back to Organic Consumers Assn. Stop Food Irradiation page OCA Comment: If the Postal Service does use these nuclear irradiatiors, people will have to ship their food, vitamins, seeds, etc. using private delivery services that don't irradiate. The proposed doses are way higher than anything approved by the FDA. Apart from the loss of quality and radiolytic products, much of the food and seeds would become completely unusable. Stay tuned. >From journalist Bill Weinberg's "WORLD WAR III REPORT #5. Oct. 27, 2001", avail. from billw@echonyc.com: POSTAL SERVICE TO IRRADIATE MAIL? Facilities used to irradiate produce and poultry are now being proposed for use by postal authorities to decontaminate anthrax-infected mail, Newsday (Long Island, NY) reported Oct. 24. But critics say up to 2.5 times the standard radiation dose would be needed to destroy anthrax spores. Staples and paper clips could become "unacceptably" radioactive, and the process may not even be effective at all. Food sent in the mail, especially meat, cheese or fruit, could turn into mush. And workers would have to be protected from lung-damaging ozone, which is released in the radiation process. "Some are embracing this as the silver bullet to deal with the anthrax problem, when it may be very harmful," said Tony Corvo of Public Citizen, which has long opposed food irradiation. Predictably, the irradiation industry says its ready to go. "We could do a million letters a day," at a cost of about 50 cents per pound, said Jim Jones, sales & marketing president for Food Technology Service Inc., of Mulberry, FLA. "Our business is killing bacteria." The plant uses Cobalt 60 to emit bacteria-killing gamma rays that can penetrate cardboard, aluminum or plastic. The process, which could require 25 kilogrades (sic) of radiation rather than the 10 kilogrades (sic) used for food, would not make the mail radioactive, Jones said. Although the Cobalt 60 and Cesium 137 used in irradiation plants are not currently recovered from nuclear waste, the industry has long plugged food irradiation as a profitable solution to the waste dilemma and a boon to continued nuclear development.