ACTION ALERT: KEEP IRRADIATED FOOD OUT OF YOUR CHILD'S LUNCH! November 12, 2002 WHAT CAN YOU DO? --Send a free fax to USDA Secretary Veneman at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/articles.cfm?ID=8493 -- Talk with your local PTA and alert other parents and teachers in your area to the dangers of irradiation! Talking points -- Talk to your district school board! Let them know that you do not want your child subjected to this controversial technology. (Public Citizen can help parents and teachers work with their school boards to keep irradiated food out of their schools. Contact Monique with Public Citizen at 202-546-4996 for materials and suggestions on how to get started.) -- Write a letter to the editor of your local paper explaining the situation at hand and asking for parental support! -- Raise this issue with your congressional representatives! In voting for the most recent Farm Bill, your legislators also directed the FDA to begin allowing alternative labeling for irradiated food, such as the term "pasteurization." Ask them how they plan to protect the consumer's right-to-know if food has been irradiated, now that they have gutted the labeling laws. Also, ask them how they plan to prevent the use of irradiated food in the National School Lunch Program. -- Write to the USDA! Tell the Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, to protect America's children by NOT recommending irradiated meat for the National School Lunch Program. Write to: Ann Veneman U.S. Department of Agriculture, Room 200-A, Whitten Building, 12th and Jefferson Dr. SW Washington, DC 20250 Call: 202-720-3631l or send a free fax to Secretary Veneman at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/food_irrad/articles.cfm?ID=8493 QUESTIONS TO RAISE: * If the safety of this technology is questionable, why serve it to children? * Is the Bush administration going to experiment on school children just to aid the food irradiation industry, which has had a difficult time making it on its own in the marketplace? * How much longer is this administration going to let the meat industry get away with producing food that is contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7, listeria or salmonella without a proper inspection and testing regime? * Is this administration willing to put our children's health at risk to let industry off the hook on cleaning up their processes? TALKING POINTS: * Irradiation is not an acceptable way to deal with filth on meat. * The health effects of children consuming irradiated meat are unknown. * Irradiated food in schools need not be labeled, which obstructs parents' right-to-know what their children are eating. * The National School Lunch Program is meant to provide children with a healthy well-balanced meal, not nutritionally deficient food treated with a controversial technology. * There is an appalling lack of research into the long-term health effects experienced by children who are exposed to toxic chemicals in foods. Dr. William Au, a toxicologist at the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, has argued that "the scientific community and regulatory agencies have very little knowledge regarding how children respond to insult from toxic chemicals. These concerns also apply to toxicological risk with respect to eating irradiated food." BACKGROUND The meat industry is targeting the National School Lunch Program and turning your children into guinea pigs for irradiation technology. Previously, the USDA prohibited the purchase of irradiated meat for the National School Lunch Program. However, Congress passed a provision in the most recent Farm Bill that opened the door for irradiated food in the program by telling the USDA that they could not prohibit it. Now, the meat industry has stepped up its pressure on the USDA, and a decision on whether to recommend irradiated meat to schools is expected by the end of 2002. Most worrisome for parents is the fact that irradiated food does not have to be labeled when served in school cafeterias! Taxpayer money should not be used to prop up this questionable technology at the expense of the safety of American children and their parents' right-to-know what they are eating!