FDA SEEKS TO REMOVE LABELING REQUIREMENTS FOR IRRADIATED FOODS
http://www.democracyinaction.org

see also FDA is NOT your friend
see also Aspartame Poison

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed new federal regulations that will allow manufacturers and retailers to sell controversial irradiated foods without labeling them, as previously required by law. Consumers are justifiably wary of foods bombarded with nuclear waste or powerful x-rays or gamma rays--since irradiation destroys essential vitamins and nutrients, creates unique radiolytic chemical compounds never before consumed by humans, and generates carcinogenic byproducts such as formaldehyde and benzene. Although irradiation, except for spices, is banned in much of the world, and prohibited globally in organic production, U.S. corporate agribusiness and the meat industry desperately want to be able to secretly "nuke" foods in order to reduce the deadly bacterial contamination that is now routine in industrial agriculture and meat production.

The Organic Consumers Association and other public interest groups have repeatedly pointed out that the best way to reduce or eliminate America's 78 million cases of food poisoning every year would be to clean up the nation's filthy slaughterhouses and feedlots, stop contaminated runoff from intensive confinement feedlots from polluting adjacent farms (as in the recent spinach e-coli outbreak), and to stop feeding animals slaughterhouse waste and manure. Instead, FDA and corporate agribusiness have apparently decided, with the backing of the nuclear power and weapons industry, to take away consumers' rights to know if their food has been irradiated or not.

Nuclear & Agribusiness Cabal Work with FDA To Force-Feed Unlabeled Irradiated Food to Consumers

A burgeoning worldwide market plays an important role in the sudden interest in irradiation.

India alone grows 1,000 varieties of mangoes in such delectable variations as the sweet, orange-skinned Alphonso, the Bombay Green and the Bangalora. Here in the U.S., we rarely see more than one lonely variety at the local supermarket, but that's all about to change. Soon consumers will be able to sample the sweet and tart nectars of many more imported fruits and vegetables from Thailand, India and Mexico piled high in the produce section. But there's a catch: this fruit will arrive irradiated.

Shoppers may not be the wiser. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules in place since 1986 have required the radura-a symbol for irradiation that resembles a flower in a broken circle-on placards in front of produce displays or on packaged food like ground beef, along with the statement: "treated with radiation" or "treated by irradiation." But last April, the FDA proposed a revision to those rules. Food which had undergone irradiation, but not "material change," would no longer have to bear the radura logo and companies could replace the word "irradiation" with the more consumer-friendly "pasteurized" or something else innocuous. Public comment on the current proposed change closes in early July. Industry insiders argue that irradiation is a necessary answer to food-borne illness such as last year's E. coli 0157:H7 outbreak in California-grown spinach, which left three dead and sickened 200 others. It was the 20th such outbreak in lettuce or spinach since 1995. "I look at it from a unique perspective," says Dennis Olson, the director of the irradiation program at Iowa State University. "All of our bagged spinach and lettuce and fresh-cut produce goes through a metal detector. How common is it to find metal? It almost never happens. How often does E. coli 0157:H7 happen? Almost never. [But] if that produce had been irradiated there would have been none."

A commitment to public health is certainly in the best interests of consumer and industry, but a burgeoning worldwide market plays an equally important role in the sudden interest in irradiation. One third of commercial spices in the U.S. are already subject to irradiation-treatment by gamma rays or electron beams to kill pathogens-as are some 15 to 18 million pounds of ground beef, according to Ron Eustice, executive director of the Minnesota Beef Council. In 2000, the FDA reported that 97 million pounds of food products were irradiated annually. But, excluding spices, these products are only available in limited quantity: the occasional hospital meal or the odd chicken breast in a Florida supermarket. Irradiation in the world of fresh produce is still something new, and it's opening the door to American imports of litchi (a red fruit similar to a grape) and longan (a round fruit resembling an eyeball when shelled) from Thailand as well as new mangoes from India.

"I was just in India," says Eustice, "and there are close to 20 irradiation facilities going up [across Asia] in the next 12 months. That may be a conservative estimate." In March of 2006, when President Bush was in India cementing a civilian nuclear agreement, he found time to promote the import of Indian mangoes. Both decisions are likely hinged on the rocketing Indian economy, the fastest-growing in the world according to Goldman Sachs. And irradiation is the strange mistress in the middle.

At a press conference in New Delhi, Bush spoke out in favor of lifting the 17-year ban on mango imports from India, imposed because of heavy pesticide concerns. "The U.S. is looking forward to eating Indian mangoes," he said. It's also looking forward to exporting its own beans, like lentils and chickpeas, to India, as part of the trade agreement.

Irradiation Load station. The market for more exotic foods is exploding, in part because America is home to such a large number of immigrants and because consumers, influenced by their travels and cultural experiences, are demanding more variety. But traditional bananas and pineapples will cross the borders, too, thanks to irradiation. It's cheaper for American companies to import produce, says Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. In Latin America where an increasing amount of the American food supply is grown, "you can use pesticides that are illegal in the U.S. and there are [fewer] environmental standards," Hauter says. "The food industry's plan is moving to the global south."

Irradiation would help that plan along immensely, by delaying ripening in fruits like bananas and avocados and inhibiting sprouting in root vegetables, such as onions and potatoes. Irradiation prevents mushroom caps from opening, and even delicate fruits like strawberries benefit from radioactive zapping, according to information offered by the Food Irradiation Processing Alliance. Because the process "reduces spoilage bacteria and molds....irradiated strawberries can last a week in the refrigerator without developing mold." Companies could also use cheaper, slower means of transportation to get their perishable items to grocery stores.

And the FDA says there is no reason why irradiated foods shouldn't become the norm. The process is allowed in nearly 40 countries and is endorsed by the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association.

But even with all the support, the process hasn't penetrated the U.S. market, despite industry claims that consumers are indifferent to its use. "Numerous university studies show that support for irradiated foods can reach as high as 85 to 90 percent when accurate information is provided," says the Minnesota Beef Council.

Nuking It

Just three years ago, irradiation looked like a losing proposition. San Diego-based food irradiation provider Surebeam had declared bankruptcy, closing four plants nationwide and making it difficult for companies like Omaha Steaks who wanted ground beef irradiated to find a local provider. Dennis Olson was then SureBeam's vice president for food technology, and blamed unnecessary expansion and high overhead on the company's demise.

Today, the majority of the 45 U.S. irradiation facilities sterilize medical products, not food, says Richard Hunter, CEO and president of Food Technology Service (FTS), an irradiation facility in Mulberry, Florida. His company does both. The boxed beef patties or Band-Aids are loaded onto carriers and they pass through a field of radiation whose maximum dose (in the case of food) is set by the FDA. "A truckload of frozen beef patties may take 30 minutes" to irradiate, Hunter says.

Hunter claims it's an environmentally responsible process. Nuclear power plants use cobalt-59 as an adjustor or control rod, which is converted to radioactive cobalt-60 during the nuclear reaction process. This cobalt-60, contained in pellets, is then placed in rods for the irradiation facility, grouped with hundreds of other rods surrounded by six-foot-thick concrete walls. Cobalt-60 is also used in Gamma Knife surgery to remove brain tumors. "That's a usable byproduct instead of waste," says Hunter. He adds that new pellets are spaced with old ones within the long, thin, stainless steel rods, so that they are "isolated from the environment for 50 years." By the time the cobalt-60 pellets are replaced, he says, "They are virtually not radioactive."

Vocal Opposition

But Food & Water Watch, the most vocal group against widespread irradiation and the FDA proposal to soften labeling rules, sees no environmental silver lining. The group points out that irradiation experts and spokespeople often move back and forth between government and the industry trough. Hunter, for example, resigned as deputy health officer of the Florida Department of Health for his six-figure job as president of FTS. But he was advocating for the process long before he made the switch, the group notes. "In 1998," says a Food & Water Watch report, "he went so far as to write a letter to Florida residents promoting food irradiation, a letter that Food Technology Service since began using in its marketing material."

The entrance to an an irradiator. Opponents say the meat industry wants to use irradiation as a quick fix to poor sanitation in 200-birds-per-minute slaughterhouse lines and that the technology is being pushed through without proper testing.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest says, "Irradiation is a high-tech end-of-the-line solution to contamination problems that can and should be addressed earlier. Consumers prefer to have no filth on meat than to have filth sterilized by irradiation." Such groups as the Organic Trade Association (OTA) are alarmed by greater potential irradiation allowances, too. Since the late 1990s, OTA has opposed federal efforts to increase irradiation, especially on certified organic foods. "Food irradiation is a synthetic pro-cess that has never been allowed in organic production," says OTA. "The long-term effects of irradiation are still un-known, and irradiation is not a panacea to food safety concerns."

Iowa State's Olson says all safety research was completed by the 1980s and "while there is still some continuing work, nothing [negative] has been shown on a consistent basis." In fact, astronauts have been eating irradiated food since the 1970s, increasing its respectability. But the reason they eat it has more to do with zero gravity than nutrition. The irradiation process removes the fluid from meat so it can be heated and eaten without mess while astronauts circle the planet. But what may be appropriate foodstuff for a traveler on an infrequent voyage to the moon raises far more serious concerns for the majority of the population facing unidentified irradiated foods in all segments of the supermarket.

"It doesn't bode well for the kind of food we want to eat," Hauter says. "To use a euphem-ism like 'pasteurized' is not the equivalent of millions of chest X-rays passing through [the plant] cells and breaking those bonds. The truth is, we don't know the long-term health effects of a mostly irradiated diet."


If the FDA gets its way, as long as the food looks and smells normal, chances are better than good you won't know whether that specific food has been "nuked" or not.

Rightly so, consumer groups aren't at all happy with the proposal that "would deny consumers clear information about whether they are buying food that has been exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation," according to Food & Water Watch. Industry groups like the Grocery Manufacturers/ Food Products Association are elated about it, however, considering the irradiated label has such a negative impact on consumers it acts like "a warning label."

Well, it should be a warning label.

Research has revealed a wide range of problems in animals that eat irradiated food, including premature death, a rare form of cancer, reproductive dysfunction, chromosomal abnormalities, liver damage, low weight gain and vitamin deficiencies. Irradiation also destroys vitamins, disrupts the chemical composition of food, and masks and encourages filthy conditions in slaughterhouses and food-processing plants.

All the more reason you should stay away from processed foods entirely, restrict your meat choices to grass-fed or organic meats and seek out local sources for the foods you eat.

The FDA has proposed relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods; it may allow some irradiated products to be labeled "pasteurized."

The change would require companies to label irradiated food only if the irradiation causes a material change to the product, such as changes to the taste, texture, smell or shelf life of a food.

Pasteurization usually means heating a product to a high temperature and then cooling it rapidly. The FDA proposed letting companies use the term "pasteurized" to describe irradiated foods if the radiation kills germs as well as the pasteurization process does.

The consumer group Food & Water Watch has urged the FDA to drop the idea. The FDA has acknowledged that the proposed change could confuse consumers.


Top 10 Reasons For Opposing Food Irradiation
 
1. In legalizing food irradiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not determine a level of radiation to which food can be exposed and still be safe for human consumption, which federal law requires.
2. In legalizing food irradiation, the FDA relied on laboratory research that did not meet modern scientific protocols, which federal law requires.
3. Research dating to the 1950s has revealed a wide range of problems in animals that ate irradiated food, including premature death, a rare form of cancer, reproductive dysfunction, chromosomal abnormalities, liver damage, low weight gain and vitamin deficiencies.
4. Irradiation masks and encourages filthy conditions in slaughterhouses and food processing plants. Irradiation can kill most bacteria in food, but it does nothing to remove the feces, urine, pus and vomit that often contaminate beef, pork, chicken and other meat. Irradiation will not kill the pathogen that causes mad cow disease.
5. Irradiation destroys vitamins, essential fatty acids and other nutrients in food -- sometimes significantly. The process destroys 80 percent of vitamin A in eggs, but the FDA nonetheless legalized irradiation of these products.
6. Irradiation can change the flavor, odor and texture of food -- sometimes disgustingly so. Pork can turn red; beef can smell like a wet dog; fruit and vegetables can become mushy; and eggs can lose their color, become runny and ruin recipes.
7. Irradiation disrupts the chemical composition of everything in its path -- not just harmful bacteria, which the food industry often asserts. Scores of new chemicals called "radiolytic products" are formed by irradiation -- chemicals that do not naturally occur in food and that the FDA has never studied for safety.
8. The World Health Organization did not follow its own recommendation to study the toxicity of "radiolytic products" formed in high-dose irradiated food before proposing in November 2000 that the international irradiation dose limit -- equal to 330 million chest x-rays -- be removed.
9. Soon, some irradiation plants may use cesium-137, a highly radioactive waste material left over from the production of nuclear weapons. This material is dangerous and unstable. In 1988, a cesium-137 leak near Atlanta led to a $30 million, taxpayer-funded cleanup.
10. Because it increases the shelf life of food and is used in large, centralized facilities, irradiation encourages globalization and consolidation of the food production, distribution and retailing industries. These trends have already forced multitudes of family farmers and ranchers out of business, reduced the diversity of products in the marketplace, disrupted local economies in developing nations, and put American farmers and ranchers at a great economic disadvantage.




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