or
barbecuing -- causes microscopic changes in the chemical composition of food.
One fear, cited frequently by Food & Water, a consumer group based in Walden,
Vt., that is the main opponent of irradiation, is that the process might
create what are called "unique radiolytic byproducts," or possibly harmful new
compounds that are unlike any created by other types of cooking.
Most scientists doubt that any such compounds exist. An FDA task force
estimated in the late 1970s that if they do, the amounts too negligible to
cause any harm.
Michael Colby, head of Food & Water, dismissed such research and said, "The
FDA is flying on a wing and a prayer saying it's OK."
And although radiation can slightly reduce the amount of vitamin C in a
piece of fruit like an orange, "there is more variation from one orange to
another orange on a tree than from one that was irradiated and one that was
not," said Dr. Christine M. Bruhn, the director of the Center for Consumer
Research at the University of California at Davis.
In pork and chicken, Dr. Bruhn added, irradiation can reduce the amount of
thiamin and riboflavin in the meat from 0.01 to 1.5 percent, an amount within
the normal variation between one pork chop and the next.
Despite IBP's findings of slight changes in color and taste, other
researchers have found none. Dr. Elsa Murano, a food safety microbiologist at
Texas A & M University in College Station, said that in taste tests, trained
experts found no significant difference, except in one area. "Some panelists
said the irradiated beef patties were more tender," Dr. Murano said.
She said that the inability of scientists to find distinct differences
between most irradiated and non-irradiated foods "is the major evidence that
it doesn't do anything weird to the food."
The nation's most influential consumer groups accept these findings. Asked
if there is any danger in eating irradiated food, Michael F. Jacobson, the
executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in
Washington, said: "No. The loudest critics have contended that irradiation
produces danger chemicals. But if it does, the amounts seem vanishingly
small."
Whither Consumers?
Ultimately, the public will be the ultimate arbiter of irradiation's
future.
Consumer misperceptions have lingered despite all the evidence to the
contrary -- a situation that some compare to the worries that first greeted
the pasteurization of milk and the fluoridation of water.
A CBS poll in August, for example, found that only 12 percent of
respondents favored irradiation.
And while nearly 40 nations have approved at least limited use of
irradiation, only a few, like France, where many chickens are irradiated, have
made much use of it.
But Dr. Bruhn maintains that the notion of overwhelming consumer resistance
"is a myth."
For example, Dr. Anna V.A. Resurreccion, a professor of food science and
technology at the University of Georgia, showed 126 study participants a slide
show on irradiation, then observed how they behaved in a simulated
supermarket. Eighty-five percent bought irradiated chicken.
She also surveyed consumers, with no information given. And she found that
most of the respondents said they were less concerned about irradiation than
pesticide residues, animal drug residues, growth hormones, food additives and
bacteria.
That is no surprise to James Corrigan, president of the Chicago area store
Carrot Top, which has been selling irradiated fruit since 1992. The required
sign announcing that the food has been irradiated is no deterrent to many
Carrot Top customers.
"When I got started, I offered them a choice, to see if they'd buy it,"
Corrigan said. He added that if the food languished unsold, he would assume
there was no market for it. "But that's not what happened," Corrigan said. Now
he flies in exotic Hawaiian fruits that otherwise would be barred from the
mainland for fear of fruit fly eggs, irradiates them at a nearby plant that
was built to sterilize medical supplies, and does a brisk business.
When Corrigan first said he would sell irradiated fruit, Food & Water, the
group that opposes irradiation, warned him not to try. "They took out radio
ads in Chicago and passed out fliers in a number of stores calling for a
protest rally in front of my store." But on the day of the rally, "no one
showed up," Corrigan said.
Food & Water also has tried to pressure poultry companies to keep them from
using irradiation. But the industry has been selling all the billions of
chickens it can process without irradiation, and so it has seen little need to
bother with it.
Everett, at his forlorn irradiation plant in Mulberry, said the food
companies have another worry. In telling him they don't need his services,
some have said: "You want us to put that irradiated food out there next to the
non-irradiated food and say, 'This is clean and this isn't?"'
Consumers around the nation are as divided as ever about whether they would
welcome irradiation as the magic bullet of food safety.
In Seattle, where the dangers of E. coli first emerged in 1993 when
hundreds of people who became ill from eating undercooked hamburgers, Marie
Lovitt, a student at Seattle Central Community College, said she welcomed
irradiation and would even pay more for treated meat. "If it's going to cost
more to save lives, it's worth it," she said.
But in New York City, Judy Nurse, a child care worker, was wary. "They give
radiation for cancer, so I don't think it's a good idea for humans to eat it,"
she said.
Tony Guggino, a cameraman from Bergen County, N.J., said he would buy it.
"Everything I've read about it says it is safe," he said.
But Guggino had to agree with his friend Marvin Welkowitz, an audio
technician from Nassau County, N.Y. "Irradiation helps in the manufacturing
process," said Welkowitz, "but once it gets to the local market, the meat
still has to be handled properly. If it's not handled right in the market, it
can still get contaminated."
Copyright 1997 The New York Times |
