STOP Food Irradiation NOW!
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Jim Webster
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
<8o9325$3ui$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
STOP Food Irradiation NOW!
keep it out of direct sunlight!
Jim Webster
We worship the inexorable god known as Dangott.
Strangers are automatically heretics, and so are fed to the sacred apes.
Leo Sadler
Jim Webster wrote in message <8o9dao$p5t$3...@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk>...
might diminish the yields a tad, though,. :-))
fatian
Night Child
>
> ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
> <8o9325$3ui$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html
> >
> >
> >Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> >Before you buy.
>
> STOP Food Irradiation NOW!
>
> keep it out of direct sunlight!
>
and microwave ovens!
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
ABOUT FOOD IRRADIATION
Updated August 21, 2000
1. What is food irradiation?
2. What is the status of food irradiation in the U.S. and abroad?
3. How are foods affected by irradiation?
4. How are humans affected by eating irradiated food?
5. Is electron-beam or x-ray irradiation 'better' than nuclear
irradiation?
6. Why is it proposed for use?
7. Who supports/opposes irradiation?
8. What does labeling have to do with irradiation?
9. What's wrong with the food that it has to be irradiated?
10. What is the 'science' on food irradiation?
11. What are the environmental effects of irradiating food?
12. What are the socio-economic and global issues involved in food
irradiation?
13. What is the status of irradiation in other countries?
14. What strategies are irradiation supporters using to convince the
public that irradiation is harmless and desirable?
15. What can I do to help?
16. I still don't know enough to come to a definite conclusion for or
against food irradiation. Help!
the radura, international
symbol of
irradiation.
No longer required on non-meat packaged foods in the U.S.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
1. What is food irradiation? top
Bombardment of a food by ionizing radiation ("gamma rays") from
nuclear material, x-rays or high-speed electrons from electronic guns.
They are used to kill bacteria in the food. Electrons are knocked off
molecules and ricochet around in the food. They break up cell walls,
slice and dice chromosomes, kill enzymes, and create free radicals
(oxygen atoms missing an electron). These free radicals recombine to
form stable compounds, or continue their destructive path. Some of the
compounds created are known to be cancer-causing (formaldehyde,
benzene, lipid peroxides). Others have never been seen or studied
before. These new compounds are called Unique Radiolytic Products
(URPs). Scientists have not studied the long-term effects on humans of
a diet of irradiated foods containing unknown amounts of URPs.
Therefore, we cannot say that URPs have no health effects, or that a
diet of irradiated food is safe.
Food irradiation is not the same as microwaving. Gamma rays, x-rays
and electron beams carry more energy than microwaves. They also affect
the food differently.
The food does not become radioactive unless there is equipment
error or human error. Very tiny amounts of radioactivity can be created
by electron-beam irradiation. They decay rapidly, but may cause
problems if irradiated foods that have not been stored are eaten
regularly. For this reason, the Government of India decided not to
allow irradiation of wheat, a major food in many people's diets.
2. What is the status of food irradiation in the U.S. and abroad?top
Food irradiation is permitted in more than 40 countries. In the US,
it is approved for beef, pork, poultry, shell eggs, fruits, vegetables,
wheat, wheat flour, herb teas and spices. In August 1999, a food
industry coalition asked the FDA to also approve irradiation for deli
meats, frozen foods, prepared fresh foods, fresh juices, seeds and
sprouts. The FDA will almost certainly approve irradiation for these
foods. Foods not yet requested for irradiation are: dairy (which is
already pasteurized), seafood (because it may be contaminated with
viruses, or bacteria that cause botulism and are not killed by current
doses of irradiation), and a few foods like honey and coffee. Bacon was
approved for irradiation in 1963. The approval was taken away in 1968
because animals fed irradiated bacon showed adverse health effects.
In the US, small amounts of meat, fruit and vegetables have been
test-marketed in the last 15 years.
Wholesale. For the past 7 years, Colorado Boxed Beef has been selling
irradiated chicken (including the Perdue "Harvestland" line) for food
service (e.g., restaurants, schools, airlines, hospitals) in the state
of Florida. The irradiation is done at the nuclear-powered Mulberry,
Florida facility. Colorado Boxed Beef has is shipping nuclear-
irradiated beef to some retail stores in Florida. Major meat packers
like Tyson, Excel, Emmpak and IBP have also announced plans to sell
irradiated foods to food service. None of these institutional foods
have to be labeled to the consumer.
Retail. The first retail label to sell irradiated beef is Huisken
Meats, in supermarkets in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, beginning in
May 2000. Many grocery chains want to sell irradiated food at retail
but are waiting for consumer reaction to Wal-Mart's test-markets of
irradiated beef. They have delayed their initial roll-out, which was
probably planned for in the mid-South. A company in Hawaii has
irradiated papayas for export to the mainland and Asia beginning in
August 2000.
3. How are foods affected by
irradiation? top
Some vitamins, like A, C, E, K and some B complex vitamins, are
damaged. From 5% up to 80%, depending on how long the food is stored.
Some of these vitamins are natural anti-oxidants: that is, they destroy
dangerous free radicals in the body. Irradiation both a) increases the
amount of free radicals in a food, and b) damages the vitamins
necessary to neutralize the free radicals! Free radicals are implicated
in many diseases.
Over 95% of bacteria in the food are killed: both bad bacteria,
like E. coli, and good bacteria, like those with telltale odors that
announce that the food has spoiled. Viruses (like the Norwalk virus in
shellfish) and the bacteria that causes botulism are not killed.
Irradiated raw foods that are purchased to be eaten raw are the
most damaged, because they have the nutrition of cooked food and the
appearance of fresh food. In addition to creating more free radicals,
irradiation deactivates the enzymes in fresh foods that are vital for
optimal digestion and metabolism. See article on enzymes at
http://www.living-foods.com
The bacteria-killing, enzyme-depletion and vitamin-depletion
effects of irradiation are similar to cooking. Irradiated cooked fresh
foods have even fewer nutrients than nonirradiated cooked foods.
Irradiation will not reduce the use of chemicals on food. It is
applied after harvest. The effect of irradiation on complex chemicals
such as pesticides in the food has not been studied.
Aflatoxin, a highly carcinogenic substance produced by molds, is
produced in greater quantities in irradiated food (because the bacteria
that crowd it out have been killed)
The bacterium that causes botulism is not killed by irradiation,
but its natural enemies are. Food may be contaminated without any
warning smell. This can be a big problem for meat that is irradiated in
a sealed package.
Irradiated food can be stored for longer periods of time. However,
this benefits packers and retailers, rather than consumers.
4. How are humans affected by eating irradiated food? top
We don't know. There have been no long-term human studies, and
almost no studies on children. The FDA based its approval of
irradiation to treat meat products on only 5 animal studies of 441
studies submitted, and these 5 either showed health effects or had
obvious scientific flaws. In fact, animal studies have shown many
health effects, such as tumors, kidney failure, death of offspring and
miscarriages. Irradiation for fruits and vegetables was based on a
theoretical calculation of the danger of the new chemicals that were
created, not on animal studies. For more information on the science,
see our Resources.
We do know that irradiation can damage vitamins A, C, E, K, B1, B2,
B3, B6 and folic acid, up to 80%, depending on the vitamin and how long
the foods are stored. People who rely on fresh foods for their vitamins
may suffer vitamin deficiencies. It is ironic that the vitamins that
are destroyed are those needed to fight the extra free radicals created
by irradiation!
People who eat irradiated foods will be eating them in large
quantities for a long period of time--possibly for life--especially if
the FDA stops requiring labels. Scientists have no idea what result
this will have on human health.
Some foods may be irradiated twice, for example ground meat in a
prepared frozen chili that is also irradiated. The effects on these
foods on health has not been studied.
The existing science on the safety of food irradiation is totally
inadequate for the FDA to unleash this technology on the public. The
FDA should require labels on the food so that people can avoid
irradiated foods, and so that public health officials can determine if
people who ate these foods and people who avoided them have different
health problems. Without labels, epidemiologists will never be able to
determine the health effects of irradiated foods in the diet.
5. Is electron-beam or x-ray irradiation 'better' than nuclear
irradiation? top
See an overview of e-beam irradiation.
Both kinds of irradiation damage the food in similar ways, and pose
the same risks for human health.
Nuclear irradiation uses radioactive cobalt-60 or cesium-137, which
can release radioactivity in transport or plant accidents. The nuclear
materials would be owned by private companies rather than the
government. Safe disposal of all of the material is unlikely.
Both nuclear and e-beam irradiation can cause serious injuries to
workers in these facilities.
E-beam irradiation may create very tiny amounts of radioactivity in
the food, which might be a problem if irradiated foods are eaten in
large quantities over long periods.
If e-beam irradiation is widely used, as seems likely, nuclear
materials will also be used. This will happen for three reasons: 1) the
source of the irradiation is not disclosed on the food label (if a
label is even required). 2) The nuclear industry still wants to get rid
of the cesium-137 from nuclear power stations, and the Canadian and
U.S. nuclear industry want customers who need cobalt-60 to be
manufactured from cobalt-59. 3) Other countries that do not have cheap
and reliable sources of electricity will use nuclear material to
irradiate foods.
6. Why is it proposed for
use? top
To kill bacteria that cause food poisoning and spoilage. In other
words, primarily to protect food companies against expensive law suits
and product recalls. For some products, to increase the time the food
can be sold (shelf life). These sound like worthy goals until you
ask, "what's causing the problem?" and "are there other solutions?"
What's causing the problem? A variety of reasons (see Nicols Fox's
book Spoiled): for example, more food prepared away from home by
uneducated food handlers, more imported foods from countries with lower
sanitation standards, mass production slaughter techniques that allow
cross-infection, etc. But the big problem, the one that galvanized the
food industry to demand irradiation from Congress, is fecal
contamination of meat and poultry that in turn leads to food poisoning.
The food industry has been pushing irradiation to save the image of
meat products after massive contaminations by E. coli in ground meat,
Salmonella in chickens, and Listeria in refrigerated deli meats.
Irradiation advocates say that irradiation does not create a
sterile product, and all food safety procedures need to be observed
anyway. Therefore, irradiation protects the producers more than the
consumers!
Are there other solutions? For a few, see Alternatives to
Irradiation. Many small changes can make a difference, because food
safety can be affected anywhere from farm to table. The single most
important change would be to remove the meat inspection functions from
the USDA.
7. Who supports/opposes irradiation?top
The public health official's job is to improve the public health
statistics now; public heatlh advocates of irradiation are not looking
at the long-term health, environmental and political consequences. The
food industry producers and marketers want to sell food and avoid
lawsuits now; they are not looking at the long-term consequences. The
Department of Defense wants to get rid of some of its nuclear wastes by
selling them to private businesses; they are not looking at the long-
term consequences.
Grassroots opponents are supported by a growing number of scientists,
doctors, and epidemiologists who advocate the precautionary principle.
Our coalition wants the FDA to require permanent labeling of irradiated
food. We think irradiation has not been proven safe, and we don't like
the political and environmental results on our food system. Unlike
irradiation advocates, almost none of us are paid to advocate our point
of view.
8. What does labeling have to do with irradiation?top
The current FDA labeling requirements is stopping the food industry
from irradiating our food supply whenever and wherever they want. See
our fact sheet on labeling to find out which foods have to be labeled,
and how (NOT ALL FOODS ARE LABELED EVEN NOW). The irradiationists know
that most people (over 75%) don't want to buy or eat irradiated food.
Therefore, they told their friends in Congress to require the FDA to
revise the labels.
The FDA will ask for public comments on its revised labeling
regulation by the end of 2001. Then it will rewrite and publish the
regulation, which will affect all irradiated foods in the U.S. One
possibility is that the FDA will simply stop requiring any labels.
All irradiated food should be labeled, for these reasons: a) The
existing science on safety is inadequate, therefore people should be
able to make their own decision on whether or not to buy irradiated
foods. b) Irradiation-caused vitamin loss should be disclosed.
Irradiation-sensitive labels can be used on packages to prove a
packaged food has been irradiated. Thermoluminescence tests can be used
to determine if dehydrated foods have been irradiated.
9. What's wrong with the food that it has to be irradiated? top
That's the big question that nobody wants you to ask. The answer is
fecal contamination. Food poisoning from meat and poultry is primarily
caused by animal feces. (Chickens are frequently contamined with
Salmonella or Campylobacter when raised in giant confinement buildings,
which is the current practice). The question to ask the food producers
is: Why are the feces getting into the food?
It's true that food is never sterile. But there's a difference
between dirt and feces. We expect food to be contaminated with dirt,
dust, tiny stones, insect fragments, etc. These are unavoidable, and
can be washed off. But we don't expect food to be produced in such a
way that it is routinely contaminated with feces, or Salmonella or
Campylobacter. Irradiation allows food producers to continue to
automate slaughtering plants, replace government inspectors with
industry personnel, and then 'clean up' the contaminated products with
irradiation.
Read the book Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect,
and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry by Gail Eisnitz
for an investigation of the places where our meat and poultry are
slaughtered.
10. What is the 'science' on food irradiation?top
See Public Citizen's overview of the research at
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/researchoverview9912.htm or call
Food & Water 1-800-EAT-SAFE for their pamphlets.
The 'science' on human health effects is inadequate to prove
irradiation is safe. The FDA used only 5 studies of 441 submitted, and
these all have obvious methodological flaws or showed health effects in
the animals. There have been almost no studies on children, and no
studies on humans longer than 15 weeks.
The key point is that the safety of food irradiation cannot be
guaranteed by the science of the year 2000. Science changes. Absence of
proof of effect is not proof of absence of effect. If scientists do not
do studies that seek to measure unique radiolytic products produced by
irradiation, they cannot say that a diet containing these products is
safe.
11. What are the environmental effects of irradiating food?top
If nuclear materials are used, radioactivity may be released in
plant accidents and transport. The record is not reassuring. In the US
alone, many nuclear accidents have already occurred at food irradiating
plants. For example, a cesium-137 spill in the State of Georgia cost
the taxpayers about $47 million to clean up. Because the nuclear
materials will be owned by private companies, they will have a
financial incentive to dump these materials without paying the
regulatory fees. This has already occurred numerous times with existing
irradiation plants. Nuclear irradiators can by law release small
amounts of radioactivity into the environment. Whether or not this is
dangerous probably cannot be proven. However, we are already exposed to
increased radioactivity from atomic weapons testing fallout and nuclear
plant releases. Any additions are unwise.
Electron-beam facilities do not have environmental effects except
for consuming large amounts of electricity. However, both nuclear and
electronic high-energy beams can injure or kill exposed workers.
Irradiation gives our environmentally unsustainable system of meat
and poultry production a new lease on life.
Eventually, the few bacteria that survive irradiation will multiply
and work their way back into the food chain. When that happens,
irradiation doses will have to be increased, damaging the foods in new
and untested ways.
12. What are the socio-economic and global issues involved in food
irradiation?top
E-beam and x-ray facilities are cheaper to operate than nuclear
facilities and do not carry the dangers or stigma of using nuclear
material. Therefore, they are being used first. However, once
irradiation is established, hundreds or thousands of irradiation
facilities will be built. Nuclear material will be privatized and used,
both cobalt-60 and cesium-137. The Department of Energy is holding
hearings on reopening the nuclear Fast Flux Test Facility in Hanford,
Washington, which is sitting on a very contaminated site. The FFTF
could bring in money by manufacturing cobalt-60 from cobalt-59 for food
irradiation, which is now done in Canada.
There is not enough cobalt-60 now for widespread use. In countries with
expensive or unreliable electricity, either cobalt-60 or cesium-137, a
byproduct of nuclear weapons manufacturing, will be used. Therefore, in
the big picture, any widespread use of irradiation encourages the
continued use of nuclear power. See Rachel's Environment and Health
Weekly article "Fallout from the Peaceful Atom" for background.
Radiation-resistant food bacteria like E. coli may emerge because
some food bacteria survive irradiation, and another species of
radiation-resistant bacteria already exists. Gene transfer between food
bacteria and the resistant bacteria is quite possible in the long term.
See article on radiation-resistant bacteria D. radiodurans.
Irradiation is a capital-intensive process that requires large
amounts of food to be processed in centralized facilities. The use of
irradiation speeds up the centralization of our food system.
Because Third World people tend to depend on very few staples,
irradiating just one of these staples means that a large percentage of
their diet will be irradiated for years and years. The potential
harmful effects of a diet of irradiated food will be magnified.
If irradiation becomes widespread, plants will be genetically
engineered so that their food products will have better taste, smell
and texture after irradiation, even if the nutritional content
decreases. It is possible that some of these new plants will patented
to need irradiation.
13. What is the status of irradiation in other countries?top
It is legal in at least 35 countries, for example Russia (cereals),
South Africa (fruit and vegetables), Belgium (spices and food
ingredients), France (spices, mechanically deboned poultry meat), The
Netherlands (spices, frozen fish and seafood), Hungary (onions and
paprika), Norway (spices), Canada (seafood and pork), China (potatoes).
Other foods may be irradiated also. Food irradiation has been used
illegally to camouflage spoiled seafood for resale.
There are anti-irradiation groups in several countries, including
Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and European activists are closely
watching the FDA policy on labeling. Because of world trade
regulations, if the FDA stops requiring labels, the US will be able to
force other countries to accept irradiated foods without labels, even
if the other country requires labels for its own foods. For this
reason, continued labeling in the U.S. is the key to blocking use of
irradiation worldwide.
14. What strategies are irradiation supporters using to convince the
public that irradiation is harmless and desirable? top
a) They use misleading terms such as "electronic
pasteurization", "pasteurization with x-rays" and "cold
pasteurization." Pasteurization is known to the public as a process of
killing micro-organisms in milk and other liquids by heating them
briefly to a specified temperature. The connotations
of "pasteurization" and "irradiation" are quite different, because we
associate pasteurization with milk, a 'friendly' and 'benevolent' food.
The use of 'pasteurization' to mean 'irradiation' is therefore
misleading.
First and most important, pasteurized dairy is the standard. Most
American consumers cannot buy unpasteurized dairy products. We do not
notice the word 'pasteurized' because it is the status quo.
Irradiation, on the other hand, is a new technology that is NOT the
status quo. Using the term 'pasteurized' gives irradiation an aura of
stability, permanence and even friendliness. Some dictionaries list
irradiation as a secondary meaning for "pasteurization"; however,
calling irradiated food "pasteurized" is like calling a person with
second-degree burns "sun-tanned."
Irradiated and pasteurized dairy foods are affected differently.
Unlike dairy pasteurization, irradiation does not heat the food
significantly, and may last as long as several hours. Dairy
pasteurization kills bacteria when the heated water ruptures the
bacteria's cell walls. Irradiation kills bacteria because free radicals
bounce around in the food and penetrate the bacteria's cell walls. The
free radicals may remain to do more damage to other cells in the food.
b) They say that the changes in food caused by irradiation is
similar to that caused by cooking foods. The problem here is that when
we buy fresh food, we expect it to be fresh, with a full complement of
vitamins and live enzymes. We don't seek out fresh food, which is
usually more expensive than canned or frozen, for second-class
nutrition and unusable enzymes. Furthermore, "similar" does not
mean "exactly the same." We have no long-term experience with a diet of
irradiated foods, so we don't know if the long-term effects on human
health are the same.
c) They tell us that astronauts have eaten irradiated foods, an
irrelevant piece of information that unfortunately captivates nearly
every journalist that hears it. Astronauts are on military missions
where they expect health risks greater than civilian life (unlike us).
They eat irradiated foods for a short time (unlike us). And they have
been told what they are eating (unlike us). The comparison is totally
irrelevant.
d) The only question irradiation advocates consider important
is, "Does the existing science prove that a diet of irradiated foods
harms human health?" The answer is "No, but the science is totally
inadequate to prove it is safe for human health.". Advocates also
ignore the equally important issue: Food irradiation is a public policy
matter, not just a human health matter.
15. What can I do to help? top
See the Actions section of our web site,
http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html. Also, contact us to be notified
so you can comment when the FDA revises the labeling regulations.
16. I still don't know enough to come to a definite conclusion for or
against food irradiation. Help!top
Look at it from a holistic perspective: People who support food
irradiation are trying to solve a problem caused by the status quo
without changing the status quo. They accept factory farming and meat
industry deregulation, with the resulting sanitation problems. They are
trying to put a band-aid on a problem rather than solving the problem.
They want to restrict the debate over food irradiation to the narrow
question "Is there any science that proves that it harms human health?"
They don't want to look at the big picture, which is much greater than
the existing science on human health. The big picture includes the
possibility of long-term effects on human health, the consequences for
other countries' labeling laws, the support irradiation gives to
factory farming, the replacement of meat inspection by irradiation
(irradiate feces instead of cutting it off), and other issues.
Opponents of irradiation, on the other hand, are looking at the big
picture. They don't accept the status quo of meat industry
deregulation, and they want the contamination problem solved at the
source. They want alternative techniques for food safety to be used.
They want to reverse the policies of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton
administrations that deregulated meat inspection and led to dirtier
meat. They want more environmentally sustainable and humane food
production methods, better food inspection, and more locally grown
food. These goals are blocked if food irradiation is used to keep the
status quo. They want government to presume that irradiation is unsafe
unless proved otherwise (the precautionary principle). They want labels
on all irradiated foods, including food service, so they can know what
they are purchasing. They do not want to encourage privatization of
nuclear materials. Unlike supporters of irradiation, opponents feel
responsible for protecting human health and the environment for
everyone, including future generations.
Contact: Danila Oder, dan...@purefood.org
Organic Consumers Association
http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association
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Activist or Media Inquiries: (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157
If you support this web site, send a tax-deductible donation to OCA
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BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association
6114 Hwy 61, Little Marais, MN 55614, E-mail:Staff
Activist or Media Inquiries: (218) 226-4164, Fax: (218) 226-4157
If you support this web site, send a tax-deductible donation to OCA
SEARCH our site using keywords. - Daily News
Save Organic Standards | Green Living vs Corp Abuse | Genetically
Enginered Food
Upcoming Events | Food Slander | Food Irradiation | Mad Cow & Pig
Disease
Find Pure Food | Cloning & Patenting | rBGH | Toxic Food | Monsanto
Watch | Home
* BioDemocracy News (published every 6 weeks) previous issues
* Organic View (published bi-weekly) previous issues
http://www.purefood.org/irrad/irradfaq.cfm
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
Zapping the food supply
Donald B. Louria
New arguments are boiling up over an old idea--irradiating food with
ionizing radiation to kill microorganisms and prolong shelf life. The
idea of exposing food to gamma radiation is over 30 years old, and in
1963 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began to permit the
irradiation of wheat. Over the years, a few more foodstuffs such as
spices and tea were added to the FDA's list of candidates for
irradiation. But in 1984 the FDA started to approve irradiation of a
much broader list of products which now includes meat, poultry, and
fresh fruits and vegetables. Simultaneously the FDA has increased the
levels of radiation that may be used. The FDA's recent willingness to
allow most of the food supply to be irradiated--and at high doses--has
triggered an acrimonious debate.
The amount of radiation involved is substantial. The FDA has approved a
3,000,000 rad dosage for treating spices, 300,000 rad for pork, and
100,000 rad for fresh fruits and vegetables. These intensities are
millions of times greater than that of an ordinary chest X-ray (which
is typically about 20 millirad). The announced goal of promoters of
food irradiation is to obtain general approval for the use of up to one
million rad.
Irradiation does not make food radioactive, nor has alleged
radioactivity been at issue in the debate. But there is concern that
foods processed by irradiation may contain radiolytic products that
could have toxic effects.
The source of radiation is either cobalt 60 or cesium 137. The prospect
of increased transportation and handling of cobalt and cesium--
dangerous substances--has caused negative publicity. Some irradiation
proponents say food processors could theoretically use as-yet-
undeveloped linear acceleration techniques instead. But if food
irradiation becomes commonplace any time soon, cesium or cobalt will be
used.
The major objective of irradiation is to destroy microorganisms that
cause food to spoil. For example, irradiating chicken should reduce the
outbreaks of salmonella that are probably caused by careless or
unhygienic methods in production and processing. Irradiating pork might
reduce the already limited risk of trichinosis, and irradiating turkey
would diminish the number of episodes of diarrhea that result from
eating undercooked meat. William McGivney, an advocate of the
technology, asserts that "irradiation offers a means to decontaminate,
disinfect and retard the spoilage of the food supply."1 Most opponents
counter that adequate cooking and hygienic preparation will accomplish
the same goal.
Promoters of irradiation emphasize that the shelf life of various foods
will be increased. But these proponents have not produced any
projections of the actual economic, or other, benefits of longer shelf
life, especially in a developed country that has an abundant food
supply. It may be easier to imagine that less developed countries might
benefit if the shelf life of foodstuffs could be prolonged. But
advocates have made no estimates of the extent to which better
preservation would reduce world hunger, or of the cost of widespread
food irradiation in less developed countries.
Irradiation is expected to reduce the need to use toxic chemicals as
post-harvest fumigants, but some evidence indicates that irradiated
foods are more, not less, subject to infection with certain fungi.2
At dispute in the controversy over food irradiation are the quality of
the FDA's safety assessment, the loss of nutritional value that
irradiated foods undergo, the risk of environmental contamination posed
by irradiation facilities, and the possible cancer-causing nature of
irradiated foods. An additional dispute revolves around the motives of
the Energy Department, which has promoted irradiation and is the
potential supplier of cesium 137, a waste byproduct of nuclear reactors.
Safety. The FDA judged safety based on five of 441 available toxicity
studies. Of the available literature, claimed the FDA, only these five
animal studies were "properly conducted, fully adequate by 1980
toxicological standards and able to stand alone in support of safety."3
But when these studies were reviewed at the Department of Preventive
Medicine and Community Health of the New Jersey Medical School, two
were found to be methodologically flawed, either by poor statistical
analyses or because negative data were disregarded.4 One of the two
also suggested that irradiated food could have adverse effects on older
animals. In a third FDA-cited study, animals fed a diet of irradiated
food experienced weight loss and miscarriage, almost certainly due to
irradiation-induced vitamin E dietary deficiency.5 This study, which
used foods that had been subjected to large doses of radiation,
indicated that irradiated food suffered nutritional loss.
These three studies do not document the safety of food irradiation, and
why the FDA relied on them is mystifying. The two other studies cited
by FDA appear to be sound, but these studies investigated the effects
of diets consisting of foods irradiated at doses below the current FDA-
approved general level of 100,000 rad. Therefore they cannot be used to
justify irradiation of foods at the levels currently approved by the
FDA. Now, as the FDA considers adopting 300,000 rad as the general
dosage level, the agency has not requested new studies, but is relying
on some of the older studies it failed to include as methodologically
sound.
Ethical and methodological barriers make it nearly impossible to study
the effects of a diet of irradiated foods in human subjects. One small,
controversial study carried out in India in the mid-1970s looked at the
effects of feeding irradiated and unirradiated foods to 15 children
with severe protein and total-calorie malnutrition.6 Five children were
fed unirradiated wheat, five freshly irradiated wheat, and five ate
irradiated wheat that had been stored for a minimum of three months.
Children who had eaten freshly irradiated wheat had unusually high
rates of chromosomal abnormalities in their blood (especially
polyploidy). No such changes occurred in the group that ate irradiated
wheat that had been stored. Although some animal studies have supported
the results of this study, it has provoked an acerbic debate. Clearly,
the study has major flaws: the size of the sample is too small,
subjects were not properly randomized, and statistical methods are
unclear.
A more recent study of 70 subjects was conducted in China.7 In contrast
to the severely malnourished subjects in the Indian study, all the
Chinese subjects were healthy young men and women. The experimental
group ate irradiated foods that had been stored for an extended period
of time. (Also, the group's diet was essentially wheat-free.) Both
groups--those receiving irradiated foods and the control group--showed
some increases in chromosomal abnormalities during the test period.
Those given irradiated foods appeared to have a slightly increased rate
of abnormalities.While neither of these studies are conclusive, they
should not be dismissed. If the malnourished are particularly
vulnerable to the dangers of an irradiated diet, hundreds of millions
of malnourished people could be at risk. More studies on chromosomal
abnormalities are necessary, but there are ethical as well as
methodological problems in designing and conducting them.
Nutrition. There is impressive evidence that irradiated foods lose
vitamin content, particularly vitamins A, C, E, and some of the B
complex.8 The amount of vitamin loss varies from one type of food to
another, but in general there is a direct relationship between the
amount of irradiation and the extent of nutritional value lost. Data on
foods irradiated with 100,000 rad cannot be relied on to predict
vitamin losses in foods irradiated with 300,000 or 1,000,000 rad. Some
studies indicate that cooking irradiated foods causes an additional,
inordinate loss of nutrients.9 In addition, little is known about the
nutritional effects of freezing and thawing food that has been
irradiated.
Those who favor irradiation do not deny the loss of vitamin content,
but often assert that these nutritional losses will not harm people who
eat a generally nutritious and balanced diet. Others suggest that
irradiated foods should be fortified with vitamins, or that the public
should be urged to take vitamin supplements. In less developed
countries, reducing the food supply's nutritional value would seem to
raise a major ethical question. Asking the world's 800 million
malnourished and 2 billion undernourished to make a possible trade-off
between longer shelf life and less nutrition seems harsh, particularly
before more complete information on the nutritional value of irradiated
foods is available.
Environmental issues. Opponents of food irradiation have raised four
interrelated environmental issues: the dangers of transporting
radioactive isotopes to hundreds of treatment facilities, the
environmental practices of those facilities, the danger of worker
exposure in environments where irradiation chambers are frequently
opened to allow foodstuffs to pass in and out rapidly, and potential
security problems at irradiation plants.
If all the poultry in the United States were to be irradiated, hundreds
of new irradiation plants would be needed. There are about forty plants
of a size suitable for food irradiation already in operation. Most of
these plants are used primarily to irradiate disposable medical
equipment. In New Jersey, which has the highest concentration of these
facilities, plant safety records are not encouraging. Virtually every
New Jersey plant has a record of environmental contamination, worker
overexposure, and regulatory failings.
A serious accident occurred at a Decatur, Georgia, cesium irradiator in
June 1988. That facility was shut down after a cesium leak exposed 10
workers to radiation and contaminated medical supplies and consumer
products.10 Clean-up costs at the Decatur plant have climbed to more
than $15 million, and no conclusions have been reached about the cause
of the accident.
Unlike major nuclear facilities, irradiation plants will be relatively
small and are unlikely to be well protected. Opponents fear these
plants will be particularly vulnerable to sabotage or terrorist attack
and express similar concerns about the safety and security of large
numbers of shipments of highly radioactive materials. If food
irradiation becomes commonplace, hundreds of irradiation plants will
need to have their inventories of cesium 137 or cobalt 60 replenished
on a regular basis.
The cancer threat. The irradiation process produces unique radiolytic
products whose chemical and toxic properties have not been
characterized. In-vitro tests in the laboratory suggest that some of
these products may cause mutations, and these tests have led critics of
irradiation to contend that some irradiated foods may prove
carcinogenic. But there are no substantial data from epidemiological
studies on either animals or humans to support that contention. Unless
the chemical properties of all the radiolytic products are identified,
and animals studies using amplified doses are conducted, there is no
way to prove that a cancer risk exists and, if so, whether it would
fall within acceptable limits. Adequate evidence for prudent decisions
on the cancer risk of food irradiation will not be available for some
time.
The Energy Department connection. The Energy Department, through its
Byproducts Utilization Program, tries to develop commercial uses for
radioactive waste products. Creating a commercial demand for cesium,
which is a waste product of both weapons production and civilian
nuclear power, has been one of its expressed goals since the early
1980s. Energy Department memoranda indicate that the department's plan
included pricing cesium so low that it would drive Canadian cobalt out
of the market.11
Some critics charge that the Energy Department has been even more
devious. They claim that the department was less interested in
disposing of cesium than it was in overturning the ban on reprocessing
civilian nuclear fuel. These critics claim that the department
calculated that widespread food irradiation would eventually deplete
the available supplies of cesium 137. At that point, the irradiation
industry would begin to lobby for the reprocessing of spent fuel, and
the department could use the industry to overcome the political and
economic obstacles to reprocessing nuclear fuel. Once reprocessing was
permitted, the Energy Department could separate the plutonium in spent
fuel, which it could then use in weapons.12
There is no reason to adopt every new technology that is suggested.
Ideally, food irradiation should be made to compete on a commercial
basis with other technologies. If it had no disadvantages or dangers,
the marketplace alone would decide its fate. Most food processors now
think that irradiation is costly and less effective than other methods
of preservation, and consumers are resistant to the idea of radiation-
treated foods. But the adoption of food irradiation technologies raises
questions of public health. Many local authorities have opted for
alternative technologies. In Florida, the Citrus Commission/Department
of Agriculture has chosen to use two other processes--fly-free zones
and cold treatment. Hawaiian officials rejected federal funds offered
to build an irradiation facility for processing papaya; instead, the
papaya processor will use non-chemical treatments such as dry and steam
heat or double hot water dips. Some biotechnological researchers are
confident that recombinant DNA technologies will eventually create pest-
resistant fruits and vegetables with extraordinarily long shelf lives.
If food irradiation is adopted prematurely, research on its health
effects will be hampered. Widespread use of the technology will make it
impossible to detect any but the most obvious of adverse effects,
because it will be impossible to define a control population for
purposes of study. This problem will be further complicated if
irradiation levels are increased to 1 million rad.
Labeling is currently required to notify the consumer when whole foods
have been irradiated. The label includes written notice and the
international irradiation symbol, the "radura"--a stylized flower which
has caused some confusion because of its close resemblance to the
Environmental Protection Agency's logo. Prepared or packaged foods,
foods prepared for restaurant or school cafeteria use, and foods which
merely contain some irradiated ingredients are exempt from labeling.
While the FDA has approved wholesale food irradiation, other regulators
are less eager. More than a dozen state legislatures, concerned about
the environmental and health risks of irradiated food, have restricted
its sale and distribution. Maine has banned both irradiation facilities
and all irradiated food except spices. New York and New Jersey recently
enacted two-year moratoriums on the sale or distribution of irradiated
foods, and New Jersey has prohibited the "manufacture" of such food
items. Other states contemplating restrictive legislation include
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, and Alaska. Bills have
been introduced in Congress to place a two-year moratorium on
irradiated foods while the National Academy of Sciences reviews the
health, environment, and worker safety issues. Great Britain has banned
irradiated food, although legislation has been introduced into
Parliament to overturn the ban. West Germany, Australia, Denmark,
Sweden, and New Zealand have all banned or severely limited the
implementation of food irradiation.
Donald B. Louria is chairman of the preventive medicine department at
the New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey.
1. William T. McGivney, "Preservation of Food Products by Irradiation,"
Seminars in Nuclear Medicine, vol. 18 (Jan. 1988), p. 36.
2. Richard Piccioni, "Food Irradiation: Contaminating Our Food," The
Ecologist, vol. 18, no. 2 (April 1988), p. 48.
3. "Irradiation in the Processing and Handling of Food," Federal
Register (April 1986), p. 13376.
4. J.R. Hickman, L.A. McLean, and F.J. Ley, "Rat Feeding Studies on
Wheat Treated with Gamma Radiation," Food and Cosmetic Toxicology, vol.
2, no. 2 (1964), pp. (175180); J.L. Radomski et al, "Chronic Toxicity
Studies in Irradiated Beef Stew and Evaporated Milk," Toxicology and
Applied Pharmacology, vol. 7, no. 1 (1965), pp. 11321.
5. H.W. Renner and D. Reichelt, "Zur Frage der gesundheitlichen
Unbedenklichkeit hoher Konzentrationen von freien Radikalen in
bestrahlten Lebesmitteln," Zentralblatt für Veterina Medizi, vol. 20,
no. 8 (1973), pp. 64860.
6. C. Bhaskaram and G. Sadasivan, "Effects of Feeding Irradiated Wheat
to Malnourished Children," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol.
28, no. 2 (1975), pp. 13035.
7. Shanghai Institute of Radiation Medicine and Shanghai Institute of
Nuclear Research, "Safety Evaluation of 35 Kinds of Irradiated Human
Foods," Chinese Medical Journal, vol. 100, no. 9 (1987), pp. 71518.
8. E. Wierbicki et al., Ionizing Energy in Food Processing and Pest
Control, Part 1. (Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, July
1986); A.B. Khattak and C.F. Klopfenstein, "Effects of Gamma
Irradiation on the Nutritional Quality of Grains and Legumes," Cereal
Chemistry, vol. 66, no. 3 (1989), pp. 17172; N. Raica, Jr., J. Scott,
and N. Nielson, "Nutritional Quality of Irradiated Foods," Radiation
Research Review, vol. 3, no. 4 (1972), pp. 44757.
9. Food Chemical News (Nov. 10, 1986), p. 42.
10. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Department of Energy,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "First Interim Report of the RSI
Incident Evaluation Task Force" (June 1989).
11. K. Terry, "Why is DoE for Food Irradiation?" The Nation (Feb. 7,
1987), pp. 14256.
12. Piccioni, "Food Irradiation"; Terry, "Why is DoE for Food
Irradiation?"
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
Liver Cancer: Danger of Radiolytic Products in the Diet
June 26, 2000
This scientific materials in this document were prepared by chemist
Jeffrey Reinhardt, M.Sc., co-founder of The National Coalition to Stop
Food Irradiation.
Summary
FDA estimates the amount of Radiolytic Products (RP) in foods
irradiated at 100 Krad at 0.3 parts per million (PPM). Source.
100 Krad is the maximum permitted dose of irradiation for fruits and
vegetables. Poultry may receive 3 x 100 Krad, red meat may receive 4.5
x 100 Krad, frozen meat may receive 7 x 100 Krad, spices receive 30 x
100 Krad. Therefore this calculation is a low estimate if people eat a
diet containing irradiated meat and poultry as well as fruits and
vegetables.
Assumes consumption of 7.5 ounces of irradiated foods with an average
water content of 80% (fruits and vegetables range from 75-90%) with 0.3
PPM of RPs. 7.5 ounces is a large serving of fruit or one piece of
fruit and one serving of poultry or meat.
If only 1 out of 10,000 RP molecules is a potential carcinogen, co-
carcinogen or mutagen, then for every 7.5 ounce meal with 0.3 PPM of
RPs, 2,560 potentially carcinogenic or mutagenic RP molecules will
contact each cell in the adult liver. See the entire calculation.
Irradiation depletes anti-oxidant vitamins in food, which help
regenerate the liver.
Over a long period of time, the RP assault on the liver combined with
fewer anti-oxidants in the diet will create a "fertile field for the
ultimate growth of cancer cells" and "almost certainly evolve" to
produce liver cancer.
"Even at one-tenth the concentration of radiolytic products known by
the FDA to be formed by irradiation at 100 Krad, irradiation of foods
in the human diet represents predictably unacceptable risks to the
public's health."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
FDA estimate of amount of RPs produced
"Calculations based on radiation chemistry clearly indicate that
irradiation doses of 100 Krad or less yield a concentration of total
radiolytic products in food that is so limited that it would be
difficult to detect and subsequently measure toxicological properties.
In addition, at this dose unique radiolytic products (URPs) will be on
the order of 3 parts per million (PPM), and since the number of
individual URPs is likely to be greater than ten, the amount of any
particular URP will be considerably less than 1 PPM. Finally, our
estimates of URPs may be exaggerated.
"Hence, because of the low level of total unique radiolytic products
(URPs) produced, it is concluded that food irradiated at doses not
exceeding 100 Krad is wholesome and safe for human consumption. This
rationale is based solely on an estimate of the concentration of
individual URPs produced by the radiation dose to the food, and
pertains even if a high proportion of the total human diet is
irradiated at 100 Krad."
p. 16, Recommendations for evaluating the safety of irradiated foods.
Final report, July 1980. Director, Bureau of Foods, FDA.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Calculation of number of molecules of RPs produced by 7.5 ounces of
irradiated food.
Analysis of the Impact of Radiolytic Products (RPs) at 0.3 PPM
Mathematical Calculations
A. Seven and one-half (7.5) ounces of irradiated "foods" equals 42.5
grams of "food" substance:
1) 7.5 oz. x 28.35 gm. per oz. = 212.63 gm. of "food"
2) 212.63 gm. x 1000 mg. per gm. - 213,630 mg. of "food"
3) If 80% of the "food" is water,
then 0.8 x 212,630 mg. = 170,104 mg. of water
OR 213,630 mg. of "food" - 170,104 mg. of water = 42,526 mg. of "food"
substance
B. RPs at 0.3 PPM in 7.5 ounces of "food" substance yield 0.01275 mg.
of RPs per 7.5 ounce meal.
1) 42,526 mg. of "food" substance = 0.0425 Kg.
0.0425 Kg. x 0.3 PPM x 1 mg. per Kg. per PPM
equals 0.01275 mg. of RPs in "food" substance
C. Assuming an average Molecular Weight (MW) of one RP molecule equals
300 Daltons, permits the calculation of the total number of RP
molecules ingested in a 7.5 ounce meal of irradiated "food":
1) 0.01275 mg. RPs ÷ 300 Daltons = 0.0000425 milliMoles of RPs
OR 2) 0.0000425 milliMoles RPs = 0.0425 microMoles of RPs
OR 3) 0.0425 microMoles of RPs = 4.25 x 10-8 moles of RPs
D) To convert to the number of RP molecules, the Mole fraction is
multiplied by Avogadro's Number (6.023 x 1023 molecules per Mole):
1) (4.25 x 10-8 Moles of RPs) x (6.023 x 1023 molecules per Mole) =
(25.6 x 1015) molecules of RPs in a 7.5 ounce meal of irradiated "food"
OR 2) 25,600,000,000,000,000 RP molecules per meal
E) Since there are approximately one million liver cells
("hepatocytes") in the adult human liver, there will be 25,600,000,000
RP molecules potentially targeted at each liver cell.
1) 25,600,000,000,000,000 RP molecules ÷ 1,000,000 cells =
25,600,000,000 RP molecules per liver cell
F) If, however, only 1 out of 1,000 RP molecules is actually
assimilated from the small intestine into the hepatic portal
circulation (ed: blood flow through the liver), then for every 7.5
ounce meal with 0.3 PPM of RPs, 25,600,000 of these reactive RPs will
enter the liver:
1) 25,600,000,000 RP molecules per liver cell ÷ 1 in 1,000 RP molecules
actually assimilated into hepatic portal circulation = 25,600,000 RP
molecules per liver cell in the "Best Case"
G) Further, if only 1 out of 10,000 RP molecules is a potential
carcinogen, co-carcinogen, or mutagen, then for every 7.5 ounce meal
with 0.3 PPM of RPs, 2,560 potentially carcinogenic or mutagenic RP
molecules will contact each cell in the adult liver:
1) 25,600,000 RP molecules per liver cell ÷ 1 in 10,000 RP molecules as
potential carcinogens or mutagens = 2,560 (potentially carcinogenic or
mutagenic) RP molecules will come in contact with each hepatocyte
(liver cell).
H) If, over protracted periods of time, the liver is depleted of
protective, anti-oxidant nutrients which are destroyed by irradiation,
then the inherent capability of the liver's protective and regenerative
mechanisms will be compromised. This reduction in the quality and
quantity of functional nutrients available is caused by the consumption
of diets containing irradiated "foods" over long periods. This
depletion in the intake of functional anti-oxidant nutrients, in
conjunction with genetic, lifestyle, and occupational factors, will
lead to a tissue environment in the liver which will evolve to unique
susceptibility to RP-induced initiator and/or promoter carcinogenesis
mechanisms.
Thus, I believe that ingesting irradiated "foods" containing even 0.3
PPM of RPs will inevitably lead to neoplastic transformations of liver
cells in a fertile field for the ultimate growth of cancer cells; these
will almost certainly evolve to produce hepatocellular (liver)
carcinoma.
Even at one-tenth the concentration of radiolytic products known by the
FDA to be formed by irradiation at 100 Krad, irradiation of foods in
the human diet represents predictably unacceptable risks to the
public's health.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
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Before you buy.
Jim Webster
Night Child wrote in message <1107_96...@the.bit.bucket>...
>On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 22:27:51 +0100, "Jim Webster"
<j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
>> <8o9325$3ui$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>> >http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html
>> >
>> >
>>
>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
>>
>
>and microwave ovens!
>
I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people queue
for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the attitude
to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
Karl F. Johanson
>
>Night Child wrote in message <1107_96...@the.bit.bucket>...
>>On Sat, 26 Aug 2000 22:27:51 +0100, "Jim Webster"
><j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>> ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
>>>
>>> STOP Food Irradiation NOW!
>>>
>>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
>>
>>and microwave ovens!
>>
>I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people queue
>for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the attitude
>to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
>Jim Webster
The anti nuclear power movement tends to be a pro fossil fuel energy
movement. Sure there's noises about wind & solar & others, but when
nuclear is shut down or prevented we wind up with more than 90% fossil
fuels instead.
The anti-food irradiation movement is likely about fosil fuels as well.
Keeping food cold is a very significant user of power. Irradiating the
food would reduce the need for refridgeration & thus reduce the need for
fossil fuels.
Know nukes.
--
Karl Johanson, Victoria B.C. Canada
-It's okay to disagree with me. However, once I explain where you're
wrong you're supposed to become enlightened & change your mind.
Congratulating me on how smart I am is optional.
Dennis G.
>I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people queue
>for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the attitude
>to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
>
>Jim Webster
That's it !
If airline food is an example of what happens when food is irradiated, I can
only believe the chives is on to something important.
oochiepoodlepoopie
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
How It Hurts:
Key Research on the Unwholesomeness of Irradiated Food
Despite contentions by U.S. government officials and food-industry
executives that irradiated food is safe to eat and poses no threat to
the environment, dozens of studies conducted over the past half-century
have revealed otherwise.
From chromosomal damage in people and animals that have eaten
irradiated food, to the destruction of essential vitamins and
nutrients... From cell mutations to the spawning of mutant forms of
bacteria... From the creation of carcinogens to the formation of
bizarre new chemical compounds…
Food irradiation is a far cry from the benign technology that its
backers in the public and private sectors would have you believe. In
reality, food irradiation is an over-hyped, under-studied process that
holds the real potential of causing more problems than it solves.
Here is a sampling of the scientific research that casts serious doubt
on the wholesomeness of irradiated food:
Increased chromosomal damage in animals and humans
M.W. Shaw, E. Hayes. "Effects of irradiated sucrose on the chromosomes
of human lymphocytes in vitro." Nature. 1966; 211: 1254-1256.
Vijayalaxmi and S.G. Srikantia. "A review of the studies on the
wholesomeness of irradiated wheat, conducted at the National Institute
of Nutrition, India." Radiat. Phys. Chem. 1989; 34: 941-952.
Formation of "Unique Radiolytic Products" in food
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Recent Advances in Food Irradiation.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1983.
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Radiation Chemistry of Major Food Groups.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1977.
Edward S. Josephson and Martin S. Peterson, eds. Preservation of Food
by Ionizing Radiation (3 vols). Florida: CRC Press, 1982, 1983.
Increased frequency of cell mutations
A.S. Aiyar, V. Subba Rao. "Studies on mutagenicity of irradiated sugar
solutions in Salmonella typhimurium." Mutation Research. 1977; 48: 17-
28.
O. Parkash. "Mutagenic effect of irradiated DNA in Drosophila
melanogaster." Nature. 1967; 4:611-612.
R.R. Rinehart, F.J. Ratty. "Mutation in Drosophila melanogaster
cultured on irradiated food." Genetics. 1965; 52: 1119-1126.
M.S. Swaminathan, S. Nirula, A.T. Natarajan, R.P. Sharma. "Mutations:
Incidence in Drosophila melanogaster reared on irradiated medium."
Science. 1963; 141:637-638.
J. Wilmer, J. Schubert, H. Leveling. "Mutagenicity of gamma-irradiated,
oxygenated and deoxygenated solutions of 2-deoxy-D-ribose and D-ribose
in Salmonella typhimurium." Mutation Research. 1981; 90:385-397.
J. Wilmer, A.T. Natarajan. "Induction of sister chromatid exchanges and
chromosome aberrations by gamma-irradiated nucleic acid constituents in
CHO cells." Mutation Research. 1981; 88:99-107.
Formation of mutant bacteria
R. Davies and A.J. Sinskey. Journal of Bacteria. 1973; 113: 133-144.
W.S. Stone, O. Wyss, F. Haas. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. 1947; 33: 59-66.
Decreased nutritional content in food
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Recent Advances in Food Irradiation.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1983.
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Radiation Chemistry of Major Food Groups.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1977.
Food Chemical News. "Irradiation compounds vitamin loss from cooking,
ARS reports." Nov. 10, 1986: 42.
Edward S. Josephson and Martin S. Peterson, eds. Preservation of Food
by Ionizing Radiation (3 vols). Florida: CRC Press, 1982, 1983.
Increased carcinogens and other toxins in food
Life Sciences Research Office, Federation of American Societies for
Experimental Biology. "Evaluation of the health aspects of certain
compounds sound in irradiated beef." PB84-187087. Bethesda: August
1977.
Increased frequency of tumors, reduced survival rate, and other health
problems in animals
Raltech Scientific Services Inc. Final Reports. Contract DAMD 17-76-C-
6047. 1977-83.
Corrupted flavor and texture of food
E.K. Akamine and J.H. Moy. In Preservation of Food by Ionizing
Radiation, Vol. 3 (Edward S. Josephson and Martin S. Peterson, eds).
Florida: CRC Press. 1983; 129-158.
E.C. Maxie, et al. Radiation Botany. 1964; 4: 405-411.
E.C. Maxie and A. Abdel-Kader. Advances in Food Research. 1966; 15: 105-
145.
E.C. Maxie el al. Proceedings of the 1st International Citrus
Symposium. Vol. 3. 1969; 1375-1387.
David L. Paxton
>
> http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/Key%20Research.htm
If you look far enough and long enough you can find research to back or
oppose any method of food preservation or preparation!
> Despite contentions by U.S. government officials and food-industry
Why would the federal government, that has no interest in or holding of
food processing plants or even have any reason to back a method which is
hazardous to the health of their citizens???
> executives that irradiated food is safe to eat and poses no threat to
> the environment, dozens of studies conducted over the past half-century
> have revealed otherwise.
And who backed these tests that prove the government wrong and why? Just
as the tobacco industries produced report after report that tobacco
smoke was not hazardous (many years ago before the feds proved them
otherwise) you can buy a test in your favor for almost anything. My
decision is to eat irradiated foods (I actually look FOR irradiated
foods when possible) because I studied the governments tests and
findings and find them an unbiased reporter of the facts.
> From chromosomal damage in people and animals that have eaten
OK here, comes the radiation hysteria report. I defy anyone to show me
double blind tests that proves any chromosome damage caused by properly
irradiated food. There IS NO RESIDUAL RADIATION in irradiated foods. How
on earth can they then cause chromosomal damage to the person eating it?
It has been proven that there is less change in the food that is stored
by irradiation than that which is stored by canning. (by the way, it was
found at one time the backers of a lot of "research" on irradiated food
was done by major canning concerns, not exactly a non biased research)
In fact the government found that once the food was cooked there was NO
DISCERNIBLE DIFFERENCE between irradiated food and fresh food. These
tests were done in a double blind manor. None of the testers had any
idea whether their particular sample was irradiated or not so no one
knew what they were supposed to be looking for.
> irradiated food, to the destruction of essential vitamins and
> nutrients... From cell mutations to the spawning of mutant forms of
> bacteria... From the creation of carcinogens to the formation of
> bizarre new chemical compounds…
Again, more anti radiation hype. Sure there is destruction of some
essential vitamins,any food preservation system does. Care to guess
which method comes out with the LEAST amount of destruction of essential
vitamins? Guess. And it aint canning, they had the MOST destruction of
essential vitamins. Cell mutations... this guy has been reading comic
books again. The type of radiation used for food preservation does not
mutate anything. It pierces the chromosome chain and instead of damaging
it breaks it. The organism become nonviable, not mutated. It cannot
reproduce and when it dies there is no further growth of the germ
colony. CREATION OF CARCINOGENS??? This guy is really off the wall.
There are LESS carcinogens in irradiated foods than any other form of
food storage. More than fresh, sure all means of storage create more of
all of these than fresh. HOWEVER, the research proved that once cooked
there were not even any discernible difference between irradiated or
fresh food in the end product. Carcinogens are produced in cooking that
make the few caused by irradiation even detectable. AND researchers
could find NO NEW CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS in the irradiated meat. With the
double blind tests there was more evidence against canning than against
irradiating. Maybe this guy should go on a rampage against canning. He
would be better off.
> Food irradiation is a far cry from the benign technology that its
> backers in the public and private sectors would have you believe. In
> reality, food irradiation is an over-hyped, under-studied process that
> holds the real potential of causing more problems than it solves.
Hmmm, the federal government backed, college and institute research I
read seemed to be rather exhaustive and double blinded to prevent any
discrimination on the part of the researchers. Can your quoted research
stand up against the same scrutiny?
> Here is a sampling of the scientific research that casts serious doubt
> on the wholesomeness of irradiated food:
>
A bunch of listed researchers deleted. If you study their tests (I
recognized a couple of them) you will see the same methods of testing
used to outlaw sweeteners by the sugar company. You will find little
double blind testing of the same products in the same concentration on
the subjects. Irradiated sucrose may cause damage to chromosomal
material in a high concentration but did they do the blind test with non
irradiated sucrose and determine which caused the most chromosomal
damage? Was double blind testing done IN THE SAME PEN and living
condition on the animals in the test group so that half the herd was fed
irradiated food and half non irradiated while living in the same pen
under the same conditions? Testers can cause results in either direction
they chose (or are paid to) without a double blind test situation.
I'll stick with the results of the government double blind tests and
look for irradiated food wherever I can find them. I like the idea of
having steak or other goods on my shelf for hurricane preparedness. I
would bet there would be LESS possible problems with that than eating
cans of corn beef hash, spam, or Denny's Stew! The problem is, with all
these "fly off the handle" puppets of the anti irradiation food
processing company hype groups they are denying me the right to make an
informed purchase on my own decision. But these same people can go to
the corner store and buy a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey,
go figure. I have to find ways to get irradiated foods and meats brought
into the country from other, less regulated sources.
Big Dave
Maren Purves
> "Jim Webster" <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people queue
> >for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the attitude
> >to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
>
> If airline food is an example of what happens when food is irradiated,
You mean it shrinks?
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
How It Hurts:
Key Research on the Unwholesomeness of Irradiated Food
Despite contentions by U.S. government officials and food-industry
executives that irradiated food is safe to eat and poses no threat to
the environment, dozens of studies conducted over the past half-century
have revealed otherwise.
From chromosomal damage in people and animals that have eaten
irradiated food, to the destruction of essential vitamins and
nutrients... From cell mutations to the spawning of mutant forms of
bacteria... From the creation of carcinogens to the formation of
bizarre new chemical compounds…
Food irradiation is a far cry from the benign technology that its
backers in the public and private sectors would have you believe. In
reality, food irradiation is an over-hyped, under-studied process that
holds the real potential of causing more problems than it solves.
Here is a sampling of the scientific research that casts serious doubt
on the wholesomeness of irradiated food:
Increased chromosomal damage in animals and humans
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
Irradiation has nuclear roots – something the food irradiation industry
would rather not admit. Irradiation promoters prefer to distance
themselves from radiation by using such euphemistic names for the
process as "cold pasteurization," but the two technologies are hardly
in the same league. You can pasteurize milk on your kitchen stove, but
you will never be able to irradiate food in your home. Irradiated food
is zapped with radiation equivalent to 10 million to 70 million chest X-
rays (depending on the food). The industry would probably prefer that
people don’t find out about that somewhat alarming statistic.
Food irradiation is one of the nuclear technologies that originated
with Dwight Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Program. Unveiled in 1953,
seven years after Hiroshima, the plan for the "peaceful atom" was
introduced so that "the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be
dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." The idea was to
shift public attention away from the death and destruction of nuclear
weapons and to promote other uses for nuclear technology, leaving in
place the academic and industrial infrastructure that would allow the
weapons program to continue. While most of the schemes spawned by the
Atoms for Peace program are long forgotten, including atomic planes,
nuclear heart pacemakers and nuclear-powered coffee pots, food
irradiation has persisted.
Food Irradiation Research
Early research by the U.S. Army, funded by the U.S. Department of
Defense, resulted in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 1963
approval of irradiation of can-packed bacon. But the regulation
permitting bacon irradiation was withdrawn in 1968 when the FDA decided
that the research on which it had based its approval was flawed. The
agency found that there were significant adverse health effects in
animals fed irradiated bacon, including decreases in the survival rates
of weaned young and greater losses of young animals eating irradiated
bacon.
More flawed science occurred between 1971 and 1977, when the Army
contracted with Industrial BioTest Ltd. (IBT), once the largest animal
testing facility in the U.S., to examine the long-term toxicity of
irradiated foods. As early as 1973, Army representatives observed
deficiencies in IBT’s handling of its work, but the contractual
arrangement continued. IBT conducted several studies on the potential
carcinogenicity and reproductive damage caused by irradiated food, but
government scientists eventually rejected IBT’s work because of
deficiencies in the research.
IBT’s work was further discredited in 1983, when three IBT directors
were convicted for, among other things, falsifying test data on a
variety of chemicals, including pesticides and pharmaceutical drugs,
while conducting research unrelated to irradiation Incredibly, IBT’s
research, although discredited, is still used as part of the scientific
basis for assurances on food safety.
All the while, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United
Nations agency that promotes nuclear technologies, was working on the
global acceptance of food irradiation. IAEA in 1959 signed an agreement
with the World Health Organization (WHO) giving IAEA "the primary
responsibility for encouraging, assisting and coordinating research on,
and development and practical application of atomic energy for peaceful
uses throughout the world." As a result, IAEA has had authority over
nuclear energy programs and has played a major role in encouraging
people to accept irradiated food, including organizing scientific
committees that promote the wholesomeness of irradiated food.
Meanwhile, in the 1970s, interest in food irradiation was smoldering
elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. In 1972, NASA employee Jack
Sivinski was looking for more work for his team of irradiation
biologists. They had been working at NASA investigating irradiation as
a method for sterilizing spacecraft to ensure that microbes from Earth
did not contaminate Mars. As it turned out, NASA chose another
technology for sterilization, but Sivinski saw new possibilities for
irradiation.
U.S. policy at the time called for reprocessing spent fuel rods from
nuclear power plants to recapture plutonium for use as reactor fuel.
Reprocessing also separates out other radioactive elements, including
cesium 137, which can be used to irradiate food. The Atomic Energy
Commission (which was broken up into two agencies in 1974: the
Department of Energy (DOE) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
launched the reprocessing program, but President Jimmy Carter ruined
Sivinski’s plans by banning the reprocessing of plutonium in civilian
reactors.
However, Sivinski had his operation moved to the weapons end of DOE,
where food irradiation became his major focus. The Byproducts
Utilization Program, a program designed to find profitable uses for
nuclear waste, was born as a result. Essentially, the government was
looking for a convenient way to dispose of nuclear waste. At a House
Armed Services Committee hearing in 1983, DOE admitted, "The
utilization of these radioactive materials simply reduces our waste
handling problem." Eventually, Sivinski left DOE to work for the major
environmental engineering consulting firm CH2M Hill, where he directed
the company’s irradiation research, under contract to his old office at
DOE.
The DOE’s scheme to use nuclear waste for food irradiation was severely
damaged in 1988 when a serious accident occurred at Radiation
Sterilizers in Decatur, Ga., where DOE’s cesium 137 was used for
irradiation. The water soluble radioactive isotope leaked into a water
storage pool, endangering workers and contaminating the facility.
Workers carried the radioactivity into their homes and cars. The mess
cost $47 million to clean up, and taxpayers picked up the tab.
The cast of characters promoting food irradiation includes Martin Welt,
president of Radiation Technology, Inc., which had irradiation plants
in New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina and Arkansas. Welt, a much-
quoted advocate of irradiation, was convicted on six criminal counts,
including conspiracy to defraud the government, lying to the NRC
investigators and intentionally violating the Atomic Energy Act.
Radiation Technology was cited 32 times for various violations,
including throwing radioactive garbage out with regular trash and
bypassing an interlock safety device that protected workers. It is a
rather frightening example of what could happen if hundreds of
irradiation facilities are built.
Irradiation Today
Food irradiation today remains as closely connected to the nuclear
weapons and atomic energy as it did in 1953. The list of advocates for
food irradiation has grown to include companies such as Titan, the
defense contractor that is using Star Wars technology (in which lasers
zap incoming missiles) to irradiate meat. Titan is following in the
footsteps of the Atoms for Peace program by using military technology
for a civilian purpose. Like earlier promoters of irradiation, Titan is
dependent on handouts from the federal government for a hefty chunk of
its revenue – 80 percent.
Despite the earlier setbacks, irradiation is being touted more than
ever as a way to clean food of contaminants such as pathogens in fecal
matter. Currently, it is legal to irradiate fresh meat and most
vegetables, fruit and spices, although food irradiation is not
extensive. However, the battle lines are being drawn more clearly as
industry pushes for the widespread irradiation of food while
environmental and food safety groups argue against it. Given the
lingering questions over the safety of food irradiation, many say it
would be wise to conduct more research before writing a new – and
potentially deadly – chapter to food irradiation’s history.
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/Historyofirradiation.htm
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
Question: Is irradiated food safe to eat?
Answer: No.
· Irradiated food has caused a myriad of health problems in laboratory
animals (and people in a few studies), including chromosomal damage,
immune and reproductive problems, kidney damage, tumors, internal
bleeding, low birth weight, and nutritional muscular dystrophy.
· Irradiation leads to the formation of Unique Radiolytic Products,
mysterious chemical compounds that have not been identified or studied
for their potential harm to humans. These products are free radicals,
which set off chain reactions in the body that destroy antioxidants,
tear apart cell membranes, and make the body more susceptible to
cancer, diabetes, heart disease, liver damage, muscular breakdown, and
other serious health problems.
· Irradiation does nothing to remove the feces, urine, pus, vomit and
tumors often left on beef, chicken, and lamb as the result of filthy
and inhumane slaughterhouse conditions. These conditions have worsened
as conveyer belts have speeded up (400 cow carcasses are processed per
hour nowadays) and public oversight of slaughterhouses has been
reduced.
· Irradiation can spawn mutant forms of E. coli, Salmonella and other
harmful bacteria, making them more difficult to kill.
· Irradiation destroys vitamins, nutrients and essential fatty acids,
including up to 95 percent of vitamin A in chicken and 86 percent of
vitamin B in oats. In some foods, irradiation can actually intensify
the vitamin and nutrient loss caused by cooking.
· Irradiation can lead to the formation of carcinogens and other toxic
chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, octane, butane and methyl
propane in certain foods.
· Irradiation can corrupt the flavor, texture and other physical
properties of certain foods, leading to meat that smells like a wet dog
and onions that turn brown.
· Irradiation kills beneficial microorganisms, such as the yeasts and
molds that help keep botulism at bay, as well as the microorganisms
that create the aromas that tell us when food has gone bad.
Question: Are irradiation facilities safe?
Answer: Not always.
· According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 45 accidents at
U.S. (food and medical-supply) irradiation plants were recorded from
1974-89, at least two of which were covered up by irradiation company
executives, some of whom were criminally charged in federal court and
given prison time.
· Irradiation plant workers are exposed to dangerous radiation hazards.
Several have died or been exposed to near-fatal doses of radiation at
facilities throughout the world.
· Irradiation plants emit smog-forming, ground-level ozone into the
environment.
· Neighbors and the environment are endangered by plants that use
radioactive cobalt-60 or cesium-137, which must be replenished after
several years of use. Most of the cobalt-60 comes from a facility in
Canada, creating transportation hazards when "fresh" material is driven
to and waste driven from the plants.
· Irradiation encourages the proliferation of nuclear technology at a
point in history when a vast majority of Americans and people
throughout the world are demanding that we back away from the use of
nuclear material. A facility in Florida is owned by a company
associated with a Canadian outfit that has sold nuclear technology to
China, India and Pakistan.
Question: Did U.S. officials thoroughly study irradiation before
legalizing it?
Answer: No.
· The FDA relied on only 5 of more than 400 scientific studies to
determine that irradiated food is safe to eat. Of those five, only
three have been published in peer-reviewed journals. In two of the
studies, researchers used doses of radiation at or far below those
approved by the FDA, rendering the studies virtually if not completely
useless. The agency has rejected every study that has drawn into
question the safety of irradiation.
· The FDA used 38 studies that agency scientists once
declared "deficient" to support the safety of irradiated food.
· The FDA has not followed its own rules that require elaborate
toxicological experiments be conducted before legalizing irradiation,
including a requirement that the Unique Radiolytic Products generated
by the process be subjected to in-depth testing.
· The FDA has begun to conduct and approve expedited reviews of food
irradiation applications from industry, admitting—in at least one—that
certain packaging materials may not be safe when exposed to radiation.
· No long-term studies have been done on the consumption of irradiated
food, a problem the FDA admits but has done nothing to correct.
Question: Can the research into food irradiation be trusted?
Answer: Not all of it.
· Research conducted at public universities is increasingly industry-
funded. A prominent Iowa State University professor who’s been
researching food irradiation for many years was just hired by Titan
Corporation, a leading irradiation company (and erstwhile defense
contractor). And, Titan recently entered a research contract with Texas
A&M University.
· Much of the early research into food irradiation, done during the
1960s and 1970s, was conducted by an Army-hired firm that was
eventually convicted of fraud for fabricating the results of its work.
· Very little toxicological testing has been done on irradiated food
during the past 20 years. New, updated tests should be performed with
the benefit of improved scientific methods.
Question: Is food irradiation good for the economy?
Answer: No.
· Food irradiation encourages the further consolidation of the food
production, processing, distribution, marketing and retailing
industries by giving the advantage to giant companies that can afford
this prohibitively expensive technology. In the process, the food
product marketplace is further homogenized and family farmers are put
at a greater disadvantage.
· If the U.S. government allows imported food to be irradiated—as it
may do in the near future—more of our fruit, vegetables and meat will
come from other countries, resulting in the closure of farms and the
loss of agricultural jobs here at home. Plus, this imported food will
be older, more bland and less nutritious than food grown in the U.S.
· Food irradiation adds unnecessarily to the cost of food when less
expensive alternatives are available. A recent survey by Consumers for
Science in the Public Interest showed that irradiated ground beef being
sold in the Midwest cost up to 75 cents more per pound—more than 40
percent higher than non-irradiated beef—and that the irradiated beef
contained 25 percent fat.
Question: Are consumers receiving credible information about food
irradiation?
Answer: No.
· Many "unbiased" supporters of food irradiation in reality work on
behalf of the food industry. The corporate-funded American Council on
Science and Health, for instance, is chaired by
A. Alan Moghissi, whose anti-environment and anti-consumer positions
include fighting the removal of asbestos from schools and proclaiming
that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a good thing
for the agriculture industry.
· Food irradiation companies have been increasingly successful in
getting the media to call irradiation "pasteurization," which is an
entirely different process by which microorganisms are killed by
quickly heating and cooling food.
· Companies that irradiate with "e-beam" technology such as the Titan
Corporation are seeking to distinguish themselves from companies that
irradiate with gamma rays from radioactive sources. This is highly
misleading, as both e-beam (electrons fired from a linear accelerator
at nearly the speed of light) and gamma rays (high-frequency
electromagnetic waves) are forms of ionizing radiation—meaning that
they obliterate the bonds that hold atoms and molecules together and
create new chemical compounds.
· Furthermore, Titan and other irradiation companies are comparing
irradiating food with cooking food in a microwave oven. This comparison
is bogus. The radiation used to irradiate food is ionizing, meaning
that it drastically changes the chemical composition of food (see
above). Microwave radiation is non-ionizing, meaning that the chemical
structure of food is largely left intact.
Question: Should vegetarians care about irradiation?
Answer: Yes.
· Food processing companies aren’t irradiating just meat. Fruit and
vegetables are being irradiated, too—all of which suffer nutrient
destruction as bad or worse than in meat. Spices such as garlic powder
and paprika are being irradiated as well, and can be added to processed
foods without being labeled.
· Everybody should be concerned about E. coli contamination.
Irradiation does nothing to prevent this and other harmful bacteria
from winding up in drinking water supplies. Just last may, E. coli-
tainted drinking water killed at least seven people and sickened more
than 2,000 others in Ontario, Canada.
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/QandA.htm
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
While food irradiation advocates say that 40 years of research shows
the process to be safe, evidence for this assertion is missing.
Irradiation -- zapping food with radiation equivalent to 10 million to
70 million chest X-rays -- changes the molecular structure of food.
Irradiation creates new and potentially dangerous compounds, called
radiolytic products, by smashing apart the chemical bonds in food and
sending electrons flying. Although these unique radiolytic products –
which have yet to be enumerated and identified – as well as known
toxins such as formaldehyde and benzene have the potential to cause
cancer, there have been no studies conducted on the long-term health
effects of eating irradiated food. In fact, almost all research on
toxicity was done before 1980 and did not use modern toxicological
methods of research.
Nutrients and vitamins (A, thiamin, B complex, C and E) take a beating
under the onslaught of irradiation. Irradiation destroys up to 95
percent of vitamin A in chicken, 86 percent of vitamin B in oats, and
70 percent of vitamin C in fruit juices, research shows. Essential
amino acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids can be depleted as well.
And because irradiation increases shelf life, irradiated food likely
will sit in stores longer, losing even more nutritional content.
How Did Irradiation Become Legal?
Hundreds of formal studies have been conducted over the past 40 years,
but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected almost all of
them, saying they were poorly done. Many found that irradiation led to
serious health problems in laboratory animals, including shorter life
spans, low birth weight, kidney damage, immune and reproductive
problems, chromosomal abnormalities and tumors.
Without exception, FDA officials have chosen to ignore any evidence
that suggests irradiation may be dangerous. This has been especially
true since 1980, when former U.S. Rep. Margaret Heckler, (R-Mass.), a
long-time irradiation booster, became Secretary of Health and Human
Services, the agency that oversees the FDA. For 16 years, Heckler
represented the district in Massachusetts where the Army conducted its
original irradiation research.
Until 1980, the FDA had been fairly cautious about irradiation, even
though there was a tremendous amount of pressure from the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE), the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and the fledgling irradiation industry to move ahead with
legalizing the process. The FDA had already had a bad experience in the
1960s when it rescinded its legalization of irradiated canned bacon
because of questions about the validity of the studies used to prove
the safety of the process.
Before 1980, the FDA maintained that approval of irradiation would be
based on animal testing -- the accepted method of establishing the
safety of particular food additives (irradiation is classified as an
additive). However, the FDA discovered that a large number of the
studies that had initially shown irradiation to be safe were conducted
by Industrial BioTest, Ltd., a company whose work on irradiation was
deemed deficient by government officials. (Three company directors were
later convicted for falsifying test data on a different matter.)
As a result, the FDA changed the rationale on which it based its
conclusion that irradiation is safe. Rather than using animal testing,
it used a theoretical calculation of risk based on the number of
potentially harmful new chemicals to which a consumer might be exposed
from irradiated food. This new reasoning came from the Bureau of Foods’
Irradiated Food Committee, which the FDA formed in early 1980 and which
issued a final report in July 1980 concluding – based on theory, rather
than research – that irradiation was safe.
In 1981, the FDA formed a second committee, the Bureau of Foods’
Irradiated Foods Task Group, which reviewed all available toxicological
data concerning irradiated foods. Of 441 studies reviewed by the Task
Group, 32 were found to indicate adverse results, while 37 "appeared"
to support safety of irradiation. The rest were deemed to be deficient.
Upon detailed analysis, the Task Group accepted only five studies
that "appeared" to support safety. Committee Chairman Marcia van Gemert
cautioned in 1982 that "studies of sufficiently high quality to support
the safety of irradiated foods treated at high irradiation doses, which
constitute major contributions to the daily diet, for long-term use are
… not available."
Since that time, things have been quiet on the food irradiation
research front, and no studies have been done on the long-term health
effects of consuming irradiated food.
Van Gemert’s warning is as timely as ever. At this writing, the FDA is
considering a proposal from the powerful National Food Processors
Association to irradiate ready-to-eat food such as TV dinners and
luncheon meat. Others are concerned as well. For 10 years, Donald
Louria, chair of preventive medicine and community health at the New
Jersey University of Medicine, has been raising red flags about the
dangers of food irradiation.
He remains quite worried: "Until the industry is willing to agree to
nutritional studies on each type of irradiated food and to put the
results on the label, and until there is a proper study of the
potential chromosomal damage of irradiation, we should not be
irradiating our foods."
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/Is%20irradiated%20food%20safe.htm
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
The Truth About E-Beam, Gamma Rays, Pasteurization and Microwaves
As much as the debate over food irradiation has been corrupted by
misinformation and outright mistruths, the facts surrounding this under-
studied, over-hyped technology are being warped further still by those
with a financial stake in its proliferation.
Over the past few weeks, several U.S. large companies that produce and
market irradiated beef have succeeded in planting the misleading
phrases "electronic pasteurization" and "cold pasteurization" into
media stories about irradiation. They have also succeeded in
distinguishing "e-beam" irradiation from gamma ray irradiation—making
the former sound more innocuous than the latter—when each type of
technology poses precisely the same health risks to people who eat food
that’s been "treated" with radiation.
Leading the misinformation campaign is the Titan Corporation, an
erstwhile defense contractor and notorious polluter that recently
opened an e-beam irradiator in Sioux City, Iowa. At Titan’s facility,
meat is zapped with electrons fired nearly to the speed of light—nearly
300,000 miles-per-second—from a linear accelerator (not unlike the one
Titan developed for President Reagan’s ill-fated Star Wars missile-
defense program).
Titan’s public relations material characterizes e-beam technology as
safer and cleaner than gamma ray irradiation, which relies on decaying
radioactive sources such as cobalt-60 and cesium-137. True, e-beam
irradiators do not use radioactive material or generate radioactive
waste, but their damaging effects on food are indistinguishable from
those caused by gamma rays.
Food irradiated by either process is deficient in vitamins and other
nutrients, has caused serious health problems in laboratory animals,
tastes and smells worse, is bereft of beneficial microorganisms that
keep botulism and other potential deadly maladies at bay, may contain
carcinogens and mysterious chemical compounds, and—in the case of meat—
may still be tainted with feces, urine, pus and vomit resulting from
filthy slaughterhouse practices.
Facile comparisons of e-beam irradiators to such everyday products as
TVs and microwave ovens are so much hokum. Yes, television sets use
streams of electrons to generate the pictures you see. But it would
take 1.4 billion TVs to generate the amount of radiation generated when
meat is "treated" by an e-beam accelerator.
In the case of microwave ovens, the devices use non-ionizing radiation,
meaning that the radiation is not powerful enough to obliterate the
chemical bonds that hold atoms and molecules together (which is also
the case with visible and ultraviolet light.) All forms of irradiation,
however—including e-beam and gamma ray—use ionizing radiation, meaning
that when the radiation strikes food, electrons are sent careening in
all directions. The intended goal of killing harmful bacteria by
ripping apart their DNA may be accomplished, but the unintended
consequences of creating carcinogens such as benzene and formaldehyde,
as well as little-understood chemicals called "unique radiolytic
products," also result.
What’s more, e-beam irradiators can actually make food radioactive, if
only briefly. And this can happen at levels as low as one-third of the
level at which meat is "treated" by Titan and other e-beam irradiators.
This form of electromagnetic radiation is called Bremsstrahlung, which
occurs when an electron gets so close to the nucleus of an atom that
the nuclear charge creates a sudden change in the electron’s path.
Another example of spin control is the comparing of irradiation to
pasteurization. Louis Pasteur would likely have a fit if he knew that
irradiation companies and their clients were invoking his name to
obscure the true nature of their operations.
Huisken Meats of Chandler, Minn., which recently started selling Titan-
irradiated ground-beef patties at more than 150 grocery stores in five
Midwestern states, announced on its website (www.huiskenmeats.com) that
the meat has undergone "the irradiation process (more properly called
electronic, or cold pasteurization)."
There is nothing proper about comparing a process by which milk is
quickly heated and cooled to a process by which food is exposed to the
equivalent of tens of millions of chest x-rays—more than enough to turn
nutritious, good-tasting food into vitamin-depleted, chemically altered
mush that can smell like a wet dog.
While it is against federal law not to label irradiated food as such,
companies such as Titan and Huisken have been permitted by media
organizations to blur the facts about the irradiation process and its
harmful effects on our food supply. For the sake of consumers, the
misinformation campaign should be put to an end.
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/foodirradbyanyothername.htm
Jim Webster
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
<8oej64$3n5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>http://www.citizen.org/cmep/rad-food/Key%20Research.htm
>
>How It Hurts:
>Key Research on the Unwholesomeness of Irradiated Food
snip
the good old days are back again, once more chivey is posting vast numbers
of references that he hasn't read. Interesting the dates of some of these
papers, an awful lot of these papers are over 25 years old. At the very
least it does mean they aren't on the net. Note also he no longer posts the
hypertext link, he's learned the hard way that people will check up on his
postings
Jim Webster
Maren Purves wrote in message <39AB19...@jach.hawaii.edu>...
I did once have soviet airline food. Quite literally a lump of rye bread and
a lump of fish with a dish of tea. However as the stewardess carried a gun
one didn't want to argue
Jim Webster
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
<8of8d0$sb8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Irradiation By Any Other Name:
>The Truth About E-Beam, Gamma Rays, Pasteurization and Microwaves
>
>As much as the debate over food irradiation has been corrupted by
>misinformation and outright mistruths, the facts surrounding this under-
>studied, over-hyped technology are being warped further still by those
>with a financial stake in its proliferation.
>
David L. Paxton
> Irradiation Today
>
> Food irradiation today remains as closely connected to the nuclear
> weapons and atomic energy as it did in 1953. The list of advocates for
> food irradiation has grown to include companies such as Titan, the
> defense contractor that is using Star Wars technology (in which lasers
> zap incoming missiles) to irradiate meat. Titan is following in the
> footsteps of the Atoms for Peace program by using military technology
> for a civilian purpose. Like earlier promoters of irradiation, Titan is
> dependent on handouts from the federal government for a hefty chunk of
> its revenue – 80 percent.
This guy is so full of bull that I am no longer going to continue with
this string. The irradiation plants I have personally visited have
absolutely NOTHING to do with the nuclear weapons. Has NOTHING to do
with defense contractors. The irradiating equipment itself was built by
a medical company I believe, it's been a long time, several years. There
is absolutely NO radio isotopes on the premises. There is NO way that
any residual radiation can exist. The irradiating source is an electron
tube, like the modern Xray machines. But it emits gamma radiation. The
food (and other things being sterilized) is place on a conveyor belt
that takes it in close proximity to the electron tube and the speed of
the belt determines the dose of radiation. When the power is shut off
you can walk into the room right up next to the tube and there is no
harm that can be done. Star wars, zapping satellites, defense
contractors, come on guy, wake up and face reality. I don't think he has
any idea what he is talking about, just putting out what he has read
from someone else. I read up on it. I studied it. I went to the plants
to see first hand what was done, how it was done, and what hazards can
occur. He obviously only knows what he has read from these scare groups
that are trying to push the atomic hysteria as far as they can to stop
this practice. And probably if you trace it all the way back to where
the funding comes from you will find someone like a canning industry or
bottling plant. Just as all the research against most of the artificial
sweeteners was done by the sugar companies. Do you think they want to
find it safe??? Yeh, right. He just keeps spewing forth all this
misinformation and anti radiation propaganda no mater what is said and
has no real reply to counterpoints or questions posed, just more
dribble.
Look up the research the government did yourself, it's on the web. Go
visit an irradiation plant and see if anything he has said has any
footing in reality at all. Don't let all his hype make up your minds for
you, see it for yourself. MOST of the irradiation plants will give
guided tours from time to time. Go see if you can find any nuclear waste
or weapons materials at any sight. Get real guy.
Big Dave
Chris Mead
from "David L. Paxton" <dlpa...@gate.net> contains these words:
> This guy is so full of bull that I am no longer going to continue with
> this string.
> Big Dave
Our Chivey has done it again!
Is this his 'reason of being' (I would hate to post in foreign as it
might blow all the diodes down his right side).
--
Chris Mead
Hilborough, Norfolk
chris...@zetnet.co.uk
Marcus Turner
"Jim Webster" <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:8ofmnc$mkp$8...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
> <8of8d0$sb8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >Irradiation By Any Other Name:
> >The Truth About E-Beam, Gamma Rays, Pasteurization and Microwaves
> >
> >As much as the debate over food irradiation has been corrupted by
> >misinformation and outright mistruths, the facts surrounding this under-
> >studied, over-hyped technology are being warped further still by those
> >with a financial stake in its proliferation.
> >
> and also by those who have a financial stake in its competitors
Just a little bit more of the Nader propaganda...
been there done that
so what
--
Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy
might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in
the grave, whither thou goest.
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
"Marcus Turner" <mtu...@mobiusg.com> wrote:
>
> "Jim Webster" <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
message
> news:8ofmnc$mkp$8...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
> >
> > <8of8d0$sb8$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> > >Irradiation By Any Other Name:
> > >The Truth About E-Beam, Gamma Rays, Pasteurization and Microwaves
> > >
> > >As much as the debate over food irradiation has been corrupted by
> > >misinformation and outright mistruths, the facts surrounding this
under-
> > >studied, over-hyped technology are being warped further still by
those
> > >with a financial stake in its proliferation.
> > >
> > and also by those who have a financial stake in its competitors
>
Looks like you made a typo. You must have meant "Webster" propaganda.
The post that I made is backed by legitimate scientific evidence.
Unlike GMO propagandist and chemical agriculture shill Webster.
- SOCkM
Jim Webster
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
<8ohqie$t7e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
hey guys, looks like this farm boy has just been promoted.
Jim Webster
We worship the inexorable god known as Dangott.
Strangers are automatically heretics, and so are fed to the sacred apes.
>
Bob Myers
backed by legitimate scientific evidence.
> >
> >Unlike GMO propagandist and chemical agriculture shill Webster.
>
Hey, congratulations, Jim! Don't forget the rest of us "little
people" back here in this hell-hole, who will still have to
listen to Chivey's rantings.
Bob M.
tr...@geneseo.net
"Jim Webster" <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
snip
>
> >> Just a little bit more of the Nader propaganda...
> >
> >Looks like you made a typo. You must have meant "Webster"
propaganda.
> >The post that I made is backed by legitimate scientific evidence.
> >
> >Unlike GMO propagandist and chemical agriculture shill Webster.
>
> hey guys, looks like this farm boy has just been promoted.
>
> Jim Webster
Damn! And I haven't even been able to get killfiled yet! How DO you do
it Jim? ;-)
--
oootroyooocooo
ooochiveo...@my-deja.com
Treatments for contaminated or infested foods in general
News about other solutions for meat contamination
Contact us with new information
July 24, 2000
General treatments for contaminated or infested foods
(Note: This is just a few of the available alternatives to irradiation.
More will be added in time. This is not a complete list!)
The simplest solution: cook food thoroughly, or wash with soap.
Even simpler--don't contaminate in the first place!
From the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition of the FDA, the
summary of a very technical report that is being prepared by the
Institute of Food Technologists. The report summarizes the status of
and problems with a variety of food preservation technologies. These
include ultraviolet (which damages DNA just like irradiation), x-rays
(same), high pressure, pulsed light, and others.
A new ultra-high pressure technology harnesses the natural, low-heat
power of hydrostatic pressure to destroy the specific cell structure of
such pathogens as Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli, while maintaining
the product's inherent nutritional value, taste, and color. Fresher
Under Pressure is currently being used in the United States and abroad
by manufacturers of fresh juices, sauces, meats, and seafood. This
technology can replace traditional food safety systems such as
pasteurization, irradiation, or chemicals.
Spices
Heat treatment seems to be the least toxic alternative. Ethylene oxide
(ETO) has been used, but is a probable carcinogen and, like methyl
bromide, depletes ozone. Irradiation is widely used.
Frontier Coop, a company that sells nonirradiated spices, says "There
are several chemical alternatives to ETO sterilization. Irradiation and
exposure to methyl bromide are the most common. Unfortunately, these
sterilization methods pose as many, if not more, threats than ETO does.
There are currently very few natural alternatives to ETO. Heat
sterilization, although useful in some spices, is not suitable for
treating all spices because of the sensitivity of their aroma and
flavor components. Natural fumigation methods, like the use of CO2
chambers, will kill bugs and their eggs but won't sterilize." (source)
Frontier uses heat treatment and a rigorous testing program.
Fresh juices
Cinnamon is a lethal weapon against E. coli in unpasteurized juice.
Food extracts of highly flavored foods, including vanilla, cinnamon,
pepper and almond, contain compounds that inhibit growth of bacteria.
The technology is under investigation at the U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
Fresh fruits
(Source: Irradiating Hawaii's Fruit). The problem is disinfestation of
fruit flies--this applies to many fruits.
"Dole has invested in the Hot Forced Air and expects to use it for a
variety of fruits. The Hot Forced Air was developed here in Hawaii and
sales of the units to other countries and the mainland benefit the
University of Hawaii financially."
"Could someone please explain how any of the four species of fruit
flies we harbor in Hawaii can survive cold summer evenings, let alone
the winter, in Minnesota? And why is it that Florida, which hosts the
Caribbean fruit fly, is only under quarantine for mangos and starfruit
to the three states of California, Arizona, and Texas, yet can ship
those same fruits into Utah, Nevada and New Mexico without post harvest
treatments? By the way, Florida currently uses hot dip for mangos and
cold treatment for starfruit to comply with the quarantine in the three
states mentioned above."
"The U.S. taxpayers have already invested millions of dollars into
research of non-nuclear hot and cold technologies for post harvest
treatment of fresh tropical products. Some of that work has been done
in Hilo, Hawaii, by the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA.
There is a five-page update on the status of their research which can
be downloaded from the Internet. In short, we have an effective cold
technology that works on Sharwil avocados and starfruit. We have a hot
dip for lychee, a dry heat treatment for papaya which may be better
than vapor heat, a heat shock for red ginger, and many other "on the
verge" technologies. When methyl bromide becomes prohibited for use in
year 2001, a dry heat could be used to meet quarantine requirements for
shipments of green coffee beans. Steam treaments for sterilizing media
already exist. Most of these non-nuclear technologies can be
implemented at low cost, on a small scale, which probably makes more
economic sense than the medium to large scale facilities required for
irradiation to be cost effective."
Meat and Poultry
As detailed in the "Fact Sheet: New Technologies" from the American
Meat Institute, a variety of technologies are being used in 50-90% of
American meat plants. Carcass rinsing with hot water, organic acids and
trisodium phosphate are being tested. Ozonation uses water infused with
ozone molecules to reduce/eliminate bacterial contamination. Steam
pasteurization (a burst of superheated steam for less than one
second) "effectively pasteurizes the exterior of the carcass just
before it enters the cooler." Steam and hot water vacuums remove
visible dirt or debris aseptically (this replaces the previous practice
of trimming off the contamination).
Research is under way on a variety of promising approaches, including
pulsed energy, bright light, high pressure, and other nonthermal
technologies, but few are ready for immediate application (13,14; Fed
Reg 61:42381-83, 1997).
Cetylpyridinium chloride may prevent Salmonella
5/19/2000-According to a report in The MEATing Place, an Arkansas
researcher has proposed that cetylpyridinium chloride, the active
ingredient in some mouthwashes, may be used to clean pathogens from
chicken carcasses. FSIS has agreed to sample poultry carcasses after
post-chill treatment (without rinsing) with cetylpyridinium chloride,
said Amy Waldroup, a professor in the Department of Poultry Science at
the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. The antimicrobial also kills
campylobacter and Listeria, and extends product shelf life by two to
three days, said Waldroup. Treatment costs average about 80 cents per
hundred birds. Waldroup said the promising application for this product
is on fully cooked, ready-to-eat products because it kills Listeria.
Waldroup said she is currently petitioning FSIS to approve
cetylpyridinium chloride as a food additive and hopes to gain approval
this year, perhaps by the end of summer.
Lactoferrin starves E. coli and other microbes
June 14, 2000: During a recent study, Cal Poly researchers found that
the milk protein lactoferrin, when applied to raw meat
surfaces, “starved” E. coli O157:H7 and thwarted it from affixing
itself to the surface of a meat sample. Laboratory results indicate the
activated form of lactoferrin is effective against more than 30
different kinds of harmful bacteria, including E. coli O157:H7,
Salmonella and Campylobacter. The technique is reportedly inexpensive
and can be used in the slaughter, processing and packaging stages. It
is being tested by Farmland Beef of Kansas City, MO, as of June, 2000.
After deploying the method itself, Farmland plans to make the
technology available to the industry at large.
About ozone
Gamma rays and electron-beams are not the only things that can kill
disease-causing organisms in food: chlorine, steam, pressure, laser
light and ozone. Ozone is an unstable. three-atom form of oxygen. When
ozone comes unstuck, it forms one two-atom oxygen molecule and one lone
oxygen atom. This atom is highly reactive, and it can burst the cell
wall of a bacterium rapidly. For this reason, it is a better
disinfectant than chlorine, a tried-and-true microbe killer that's used
throughout the food industry. The Food and Drug Administration has put
ozone in the "generally recognized as safe" category, allowing it to
skip regulatory hurdles that would otherwise keep it out of the food
industry. Treatment with ozone-bearing water kills upwards of 90
percent of pathogens on surfaces.Ozone can be retrofitted almost
immediately into a plant that uses water in its processing.
News about other solutions for meat contamination
Why we have a problem... May 13, 2000: The USDA has "given away the
shop" to the meat industry, says head of meat inspectors union. "In the
1950s we condemned carcasses with fecal contamination, in the 1970s it
was cut off, in the 1980s it was washed off and in the 1990s it is
eaten."
May 12, 2000: Kansas State University tests suggest that 99.99% of
Listeria bacteria can be removed from processed meats by steam
treatment.
April 4, 2000: Processors can reduce E. coli contamination to 2% of
beef carcasses--without irradiation.
March 1, 2000: An estimated 89% of U.S. beef ground into patties is
contaminated with E. coli O157H:7.
November 17, 1999 - E. coli bacteria is in half of all US cattle.
Scientists discover that simple change in cattle diets before slaughter
effectively eliminates E. coli O157:H7.
More on why we have a problem... May 13, 2000: "Schools get tainted
chicken." "Beef industry says: 'Let them eat Salmonella.'" What the
meat industry isn't telling you, from the Government Accountability
Project
http://www.purefood.org/irrad/Alternatives.cfm
Jim Webster
Bob Myers wrote in message <8ojf1i$9me$1...@fcnews.fc.hp.com>...>news:8ojdvc$c2v$4...@news5.svr.pol.co.uk...
>backed by legitimate scientific evidence.
>> >
>> >Unlike GMO propagandist and chemical agriculture shill Webster.
>>
>
>people" back here in this hell-hole, who will still have to
>listen to Chivey's rantings.
>
>Bob M.
>
Hey, I couldn't have made it without you all, you Bob, Troy & B B.
Hey now I'm corporate and it's all expense account then its my treat as soon
as the money comes though. Hows about the Carribean for some sort of high
level conference?
Not only that but now I'm obviously such a big wheel in the corporate world
I may well have a new job for our outfits street samurai. With me in charge
merely posting under an assumed name isn't going to hide anyone :-)))
Maren Purves
>
> On Wed, 30 Aug 2000 17:31:41 +0100, Jim Webster wrote:
>
> >>Unlike GMO propagandist and chemical agriculture shill Webster.
> >
>
or does it?
David Surgi
or grow what you want.
--
Thanks
DCS
Guns Don't Kill People
People Kill People
--
Thanks
DCS
Practice Gun Control+++-Hit what you are aiming at.+++
David Surgi
:=)
--
Thanks
DCS
Guns Don't Kill People
People Kill People
and Always
sl
Congrats . . . .
Can I have a grant?
sl
Jim Webster
David Surgi wrote in message ...
>then don't eat it
>
>or grow what you want.
unfortunately this would involve him actually having to do some work,
actually have to get off his fat backside and actually do a bit of hard
work, soil his lilly white hands,
Not only that, he'd have less time for fatuous postings as well
Jim Webster
We worship the inexorable god known as Dangott.
Strangers are automatically heretics, and so are fed to the sacred apes.
>
>
>--
>Thanks
>DCS
>
>Guns Don't Kill People
>People Kill People
>
>
>--
>Thanks
>
>DCS
Jim Webster
Maren Purves wrote in message <39AD90...@jach.hawaii.edu>...
>B.B. Bean wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Aug 2000 17:31:41 +0100, Jim Webster wrote:
>>
>> >
>>
>
>or does it?
cannot be any worse than farming surely?
I remember being told by a clergymen that the wages of sin were still death.
I assumed that there had to be a lot of extra perks in there somewhere which
didn't appear on the bottom line. Actually it was a great temptation to sign
up for sin right away and hope that if I could jack up my income I would be
taxed at over 60% of my wages
Jim Webster
sl wrote in message ...
>>
>> ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote in message
>> <8ohqie$t7e$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>
>
>Can I have a grant?
hey as soon as the money comes though I'm not going to be mean with it. I
know that it's all the help I've had from you guys which made me what I am
today so it's going to be share and share alike once this money starts
pouring in.
Jim Webster
We worship the inexorable god known as Dangott.
Strangers are automatically heretics, and so are fed to the sacred apes.
>
>sl
>
>
>
>
li...@ork.net
> The amount of radiation involved is substantial. The FDA has approved a
> 3,000,000 rad dosage for treating spices, 300,000 rad for pork, and
> 100,000 rad for fresh fruits and vegetables. These intensities are
> millions of times greater than that of an ordinary chest X-ray (which
> is typically about 20 millirad).
Fortunately, fruits and vegetables are not connected to my chest in any
way.
li...@ork.net
>>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
>>
>>and microwave ovens!
> I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people queue
> for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the attitude
> to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
I must admit that the level of education in our country has fallen to
dangerous levels (more dangerous even than irradiation) if there exist
people who actually type to Usenet that do not know the significant
quantitative and qualitative difference between juggling molecules via
microwaves and irradiating food with radiation.
What next? Lack of knowledge of the difference between molecules and atoms
and particles?
Chive Mynde
UNfortunately, you are wrong.
There is concern that foods processed by irradiation may contain
radiolytic products that could have toxic effects.
Read up on the issue.
--
"Imagination is the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable
universe is but a shadow, in which we shall live in our eternal or
imaginative bodies when these vegetable mortal bodies are no more."
- William Blake
Night Child
> In sci.skeptic Jim Webster <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
> >>
> >>and microwave ovens!
>
> > I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people queue
> > for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the attitude
> > to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
>
> I must admit that the level of education in our country has fallen to
> dangerous levels (more dangerous even than irradiation) if there exist
> people who actually type to Usenet that do not know the significant
> quantitative and qualitative difference between juggling molecules via
> microwaves and irradiating food with radiation.
>
Just because we typically don't use the word "radiation" for the things
we encounter every day doesn't mean they aren't radiation. Ooh, scary
word. It's also sunlight, and microwaves, and radio waves, etc. The
same electromagnetic energy used to sterilize food, the only "significant
qualitative difference" being it is a much shorter wavelength. We're not
talking about "radioactivity". That is when atoms emit particles as they
decay. If you ingest something radioactive its like having millions of little
transmitters in your body...not good. If you feel fine ingesting something
that was irradiated by sunlight I don't see the problem with higher or
lower frequencies going through the same food. It does not "contain"
the radiation. It does not become radioactive.
David Kendra
> In article <Dhvu5.356$kU4....@news.shore.net>,
> li...@ork.net wrote:
> > In sci.skeptic ooochiveo...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > > The amount of radiation involved is substantial. The FDA has
> approved a
> > > 3,000,000 rad dosage for treating spices, 300,000 rad for pork, and
> > > 100,000 rad for fresh fruits and vegetables. These intensities are
> > > millions of times greater than that of an ordinary chest X-ray
> (which
> > > is typically about 20 millirad).
> >
> > Fortunately, fruits and vegetables are not connected to my chest in
> any
> > way.
>
> UNfortunately, you are wrong.
>
> There is concern that foods processed by irradiation may contain
> radiolytic products that could have toxic effects.
Can you please supply a reference from a peer reviewed journal to support
this claim? Thanks.
dk
Chive Mynde
I already have, multiple times. Where have you been?
Increased chromosomal damage in animals and humans
M.W. Shaw, E. Hayes. "Effects of irradiated sucrose on the chromosomes
of human lymphocytes in vitro." Nature. 1966; 211: 1254-1256.
Vijayalaxmi and S.G. Srikantia. "A review of the studies on the
wholesomeness of irradiated wheat, conducted at the National Institute
of Nutrition, India." Radiat. Phys. Chem. 1989; 34: 941-952.
Formation of "Unique Radiolytic Products" in food
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Recent Advances in Food Irradiation.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1983.
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Radiation Chemistry of Major Food Groups.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1977.
Edward S. Josephson and Martin S. Peterson, eds. Preservation of Food
by Ionizing Radiation (3 vols). Florida: CRC Press, 1982, 1983.
Increased frequency of cell mutations
A.S. Aiyar, V. Subba Rao. "Studies on mutagenicity of irradiated sugar
solutions in Salmonella typhimurium." Mutation Research. 1977; 48: 17-
28.
O. Parkash. "Mutagenic effect of irradiated DNA in Drosophila
melanogaster." Nature. 1967; 4:611-612.
R.R. Rinehart, F.J. Ratty. "Mutation in Drosophila melanogaster
cultured on irradiated food." Genetics. 1965; 52: 1119-1126.
M.S. Swaminathan, S. Nirula, A.T. Natarajan, R.P. Sharma. "Mutations:
Incidence in Drosophila melanogaster reared on irradiated medium."
Science. 1963; 141:637-638.
J. Wilmer, J. Schubert, H. Leveling. "Mutagenicity of gamma-irradiated,
oxygenated and deoxygenated solutions of 2-deoxy-D-ribose and D-ribose
in Salmonella typhimurium." Mutation Research. 1981; 90:385-397.
J. Wilmer, A.T. Natarajan. "Induction of sister chromatid exchanges and
chromosome aberrations by gamma-irradiated nucleic acid constituents in
CHO cells." Mutation Research. 1981; 88:99-107.
Formation of mutant bacteria
R. Davies and A.J. Sinskey. Journal of Bacteria. 1973; 113: 133-144.
W.S. Stone, O. Wyss, F. Haas. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. 1947; 33: 59-66.
Decreased nutritional content in food
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Recent Advances in Food Irradiation.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1983.
P.S. Elias and A.J. Cohen. Radiation Chemistry of Major Food Groups.
Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier Biomedical Press, 1977.
Food Chemical News. "Irradiation compounds vitamin loss from cooking,
ARS reports." Nov. 10, 1986: 42.
Edward S. Josephson and Martin S. Peterson, eds. Preservation of Food
by Ionizing Radiation (3 vols). Florida: CRC Press, 1982, 1983.
Increased carcinogens and other toxins in food
Life Sciences Research Office, Federation of American Societies for
Experimental Biology. "Evaluation of the health aspects of certain
compounds sound in irradiated beef." PB84-187087. Bethesda: August
1977.
Increased frequency of tumors, reduced survival rate, and other health
problems in animals
Raltech Scientific Services Inc. Final Reports. Contract DAMD 17-76-C-
6047. 1977-83.
Corrupted flavor and texture of food
E.K. Akamine and J.H. Moy. In Preservation of Food by Ionizing
Radiation, Vol. 3 (Edward S. Josephson and Martin S. Peterson, eds).
Florida: CRC Press. 1983; 129-158.
E.C. Maxie, et al. Radiation Botany. 1964; 4: 405-411.
E.C. Maxie and A. Abdel-Kader. Advances in Food Research. 1966; 15: 105-
145.
E.C. Maxie el al. Proceedings of the 1st International Citrus
Symposium. Vol. 3. 1969; 1375-1387.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1990/s90/s90louria.html
The irradiation process produces unique radiolytic products whose
chemical and toxic properties have not been characterized. In-vitro
tests in the laboratory suggest that some of these products may cause
mutations, and these tests have led critics of irradiation to contend
that some irradiated foods may prove carcinogenic. But there are no
substantial data from epidemiological studies on either animals or
humans to support that contention. Unless the chemical properties of
all the radiolytic products are identified, and animals studies using
amplified doses are conducted, there is no way to prove that a cancer
risk exists and, if so, whether it would fall within acceptable limits.
Adequate evidence for prudent decisions on the cancer risk of food
irradiation will not be available for some time.
Chive Mynde
Group has beef with irradiation
BY MARK ANDERSEN Lincoln Journal Star
Where's the irradiated beef?
No longer at Super Saver.
And a group critical of meat irradiation will take its "beef"
elsewhere.
Nebraska Citizen Action Network on Thursday called off a rally planned
for Saturday in front of Super Saver at 48th and O streets. Instead, it
will hold a rally two weeks later in front of another store still
selling irradiated beef.
"We are concerned that irradiation allows the meatpacking industry to
mask . . . the problems of industrial slaughter," such as
contamination, said NCAN President Sally Herrin. She claims irradiation
also harms vitamins, enzymes and leaves trace levels of radiation in
the meat.
Industry officials say the Food and Drug Administration has evaluated
those claims and found them baseless.
Irradiation is less detrimental to meat than cooking it or freezing it,
said Cliff Albertson, sales manager of Minnesota-based Huisken Meats, a
supplier of irradiated beef patties to Lincoln stores.
"The FDA has determined there is no impact on the diet (from
irradiation)," he said.
Spencer Stevens, an Omaha-based vice president of SureBeam, which
irradiates Huisken's meat at Sioux City, Iowa, said that if the process
left trace amounts of radiation, "I wish they'd show it to me. There
are no trace amounts."
He also said claims that irradiation masks meat industry sins is an
unfair slap at meatpackers.
"We, probably, in the United States have the safest food supply in the
world," Stevens said.
Herrin disputes the FDA findings that irradiation is safe. The FDA also
accepted the safety of genetically modified foods on the say-so of the
industry, she said.
"My sources say it truly is an inferior product and there are better
ways for us to go to ensure food safety," she said.
Super Saver pulled its irradiated hamburger patties not because of
safety concerns but because of poor sales, said Pat Raybould, president
of Lincoln-based parent company B&R Stores.
"Because all products in a grocery store have to meet certain sales
levels to justify space," Raybould said in a prepared statement, "we
always review (them) on a product-by-product basis, and at this time
this product is not meeting our expectations."
Hy-Vee stores in Lincoln and elsewhere will continue to offer
irradiated meat as a labeled alternative alongside other meat products,
said Ruth Mitchell, a corporate spokeswoman from West Des Moines, Iowa.
For customers concerned about the hazards of foodborne pathogens like E
coli and listeria, irradiated meat will be available. People more
concerned about effects of irradiation have the option of buying
something else, she said.
"The decision rightfully belongs in the hands of the consumer,"
Mitchell said.
Super Saver and Hy-Vee are among Nebraska stores that in August began
carrying irradiated beef patties supplied by Huisken Meats of Chandler,
Minn. That followed final federal approval in February by the FDA and
the U.S. Department of Agriculture of use of irradiation to wipe out E.
coli and other meat-pathogen problems.
Spencer said five cells of the pathogen E coli 0157:h7 are sufficient
to cause severe illness. "Do you know how hard it is to find five
cells?"
The industry can never test enough to find all contaminated meat, he
said.
"I hate to see these kinds of scare tactics that some of these groups
subject our citizenry to," he said. "When the truth of matter is, we're
saving lives and providing a safer product."
Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mand...@journalstar.com.
Chive Mynde
Action Alert: Defend Fresh, Raw Food!
Submit comments no later than September 20, 2000.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wants to expand the definition
of "fresh" on food labels to include alternative "nonthermal"
processes.
In 1993, the FDA established the definition of fresh food as food that
is raw, or in its finished form, and has not been subjected to any form
of thermal processing or other form of preservation. Included in this
definition are foods treated with approved waxes or coatings, foods
applied with approved pesticides post-harvest, the application of mild
chlorine or acid washes on produce, and the treatment of raw foods with
ionizing radiation (not to exceed a dose of 1 kiloGray).
The term "fresh" implies that food is untreated. The FDA's definition
should reflect this. Although at present irradiated raw fruits and
vegetables can be labeled "fresh" (!), if the FDA changes the
regulation, they can also rescind the use of "fresh" to describe
irradiated foods at that time.
Irradiated food is not fresh food!
Tell the FDA that food treated with alternative nonthermal processing
should not be included in the definition of fresh food and demand they
rescind their decision to allow raw foods treated with irradiation be
labeled as "fresh."
Read the proposed regulation, Docket 00N-1351
Read the long background document describing the alternative
technologies in great detail
Submit comments to:
Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305)
Food and Drug Administration
Room 1061
5630 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20852
Or email comments to: FDADo...@oc.fda.gov
Be sure to include the Docket #00N-1351 in the subject line
Or submit comments on the FDA website at:
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/oc/dockets/comments/commentdocket.
cfm
(Select Docket 00N-1351 Food Labeling; Use of the Term "Fresh" for Foods
Processed With Alternative Nonthermal Technologies)
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sample Letter #1
Date
Docket 00N-1351
Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305)
Food and Drug Administration
Room 1061
5630 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20852
Dear FDA:
I am writing to object to the use of the term "fresh" to describe any
food treated with nonthermal processing, as proposed in Docket 00N-1351
Food Labeling; Use of the Term "Fresh" for Foods Processed With
Alternative Nonthermal Technologies. I also request that when this
section is amended, you rescind the decision to allow raw foods treated
with irradiation be labeled as "fresh."
The term fresh implies untreated, unprocessed food. Please allow
labeling criteria to reflect this by not including nonthermal
technologies which mislead and defraud the consumer who expects a
living food with all its natural health-giving properties.
Sincerely,
Your name and address
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
Sample Letter #2
Date
Docket 00N-1351
Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305)
Food and Drug Administration
Room 1061
5630 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20852
Re: Docket #00N-1351 Food Labeling: The Use of the Term "Fresh" for
Foods Processed With Alternative Nonthermal Technologies - Public
Meeting
To whom it may concern:
According to the dictionary, the word "fresh" commonly means - l.
recently grown or newly made - such as in "fresh" coffee. 2. having
original strength, vigor, quality, taste.
This is what consumers understand as the meaning of the word "fresh"
and in regard to food, it means "recently grown" in contrast to stored-
for-a-long-time and "with its original level of vitamins and enzymes
intact," not processed in any way. The food industry's attempt to
hijack the term "fresh" is an effort to capitalize on the public's
desire for foods of high quality, good taste and recent harvest, while
selling a processed product.
It is a disservice to consumers to redefine the word "fresh" as
commonly understood for industry's advertising purposes and to try
to "stretch" the word to include irradiation or any other processing
technology such as high pressure, pulsed light, etc. which are used for
specific industrial purposes such as meeting quarantine regulations,
reducing bacterial contamination or extending shelf life. This proposal
would render the term "fresh" meaningless.
Consumers want to know how their food has been grown and if it has been
further processed after harvest. American consumers favor more rather
than less information in choosing food (farming method, country of
origin, processing, etc.)
Consumers will lose faith in government agencies if labeling
information is misleading, distorted or incomplete. So will our trade
partners. Generally if a food has been tampered with but still looks
the same, it should be truthfully labeled as to any additional
treatments.
We feel it was a mistake to include food treated with irradiation up to
1 kilogray as a "fresh" food product.There are small losses of vitamins
and texture, as well as enzymes, even below that irradiation dose.Some
crops are very radiation-sensitive.When you revise the regulations, we
urge you to rescind your inclusion of irradiated products as "fresh"
and not add other non-thermal processing methods.
Sincerely,
Your name and address
--
"Imagination is the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable
universe is but a shadow, in which we shall live in our eternal or
imaginative bodies when these vegetable mortal bodies are no more."
- William Blake
Chive Mynde
August 21, 2000
A rebuttal of the FDA-sponsored pamphlet "Questions & Answers about
Food Irradiation"
TEXT OF THE PAMPHLET
What is food irradiation?
Food irradiation is a process in which food products are exposed to a
controlled amount of radiant energy to kill harmful bacteria such as E.
coli and Salmonella. The process also controls insects and parasites,
reduces spoilage, and inhibits ripening and sprouting.
OCA Comment: This statement is crafted to mislead the public. "Radiant
energy" sounds like sunlight. In fact, irradiated food is treated with
high-speed energy beams that, unlike sunlight, ionize molecules. The
free radicals caused by this "ionizing radiation" ricochet through the
food and damage the DNA in bacteria, insects and the food itself. Free
radicals are believed to be common cancer "promoters." That is, they
promote the second-stage developments that turn the initially damaged
cells into malignant (i.e., cancerous) ones. Microwaves do not harm the
food in the same way as irradiation. In microwaving, food is cooked by
heating the water in the molecules; the DNA in the food is not broken.
Ionizing radiation includes gamma rays from nuclear materials,
electrons from electron guns, and x-rays.
Is irradiated food safe?
The Food and Drug Administration has evaluated the safety of this
technology over the last 40 years and has found irradiation to be safe
and has approved its use for many foods. Scientific studies have shown
that irradiation does not significantly reduce nutritional quality or
change food taste, texture or appearance. Irradiated foods do not
become radioactive. American astronauts have eaten irradiated food
since the 1970s and patients with weak immune systems are sometimes fed
irradiated foods to reduce the chance of infection.
OCA Comment: There are many errors and omissions here.
First, the pamphlet implies erroneously that the FDA has both
continuously evaluated scientific studies over the last 40 years, and
and found a uniform record of safety. See our section on Food
Irradiation Resources for the numerous problems and deficiencies in the
FDA's review of the science.
Second, the statement implies that FDA has found irradiation to be safe
for ALL foods. In fact, in 1968 the FDA retracted its 1963 approval of
bacon, because animals fed irradiated bacon showed health effects.
Third, irradiation DOES reduce nutritional quality. Even people who
support irradiation agree that vitamins are lost, particularly the
antioxidant vitamins A, E, C, and K, which are necessary to counteract
free radicals. The amount of vitamin loss varies with the food and the
length of storage, so whether this is "significant" or not depends on
the food, its importance in a person's diet, and whether people get the
vitamin from other foods. The FDA has not stated what its "baseline"
diet consists of. Children in particular may eat large quantities of
the same food, and vitamin loss in this food could be "significant". In
poor countries where staple crops like wheat or potatoes could be
irradiated, the problem of vitamin loss would be very significant.
Fourth, it is likely that the natural digestive enzymes in food are
significantly damaged. Enzymes are long proteins, and are affected by
the free radical 'fragmentation bombs' created by irradiation. The
presence of enzymes is the most critical nutritional difference between
raw food and cooked food. Irradiated food that is meant to be eaten raw
is a danger to public health, and, when unlabeled, a deliberate fraud
to the consumer.
Fifth, the FDA is simply lying when it says irradiation "does not
change food taste, texture or appearance." Many studies have shown that
irradiation can produce such changes. For example, irradiated ground
beef can have the aroma of a wet dog, and irradiated melons can be
mushy. To combat these problems, food scientists manipulate the
irradiation dose and other variables, such as packaging, to produce
an 'acceptable' food. Foods with a "low tolerance" for irradiation are
simply not irradiated. Irradiated fats easily become rancid because the
free radicals oxidize the fats. For this reason, fatty foods are
irradiated only if they are likely to be cooked, or used within a short
time.
Sixth, induced radioactivity IS possible at 10 Mev (the maximum
permitted dose for fruits and vegetables), but diminishes during
storage.
Seventh, the statement about astronauts is irrelevant. They are
military people on a military mission who expect to be exposed to
greater risks than the civilian population, and their 'acceptance' of
irradiated food should be seen as part of their acceptance of that
risk.
How does irradiation work?
Food is packed in containers and moved by conveyer belt into a shielded
room. There the food is exposed briefly to a radiant-energy source; the
amount of energy depends on the food. Energy waves passing through the
food break molecular bonds in the DNA of bacteria, pathogens and
insects. The food is left unchanged, but the number of harmful
bacteria, parasites and fungi is reduced. (The food irradiation symbol,
the radura, is required by the FDA on all irradiated food with the
words "treated with radiation" or "treated by irradiation".)
OCA Comments:
First, again, the FDA misleads the public by using the term "radiant-
energy source" instead of "ionizing-energy source".
Second, the FDA does not mention that energy waves passing through the
food ALSO break molecular bonds in the food itself.
Third, an outright lie: the food is NOT "left unchanged." Irradiation
creates free radicals, damaged DNA, damaged vitamins and enzymes. It is
impossible for energy waves to break the DNA of bacteria and insects,
and NOT break the DNA of the food itself!
Fourth, an extremely misleading statement that verges on a lie--the
assertion that all irradiated food is labeled. The consumer who reads
this thinks that they will always know if their food has been
irradiated. Not true! Yes, all irradiated food is labeled--but only to
the first purchaser, which can be a restaurant, school, hospital,
airline or food processor. None of these institutions or companies are
required to label irradiated food to the consumer. In addition, when
consumer labels ARE required (e.g., on a bag of potatoes), the required
wording may be as small as the typeface on the ingredient label, and
can be on the back of the package. Produce sold by the piece is
supposed to be labeled on the display or on the fruit itself, but there
is no enforcement and no specific size for the display label. Consumers
are NOT adequately notified by existing labeling requirements. And food
industry groups have been pressuring Congress to require the FDA to
remove ALL labels.
Do irradiated foods cost more?
Irradiated products cost slightly more than their conventional
counterparts. Some industry experts estimate the cost at two to three
cents higher per pound for fruits and vegetables and three to five
cents higher per pound for meat and poultry products. These costs may
be offset by advantages such as keeping a product fresh longer and
enhancing its safety, Food trade groups say that as irradiation becomes
more common, the cost is likely to drop.
OCA Comments: Irradiated ground beef in Minnesota has recently sold for
up to $1.50/lb. more than nonirradiated beef. Nobody has a crystal
ball, but we can be sure that as long as irradiated food can be
promoted as "better" than nonirradiated food, the price will be as high
as the traffic will bear.
Are food irradiation facilities safe?
Both the electron beam and gamma ray technologies used today are safe.
The electron beam facilities, like the one at Iowa State University,
use an electron generator to produce a stream of high-energy electrons
to form the electron beam. E-beam technology has been used for the last
15 years. The technology to produce gamma rays used Cobalt 60 or Cesium
137. Both are radioactive materials that do not give off neutrons,
which means that this material does not make anything around it
radioactive. This technology has been used routinely for more than 30
years to sterilize medical, dental and household products.
OCA Comment: Gamma-ray facilities, which use nuclear materials, are
inherently unsafe. There have been numerous spills and leaks of
radioactive material and worker exposures from irradiation facilities
worldwide. The statement that this technology is used "routinely" is
irrelevant.
Are irradiated foods available?
Irradiated food is becoming widely available. Some stores have sold
irradiated fruits and vegetables since the early 1990s. Irradiated meat
is available in some grocery stores and on menus in a few restaurants.
Some spices also are irradiated to control pests.
OCA Comment: Because irradiated food that is sold in restaurants is not
labeled to the consumer, no one except the packer knows how much
irradiated meat/poultry is being sold. Companies that produce over 75%
of the U.S.'s 9 billion pounds/year of ground beef and approximately
50% of the nearly 35 billion pounds/year of poultry have already signed
agreements to use irradiation technology. Ground beef and chicken will
be the most commonly irradiated foods.
What kind of machine irradiates food?
In electron beam irradiation, food is irradiated by a machine called a
linear accelerator. A linear accelerator generates electrons, similar
to a television tube, that are accelerated, bent and scanned over the
product. No radioactive material is used. Iowa State University houses
a commercial-sized electronic beam irradiator in the Linear Accelerator
Facility pilot plant. The machine is similar to those used throughout
the country to irradiate food products and medical products. Food also
can be irradiated through a process using gamma rays produced by a safe
radioactive source, such as cobalt. Another process is being developed
using X-rays to irradiate food.
OCA Comments: Nuclear materials are inherently unsafe. The unnamed
nuclear material "such as cobalt" is cesium-137, a byproduct of nuclear
energy production. It is much more toxic and has a longer half-life
than cobalt-60. The U.S. Department of Energy has pushed food
irradiation for 20 years in order to sell off their pile of dangerous
cesium-137. If e-beam irradiation paves the way, cobalt-60 and cesium-
137 will be used for food irradiation, because the energy source is not
listed on the label. In addition, electron-beams can only be used for
thin, evenly sized foods like burger patties. Larger foods like whole
turkeys must be irradiated with either x-rays or gamma rays from
nuclear material. If irradiation is popularly accepted, the DOE will be
only too happy to supply cesium-137 at cut-rate prices to irradiate
foods.
Furthermore, meat that is "treated" by an e-beam accelerator receives
the radiation equivalent to 1.4 billion television sets.
What foods can be irradiated?
- meat
- grains
- fruits and vegetables
- dehydrated fruits and vegetables
- spices
- seasonings
- other non-food uses for irradiation include sterilizing medical
products, such as surgical gloves, destroying bacteria in cosmetics,
and purifying wool.
OCA Comments: In addition to the above list, shell eggs were recently
approved by the FDA for irradiation. A coalition of food industry
groups has asked the FDA to approve luncheon meats, prepared fresh
foods (e.g., salad bar items), seeds, fresh juices, sprouts and frozen
foods. The FDA hasn't ruled yet, but they will probably use the same
science as 15 years ago to approve these foods. If they approve, the
only common foods NOT approved for irradiation would be: seafood, dairy
(which is pasteurized), honey, coffee, chocolate and oils (fats become
rancid easily because of the free radical creation, so they won't be
irradiated if they could be eaten raw). Baked goods and dried legumes
don't need irradiation. That's about it! Most of our diet could be
irradiated!
Where can I get more information?
More information about food irradiation and the Linear Accelerator
Facility
at ISU is available online at:
www.extension.iastate.edu/foodsafety/rad/irhow.html
To request irradiation services, contact the ISU Meat Lab at (515) 294-
6329,
or 194 Meat Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-3150.
END OF TEXT OF THE FDA PAMPHLET
Chive Mynde
Zapping the food supply
Donald B. Louria
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1990/s90/s90louria.html
New arguments are boiling up over an old idea--irradiating food with
ionizing radiation to kill microorganisms and prolong shelf life. The
idea of exposing food to gamma radiation is over 30 years old, and in
1963 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began to permit the
irradiation of wheat. Over the years, a few more foodstuffs such as
spices and tea were added to the FDA's list of candidates for
irradiation. But in 1984 the FDA started to approve irradiation of a
much broader list of products which now includes meat, poultry, and
fresh fruits and vegetables. Simultaneously the FDA has increased the
levels of radiation that may be used. The FDA's recent willingness to
allow most of the food supply to be irradiated--and at high doses--has
triggered an acrimonious debate.
The amount of radiation involved is substantial. The FDA has approved a
3,000,000 rad dosage for treating spices, 300,000 rad for pork, and
100,000 rad for fresh fruits and vegetables. These intensities are
millions of times greater than that of an ordinary chest X-ray (which
is typically about 20 millirad). The announced goal of promoters of
food irradiation is to obtain general approval for the use of up to one
million rad.
Irradiation does not make food radioactive, nor has alleged
radioactivity been at issue in the debate. But there is concern that
foods processed by irradiation may contain radiolytic products that
could have toxic effects.
The source of radiation is either cobalt 60 or cesium 137. The prospect
of increased transportation and handling of cobalt and cesium--
dangerous substances--has caused negative publicity. Some irradiation
proponents say food processors could theoretically use as-yet-
undeveloped linear acceleration techniques instead. But if food
irradiation becomes commonplace any time soon, cesium or cobalt will be
used.
The major objective of irradiation is to destroy microorganisms that
cause food to spoil. For example, irradiating chicken should reduce the
outbreaks of salmonella that are probably caused by careless or
unhygienic methods in production and processing. Irradiating pork might
reduce the already limited risk of trichinosis, and irradiating turkey
would diminish the number of episodes of diarrhea that result from
eating undercooked meat. William McGivney, an advocate of the
technology, asserts that "irradiation offers a means to decontaminate,
disinfect and retard the spoilage of the food supply."1 Most opponents
counter that adequate cooking and hygienic preparation will accomplish
the same goal.
Promoters of irradiation emphasize that the shelf life of various foods
will be increased. But these proponents have not produced any
projections of the actual economic, or other, benefits of longer shelf
life, especially in a developed country that has an abundant food
supply. It may be easier to imagine that less developed countries might
benefit if the shelf life of foodstuffs could be prolonged. But
advocates have made no estimates of the extent to which better
preservation would reduce world hunger, or of the cost of widespread
food irradiation in less developed countries.
Irradiation is expected to reduce the need to use toxic chemicals as
post-harvest fumigants, but some evidence indicates that irradiated
foods are more, not less, subject to infection with certain fungi.2
At dispute in the controversy over food irradiation are the quality of
the FDA's safety assessment, the loss of nutritional value that
irradiated foods undergo, the risk of environmental contamination posed
by irradiation facilities, and the possible cancer-causing nature of
irradiated foods. An additional dispute revolves around the motives of
the Energy Department, which has promoted irradiation and is the
potential supplier of cesium 137, a waste byproduct of nuclear reactors.
Safety. The FDA judged safety based on five of 441 available toxicity
studies. Of the available literature, claimed the FDA, only these five
animal studies were "properly conducted, fully adequate by 1980
toxicological standards and able to stand alone in support of safety."3
But when these studies were reviewed at the Department of Preventive
Medicine and Community Health of the New Jersey Medical School, two
were found to be methodologically flawed, either by poor statistical
analyses or because negative data were disregarded.4 One of the two
also suggested that irradiated food could have adverse effects on older
animals. In a third FDA-cited study, animals fed a diet of irradiated
food experienced weight loss and miscarriage, almost certainly due to
irradiation-induced vitamin E dietary deficiency.5 This study, which
used foods that had been subjected to large doses of radiation,
indicated that irradiated food suffered nutritional loss.
These three studies do not document the safety of food irradiation, and
why the FDA relied on them is mystifying. The two other studies cited
by FDA appear to be sound, but these studies investigated the effects
of diets consisting of foods irradiated at doses below the current FDA-
approved general level of 100,000 rad. Therefore they cannot be used to
justify irradiation of foods at the levels currently approved by the
FDA. Now, as the FDA considers adopting 300,000 rad as the general
dosage level, the agency has not requested new studies, but is relying
on some of the older studies it failed to include as methodologically
sound.
Ethical and methodological barriers make it nearly impossible to study
the effects of a diet of irradiated foods in human subjects. One small,
controversial study carried out in India in the mid-1970s looked at the
effects of feeding irradiated and unirradiated foods to 15 children
with severe protein and total-calorie malnutrition.6 Five children were
fed unirradiated wheat, five freshly irradiated wheat, and five ate
irradiated wheat that had been stored for a minimum of three months.
Children who had eaten freshly irradiated wheat had unusually high
rates of chromosomal abnormalities in their blood (especially
polyploidy). No such changes occurred in the group that ate irradiated
wheat that had been stored. Although some animal studies have supported
the results of this study, it has provoked an acerbic debate. Clearly,
the study has major flaws: the size of the sample is too small,
subjects were not properly randomized, and statistical methods are
unclear.
A more recent study of 70 subjects was conducted in China.7 In contrast
to the severely malnourished subjects in the Indian study, all the
Chinese subjects were healthy young men and women. The experimental
group ate irradiated foods that had been stored for an extended period
of time. (Also, the group's diet was essentially wheat-free.) Both
groups--those receiving irradiated foods and the control group--showed
some increases in chromosomal abnormalities during the test period.
Those given irradiated foods appeared to have a slightly increased rate
of abnormalities.While neither of these studies are conclusive, they
should not be dismissed. If the malnourished are particularly
vulnerable to the dangers of an irradiated diet, hundreds of millions
of malnourished people could be at risk. More studies on chromosomal
abnormalities are necessary, but there are ethical as well as
methodological problems in designing and conducting them.
Nutrition. There is impressive evidence that irradiated foods lose
vitamin content, particularly vitamins A, C, E, and some of the B
complex.8 The amount of vitamin loss varies from one type of food to
another, but in general there is a direct relationship between the
amount of irradiation and the extent of nutritional value lost. Data on
foods irradiated with 100,000 rad cannot be relied on to predict
vitamin losses in foods irradiated with 300,000 or 1,000,000 rad. Some
studies indicate that cooking irradiated foods causes an additional,
inordinate loss of nutrients.9 In addition, little is known about the
nutritional effects of freezing and thawing food that has been
irradiated.
Those who favor irradiation do not deny the loss of vitamin content,
but often assert that these nutritional losses will not harm people who
eat a generally nutritious and balanced diet. Others suggest that
irradiated foods should be fortified with vitamins, or that the public
should be urged to take vitamin supplements. In less developed
countries, reducing the food supply's nutritional value would seem to
raise a major ethical question. Asking the world's 800 million
malnourished and 2 billion undernourished to make a possible trade-off
between longer shelf life and less nutrition seems harsh, particularly
before more complete information on the nutritional value of irradiated
foods is available.
Environmental issues. Opponents of food irradiation have raised four
interrelated environmental issues: the dangers of transporting
radioactive isotopes to hundreds of treatment facilities, the
environmental practices of those facilities, the danger of worker
exposure in environments where irradiation chambers are frequently
opened to allow foodstuffs to pass in and out rapidly, and potential
security problems at irradiation plants.
If all the poultry in the United States were to be irradiated, hundreds
of new irradiation plants would be needed. There are about forty plants
of a size suitable for food irradiation already in operation. Most of
these plants are used primarily to irradiate disposable medical
equipment. In New Jersey, which has the highest concentration of these
facilities, plant safety records are not encouraging. Virtually every
New Jersey plant has a record of environmental contamination, worker
overexposure, and regulatory failings.
A serious accident occurred at a Decatur, Georgia, cesium irradiator in
June 1988. That facility was shut down after a cesium leak exposed 10
workers to radiation and contaminated medical supplies and consumer
products.10 Clean-up costs at the Decatur plant have climbed to more
than $15 million, and no conclusions have been reached about the cause
of the accident.
Unlike major nuclear facilities, irradiation plants will be relatively
small and are unlikely to be well protected. Opponents fear these
plants will be particularly vulnerable to sabotage or terrorist attack
and express similar concerns about the safety and security of large
numbers of shipments of highly radioactive materials. If food
irradiation becomes commonplace, hundreds of irradiation plants will
need to have their inventories of cesium 137 or cobalt 60 replenished
on a regular basis.
The cancer threat. The irradiation process produces unique radiolytic
products whose chemical and toxic properties have not been
characterized. In-vitro tests in the laboratory suggest that some of
these products may cause mutations, and these tests have led critics of
irradiation to contend that some irradiated foods may prove
carcinogenic. But there are no substantial data from epidemiological
studies on either animals or humans to support that contention. Unless
the chemical properties of all the radiolytic products are identified,
and animals studies using amplified doses are conducted, there is no
way to prove that a cancer risk exists and, if so, whether it would
fall within acceptable limits. Adequate evidence for prudent decisions
on the cancer risk of food irradiation will not be available for some
time.
The Energy Department connection. The Energy Department, through its
Byproducts Utilization Program, tries to develop commercial uses for
radioactive waste products. Creating a commercial demand for cesium,
which is a waste product of both weapons production and civilian
nuclear power, has been one of its expressed goals since the early
1980s. Energy Department memoranda indicate that the department's plan
included pricing cesium so low that it would drive Canadian cobalt out
of the market.11
Some critics charge that the Energy Department has been even more
devious. They claim that the department was less interested in
disposing of cesium than it was in overturning the ban on reprocessing
civilian nuclear fuel. These critics claim that the department
calculated that widespread food irradiation would eventually deplete
the available supplies of cesium 137. At that point, the irradiation
industry would begin to lobby for the reprocessing of spent fuel, and
the department could use the industry to overcome the political and
economic obstacles to reprocessing nuclear fuel. Once reprocessing was
permitted, the Energy Department could separate the plutonium in spent
fuel, which it could then use in weapons.12
There is no reason to adopt every new technology that is suggested.
Ideally, food irradiation should be made to compete on a commercial
basis with other technologies. If it had no disadvantages or dangers,
the marketplace alone would decide its fate. Most food processors now
think that irradiation is costly and less effective than other methods
of preservation, and consumers are resistant to the idea of radiation-
treated foods. But the adoption of food irradiation technologies raises
questions of public health. Many local authorities have opted for
alternative technologies. In Florida, the Citrus Commission/Department
of Agriculture has chosen to use two other processes--fly-free zones
and cold treatment. Hawaiian officials rejected federal funds offered
to build an irradiation facility for processing papaya; instead, the
papaya processor will use non-chemical treatments such as dry and steam
heat or double hot water dips. Some biotechnological researchers are
confident that recombinant DNA technologies will eventually create pest-
resistant fruits and vegetables with extraordinarily long shelf lives.
If food irradiation is adopted prematurely, research on its health
effects will be hampered. Widespread use of the technology will make it
impossible to detect any but the most obvious of adverse effects,
because it will be impossible to define a control population for
purposes of study. This problem will be further complicated if
irradiation levels are increased to 1 million rad.
Labeling is currently required to notify the consumer when whole foods
have been irradiated. The label includes written notice and the
international irradiation symbol, the "radura"--a stylized flower which
has caused some confusion because of its close resemblance to the
Environmental Protection Agency's logo. Prepared or packaged foods,
foods prepared for restaurant or school cafeteria use, and foods which
merely contain some irradiated ingredients are exempt from labeling.
While the FDA has approved wholesale food irradiation, other regulators
are less eager. More than a dozen state legislatures, concerned about
the environmental and health risks of irradiated food, have restricted
its sale and distribution. Maine has banned both irradiation facilities
and all irradiated food except spices. New York and New Jersey recently
enacted two-year moratoriums on the sale or distribution of irradiated
foods, and New Jersey has prohibited the "manufacture" of such food
items. Other states contemplating restrictive legislation include
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, and Alaska. Bills have
been introduced in Congress to place a two-year moratorium on
irradiated foods while the National Academy of Sciences reviews the
health, environment, and worker safety issues. Great Britain has banned
irradiated food, although legislation has been introduced into
Parliament to overturn the ban. West Germany, Australia, Denmark,
Sweden, and New Zealand have all banned or severely limited the
implementation of food irradiation.
Donald B. Louria is chairman of the preventive medicine department at
the New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey.
1. William T. McGivney, "Preservation of Food Products by Irradiation,"
Seminars in Nuclear Medicine, vol. 18 (Jan. 1988), p. 36.
2. Richard Piccioni, "Food Irradiation: Contaminating Our Food," The
Ecologist, vol. 18, no. 2 (April 1988), p. 48.
3. "Irradiation in the Processing and Handling of Food," Federal
Register (April 1986), p. 13376.
4. J.R. Hickman, L.A. McLean, and F.J. Ley, "Rat Feeding Studies on
Wheat Treated with Gamma Radiation," Food and Cosmetic Toxicology, vol.
2, no. 2 (1964), pp. (175180); J.L. Radomski et al, "Chronic Toxicity
Studies in Irradiated Beef Stew and Evaporated Milk," Toxicology and
Applied Pharmacology, vol. 7, no. 1 (1965), pp. 11321.
5. H.W. Renner and D. Reichelt, "Zur Frage der gesundheitlichen
Unbedenklichkeit hoher Konzentrationen von freien Radikalen in
bestrahlten Lebesmitteln," Zentralblatt für Veterina Medizi, vol. 20,
no. 8 (1973), pp. 64860.
6. C. Bhaskaram and G. Sadasivan, "Effects of Feeding Irradiated Wheat
to Malnourished Children," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol.
28, no. 2 (1975), pp. 13035.
7. Shanghai Institute of Radiation Medicine and Shanghai Institute of
Nuclear Research, "Safety Evaluation of 35 Kinds of Irradiated Human
Foods," Chinese Medical Journal, vol. 100, no. 9 (1987), pp. 71518.
8. E. Wierbicki et al., Ionizing Energy in Food Processing and Pest
Control, Part 1. (Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, July
1986); A.B. Khattak and C.F. Klopfenstein, "Effects of Gamma
Irradiation on the Nutritional Quality of Grains and Legumes," Cereal
Chemistry, vol. 66, no. 3 (1989), pp. 17172; N. Raica, Jr., J. Scott,
and N. Nielson, "Nutritional Quality of Irradiated Foods," Radiation
Research Review, vol. 3, no. 4 (1972), pp. 44757.
9. Food Chemical News (Nov. 10, 1986), p. 42.
10. Georgia Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Department of Energy,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "First Interim Report of the RSI
Incident Evaluation Task Force" (June 1989).
11. K. Terry, "Why is DoE for Food Irradiation?" The Nation (Feb. 7,
1987), pp. 14256.
12. Piccioni, "Food Irradiation"; Terry, "Why is DoE for Food
Irradiation?"
--
"Imagination is the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable
universe is but a shadow, in which we shall live in our eternal or
imaginative bodies when these vegetable mortal bodies are no more."
- William Blake
Bob Casanova
sci.skeptic, posted by Chive Mynde <chive...@hotmail.com>:
>http://www.purefood.org/irrad/freshfood.cfm
>
>Action Alert: Defend Fresh, Raw Food!
I suggest you go to rural Mexico or Vietnam and consume a
few "fresh, raw" fruits and vegetables; don't bother to wash
them, since being "fresh" and "raw" makes them totally
wholesome, especially right after the honey wagon fertilizes
the fields.
Enjoy the result.
<snip>
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness
to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
--H. L. Mencken
Chive Mynde
Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> On Sun, 10 Sep 2000 16:49:18 GMT, the following appeared in
> sci.skeptic, posted by Chive Mynde <chive...@hotmail.com>:
>
> >http://www.purefood.org/irrad/freshfood.cfm
> >
> >Action Alert: Defend Fresh, Raw Food!
>
> I suggest you go to rural Mexico or Vietnam and consume a
> few "fresh, raw" fruits and vegetables; don't bother to wash
> them, since being "fresh" and "raw" makes them totally
> wholesome, especially right after the honey wagon fertilizes
> the fields.
More dishonest balderdash from Bob Casanova.
The purefood.org website specifically requests that EVERYONE wash their
food prior to eating it.
Of course, the only thing Casanova is capable of is disinformation and
propaganda.
How sad.
- Chive
David L. Paxton
> > There is concern that foods processed by irradiation may contain
> > radiolytic products that could have toxic effects.
Hmmmm... I would also like to see properly executed non biased research
that states these "facts" that are so easily spouted here in this
string.
The research I read (by totally non biased college and university staff)
showed completely the opposite. When a double blind test is performed
by competent researchers the irradiated foods come out the winner in the
few instances that there is a minutely detectable difference.
NO CHANGES in the meat or other foods tested had any compounds,
isotopes, or "radiolytic" (???) products in them in the irradiated foods
than was present in otherwise preserved foods. Conventional canning
usually causes the same changes as irradiation but in most cases at MUCH
HIGHER LEVELS. And no difference was found in foods preserved in all
methods tested after the food was cooked. Cooking does more to break
down and alter substances in the foods than irradiation. Yet In don't
see anyone quoting the research and demanding we all eat raw food
without the cooking.
Hey, I am not trying to advocate forcing people to eat irradiated foods.
On the contrary, I would push to assure more and better labeling and
advertising to make it known which foods were irradiated and which
weren't. The problem is then most of the "scare" tactics like this one
would no longer have effect and people who are knowledgeable can CHOOSE
to eat irradiated foods rather than being FORCED to not have the option.
Hey, you allow people to buy tobacco products that we all know is much
more harmful. You allow people to purchase booze which is proven more
harmful. You let people buy motorcycles which are often deadly. Why not
let an informed public buy irradiated foods if they wish to do so?
Everyone else has constitutional rights except those of us that would
rather buy irradiated foods, I guess.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
noted and infamous spreader of half trouths, lies, and propaganda
organized by biased groups and sponsors with definate monitary intrest
in the outcome. All of his quoted and revered sources have proven to be
biased and in many cases just plane bogus.
Proper research on chromosomal changes to cells by irradiated sucrose
(which was done at extremely high concentrations, never possible in
nature) if done in a double blind method with identical concentrations
of the sucrose compounds of non irradiated and irradiated samples. And
if done properly would probably show NO difference in the results in the
double blind process. All of the research quoted started out with the
intent to find something wrong with the known irradiated substances
which were irradiated and tested at concentrations that would never
really happen in the real world outside of the lab.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
> Irradiation does not make food radioactive, nor has alleged
> radioactivity been at issue in the debate. But there is concern that
> foods processed by irradiation may contain radiolytic products that
> could have toxic effects.
>
> The source of radiation is either cobalt 60 or cesium 137. The prospect
> of increased transportation and handling of cobalt and cesium--
> dangerous substances--has caused negative publicity. Some irradiation
> proponents say food processors could theoretically use as-yet-
> undeveloped linear acceleration techniques instead. But if food
> irradiation becomes commonplace any time soon, cesium or cobalt will be
> used.
Here we go again, more ill informed bull crap. Food irradiation in the
plants that I ACTUALLY went to (not reading a bunch of bull crap put out
by the opposing industry as gospel but actual hands on research) have NO
source of radiation on the premises other than electron tubes, similar
to Xray tubes, and all radiation stops the instance the electricity is
shut off. This bull about weapons grade waste and other equally
preposterous dribble is ridiculous.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
That is your decision. And I will defend your right to do so, just as I
would your right to smoke and drink. But I will also defend MY right to
purchase and eat irradiated foods also. Now, are you going to defend MY
right to choose as much as you defend your right to eat it raw?
No, you keep dumping all this mindless dribble on the net trying to get
people to do away with irradiating and deny me my right to choose.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
> Of course, the only thing Casanova is capable of is disinformation and
> propaganda.
Uh, excuse me??? Oh perpetuator of volumes of slanted, misinformed, and
downright false posts and conjecture, kind of like the pot calling the
kettle black wouldn't you say?
> How sad.
Yes, indeed it is, very sad indeed.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
Big Dave
Chive Mynde
dlpa...@gate.net wrote:
> For those of you not fasmiliar with this "person" (troll???) he is a
> noted and infamous spreader of half trouths, lies, and propaganda
> organized by biased groups and sponsors with definate monitary intrest
> in the outcome.
Whoever David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> is, he is attempting to
spread lies about me without any evidence.
I have never spread half-truths lies or propaganda, especially by
ANYONE with monetary interests.
Notice how Mr. Paxton makes an ad hominem attack without a shred of
evidence for his claim. Notice how Mr. Paxton shoots the messenger.
Anyone can check up on the veracity of the scientific evidence I have
posted in support of my claims. Because Mr. Paxton is obviously lying,
I will post the information again in order to allow those who remain
unconvinced by Mr. Paxton's attempt to shoot the messenger.
Formation of mutant bacteria
Liar David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> wrote:
>All of his quoted and revered sources have proven to be
> biased and in many cases just plane bogus.
More lies from propagandist Paxton.
None of the quoted sources, NONE, have been "proven to be biased and in
many cases just plane (sic) bogus." None.
Notice how David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> doesn't provide ANY
evidence for his claims.
Notice how David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> just waltzes in to these
groups and makes sweeping generalizations, ad hominem arguments, and
accusations without the SLIGHTEST evidence for his claims.
Why are you lying, David L. Paxton? Is it because you are paid to
promote food irradiation, even if it means killing innocent people in
the process?
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1990/s90/s90louria.html
"The irradiation process produces unique radiolytic products whose
chemical and toxic properties have not been characterized. In-vitro
tests in the laboratory suggest that some of these products may cause
mutations, and these tests have led critics of irradiation to contend
that some irradiated foods may prove carcinogenic. But there are no
substantial data from epidemiological studies on either animals or
humans to support that contention. Unless the chemical properties of
all the radiolytic products are identified, and animals studies using
amplified doses are conducted, there is no way to prove that a cancer
risk exists and, if so, whether it would fall within acceptable limits.
Adequate evidence for prudent decisions on the cancer risk of food
irradiation will not be available for some time."
Clearly, Paxton is lying about the risks of food irradiation. The
risks to human health remain unknown.
Chive Mynde
> noted and infamous spreader of half trouths, lies, and propaganda
> organized by biased groups and sponsors with definate monitary intrest
> in the outcome.
Whoever David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> is, he is attempting to
spread lies about me without any evidence.
I have never spread half-truths lies or propaganda, especially by
ANYONE with monetary interests.
Notice how Mr. Paxton makes an ad hominem attack without a shred of
evidence for his claim. Notice how Mr. Paxton shoots the messenger.
Anyone can check up on the veracity of the scientific evidence I have
posted in support of my claims. Because Mr. Paxton is obviously lying,
I will post the information again in order to allow those who remain
unconvinced by Mr. Paxton's attempt to shoot the messenger.
Formation of mutant bacteria
Liar David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> wrote:
>All of his quoted and revered sources have proven to be
> biased and in many cases just plane bogus.
More lies from propagandist Paxton.
None of the quoted sources, NONE, have been "proven to be biased and in
many cases just plane (sic) bogus." None.
Notice how David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> doesn't provide ANY
evidence for his claims.
Notice how David L. Paxton <dlpa...@gate.net> just waltzes in to these
groups and makes sweeping generalizations, ad hominem arguments, and
accusations without the SLIGHTEST evidence for his claims.
Why are you lying, David L. Paxton? Is it because you are paid to
promote food irradiation, even if it means killing innocent people in
the process?
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1990/s90/s90louria.html
"The irradiation process produces unique radiolytic products whose
chemical and toxic properties have not been characterized. In-vitro
tests in the laboratory suggest that some of these products may cause
mutations, and these tests have led critics of irradiation to contend
that some irradiated foods may prove carcinogenic. But there are no
substantial data from epidemiological studies on either animals or
humans to support that contention. Unless the chemical properties of
all the radiolytic products are identified, and animals studies using
amplified doses are conducted, there is no way to prove that a cancer
risk exists and, if so, whether it would fall within acceptable limits.
Adequate evidence for prudent decisions on the cancer risk of food
irradiation will not be available for some time."
Clearly, Paxton is lying about the risks of food irradiation. The
risks to human health remain unknown.
Chive Mynde
dlpa...@gate.net shilled:
> Everyone else has constitutional rights except those of us that would
> rather buy irradiated foods, I guess.
You do not have the constitutional right to kill innocent people,
Paxton.
Here is a sampling of the scientific research that casts serious doubt
on the wholesomeness of irradiated food:
Formation of mutant bacteria
--
Chive Mynde
> Hey, you allow people to buy tobacco products that we all know is much
> more harmful. You allow people to purchase booze which is proven more
> harmful. You let people buy motorcycles which are often deadly. Why
not
> let an informed public buy irradiated foods if they wish to do so?
> Everyone else has constitutional rights except those of us that would
> rather buy irradiated foods, I guess.
Who in their right mind would choose to buy irradiated food?
Stop shilling for the nuclear industry, Paxton.
back to Organic Consumers Association's Food Irradiation page
WHY WE DON'T LIKE FOOD IRRADIATION
Irradiation damages the quality of food.
Irradiation damages food by breaking up molecules and releasing pieces
of the molecules, called free radicals. They bounce around in the food,
damage vitamins and enzymes, and combine with existing chemicals (e.g.,
pesticides) in the food to form new chemicals, called unique radiolytic
products (URPs).
Some of these URPs are known toxins (benzene, formaldehyde, lipid
peroxides) and some are unique to irradiated foods. Scientists have not
studied the long-term effect of these new chemicals in our diet--
therefore, we cannot assume they are safe.
Irradiated foods can lose 5%-80% of many vitamins (A, C, E, K and B
complex). The amount of loss depends on the dose of irradiation and the
length of storage time.
Irradiation almost certainly inactivates the natural digestive enzymes
found in raw foods. This means the body has to work harder to digest
them.
If unlabeled, raw foods that have been irradiated look like fresh
foods, but nutritionally they are liked cooked foods, with decreased
vitamins and enzymes.
Irradiated fats tend to become rancid.
When high-energy electron beams are used, trace amounts of
radioactivity may be created in the food.
Science has not proved that a long-term diet of irradiated foods is
safe for human health.
The longest human feeding study was 15 weeks. No one knows the long-
term effects of a life-long diet that includes foods which will be
frequently irradiated, such as meat, chicken, vegetables, fruits,
salads, sprouts and juices.
There are no studies on the effects of feeding babies or children diets
containing irradiated foods, except a small study from India.
Studies on animals fed irradiated foods have shown increased tumors,
reproductive failures and kidney damage. Some possible causes are:
irradiation-induced vitamin deficiencies, the inactivity of enzymes in
the food, DNA damage, and toxic radiolytic products in the food.
The FDA based its approval of irradiation on only 5 of 441 animal-
feeding studies. Marcia van Gemert, Ph.D., the toxicologist who chaired
the FDA committee that approved irradiation, later said, "These studies
reviewed in the 1982 literature from the FDA were not adequate by 1982
standards, and are even less accurate by 1993 standards to evaluate the
safety of any product, especially a food product such as irradiated
food." The 5 studies are not a good basis for approval of irradiation
for humans, because they showed health effects on the animals or were
conducted using lower energies of irradiation than those approved for
foods for human consumption.
Science is always changing. The science of today is not the science of
tomorrow. The science we have today is totally inadequate to prove the
long-term safety of food irradiation.
Electron-beam irradiation today means nuclear irradiation tomorrow.
The source of the irradiation is not listed on the label.
The U.S. Department of Energy is holding public hearings during 2000
about reopening a Hanford, Washington, nuclear reactor for commercial
food irradiation.
Irradiation using radioactive materials is an environmental hazard.
If irradiation is widely used, nuclear materials will be 'privatized'.
The owners of nuclear irradiators will have the responsibility
of 'safely' disposing of the radioactive material.
The more nuclear irradiators, the more likelihood of a serious accident
in transport, operation or disposal of the nuclear materials.
Food irradiation facilities have already contaminated the environment.
For example, in Georgia in 1988, radioactive water escaped from an
irradiation facility. The taxpayers were stuck with $47 million in
cleanup costs. Radioactivity was tracked into cars and homes. In Hawaii
in 1967 and New Jersey in 1982, radioactive water was flushed into the
public sewer system.
Numerous worker exposures have occurred in food irradiation facilities
worldwide.
The decision to use irradiation is a matter of public policy, not
science. Therefore, the public should be involved--not just the
scientists and the food industry.
Irradiation covers up the fecal contamination that results from meat
and poultry industry deregulation.
Because of deregulation (which continues under President Clinton), the
meat and poultry industry have recently suffered economically from food-
poisoning lawsuits and expensive product recalls. Inspectors are not
allowed to condemn meat and poultry now they condemned 20 years ago.
Seven meat industry associations recently submitted a petition to USDA
to redefine key terms relating to contamination. If accepted, these
redefinitions would essentially allow unlimited fecal contamination
during production, as long as irradiation was used afterwards.
Labeling--a public policy decision unrelated to science--is necessary
to inform people so they can choose to avoid irradiated foods.
Because irradiated foods have not been proven safe for human health in
the long term, prominent, conspicuous and truthful labels are necessary
for all irradiated foods. Consumers should be able to easily determine
if their food has been irradiated.
Because irradiated foods have not been proven safe for human health in
the long term, labels should be required for irradiated ingredients of
compound foods, and for restaurant and institutional foods.
Because irradiation can deplete vitamins, labels should state the
amount of vitamin loss after irradiation, especially for fresh foods
that are usually eaten fresh. Consumers have the right to know if they
are buying nutritionally impaired foods.
The US Food and Drug Administration is currently rewriting the
regulation for minimum labeling, and will probably release it for
public comment in Autumn 2000. They may eliminate all required labels.
Current US labels are not sufficient to enable consumers to avoid
irradiated food: Labels are required only for foods sold whole (like a
piece of fruit) or irradiated in the package. The declaration of
irradiation can be as small as the type face on the ingredient label,
where no one can find it. The US Department of Agriculture has chosen
to require more conspicuous labeling for irradiated meat and poultry,
but the USDA can retreat to the minimum at any time. Restaurant or
institutional foods, foods that receive further processing (like an
apple in applesauce) and spices, teas and dried seasonings do not have
to be labeled at all.
The decision to use irradiation affects other countries.
If the FDA stops requiring labels, under world trade agreements, US
exporters will be able to pressure countries that have labeling
requirements to accept unlabeled, irradiated US food. The situation
will be the same as with genetically engineered foods: people in other
countries will be forced to accept unlabeled foods although their own
countries require labels.
If the FDA stops requiring labels, US importers may begin to require
other countries to use irradiation on their exports. In countries
without a reliable, high-quality supply of electricity, irradiation can
only be done using nuclear materials. Thus, FDA policy on labels will
affect the spread of nuclear materials halfway across the world.
Irradiation doesn't provide clean food.
Because irradiation doesn't kill all the bacteria in a food, the ones
that survive are by definition radiation-resistant. These bacteria will
multiply and eventually work their way back to the 'animal factories',
perhaps through a slaughterhouse worker who ate irradiated meat for
dinner. Soon thereafter, the bacteria that contaminate the meat will no
longer be killed by currently approved doses of irradiation. The
technology will no longer be usable, while stronger bacteria
contaminate our food supply.
People may become more careless about sanitation if irradiation is
widely used. Irradiation doesn't kill all the bacteria in a food. In a
few hours at room temperature, the bacteria remaining in meat or
poultry after irradiation can multiply to the level existing before
irradiation. Some bacteria, like the one that causes botulism, viruses
and prions (which are believed to cause Mad Cow Disease) are not killed
by current doses of irradiation.
Irradiation encourages food producers to cut corners on sanitation,
because they can 'clean up' the food just before it is shipped.
Irradiation does nothing to change the way food is grown and produced.
Irradiated foods usually have longer shelf lives than nonirradiated
foods, which means they can be shipped further while appearing 'fresh.'
Food grown by giant farms far away may last longer than nonirradiated,
locally grown food, even if it is inferior in nutrition and taste.
Thus, irradiation encourages centralization and hurts small farmers.
The use of pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and other agrichemicals,
as well as pollution and energy use, are not affected by irradiation,
which is applied by the packer after production.
We need a shift to organic and sustainable agriculture, and local
farms. Free-market economists say irradiation is 'efficient': it
provides the cheapest possible food for the least possible risk. But
these economists are not concerned about the decreased quality of the
food, and they are using only the existing science. They are not
considering the environmental effects of large-scale corporate farming
and transport, the potential long-term damage to human health, and the
possibility of irradiation-resistant super-bacteria. All of these have
real economic costs that outweigh the temporary usefulness of
irradiation.
Revised June 2, 2000
BioDemocracy and Organic Consumers Association,
<http://www.purefood.org/irradlink.html>
Irradiation Coordinator: Danila Oder, dan...@purefood.org
Main office: 6114 Hwy 61, Little Marais, MN 55614 (218) 226-4164,
Fax: (218) 226-4157
been there done that
--
Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy
might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in
the grave, whither thou goest.
Kelly Bert Manning
> Vijayalaxmi and S.G. Srikantia. "A review of the studies on the
> wholesomeness of irradiated wheat, conducted at the National Institute
> of Nutrition, India." Radiat. Phys. Chem. 1989; 34: 941-952.
>
himself, or if the date and title above are simply a secondary citation.
It seems to ring a bell with mid 20th centry reports of problems with
irradiated wheat. Last I heard of that the dire results had never been
repeated in several decades of attempts, although the anti-irradiation
kooks loved to refer to the "Classic Indian Study" as proof positive.
I don't like chemicals and would be much happier to eat peanuts, for
example, that had been sterilized with radiation than with a chemical
fungicide. Apparently there is some carcinogenic fungus that grows on
untreated peanuts while in storage, so they treat them all with fungicide.
Don't you just love "all natural/no preservatives" products?
Chive Mynde
Why not just eat Plutonium? Health physicist Bernard Cohen claims that
Pu is safe enough to eat. Do you think its safer than peanuts?
Ian Staples
>by all means, wash your fresh, raw food with the local water.
:-)
When I was in Madagascar 30 years ago, the meals at the
military mess always seemed to conclude with a bunch of
fresh lettuce leaves to chew on. I thought of this as
somewhat analogous to the Japanese predilection for eating
bits of toad fish -- sort of the culinary equivalent of
Russian roulette.
However, it was eventually pointed out to me that the
"fresh lettuce" was in fact well washed in bleach before
being served up. How does chlorinated food compare with
irradiated food I wonder? ;-)
Cheers, Ian S.
ant
li...@ork.net wrote in message ...
ignore jim, he is a corporate apologist, his scientific skills are wanting,
and he is fond of the use of ad hom, straw men and red herrings, the
microwave comment could be a deliberate attempt to divert debate away from
the real issues. also i find the comparison of an involuntary risk with
voluntary ones to be rather unscientific, chest x-rays and air flights
usually return some sort of benefit to the user, medical diagnosis(i dont
see people lining up for weekly chest x-rays just for the hell of it) in
the case of x-rays or being somewhere that you want to be in the case of
air travel. just another attempt at diverting debate.
ant
ant
Night Child wrote in message <1103_96...@the.bit.bucket>...
>On Sat, 09 Sep 2000 18:31:59 GMT, li...@ork.net wrote:
>> In sci.skeptic Jim Webster <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote:
>>
>> >>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
>> >>
>> >>and microwave ovens!
>>
>> > I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people
queue
>> > for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the
attitude
>> > to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
>>
>> I must admit that the level of education in our country has fallen to
>> dangerous levels (more dangerous even than irradiation) if there exist
>> people who actually type to Usenet that do not know the significant
>> quantitative and qualitative difference between juggling molecules via
>> microwaves and irradiating food with radiation.
>>
>
>Just because we typically don't use the word "radiation" for the things
>we encounter every day doesn't mean they aren't radiation. Ooh, scary
>word. It's also sunlight, and microwaves, and radio waves, etc. The
>same electromagnetic energy used to sterilize food, the only "significant
>qualitative difference" being it is a much shorter wavelength.
and thus has entirely different eff4ects on biological processes and
chemicals.
are you really trying to say that heat is functionally equivlant to
ionising radiation.
>We're not
>talking about "radioactivity". That is when atoms emit particles as they
>decay. If you ingest something radioactive its like having millions of
little
>transmitters in your body...not good. If you feel fine ingesting something
>that was irradiated by sunlight I don't see the problem with higher or
>lower frequencies going through the same food. It does not "contain"
>the radiation. It does not become radioactive.
>
no but it does suffer damage from the irradiation process, and there is the
risk of accidental contamination with radio isotopes as has happened in the
past. it also allows for improper hygiene practices in the food processing
industry to go undetected. there are plenty of other less hazardous
alternatives to food irradiation. Australia has still not authorized the
use of wide scale food irradiation, partly because we dont have a local
nuclear industry desperate to get rid of as much product as possible, bad
for our balance of payments as any benefit from irradiated food is slight
and the cost in foreign exchange for all the irradiation consumables was
high and it would also be an electoral stupid thing to do.
ant
David Kendra
> Who in their right mind would choose to buy irradiated food?
Seems like folks in Minnesota will buy irradiated food. I remember reading
an story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune a few months back where they noted
that the consumers readily accepted irradiated food once they got the truth
about it from a reputable souce, i.e. the Minnesota Department of Health
[http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/dpc/food/irrfood/irrd.htm]
dk
Jim Webster
ant wrote in message ...
>
>li...@ork.net wrote in message ...
>>In sci.skeptic Jim Webster <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk>
>wrote:
>>
>>>>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
>>>>
>>>>and microwave ovens!
>>
>>> I must admit that the easy acceptance of microwaves and the way people
>queue
>>> for a hospital X ray or high altitude plane flights compared to the
>attitude
>>> to food irradiation has always struck me as irrational
>>
>>I must admit that the level of education in our country has fallen to
>>dangerous levels (more dangerous even than irradiation) if there exist
>>people who actually type to Usenet that do not know the significant
>>quantitative and qualitative difference between juggling molecules via
>>microwaves and irradiating food with radiation.
>>
>>What next? Lack of knowledge of the difference between molecules and atoms
>>and particles?
>
>ignore jim, he is a corporate apologist, his scientific skills are wanting,
>and he is fond of the use of ad hom, straw men and red herrings,
irony and sarcasm
the
>microwave comment could be a deliberate attempt to divert debate away from
>the real issues. also i find the comparison of an involuntary risk with
>voluntary ones to be rather unscientific, chest x-rays and air flights
>usually return some sort of benefit to the user,
as opposed to killing bacteria which cause food poisoning which is no
benifit at all
medical diagnosis(i dont
>see people lining up for weekly chest x-rays just for the hell of it) in
>the case of x-rays or being somewhere that you want to be in the case of
>air travel.
go by rail, air travel is not involuntary
(hey honey, I got on a plane by accident is not normally accepted as an
excuse by even the most accomodating spouse)
Jim Webster
We worship the inexorable god known as Dangott.
Strangers are automatically heretics, and so are fed to the sacred apes.
Tracy Aquilla
> ant wrote in message ...
> >li...@ork.net wrote in message ...
> >>In sci.skeptic Jim Webster <j...@websterpagebank.spam.freeserve.co.uk>
> >wrote:
> >>
> >>>>> keep it out of direct sunlight!
> >>>>
> >>>>and microwave ovens!
Don't forget conventional ovens and boiling water!
> [snip]
> >>I must admit that the level of education in our country has fallen to
> >>dangerous levels (more dangerous even than irradiation) if there exist
> >>people who actually type to Usenet that do not know the significant
> >>quantitative and qualitative difference between juggling molecules via
> >>microwaves and irradiating food with radiation.
But guess what - microwaves ARE radiation!
> >>What next? Lack of knowledge of the difference between molecules and atoms
> >>and particles?
> >
> >ignore jim, he is a corporate apologist, his scientific skills are wanting,
> >and he is fond of the use of ad hom, straw men and red herrings,
>
> irony and sarcasm
...go right over the head of some people.
> >microwave comment could be a deliberate attempt to divert debate away from
> >the real issues.
Which are?
Chive Mynde
You forgot to also post:
http://www.alphacdc.com/treaty/prairie_island.html
http://www.me3.org/issues/nuclear/
http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/eqb/nuclear.html
Also, there is no need to use food irradiation. This is just another
way for the aging nuclear industry to get its foot in the door again.
Stop messing with our food!
--
David Kendra
Chive Mynde wrote:
> In article <39BCE087...@mr.net>,
> David Kendra <dke...@mr.net> wrote:
> > Chive Mynde wrote:
> >
> > > Who in their right mind would choose to buy irradiated food?
> >
> > Seems like folks in Minnesota will buy irradiated food. I remember
> reading
> > an story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune a few months back where they
> noted
> > that the consumers readily accepted irradiated food once they got the
> truth
> > about it from a reputable souce, i.e. the Minnesota Department of
> Health
> > [http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/dpc/food/irrfood/irrd.htm]
>
> You forgot to also post:
>
> http://www.alphacdc.com/treaty/prairie_island.html
This URL is for a press release from the Prairie Island Coalition regarding
the decision by the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to
continue to store nuclear waste near the Prairie Island tribe's
reservation. It has nothing to do with food irradiation.
> http://www.me3.org/issues/nuclear/
This URL is for "Sustainable Minnesota" and has to do with nuclear waste ,
not with food irradiation.
> http://www.mnplan.state.mn.us/eqb/nuclear.html
This URL is for the Environmental quality board and has to do with nuclear
waste, not with food irradiation.
Please stop trying to link the food irradiation and nuclear wase together.
They are not the same.
dk
David Kendra
> · Irradiated food has caused a myriad of health problems in laboratory
> animals (and people in a few studies), including chromosomal damage,
> immune and reproductive problems, kidney damage, tumors, internal
> bleeding, low birth weight, and nutritional muscular dystrophy.
Sounds like the side effects of eating highschool cafeteria food ;-)
dk
Night Child
> In article <Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.1000910230558.5997E-100000@vtn1>,
> Kelly Bert Manning <ua...@victoria.tc.ca> wrote:
>
> > I don't like chemicals and would be much happier to eat peanuts, for
> > example, that had been sterilized with radiation than with a chemical
> > fungicide. Apparently there is some carcinogenic fungus that grows on
> > untreated peanuts while in storage, so they treat them all with
> fungicide.
> > Don't you just love "all natural/no preservatives" products?
>
> Why not just eat Plutonium?
Plutonium is radioactive. What does that have to do with
sending high frequency electromagnetic waves through
food?
> Health physicist...
???
> Bernard Cohen claims that Pu is safe enough to eat.
> Do you think its safer than peanuts?
WOW do you love non sequiturs? FYI, the *context* (imagine that)
of Cohen's statement was a challenge to someone that he would
eat as much plutonium by weight as the other would eat caffeine.
Clearly the person eating caffeine would suffer toxic effects before
the plutonium eater got near a toxic dose.
But, of course, this has nothing to do with food irradiation. Irradiated
peanuts are not plutonium and they are not radioactive. Radioactivity
is a complete non sequitur in these discussions and only demonstrates
that whoever brings it up has a problem with the word radiation,
without knowing what it means.
Chive Mynde
The issues of nuclear reactors, waste, transport, shipping, and safety
issues are exactly the same.
Please stop trying to deny that they aren't.
The U.S. Department of Energy is holding public hearings during 2000
about reopening a Hanford, Washington, nuclear reactor for commercial
food irradiation.
If irradiation is widely used, nuclear materials will be 'privatized'.
The owners of nuclear irradiators will have the responsibility
of 'safely' disposing of the radioactive material.
The more nuclear irradiators, the more likelihood of a serious accident
in transport, operation or disposal of the nuclear materials.
Food irradiation facilities have already contaminated the environment.
For example, in Georgia in 1988, radioactive water escaped from an
irradiation facility. The taxpayers were stuck with $47 million in
cleanup costs. Radioactivity was tracked into cars and homes. In Hawaii
in 1967 and New Jersey in 1982, radioactive water was flushed into the
public sewer system.
Numerous worker exposures have occurred in food irradiation facilities
worldwide.
The decision to use irradiation is a matter of public policy, not
science. Therefore, the public should be involved--not just the
scientists and the food industry.
Additionally, companies like nuclear irradiator Food Technology Service
of Florida , formerly known as Vindicator Inc., has been waging a
public relations campaign for 15 years to convince consumers that
eating irradiated food is safe.
possibility of irradiation-resistant super-bacteria. All of these have
real economic costs that outweigh the temporary usefulness of
irradiation.
Irradiation damages the quality of food.
Liver Cancer: Danger of Radiolytic Products in the Diet
June 26, 2000
This scientific materials in this document were prepared by chemist
Jeffrey Reinhardt, M.Sc., co-founder of The National Coalition to Stop
Food Irradiation.
Summary
FDA estimates the amount of Radiolytic Products (RP) in foods
irradiated at 100 Krad at 0.3 parts per million (PPM). Source.
100 Krad is the maximum permitted dose of irradiation for fruits and
vegetables. Poultry may receive 3 x 100 Krad, red meat may receive 4.5
x 100 Krad, frozen meat may receive 7 x 100 Krad, spices receive 30 x
100 Krad. Therefore this calculation is a low estimate if people eat a
diet containing irradiated meat and poultry as well as fruits and
vegetables.
Assumes consumption of 7.5 ounces of irradiated foods with an average
water content of 80% (fruits and vegetables range from 75-90%) with 0.3
PPM of RPs. 7.5 ounces is a large serving of fruit or one piece of
fruit and one serving of poultry or meat.
If only 1 out of 10,000 RP molecules is a potential carcinogen, co-
carcinogen or mutagen, then for every 7.5 ounce meal with 0.3 PPM of
RPs, 2,560 potentially carcinogenic or mutagenic RP molecules will
contact each cell in the adult liver. See the entire calculation.
Irradiation depletes anti-oxidant vitamins in food, which help
regenerate the liver.
Over a long period of time, the RP assault on the liver combined with
fewer anti-oxidants in the diet will create a "fertile field for the
ultimate growth of cancer cells" and "almost certainly evolve" to
produce liver cancer.
"Even at one-tenth the concentration of radiolytic products known by
the FDA to be formed by irradiation at 100 Krad, irradiation of foods
in the human diet represents predictably unacceptable risks to the
public's health."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------
FDA estimate of amount of RPs produced
"Calculations based on radiation chemistry clearly indicate that
irradiation doses of 100 Krad or less yield a concentration of total
radiolytic products in food that is so limited that it would be
difficult to detect and subsequently measure toxicological properties.
In addition, at this dose unique radiolytic products (URPs) will be on
the order of 3 parts per million (PPM), and since the number of
individual URPs is likely to be greater than ten, the amount of any
particular URP will be considerably less than 1 PPM. Finally, our
estimates of URPs may be exaggerated.
"Hence, because of the low level of total unique radiolytic products
(URPs) produced, it is concluded that food irradiated at doses not
exceeding 100 Krad is wholesome and safe for human consumption. This
rationale is based solely on an estimate of the concentration of
individual URPs produced by the radiation dose to the food, and
pertains even if a high proportion of the total human diet is
irradiated at 100 Krad."
p. 16, Recommendations for evaluating the safety of irradiated foods.
Final report, July 1980. Director, Bureau of Foods, FDA.
Calculation of number of molecules of RPs produced by 7.5 ounces of
irradiated food.
Analysis of the Impact of Radiolytic Products (RPs) at 0.3 PPM
Mathematical Calculations
A. Seven and one-half (7.5) ounces of irradiated "foods" equals 42.5
grams of "food" substance:
1) 7.5 oz. x 28.35 gm. per oz. = 212.63 gm. of "food"
2) 212.63 gm. x 1000 mg. per gm. - 213,630 mg. of "food"
3) If 80% of the "food" is water,
then 0.8 x 212,630 mg. = 170,104 mg. of water
OR 213,630 mg. of "food" - 170,104 mg. of water = 42,526 mg. of "food"
substance
B. RPs at 0.3 PPM in 7.5 ounces of "food" substance yield 0.01275 mg.
of RPs per 7.5 ounce meal.
1) 42,526 mg. of "food" substance = 0.0425 Kg.
0.0425 Kg. x 0.3 PPM x 1 mg. per Kg. per PPM
equals 0.01275 mg. of RPs in "food" substance
C. Assuming an average Molecular Weight (MW) of one RP molecule equals
300 Daltons, permits the calculation of the total number of RP
molecules ingested in a 7.5 ounce meal of irradiated "food":
1) 0.01275 mg. RPs ÷ 300 Daltons = 0.0000425 milliMoles of RPs
OR 2) 0.0000425 milliMoles RPs = 0.0425 microMoles of RPs
OR 3) 0.0425 microMoles of RPs = 4.25 x 10-8 moles of RPs
D) To convert to the number of RP molecules, the Mole fraction is
multiplied by Avogadro's Number (6.023 x 1023 molecules per Mole):
1) (4.25 x 10-8 Moles of RPs) x (6.023 x 1023 molecules per Mole) =
(25.6 x 1015) molecules of RPs in a 7.5 ounce meal of irradiated "food"
OR 2) 25,600,000,000,000,000 RP molecules per meal
E) Since there are approximately one million liver cells
("hepatocytes") in the adult human liver, there will be 25,600,000,000
RP molecules potentially targeted at each liver cell.
1) 25,600,000,000,000,000 RP molecules ÷ 1,000,000 cells =
25,600,000,000 RP molecules per liver cell
F) If, however, only 1 out of 1,000 RP molecules is actually
assimilated from the small intestine into the hepatic portal
circulation (ed: blood flow through the liver), then for every 7.5
ounce meal with 0.3 PPM of RPs, 25,600,000 of these reactive RPs will
enter the liver:
1) 25,600,000,000 RP molecules per liver cell ÷ 1 in 1,000 RP molecules
actually assimilated into hepatic portal circulation = 25,600,000 RP
molecules per liver cell in the "Best Case"
G) Further, if only 1 out of 10,000 RP molecules is a potential
carcinogen, co-carcinogen, or mutagen, then for every 7.5 ounce meal
with 0.3 PPM of RPs, 2,560 potentially carcinogenic or mutagenic RP
molecules will contact each cell in the adult liver:
1) 25,600,000 RP molecules per liver cell ÷ 1 in 10,000 RP molecules as
potential carcinogens or mutagens = 2,560 (potentially carcinogenic or
mutagenic) RP molecules will come in contact with each hepatocyte
(liver cell).
H) If, over protracted periods of time, the liver is depleted of
protective, anti-oxidant nutrients which are destroyed by irradiation,
then the inherent capability of the liver's protective and regenerative
mechanisms will be compromised. This reduction in the quality and
quantity of functional nutrients available is caused by the consumption
of diets containing irradiated "foods" over long periods. This
depletion in the intake of functional anti-oxidant nutrients, in
conjunction with genetic, lifestyle, and occupational factors, will
lead to a tissue environment in the liver which will evolve to unique
susceptibility to RP-induced initiator and/or promoter carcinogenesis
mechanisms.
Thus, I believe that ingesting irradiated "foods" containing even 0.3
PPM of RPs will inevitably lead to neoplastic transformations of liver
cells in a fertile field for the ultimate growth of cancer cells; these
will almost certainly evolve to produce hepatocellular (liver)
carcinoma.
Even at one-tenth the concentration of radiolytic products known by the
FDA to be formed by irradiation at 100 Krad, irradiation of foods in
the human diet represents predictably unacceptable risks to the
public's health.
David L. Paxton
this bull crap.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
I have stopped replying to that little troll. However, I agree with you.
A lot of people, especially those that are trying to prepare for
disaster supplies, that have studied much of the non slanted, non
biased, properly done testing and research are actually LOOKING FOR
irradiated foods. If certain people would let us make the informed
decisions to buy it that is.
BTW as far as quoting tons of "research" funded by those that have an
interest in the results, we could present a long list of research and
tests done during the 40's to early 60's presenting a case for tobacco
not being an evil demon that we all know it is today. It all depends on
how the tests are run. I totally discount any test that is not done in a
double blind manor where the testers have no idea whether their sample
is the "tainted" or "pure" sample.
Big Dave
David L. Paxton
> Please stop trying to link the food irradiation and nuclear wase together.
> They are not the same.
>
> dk
This is why I quit replying to him. He obviously is just a little troll
hiding under a rock waiting to spread more garbage.
Half the time I doubt whether he ever even looks at some of the
information he quotes. Either that or he doesn't have the ability to
understand all he reads.
Big Dave
tonu and carol aun
LABEL informing me if a food is irradiated or genetically modified or
organic... don't patronize me or my intelligence..... let _me_ make my
own decision as to the level of risk I'm willing to assume. I'm 55 years
old and have done, and continue to do, activities I enjoy that many
consider quite risky: I still play B-Ball with 20 year olds; I mountain
climb; I fly and am building my own plane (Zenair 701); I solo canoe for
weeks at a time into wilderness areas; I eat unpasturized cheese; I
smoke; I drink; I visit strip clubs; I drive on our hi-ways; I
occasionally work with asbestos.... a pox on both your houses....*if*
you believe a thing is good or bad for me, please have the courtesy to
allow _me_ to decide as to continue or not. Once, twice, or thrice,
having heard the arguments, I truly believe I am capable of making a
subjective decision as to the risk I'm willing to take--- and no, I
won't ever think of legal action if I made a poor judgement (nor should
anyone). Don't use the canard of 'protecting the children' --- that's
the parents' job.... and if they aren't up to it then all I can say is
that life isn't fair. HOWEVER ... the only way I can *decide* on eating
irradiated food is if I have the information---- if irradiated food is
safe (IMO the benefits outweigh the dangers) then DON'T be afraid to
label it as being irradiated--- otherwise I have to consider the safety
claims suspect. I don't agree with most of Clives' rants (and his cites
are not too useful:-)) but at least he seems to be pushing for
disclosure, a point I find laudable.
Chive Mynde
dlpa...@gate.net wrote:
> David Kendra wrote:
> > Please stop trying to link the food irradiation and nuclear wase
together.
> > They are not the same.
> >
> > dk
>
> This is why I quit replying to him. He obviously is just a little
troll
> hiding under a rock waiting to spread more garbage.
You quit replying to me because I demonstrated you were full of shit.
Nuclear waste and food irradiation are intimately linked together.
The U.S. Department of Energy is holding public hearings during 2000
about reopening a Hanford, Washington, nuclear reactor for commercial
food irradiation.
If irradiation is widely used, nuclear materials will be 'privatized'.
The owners of nuclear irradiators will have the responsibility
of 'safely' disposing of the radioactive material.
The more nuclear irradiators, the more likelihood of a serious accident
in transport, operation or disposal of the nuclear materials.
Food irradiation facilities have already contaminated the environment.
For example, in Georgia in 1988, radioactive water escaped from an
irradiation facility. The taxpayers were stuck with $47 million in
cleanup costs. Radioactivity was tracked into cars and homes. In Hawaii
in 1967 and New Jersey in 1982, radioactive water was flushed into the
public sewer system.
Numerous worker exposures have occurred in food irradiation facilities
worldwide.
The decision to use irradiation is a matter of public policy, not
science. Therefore, the public should be involved--not just the
scientists and the food industry.
Additionally, companies like nuclear irradiator Food Technology Service
of Florida , formerly known as Vindicator Inc., has been waging a
public relations campaign for 15 years to convince consumers that
eating irradiated food is safe.
Food irradiation is not only unsafe, but its long-term effects upon
human health are completely unknown.
There is no reason to use food irradiation other than to cover up the
fecal contamination that results from meat and poultry industry
deregulation.
Chive Mynde
Every single thing I posted was true, factual, and taken from
scientific evidence in the public domain.
Perhaps you should stop lying.
Bob Casanova
sci.skeptic, posted by Chive Mynde <chive...@hotmail.com>:
>In article <tlpnrs8bu0iqpd1t3...@4ax.com>,
> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
>> On Sun, 10 Sep 2000 16:49:18 GMT, the following appeared in
>> sci.skeptic, posted by Chive Mynde <chive...@hotmail.com>:
>>
>> >http://www.purefood.org/irrad/freshfood.cfm
>> >
>> >Action Alert: Defend Fresh, Raw Food!
>>
>> I suggest you go to rural Mexico or Vietnam and consume a
>> few "fresh, raw" fruits and vegetables; don't bother to wash
>> them, since being "fresh" and "raw" makes them totally
>> wholesome, especially right after the honey wagon fertilizes
>> the fields.
>
>More dishonest balderdash from Bob Casanova.
Not at all; I've seen the entire process in Vietnam (except
when I saw the process, it was straight from consumer to
field; they dispensed with the honey wagons).
>
>The purefood.org website specifically requests that EVERYONE wash their
>food prior to eating it.
In the nearest contaminated well, or just take it to the
benjo ditch?
>
>Of course, the only thing Casanova is capable of is disinformation and
>propaganda.
You owe me an Irony-Meter.
>
>How sad.
Mote. Beam. Eye.
(Note followups, if any)
Bob C.
Reply to Bob-Casanova @ worldnet.att.net
(without the spaces, of course)
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness
to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
--H. L. Mencken
David L. Paxton
> Plutonium is radioactive. What does that have to do with
> sending high frequency electromagnetic waves through
> food?
You can't talk to this little troll. No matter what you say he answers
with more and more even more ridiculous non pertinent garbage. He is
determined that he has proved <???> that nuclear waste, weapons
materials, and reactor residue is all part of food irradiation. I would
like to know how many irradiating sights he visited to make these
conclusions. I personally went to 3 commercial irradiation sights and
none of them have any private ownership of any radioactive materials and
there is no ties to any weapons companies or nuclear waste companies.
The equipment I saw was made by scientific/medical companies that
manufacture other radiation sources like Xray equipment.
But then I guess his next outrageous attacks will be to eliminate Xray
machines and link them to the manufacture of intercontinental ballistic
atomic missiles. That is the extent he is going to with this string.
I think he was born a little too late, he would have been right at home
with the people that kept insisting that the human body would die if
accelerated to 30 mph or more. They were trying to stop the development
of that evil machine known as the automobile.
Big Dave
Chive Mynde
dlpa...@gate.net wrote:
> Night Child wrote:
> > Plutonium is radioactive. What does that have to do with
> > sending high frequency electromagnetic waves through
> > food?
> I think he was born a little too late, he would have been right at
home
> with the people that kept insisting that the human body would die if
> accelerated to 30 mph or more. They were trying to stop the
development
> of that evil machine known as the automobile.
What does that have to do with the dangers of food irradiation?
--
Chive Mynde
dlpa...@gate.net wrote:
> Chive Mynde wrote:
> > Irradiation does not make food radioactive, nor has alleged
> > radioactivity been at issue in the debate. But there is concern that
> > foods processed by irradiation may contain radiolytic products that
> > could have toxic effects.
> >
> > The source of radiation is either cobalt 60 or cesium 137. The
prospect
> > of increased transportation and handling of cobalt and cesium--
> > dangerous substances--has caused negative publicity. Some
irradiation
> > proponents say food processors could theoretically use as-yet-
> > undeveloped linear acceleration techniques instead. But if food
> > irradiation becomes commonplace any time soon, cesium or cobalt
will be
> > used.
>
> Here we go again, more ill informed bull crap. Food irradiation in the
> plants that I ACTUALLY went to (not reading a bunch of bull crap put
out
> by the opposing industry as gospel but actual hands on research) have
NO
> source of radiation on the premises other than electron tubes, similar
> to Xray tubes, and all radiation stops the instance the electricity is
> shut off. This bull about weapons grade waste and other equally
> preposterous dribble is ridiculous.
J Wootton
> ) but at least he seems to be pushing for
> disclosure, a point I find laudable.
>
My opinion...the only true disclosure you would get is if you grow your own and
you still wouldn't know if the seeds you use are GMOs or not, since they'll be
spreading with the winds and mutating non GMOs (if you could believe the seed
sellers "disclosure", if they can trust their supplier, etc etc). Otherwise
there's too many in-betweens in the processing of food.
And how can parents make the best decisions if there isn't full disclosure on
foods?
And it _is_ about the children and their children and theirs. A change made now
can cause subtle biological changes that could only be viewed, in hindsight,
after many generations. What we're debating now will be the food for many
"historical" books of the future. Question is: what will history say? Much ado
about nothing or post-industrialization and new science killed off the essence of
what it is that makes us human.
Science and industry IMO move too fast without knowing how the long-term effects
of their decisions now will impact on humanity and biodiversity later.
Short-term gain, short-sightedness. We intervene to solve one problem but don't
stop to understand what other problems are being created, which might not rear
its ugly head for generations.
Look up cane toads or mice in Australia, for instance. Or how about those
elephant culls in Africa that I've ranted about in the past. Well come to find
out that when they did their planned culls, they were not taking care to make
sure that the gender balances were maintained. Come to find out that many of the
marauding elephants are all males...too many males/female ratio and they're mad
as hell and acting like "disorderly teens" because their hormones are out of
control and they can't find any relief. It's the "oops" factor. So now they're
trying to find funds to transplant some of the males into areas where there's a
higher ratio of females/males. How many more mistakes can this earth take? Why
with all the scientists, biologists XXXists could a mistake like this happen? So
much for science..Ha!
J
John Cason
cookware industries are working together to suppress the truth
about the dangers of calorilytic chemicals produced when natural,
fresh, raw food is exposed to convective, conductive, and radiant
energy in the infrared range of the same electromagnetic
spectrum where gamma and x-rays can be found. The awful
truth is that during the "cooking" process, raw food is heated to
temperatures well over the boiling temperatures of water and even
oil, temperatures known to be deadly to all life on our planet. The
cells of our bodies would never survive such treatment.
Nuclear power plants dissipate heat into the atmosphere or dump
it into rivers (where it's correctly called pollution), but they expect us
to treat our food with the same stuff. All sorts of volatile chemicals
are produced when raw food "cooks," a process that kills all
bacteria living naturally in the food while breaking chemical bonds
by the bill^H^H^H^Hzillions, causing racemization, isomerization,
and cross-linking by disulfide bonds. Natural sugars in the foods,
enjoyed raw by our ancestors for tens of thousands of years, turn
into an unnatural brown glaze that coats the exterior of many foods.
The vitamin content of foods is sharply reduced, depleting the
natural anti-oxidants vitamin C and E and denaturing enzymes.
Furthermore, "cooking" disguises the fact that some foods were
not completely fresh before this hellish, artificial treatment was
applied, allowing all sorts of sloppy raw food handling and
preparation practices.
Don't listen to any nonsense about risk-benefit analysis. If we had
been intended to eat cooked foods, we'd all have ovens in our
throats. Read the food labels carefully, and tell your shop or store
manager that you refuse to buy anything that is "cooked." Know
what you're putting in your body. Watch for those magic words
that tell you when something is dangerous. Let's all wok together
to end this menace to our health.
Zhong L, Goldberg MS, Parent ME, Hanley JA, 1999. Risk of
developing lung cancer in relation to exposure to fumes from
Chinese-style cooking. Scand J Work Environ Health 25:309-16.
Chiang TA, Wu PF, Ko YC., 1998. Prevention of exposure to
mutagenic fumes produced by hot cooking oil in Taiwanese
kitchens. Environ Mol Mutagen. 31:92-6.
Chiang TA, Wu PF, Wang LF, Lee H, Lee CH, Ko YC., 1997.
Mutagenicity and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon content of
fumes from heated cooking oils produced in Taiwan. Mutat Res.
381:157-61.
Pellizzari ED, Michael LC, Thomas KW, Shields PG, Harris C.,
1995. Identification of 1,3-butadiene, benzene, and other volatile
organics from wok oil emissions. J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol.
5:77-87.
Rombauer, I. S., and Becker, M. R. The Joy of Cooking. [The cover
and first few pages of my copy are lost, so I don't know the year of
publication or the publisher.] See especially the chapter "The
Foods We Heat." Under "Sauteing," it talks about searing in oil
and the "the brown residue in the saute pan."
Don't let anyone fool you: cooked food is made up of nothing but
chemicals, including measurable amounts of things like benzene,
1,3-butadiene, and other enes that haven't even been tested for
safety.
Chive Mynde
"John Cason" <jkc...@SSPPAAMMnegia.net> wrote:
[off-topic delusions deleted]
Cason, you're still around? I thought you ran away the last time I
smacked you off this group.
gcouger
safe when the electricity is turned off.
--
Gordon W5RED
G. C. Couger gco...@provalue.net Stillwater, OK
"Chive Mynde" <chive...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8pjq90$lqs$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
: In article <39BC08...@gate.net>,
Tracy Aquilla
> I'm tired of this type of *logic* from both sides .... all I want is a
> LABEL informing me if a food is irradiated
In the USA, food products that have been preserved using gamma radiation are
required to be labelled as such. In fact, the label must also include a radiation
logo, for those who cannot read.
> or genetically modified
Not required under US federal law, although it is required by many states.
J Wootton
Tracy Aquilla wrote:
> tonu and carol aun wrote:
>
> > I'm tired of this type of *logic* from both sides .... all I want is a
> > LABEL informing me if a food is irradiated
>
> In the USA, food products that have been preserved using gamma radiation are
> required to be labelled as such. In fact, the label must also include a radiation
> logo, for those who cannot read.
>
Can you tell me if a consumer were to purchase a can of pork and beans, with no
Radura logo on the can, how they could tell whether the FDA's rules had been complied
with or not?
http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opa-fdir.html
Surely you aren't going to try to tell us that every drop of food that is produced,
processed, sold, marketed, processed, added to etc etc is all monitored/screened by
the FDA? Some of us might have naively "bought" that idea, many years ago, when we
were assured that our meats were being inspected (people thought that every piece of
meat was inspected, and to this day, thinking it is always safe, some eat their meat
medium, medium rare...a young girl died from infected hamburger meat in Northern
Quebec, a few months ago). Quite the barbecue that turned out to be!
Are you here to lull or have also been lulled by these same empty promises? Or is it
just "well, you win some, you lose some" (and pray that the ones lost aren't someone
close to you?)
J
Tracy Aquilla
> Tracy Aquilla wrote:
> > tonu and carol aun wrote:
> >
> > > I'm tired of this type of *logic* from both sides .... all I want is a
> > > LABEL informing me if a food is irradiated
> >
> > In the USA, food products that have been preserved using gamma radiation are
> > required to be labelled as such. In fact, the label must also include a radiation
> > logo, for those who cannot read.
>
> Can you tell me if a consumer were to purchase a can of pork and beans, with no
> Radura logo on the can, how they could tell whether the FDA's rules had been complied
> with or not?
Yes, I can tell you. Most individual consumers probably do not have the means to
determine whether a particular product is in compliance with the law, but it is not
impossible.
> http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/opa-fdir.html
>
> Surely you aren't going to try to tell us that every drop of food that is produced,
> processed, sold, marketed, processed, added to etc etc is all monitored/screened by
> the FDA?
No, I did not say that, and only a fool would say such a thing - it simply is not true.
> [snip] Are you here to lull or have also been lulled by these same empty promises? Or
> is it
> just "well, you win some, you lose some" (and pray that the ones lost aren't someone
> close to you?)
I am here to inform people of the facts. The point I made was very clear and in direct
response to the statement "all I want is a LABEL informing me if a food is irradiated"
(which you deleted, for some strange reason, thereby taking my response entirely out of
context). The fact is, such labels are indeed required by US law for, those who care.
Tracy
CAVM
>meat was inspected, and to this day, thinking it is always safe, some eat
>their meat
>medium, medium rare...a young girl died from infected hamburger meat in
>Northern
>Quebec, a few months ago). Quite the barbecue that turned out to be!
>
>Are you here to lull or have also been lulled by these same empty promises?
>Or is it
>just "well, you win some, you lose some" (and pray that the ones lost aren't
>someone
>close to you?)
Are you kidding? Do you think that you live in Never-Never land? Meat and
other foods can grow bacteria of many kinds. One way to protect yourself is to
cook it properly. No government agency is assigned to wipe your nose and pat
your head.
tonu and carol aun
>
> tonu and carol aun wrote:
>
> > ) but at least he seems to be pushing for
> > disclosure, a point I find laudable.
> >
>
> My opinion...the only true disclosure you would get is if you grow your own and
> you still wouldn't know if the seeds you use are GMOs or not, since they'll be
> spreading with the winds and mutating non GMOs (if you could believe the seed
> sellers "disclosure", if they can trust their supplier, etc etc). Otherwise
> there's too many in-betweens in the processing of food.
Agreed --- but don't define my use of 'disclosure' so narrowly --
otherwise we'll get into a discussion on the number of angels on that
pin :-)
>
> And how can parents make the best decisions if there isn't full disclosure on
> foods?
Who's definition of disclosure are you using now? :-)
>
> And it _is_ about the children and their children and theirs. A change made now
> can cause subtle biological changes that could only be viewed, in hindsight,
> after many generations.
Agreed.
What we're debating now will be the food for many
> "historical" books of the future. Question is: what will history say? Much ado
> about nothing or post-industrialization and new science killed off the essence of
> what it is that makes us human.
Sorta like Y2K?
>
> Science and industry IMO move too fast without knowing how the long-term effects
> of their decisions now will impact on humanity and biodiversity later.
> Short-term gain, short-sightedness. We intervene to solve one problem but don't
> stop to understand what other problems are being created, which might not rear
> its ugly head for generations.
Always been thus ---- that doesn't make it right. I'm sure you've read
Alice in Wonderland and mad hatters' disease.
>
> Look up cane toads or mice in Australia, for instance.
Deer in New Zealand; Mongoose in the Caribbean; the loss of Dodos
affecting tree growth on Mauritius; the list is depressive.
Or how about those
> elephant culls in Africa that I've ranted about in the past. Well come to find
> out that when they did their planned culls, they were not taking care to make
> sure that the gender balances were maintained. Come to find out that many of the
> marauding elephants are all males...too many males/female ratio and they're mad
> as hell and acting like "disorderly teens" because their hormones are out of
> control and they can't find any relief. It's the "oops" factor. So now they're
> trying to find funds to transplant some of the males into areas where there's a
> higher ratio of females/males. How many more mistakes can this earth take? Why
> with all the scientists, biologists XXXists could a mistake like this happen? So
> much for science..Ha!
Not scientists but rather politics --- one can always find/pay a
gunslinger to defend your interests.
> J
tonu and carol aun
>
> tonu and carol aun wrote:
>
> > I'm tired of this type of *logic* from both sides .... all I want is a
> > LABEL informing me if a food is irradiated
>
> In the USA, food products that have been preserved using gamma radiation are
> required to be labelled as such. In fact, the label must also include a radiation
> logo, for those who cannot read.
I lived in the States during that battle --- the companies doing the
irradiation did not *feel* it was *of benefit* to the average consumer
to be confused by 'that dry scientific stuff' and lobbied against the
labeling. GMF is history repeated.
>
> > or genetically modified
>
> Not required under US federal law, although it is required by many states.
Correct me if I'm mistaken but I know of no state law that mandates the
labeling of a food as genetically modified if only one minor ingredient
has a fraction of an occasional modified food in its' composition.
John Cason
>[off-topic delusions deleted]
You wish. Whatever case can be made against food irradiation, the
chemistry of cooking offers much better sound bites for anyone who
wants to appeal to emotion and frighten the uneducated with half-truths.
Benzene, for instance, is a universally recognized carcinogen.
>Cason, you're still around? I thought you ran away the last time I
>smacked you off this group.
Congratulations, Chive. I had no idea that you had been selected
moderator of all those groups up there in the header, but your
success should cheer up Dubya. You showed that an ill-tempered,
poor reader who's weak in science can lose every debate and still
be elected to high office.
Chive Mynde
Well, at least I'm not "stoned" on corporate propaganda like you. I
can tell the difference between science and non-science. You blend
them together to mislead the gullible.
John C. Randolph
Chive Mynde wrote:
> Well, at least I'm not "stoned" on corporate propaganda like you. I
> can tell the difference between science and non-science. You blend
> them together to mislead the gullible.
I notice an interesting similarity in the non-arguments offered up by
woo-woos, nazis, and nut cases like Chivvy.
Alex Vange (the NAZI bot) Insists that anyone who doesn't agree with
him is misled by the "jew-controlled media."
Peaty the Astrologer insists that his detractors are "not allowed to
know the truth"
Chivvy now asserts that Mr. Cason is "stoned on corporate propaganda."
I think the lot of you would do well to consider the possiblity that
the people with whom you are arguing are at least as well-read as
you are, and furthermore, that they aren't emotionally attached to
the issue and consequently can be far more objective in their
judgement.
-jcr
John C. Randolph
Chive Mynde wrote:
>
> In article <tlpnrs8bu0iqpd1t3...@4ax.com>,
> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> wrote:
> > On Sun, 10 Sep 2000 16:49:18 GMT, the following appeared in
> > sci.skeptic, posted by Chive Mynde <chive...@hotmail.com>:
> >
> > >http://www.purefood.org/irrad/freshfood.cfm
> > >
> > >Action Alert: Defend Fresh, Raw Food!
> >
> > I suggest you go to rural Mexico or Vietnam and consume a
> > few "fresh, raw" fruits and vegetables; don't bother to wash
> > them, since being "fresh" and "raw" makes them totally
> > wholesome, especially right after the honey wagon fertilizes
> > the fields.
>
> More dishonest balderdash from Bob Casanova.
Nope, he's right. If you don't wash fruits and veggies in those countries,
you're begging for a bout with dysentery.
> The purefood.org website specifically requests that EVERYONE wash their
> food prior to eating it.
If you don't object to washing, then what's your problem with killing
pathogens with radiation?
> Of course, the only thing Casanova is capable of is disinformation and
> propaganda.
I would point out, that the only thing you seem to be capable of is
hyperbole and hysteria.
-jcr
J Wootton
> Chive Mynde wrote:
>
> > Well, at least I'm not "stoned" on corporate propaganda like you. I
> > can tell the difference between science and non-science. You blend
> > them together to mislead the gullible.
>
> I notice an interesting similarity in the non-arguments offered up by
> woo-woos, nazis, and nut cases like Chivvy.
>
> Alex Vange (the NAZI bot) Insists that anyone who doesn't agree with
> him is misled by the "jew-controlled media."
>
> Peaty the Astrologer insists that his detractors are "not allowed to
> know the truth"
>
> Chivvy now asserts that Mr. Cason is "stoned on corporate propaganda."
>
> I think the lot of you would do well to consider the possiblity that
> the people with whom you are arguing are at least as well-read as
> you are, and furthermore, that they aren't emotionally attached to
> the issue and consequently can be far more objective in their
> judgement.
>
> -jcr
If an alert sounded right now, I'd find 5 emotional friends and one
objective. From emotion comes chaos, out of chaos can come some pretty
"brain addled" ideas/solutions, but usually also a gem. The objective one
can help the emotionals narrow down to the best solution or the most
efficient way to get to the gem solution. There's a time and place for
everything and every type, but as a rule, I've generally found that
emotion begets action, objectivity begets "talking heads". I think the
time of action is way past due. IMO
That's my "non-argument" and I'm sticking to it <g>
J
--
Slightly addled and d**ned proud of it.
fungee
Food Irradiation:
Toxic to Bacteria, Safe for Humans
by Dale Blumenthal
A measure FDA announced in the Federal Register this year may go
unused
because of consumer apprehension. On May 2, 1990, FDA issued a rule
defining
the use of irradiation as a safe and effective means to control a major
source of food-borne illness--Salmonella and other food-borne bacteria
in
raw chicken, turkey, and other poultry. However, FDA has received
written
objections that it must evaluate before the rule can go into effect.
Experts believe that up to 60 percent of poultry sold in the United
States
is contaminated with Salmonella, according to Joseph Madden, Ph.D.,
acting
director of FDA's division of microbiology. Madden adds that studies
suggest
that all chicken may be contaminated with the Campylobacter organism.
People often become ill after eating contaminated poultry. Symptoms
may
range from a simple stomachache to incapacitating stomach and intestinal
disorders, occasionally resulting in death.
As equipment used to irradiate food is regulated as a food additive,
the
FDA rule is the first step in permitting irradiation of poultry.
However,
although the U.S. Department of Agriculture will soon propose a
companion
rule finalizing guidelines for commercial irradiation of poultry,
industry
groups cite consumer apprehension as a drawback to implementing the
procedure. And reaction to FDA's new rule has elicited more questions
than
answers.
A Scary Word
Irradiating food to prevent illness from food-borne bacteria is not a
new
concept. Research on the technology began in earnest shortly after World
War
II, when the U.S. Army began a series of experiments irradiating fresh
foods
for troops in the field. Since 1963, FDA has passed rules permitting
irradiation to curb insects in foods and microorganisms in spices,
control
parasite contamination in pork, and retard spoilage in fruits and
vegetables.
But, to many people, the word irradiation means danger. It is
associated
with atomic bomb explosions and nuclear reactor accidents such as those
at
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. The idea of irradiating food signals a
kind
of "gamma alarm," according to one British broadcaster. (Gamma rays are
forms of energy emitted from some radioactive materials.)
But when it comes to food irradiation, the only danger is to the
bacteria
that contaminate the food. The process damages their genetic material,
so
the organisms can no longer survive or multiply.
Irradiation does not make food radioactive and, therefore, does not
increase human exposure to radiation. The specified exposure times and
energy levels of radiation sources approved for foods are inadequate to
induce radioactivity in the products, according to FDA's Laura
Tarantino,
Ph.D., an expert on food irradiation. The process involves exposing food
to
a source of radiation, such as to the gamma rays from radioactive cobalt
or
cesium or to x-rays. However, no radioactive material is ever added to
the
product. Manufacturers use the same technique to sterilize many
disposable
medical devices.
Tarantino notes that in testing the safety of the process, scientists
used
much higher levels of radiation than those approved for use in poultry.
But
even at these elevated levels, researchers found no toxic or
cancer-causing
effects in animals consuming irradiated poultry.
Beyond the Gamma Alarm
Market tests show that once consumers learn about irradiation, they
will
buy irradiated food. For example, Christine Bruhn, Ph.D., of the
University
of California's Center for Consumer Research in Davis, Calif., reports
that
irradiated papayas outsold the nonirradiated product by more than 10 to
1
when in-store information was available. And, Danny Terry, Ph.D., a
consumer
researcher at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Mo.,
says
that a recent market test he conducted with irradiated strawberries
showed
that consumers who received written information about irradiation along
with
the fruit were slightly more interested in buying irradiated products in
the
future.
Nevertheless, concern about the process remains strong. Since 1989,
three
states (Maine, New York, and New Jersey) have either banned or issued a
moratorium on the sale of irradiated foods. According to a U.S. General
Accounting Office report prepared in May 1990 at the request of Rep.
Douglas
Bosco (D-Calif.), "officials of these states told us that their states
took
the actions in response to public concern by citizen groups rather than
as a
result of scientific evidence questioning the safety of food
irradiation."
"Something quite aside from food safety appears to lie at the root of
the
entire controversy, which may explain why it continues to flourish in
the
face of all safety assurances," says Carolyn Lochhead in the August 1989
issue of Food Technology magazine. "Many opponents charge that the Food
and
Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the nuclear
power
industry are conspiring to promote the technique as a way to dispose of
nuclear waste."
Lochhead discusses concerns that one source of radioactive material
for
food irradiation, cesium 137, is recovered from spent fuel rods in
nuclear
power plants. The conspiracy charge promotes unwarranted fear among
consumers, says Lochhead.
"For economic, as well as other, reasons," says Department of Energy
official Barbara Thomas, "the U.S. commercial nuclear power industry
does
not attempt to recover material, such as cesium 137, from spent fuel."
According to DOE, commercial irradiators in the United States choose
their
irradiation source (whether the gamma-emitting radioactive materials
cesium
137 or cobalt 60, or accelerators that can produce electrons, x-rays or
both) based on practical requirements, such as cost. The product to be
irradiated also influences the choice. Many foods require low energy
levels
to kill harmful organisms, while medical supplies may need higher doses
for
sterilization.
However, the fallout from a falsely characterized cesium recovery plan
has
charged the legislative atmosphere. George Giddings, Ph.D., a consultant
food scientist and expert in food irradiation matters, sees it as the
"single most inciting issue in the food irradiation area." Giddings
suggests
that legislators are wary of supporting food irradiation measures some
critics say are linked to increased nuclear activity, including the
production of nuclear weapons.
A 1982 congressional amendment bars using spent commercial fuel for
military purposes. The Department of Energy has no interest in changing
this
law.
Michael Colby, director of Food and Water, Inc., one of the more vocal
groups lobbying against food irradiation, says the new poultry
regulation
will lead to nuclear hazards, including "the continued generation of
radioactive wastes for which a secure isolation technology has yet to be
developed." Colby submitted the comment during a 30-day objection period
following publication of the final rule. In the case of food additives,
FDA
evaluates objections in order to determine whether any changes in the
final
rule are appropriate. Based on FDA's findings, those raising the
objection
may be entitled to a hearing before the commissioner.
FDA inspections of all irradiation plants conducted from 1986 to 1989
showed no violations of the food irradiation regulations.
Giddings contends that groups such as Food and Water play on the
public's
fear of nuclear energy and misrepresent the safety questions surrounding
food irradiation. They frame it as a "populist" issue to legislators and
pressure them to introduce legislation banning food irradiation.
Consumer Uncertainty
Other consumer groups have taken more moderate positions. The Center
for
Science in the Public Interest, for instance, says that "at a minimum,
irradiated foods should be labeled" so that consumers know what they're
buying.
Since 1966, FDA has required that irradiated foods be labeled as such.
In
1986, a mandatory logo was added to this labeling requirement. The
international logo, first used in the Netherlands, consists of a solid
circle, representing an energy source, above two petals, which represent
the
food. Five breaks in the outer circle depict rays from the energy
source.
Consumer surveys show mixed reactions. According to an article in the
October 1989 issue of Food Technology magazine, which reviewed surveys
conducted by various academic and consumer research groups, consumers
are
more concerned about chemical sprays and pesticide residues,
preservatives,
and food-borne illnesses than about food irradiation. A Louis Harris
poll,
conducted from 1984 through 1986, however, found that 76 percent of
Americans consider irradiated food a hazard.
"Consumer acceptance of irradiation as a treatment for foods is
showing
only minimal positive change, at best," said Fred Shank, Ph.D., director
of
FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in a symposium on
food
irradiation at the 1990 annual meeting of the Institute of Food
Technology.
Shank said that the greatest concern about the process is its perceived
association with radioactivity and nuclear power.
Another concern, raised often in comments to FDA when it proposed the
use
of radiation to kill microorganisms in spices and insects in fresh
foods, is
that irradiation may produce substances not known to be present in
nonirradiated foods.
These substances, described by scientists as "radiolytic products"
sound
more threatening than they actually are, says George Pauli, Ph.D., an
FDA
food irradiation expert and policy maker. For instance, Pauli says, when
we
heat food it often creates new substances that produce new tastes and
smells. These substances could be called thermolytic products--an
intimidating word for a harmless change.
In 1979, FDA established the Bureau of Foods Irradiated Food Committee
(BFIFC) to review safety assessments of irradiated food. Experiments
have
shown that very few of these radiolytic products are unique to
irradiated
foods. In fact, the BFIFC estimated that approximately 90 percent of the
substances identified as radiolytic products are found in foods that
have
not been irradiated--including raw, heated and stored foods. Moreover,
many
of these substances are not well known because the foods usually have
not
been studied at the minute (parts per million) levels scrutinized by
chemists who analyzed the irradiated foods.
Proving the Absence of a Ghost
For 30 years, FDA has reviewed experiments attempting to show possible
harmful effects of consuming irradiated food. But, "just as we can't
prove
the absence of a ghost, scientists cannot point to some 'thing' that
proves
the absence of risk," Pauli adds. "One can only search diligently."
The only relevant safety issue in food irradiation, BFIFC determined,
would be the production of harmful substances. BFIFC examined all
available
data on such products obtained by the U.S. Army's high-protein food
sterilization program. Only six substances (found in beef irradiated at
50
kiloGrays) of the 65 identified by Army researchers could not be
verified in
the literature as present in nonirradiated foods. These six substances
were
similar to natural food constituents.
The committee determined that even a diet consisting mainly of food
irradiated at the 1 kiloGray level (see accompanying article) would not
be
likely to contain a significant amount of any of these products.
BFIFC concluded in 1980 that food irradiated at a dose not exceeding 1
kiloGray is safe for human consumption, and that animal tests are
recommended only for foods irradiated above 1 kiloGray.
A second team of scientists then reviewed all animal feeding and other
irradiated food toxicity studies--several hundred--from agency files and
the
scientific literature and reaffirmed the BFIFC recommendation.
Since then, FDA has set the use of food irradiation at levels higher
than
1 kiloGray. The 1990 rule, for instance, would allow irradiation of
poultry
at levels up to 3 kiloGrays after animal data again revealed no
hazardous
effects.
In a separate review, the international community reached a similar
conclusion. Representatives from the United Nations, the International
Atomic Energy Agency, and the World Health Organization, making up the
joint
"Committee on the Wholesomeness of Irradiated Food," declared in 1980
that
the irradiation of any food up to an overall average dose of 10
kiloGrays
causes no toxicological hazard and introduces no special nutritional or
microbiological problems. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a United
Nations organization that recommends international food standards,
adopted
the recommendation in 1983.
The Future of Food Irradiation
The World Health Organization believes irradiation can substantially
reduce food poisoning. According to a 35-year WHO study, there has been
a
constant increase in the incidence of food-borne diseases, as well as
emergence of "new" disease-causing organisms, such as Campylobacter and
Listeria.
Food irradiation would be another weapon in the arsenal against
food-borne
illness. FDA and WHO, however, emphasize that irradiation is not a
substitute for careful handling, storage and cooking of food. Irradiated
poultry can become recontaminated, for instance, if placed next to
contaminated, nonirradiated poultry, or left unrefrigerated so that
remaining organisms can grow.
To date, 35 countries have issued unconditional or provisional
clearances
allowing irradiation of commercial foods. Of the more than 140
industrial
gamma irradiators in over 40 countries, 29 are used part-time to
irradiate
food items and conduct food-related research. (They are used mostly for
sterilizing disposable medical supplies.) A 1989 Library of Congress
report
prepared for Congress estimates that by the early 1990s, 55 facilities
worldwide will be used for food irradiation and related food irradiation
research.
However, as Tanya Roberts of USDA's Economic Research Service
stresses,
the future of irradiation depends upon consumer acceptance--based
largely on
proof that the process can produce safer foods at lower cost. Roberts
estimates that the cost of medical treatment and lost productivity for
five
food-borne diseases--trichinosis, toxoplasmosis, salmonellosis,
campylobacteriosis, and beef tapeworm--totals more than $1 billion
annually.
The last chapter in the story of food irradiation still remains to be
written. Will the fear of nuclear energy prevent this technology from
being
used to its fullest potential? Or will education win acceptance for a
procedure that can lower the incidence of food-borne illness? Only
consumers
can supply the answers. n
Dale Blumenthal is a staff writer for FDA Consumer.
Poultry Producers Respond
With one hand, poultry producers are giving a thumbs up sign to FDA's
rule
permitting irradiation of poultry. With the other, they are putting its
use
on hold.
Stuart Proctor, executive vice president of the National Turkey
Federation--which represents 95 percent of turkey growers and
producers--says "we are encouraged by FDA's decision. The industry
should be
allowed to use any science available that makes food safe from
food-borne
illness and also is safe." He continues, "as soon as consumers are ready
to
accept the product, we'll use it."
As George Watts, president of the National Broiler Council, says, "the
U.S. poultry industry has always been a consumer-driven business,
demonstrated by the variety of new products developed over the years to
meet
the American public's demand." He says that should consumers desire
irradiated food products, "the industry will respond."
Perdue Farms, Inc., a large, East Coast chicken producer, says it has
no
plans to use the irradiation process. Steve McCauley, a company
spokesman,
said that the firm sees no need for decontaminating its poultry with
irradiation because Perdue tests its products stringently. He claims
this
keeps them safe from contamination.
The need is for consumer education. Although poultry groups say they
do
not have the resources for the costly campaign needed, they believe that
once consumers understand more about food irradiation, they will demand
it.
Proctor compares reaction to food irradiation to earlier apprehension
about microwave ovens. Once consumers recognized microwave cooking as
safe,
desire for fast and convenient food led to a microwave revolution. He
said
he could foresee the same demand for irradiated food, prompted by a
desire
to cut down on food-borne illness, once consumers are no longer afraid
of
the process.
--
FunGee