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back to Organic Consumers Assn. Stop Food Irradiation page Postal Service May End Irradiation Agency Reportedly Plans To Focus on Detection OCA comment: we're glad the Postal Service is very concerned about the bad effects of irradiation on mail, but we wonder why they rushed to sign a contract for $40 million for electron-beam machines that it looks like now they won't use. Just another government handout to a company (Titan) with good contacts in the Defense Department... By Ellen Nakashima Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 4, 2001; Page A23 The U.S. Postal Service is hoping to get out of the mail irradiation business, planning instead to focus on detection of anthrax spores and other biological agents, postal industry and other sources said. Hard hit by the recession and declining mail volumes, USPS is exploring whether another government agency may be better suited to the costly and time-consuming task of irradiating the mail, industry officials said. When the anthrax attacks took place in October, shutting down much of Capitol Hill temporarily, the Postal Service scrambled to find a way to ensure mail was free of anthrax spores and turned to irradiation technology. It signed contracts with firms in Lima, Ohio, and in Bridgewater, N.J., to use their technology to irradiate the mail. USPS also purchased eight machines from Titan Corp. for $40 million, which have not yet been installed. Since then, postal officials have learned that zapping the mail can damage some contents and significantly slow delivery. "Postal officials have made abundantly clear that they do not like the option of radiating mail and would like to take whatever steps they can to get out of the mail radiation business," said Gene Del Polito, president of the Association for Postal Commerce, who most recently spoke with high-level postal officials about this issue last week. Another source familiar with the thinking of top postal officials said they do not see sanitizing the mail as part of their core business. "They are exploring if there's not a better government agency to handle this type of activity," the source said. "Any rational individual would ask themselves that." Postal officials yesterday called Del Polito's remarks "hearsay." In a statement, they said: "We remain committed to detecting and removing biohazards from the mail. The safety of our employees and the public is paramount." The statement said: "We may implement other technologies in the future in lieu of irradiation if they prove efficacious, safe, cost- effective and able to be integrated into our mail processing system. . . . The upshot is this: The hearsay statements should not be misconstrued to imply that the Postal Service is abandoning plans to sanitize the mail. We are pursuing irradiation as the means at this time as an available technology. If some other means presents itself that is just as effective and less costly, we would, of course, seriously consider it." But Del Polito and Robert McLean, executive director of the Mailers' Council, the nation's largest coalition of mailers, said postal officials want to emphasize detection because they believe it is more efficient to detect tainted mail first, then irradiate it. "They just told us that they think it would be more efficient, would be less expensive and would not delay the mail as much," McLean said. Postal officials have told Congress they would like $307 million for technology such as a "particle-size and density analyzer," which can determine whether the particles in a predetermined size range, say, one to 10 microns in size, are biological in nature. They are also looking at protective bags that can be installed in collection boxes to provide initial protection for letter carriers, and a tracking system in the boxes for mail. Part of the agency's desire to get out of the mail irradiation business is born of the likelihood that it will not get a significant bailout from Congress to help with expenses,Del Polito said. USPS has said it would need $1.1 billion in the short term to cover costs.But even that amount will come nowhere close to covering the costs of operating the irradiation machines and additional overhead, and of lost revenue from lost productivity and lost business, experts said. "Both systems are going to be costly," McLean said. "The question is, is it necessary to irradiate every piece of mail, or is the science behind the detection equipment such that [only] if it is detected you would move into irradiation?" Del Polito and others say irradiation has bad side effects: Some mail has had burned edges. The color on some plastic is changed, so a Platinum credit card, for example, is no longer platinum. Smart cards have been rendered dumb. Postal officials have warned customers that irradiation can damage film, pharmaceuticals, biological samples and diagnostic kits used to monitor such things as blood sugar levels. On Monday, the General Accounting Office will hold a conference on options for dealing with bioterrorism through the mail. The conference was requested by House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat,, who are concerned that irradiation may not be the most cost-effective way to safeguard the mail. They are interested in systems that enhance security by reducing the anonymity of the sender. One option might be to require people to show an identification card when they mail a package so a bar code or other identifier can be placed on it.

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