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To: Aishwarya who wrote (1646)	12/2/1997 10:17:00 AM
From: Jeffrey L. Henken	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4356

Yesterday news on the irradiation approval announcement: FDA announcing future of irradiated beef WASHINGTON (AP) -- Buffeted by recalls of tainted meat, the beef industry has been urging government approval of irradiation to kill E. coli and other harmful bacteria. Amid pressure from Congress and renewed consumer interest in food safety, the Food and Drug Administration planned today to announce whether the process would get the green light. Industry officials expected approval. The FDA has been considering a 3-year-old petition from Isomedix Inc., a New Jersey company with long experience in medical sterilization, which wants to offer meat processors irradiation with cobalt-60 gamma rays. No radioactive substance comes into contact with the meat. Such techniques enable meatpackers to kill bacteria at the end of the production line, after it is already sealed in packages and cannot be contaminated further. This is particularly important in ground beef, where bacteria can easily get beneath the surface during grinding. Although irradiation has been available for years for poultry, pork, spices and some fresh produce, interest in approving the process for beef intensified after this summer's recall of 25 million pounds of Hudson Food Co. hamburger for fear it was tainted with E. coli. The meat industry lobbied vigorously for irradiation as an alternative to Clinton administration proposals for greater government authority to recall contaminated products and punish violators. ''I think there is a greater degree of interest,'' said Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, a meatpacking industry organization. In this year's FDA spending bill, Congress ordered the agency to act within 60 days on the Isomedix petition. The bill also changed labeling requirements for all foods treated with irradiation so that the words need be no larger than those for the ingredients. If the FDA approves irradiation dosage levels for various forms of red meat, such as frozen, fresh and so on, it will be up to the Agriculture Department to issue regulations for processing plants that conform to those levels. Once that is done, Boyle said, meat plants would have to figure out how to use irradiation, whether they can afford it and if there is a consumer demand. It is uncertain how adaptable the process would be for hamburger that is ground in the grocery. Most likely, consumers would see products marketed in the future that would offer them the choice of purchasing irradiated meat. ''I think it's going to take a little time for industry and consumers to move towards the adoption of irradiation as a purchasing option,'' Boyle said. One reason irradiation is not widely used on other products is consumer wariness of the process and lack of education about it, said Brian Folkerts, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Food Processors Association. ''We need to stop giving consumers the impression that the label is a warning when it has been found safe,'' Folkerts said.