Hi Jeff,i think so too.
Old news but i found this in the library and managed to get it from washington post on the net.
An End To Food Scares?
Reconsidering Irradiation, With All Its Pros and Cons
By Carole Sugarman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 12, 1997; Page E01
The Washington Post
CHESTER, N.Y.-The sign on the door says "Radiation. Grave Danger," and so this door is very hard to open. There are locks and chains and alarms and buzzers and flashing lights
and computers and electric eyes and emergency stop cables,
all designed to prevent someone from entering "The Cell" while
something is being irradiated.
Yet on the other side of that door, proponents say, lie the tools
to help safeguard the food supply. An odd juxtaposition, perhaps, but with increasing concern over the safety of hamburgers, imported produce and other edible scares of the week, there has been a scramble for solutions. And food irradiation -- a process that uses gamma
rays produced from radioactive sources to kill harmful bacteria
-- is gaining momentum as one of them.
Disparate groups such as epidemiologists, food technologists
and members of Congress are embracing the idea with
urgency. And they are hopeful that a petition to permit the use
of the process for red meat, which would include destroying
the sometimes lethal bacteria in ground beef, will soon get
approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
Meat companies, the restaurant industry and supermarkets are
looking at the technology with cautious optimism. Consumer
groups are less enthusiastic, though not unalterably opposed,
warning that irradiation should not be oversold as a simple
answer. And a very small but very vocal opposition believes
that the technology simply means opening the door to trouble.
But it is consumers who will ultimately determine whether
gamma-zapped burgers become a success. For without their
approval, food irradiation will go nowhere. And that makes the
public vulnerable to extremists on one side or the other, since
most Americans know little about it.
BANDAGES, BABY BOTTLE NIPPLES & BODY BAGS
Here in Chester, a town of 18,000 with shopping malls and
industrial parks, is one of the country's largest irradiation
facilities, owned by Isomedix Inc., the world's largest contract
irradiation company. It is Isomedix that submitted a
1,300-page petition to the federal government in 1994 to
permit the use of irradiation on red meat, and it is Isomedix that
currently irradiates products for more than 1,000 client
companies in its 16 irradiation plants. There are about 60 of
these facilities in North America, and while they use materials
produced by nuclear reactors, they are completely different
from nuclear power plants.
Most Americans probably don't realize how many products
they use that are currently being sterilized by irradiation. About
half of all disposable medical devices are radiation sterilized, as
well as consumer items that range from many cosmetics to
some tampons and toys. Some plastic bandages are irradiated,
as are nipples on baby bottles and the body bags used by
police and the military. Many food packages are likewise
sterilized to ensure that the packaging doesn't contaminate the
product inside: Isomedix irradiates those little plastic containers
that hold the cream you get with your coffee at diners as well
as milk and juice cartons, shrink wrap, even wine corks.
Irradiation has also been approved for use on several foods, to
eliminate insect infestation or microbial contamination, or to
delay ripening. In 1963, the government gave the go-ahead for
disinfecting wheat and wheat flour; since then, irradiation has
been approved for white potatoes, spices and vegetable
seasonings, pork, fruits and vegetables, and poultry.
Irradiated food must be so labeled, but you probably haven't
seen such a label on any food product. That's because the
technology has not been widely used for food either in this
country or in the nearly 40 others where it has been approved.
In America, its only popular use has been to eliminate insect
infestation and contamination in spices, according to Merle
Eiss, technical services director for the American Spice Trade
Association, approximately 65 million pounds of spices were
irradiated in North America in 1995.
That's only a small percentage of the spices consumed in this
country, and pretty much all of them were used as ingredients
in processed foods, Merle said, and irradiated ingredients don't
have to be listed as such.
So if irradiation is so widespread, why hasn't it caught on for
food?
One reason may be that for some people, irradiation conjures
up images of mushroom clouds and glow-in-the-dark dinners.
"It's reasonable that people have a fear of nuclear energy and
nuclear warfare," says Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist
with the Minnesota Department of Health and a vocal
supporter of irradiation. But references to radiation "all get
lumped together," Osterholm says, when in fact there are many
forms of it. "Heat is radiation," he adds.
"After Three Mile Island, irradiation became associated with
the wrong image," says John Masefield, chairman and chief
executive officer of Isomedix, who says he petitioned the FDA
for approval of irradiation for red meat after the 1993 Jack in
the Box incident, in which four children died and hundreds of
people became sick from eating undercooked contaminated
hamburgers. "It gives the wrong meaning to the process."
OPENING THE DOOR
On the other side of that "Radiation. Grave Danger" door is a
concrete pathway edged by a six-foot-thick concrete wall. The
Cell, as plant manager Mark Thomas calls it, as the dim, dank
feel of an unfinished basement. The path leads to a small fence
surrounding a pool of water, 25 feet deep. And there,
submerged in the pool, are two large racks of "pencils," tightly
sealed metal rods that contain radioactive cobalt 60. The water
absorbs the radioactive energy -- it glows "cobalt blue" -- and
allows people to stand inside the chamber without becoming
contaminated.
When the irradiator is in operation, however, people can't open
the door. That's when the racks are mechanically hoisted out of
the water and the gamma rays from the cobalt 60 are directed
at aluminum "totes" filled with items to be irradiated.
While the Cell is the heart of the Chester facility, the bulk of the
space here is an enormous warehouse, piled igh on this day
with sealed boxes of culture dishes, test tubes, beakers,
cosmetic powders, the liners that go inside cafeteria
milk-dispensers and cartons for liquid eggs, all awaiting their
turn in the irradiator.
For those who didn't pay attention in science class, gamma
rays are the short, high-energy waves at the upper end of the
electromagnetic spectrum. At high intensity, they disrupt DNA
molecules and prevent cell division.
In food, gamma rays stop disease-causing organisms in their
tracks. Irradiation "kills the rapidly dividing bacteria," explains
Jean Weese, a professor of food science at Auburn University,
but it leaves the rest of the product essentially intact, since in
the case of meat, "the rest is already dead." There is some
vitamin loss during irradiation, but most scientists contend that
the losses are insignificant and no greater than when foods are
canned, frozen or cooked.
And just as radiation kills cancer cells in patients without
making people radioactive, it kills bacteria in food without
making the food radioactive.
Compared with the amount of radiation used on medical
devices, the dosages approved for food are extremely low.
And so irradiation doesn't make food sterile. It doesn't always
kill all the nasty microorganisms if there are lots of them to
begin with. And it's not good at killing spores like Clostridium
botulinum or viruses like hepatitis. Also, an irradiated food can
be recontaminated by cross-contamination if mishandled.
Still, proponents say that irradiation was never meant to be
used for all foods or for food consumed by all people, but that
it is particularly suitable for eliminating the virulent E. coli
0157:H7 in ground beef, and is especially beneficial for
populations such as the young, elderly and
immune-compromised, who are particularly susceptible to the
pathogen.
When he petitioned the federal government in 1994, Masefield
of Isomedix says he "wasn't thinking about universal use. I was
thinking of institutional use and fast-food restaurants. . . .
[Irradiation] could provide a level of safety that right now the
meat industry cannot provide."
WRONG --- OZON can (My Comments)
THE FAMILY FARM
When it comes to the safety of irradiation, it's hard to find an
organization that opposes it. The American Medical
Association, the World Health Organization, the Council of
State and Territorial Epidemiologists, the Institute of Food
Technologists, the American Gastroenterological Association,
all endorse the process.
Even usually critical consumer groups, such as the Safe Food
Coalition and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, do
not believe that irradiated food is unsafe to eat, although they
have expressed concern about the safety of workers employed
by irradiation plants and the shipment of radioactive materials.
For that reason, the groups are looking more favorably at
irradiation by electron beam, a promising process that does not
use radioactive cobalt, but can only kill organisms to a
three-inch depth.
"To accept that irradiation is a potential health problem today is
to argue that the Earth is flat and HIV doesn't cause AIDS,"
says Osterholm, the epidemiologist from Minnesota.
Michael Colby, then, is a flat-worlder. Colby, who heads the
consumer group Food & Water based in Walden, Vt., has
devoted himself to, and made a living from, opposing
irradiation. With ad campaigns, leafleting and other means of
protest, he has been extremely successful.
"Food & Water has had a major influence on companies that at
one time had considered irradiating," says Michael Doyle, head
of the department of food science and technology at the
University of Georgia. "After negative publicity, they changed
their minds."
Colby has opposed irradiation out of his belief that it produces
unknown compounds in food that cause cancer and that it
depletes nutrient content, charges that have been disputed by
most, but not all, scientists. George Pauli, the FDA's irradiation
expert, says that studies with animals have "never [shown] a
link with carcinogenicity or any other toxicity." Pauli says that
with good analytical methods, "you can find carcinogens in
foods whether they've been irradiated or not," but that the risk
is "so low that it's of no real consequence."
But during this latest surge of interest, Colby seems to be
focusing on more philosophical issues.
"What's so disturbing in this new push is that there is really no
focus on what's causing the need for irradiation, the filth in
farms and plants, and the consolidation of the meat industry.
It's the same shallow 'We've got a problem and here's a
high-tech solution to get rid of it,' " Colby says.
Colby, who lives on an organic farm, believes that we must
"figure out the long-term ways we can change people's
relationship with their food," and that Americans need to return
to the era of small farms.
Weese, the professor at Auburn University, answers that it
would be impossible to feed the U.S. population without mass
agriculture, and contends that "when we had a food supply that
was run more by individuals, we had a lot more problems."
What's more, Weese adds, irradiation does not mean
abandoning efforts to produce cleaner food from the beginning
of the chain. Irradiation only reduces the numbers of
pathogenic bacteria, she says, so "the quality prior to irradiation
is still extremely important."
Still, there are logistical hurdles. First, irradiators would have to
be built (probably in meat-packing plants). And then there's the
taste changes that can occur in red meat depending upon the
amount of fat in the product, the dosage of irradiation and the
amount of oxygen present in the product's package. High-fat
meats can take on a rancid odor. So companies that hope to
use the technology will be faced with a learning curve.
WINNING HEARTS & MINDS
Proponents agree that massive consumer education is needed
before people will accept the technology. But according to at
least some research, it seems that consumers may slowly be on
their way. In 1994, a Food Marketing Institute survey showed
that 36 percent of consumers said they would be very or
somewhat likely to buy irradiated foods if they were available.
In 1997, that percentage jumped to 60.
"I'm just getting the impression that people are concerned
enough about the safety of their food that they're willing to look
at alternatives," says Janet Tenney, manager of nutrition
programs at Giant Food.
Meanwhile, there are efforts to change the name "irradiation,"
replacing it with a less emotional, more neutral term such as
"ionizing pasteurization." And an amendment to the FDA
reform bill recently passed by Congress would allow
manufacturers to disclose the fact that their product had been
irradiated insmaller-size print.
Tugging in the opposite direction is activist Colby, who in the
next couple of months plans to unveil "what will be our biggest
media campaign" opposing irradiation.
To counter this, Sara Lilygren, spokeswoman for the American
Meat Institute, says that companies seriously looking at using
irradiation will step forward together. "No one wants to be
punished [by being] the first company to go forward."
Hope all are having a great time with loved ones and a wonderful thanksgiving.
Regards
Sri. |
