back to Organic Consumers Assn. Stop Food Irradiation page Food irradiation: A cover-up for dirty meat and poultry Published in Siren Magazine, Twin Cities, Minnesota, August 2000 www.sirenmedia.net Copyright 2000 by Danila Oder, Organic Consumers Association -=-=-=-=-= The retail roll-out of irradiated foods is underway. Electron-beam and nuclear irradiators are sending fresh ground beef blasted with the energy equivalent of millions of chest x-rays to customers in the Midwest and Florida. For several months, unwitting fast-food customers have been consuming irradiated beef and poultry. Wal-Mart, Kraft, Tyson and many large meat companies have announced plans to sell irradiated foods. And the heavyweight trade associations of the grocery and food processing industries are cheering from the sidelines. Why? It's true that chickens are more commonly contaminated than beef, and Salmonella and Campylobacter cause 20-30 times more foodborne illness than E. coli O157:H7. But the family-friendly image of the all-American hamburger is at risk. Although only 52 Americans die annually from foodborne E. coli O157:H7, children are particularly vulnerable. Each case makes dramatic news. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that the bacteria contaminate 89% of U.S. beef ground into patties. Every E. coli outbreak strikes terror into the hearts of CEOs of fast-food restaurant chains and the embattled beef industry. In addition, recalls are expensive. In 1997, Hudson Foods recalled 25 million pounds of ground beef for suspected E. coli contamination. Every week the USDA recalls tons of meat, meat products or poultry for suspected bacterial contamination. What's responsible? Deregulation, aka the 1997 introduction of the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) testing system into USDA supervision of slaughterhouses and packing plants. (No surprise-President Clinton is a Tyson protégé). A staple of HACCP is microbial tests, which detect contamination days after the food has left the plant. USDA inspectors call HACCP "Have a Cup of Coffee and Pray." It was promised as a supplement to human inspection. Instead, the inspection work force is being cut, and inspectors are being taken off the slaughter line. Inspection is being turned over to company employees. A recent federal court decision in Texas found that HACCP testing for Salmonella was not a fair measure of whether a plant was sanitary. The judge barred USDA from closing a slaughterhouse that failed the tests three tunes, and the plant owner refused to close voluntarily. This decision leaves the USDA in a quandary. Its combination inspection/HACCP system is inadequate to assure the public that the food is safe. The USDA has few choices other than reversing deregulation-or allowing irradiation. Inspectors rightly fear the industry wants to eliminate inspection, contaminate at will, and rely on irradiation at the end of production. A meat/poultry industry coalition has petitioned the USDA to introduce irradiation as a "control point" in HACCP. This would essentially force irradiation to be used in an industry 'race to the bottom': rapidly produced, fecally contaminated meat/poultry could be 'cleaned up' afterward with irradiation. In the 1980s, would-be irradiators had to use x-rays or mediapathic nuclear materials. Recently, a commercialized Star Wars technology, high-energy electron beams, offers irradiators the chance to neutralize consumer resistance to nuked foods. But e-beam irradiation is no kinder to the food. Regardless of the source of the energy, ionizing radiation creates free radicals, which ricochet through the food, damaging DNA and creating new, untested chemical. Vitamins and enzymes are damaged. With no long-term human feeding studies, and many experts critical of the science FDA used to approve irradiation, consumers are right to be worried about the long-term health effects of a diet of irradiated food. Many people think that they can choose nonirradiated food. A widely circulated FDA-sponsored brochure implies that all irradiated food is labeled. Not true. Under current regulations, all irradiated foods sold by restaurants, airlines, schools and institutions, and plant foods that undergo further processing, are not labeled to the consumer. Produce, meat and poultry sold whole in a package are labeled on the package, but the typeface is tiny. Whole fruits and vegetables need only be labeled on the box or display, and there is no enforcement. A pro-irradiation coalition has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow irradiation for fresh juices, sprouts, prepared fresh foods, deli meats and frozen foods. A similar coalition prevailed on Congress to tell the FDA to look into removing all labels on irradiated foods. (The FDA is currently writing the regulation, and will ask for public comment this autumn). Should we accept the health and environmental risks of food irradiation? Answer no if you believe in precaution. Answer no if you don't want to eat a lot more irradiated feces. Answer yes if you want the meat and poultry industry to be able to sell irradiated carcasses that would have been condemned by inspectors. Irradiation is a cover-up for dirty meat and poultry. The government inspectors know it. Just ask them.