Dirty Secrets
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Food Irradiation Alert is a resource Alert! published by Public Citizen. Dirty Secrets ood irradiation is one of the nuclear operated irradiation plants in New Jersey, Virginia, technologies that originated with Dwight North Carolina and Arkansas. Welt was convicted F Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” on six criminal counts, including conspiracy to Program. Unveiled in 1953, seven years after defraud the government and lying to NRC Hiroshima, the plan for the “peaceful atom” was investigators. Welt’s company was cited 32 times introduced so that “the miraculous inventiveness for various violations, including throwing of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but radioactive garbage out with regular trash and consecrated to his life.” bypassing a safety device that protected workers. While most of the schemes are long Food irradiation today remains as closely forgotten—including atomic planes, nuclear heart connected to the nuclear weapons and atomic pacemakers, nuclear-powered coffee pots and energy as it did in 1953. The list of advocates for wristwatches—food irradiation has persisted. food irradiation has grown to include the Titan In 1963, the Food and Drug Administration Corporation, a defense contractor that’s using Star gave the U.S. Army permission to irradiate bacon Wars technology originally designed to zap and serve it to military personnel. The approval incoming missiles to irradiate meat. was withdrawn in 1968, however, when the FDA found that animals fed irradiated food suffered What’s So Bad About It? serious health problems, including premature death, cancer, reproductive dysfunction, and low espite the earlier setbacks, irradiation is weight gain. being touted more than ever as a way to Irradiation Meanwhile, interest in food irradiation was Dclean food of contaminants such as smoldering elsewhere in the federal bureaucracy. pathogens in fecal matter. Currently, it is legal to Under the “Byproducts Utilization Program,” the irradiate beef, poultry, pork, lamb, spices, and most Department of Energy sought to pawn off its vegetables and fruit, though irradiated food is not nuclear waste onto anyone who would accept extensively sold commercially—yet. it—including irradiation companies. “The While food irradiation advocates say that 40 utilization of these radioactive materials,” DOE years of research shows the process to be safe, officials confessed to Congress in 1983, “simply evidence for this assertion is missing. reduces our waste handling problem.” Irradiation—zapping food with radiation The DOE’s scheme backfired in 1988, when equivalent to tens of millions of chest X-rays— water contaminated with radioactive cesium-137 changes the molecular structure of food. Formed leaked from an irradiation plant in Decatur, Ga. in the process are mysterious compounds called Workers carried the radioactivity into their homes unique radiolytic products, which can destroy cell Food and cars. The mess cost $47 million to clean up, membranes and make the body more susceptible and taxpayers picked up the tab. to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and muscle The unseemly cast of characters promoting degeneration. food irradiation also includes Martin Welt, former Irradiation can also lead to the formation of president of Radiation Technology, Inc., which benzene, formaldehyde, octane, butane, methyl Volume 1 Number 2 continued on next pageè August 2000 Food Irradiation Alert! propane and other carcinogens and toxins. What’s more, nutrients and vitamins take a In The Grassroots beating when exposed to radiation, which destroys up to 95 percent of vitamin A in chicken and 70 Victory! USDA Bans percent of vitamin C in fruit juices. Essential amino Irradiated Beef In Schools acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids can be depleted We have won the first of many victories to keep as well. And because irradiated food out of school lunches. Stop irradiation increases The USDA has announced new, food-safety shelf life, irradiated requirements for ground beef processors that want food likely will sit in to sell meat to the government for school lunches— stores longer, losing including a ban on irradiation “treatments.” even more nutritional We urge parents to continue talking with their content. school principals and their Parent Teacher Without exception, Associations about the possibility of irradiated food FDA officials have being sold as school lunches. chosen to ignore any evidence that suggests USDA Extends Comment Period irradiation may be In response to Public Citizen’s request to extend public dangerous. And the comment period on what would be the first law Irradiation FDA, rather than using allowing the use of irradiation on imported fruits and animal testing, has vegetables (except for some Hawaiian fruits), the relied on a flimsy, theoretical calculation of risk based USDA has extended its comment period for 15 days. on the number of potentially harmful new chemicals The closure date will not be known until the agency to which a consumer might be exposed from irradiated makes its announcement in the Federal Register. This food. proposal could open the floodgates for the irradiation In 1981 Dr. Marcia van Gemert, who chaired an of imported fruits and vegetables. FDA panel that investigated food irradiation, cautioned In the remaining weeks of the original comment that “studies of sufficiently high quality to support the period, the USDA’s electronic comment website safety of irradiated foods treated at high irradiation crashed, crippling the public’s ability to weigh in against doses, which constitute major contributions to the daily this proposal. After about 10 days, USDA announced diet, for long-term use are … not available.” that the website had been fixed, and told Public Citizen Since that time, no studies have been done on the that it would extend the comment period for the long-term health effects of consuming irradiated food. amount of time the site was down. However, at this Van Gemert’s warning is as timely as ever. At time, the website still does not work. this writing, the FDA is considering an application Thanks to all citizens who were not deterred from from the National Food Processors Association to sending their own comments the old-fashioned way. irradiate ready-to-eat food such as TV dinners and Letters and postcards have been rolling into D.C. on luncheon meat, as well as proposals to weaken labeling a steady basis. laws and allow imported produce to be irradiated. (To comment electronically go to: http:// Among others who are concerned about comments.aphis.usda.gov/cgi-bin/open_rules.pl) irradiated food is Donald Louria, chair emeritus of 215 Pennsylvania Ave., SE preventive medicine and community health at the New Washington, DC, 20003 Jersey University of Medicine. (202)546-4996 “Until the industry is willing to agree to nutritional www.citizen.org/cmep [email protected] studies on each type of irradiated food and to put the Wenonah Hauter, Director results on the label,” says Louria, “and until there is a proper study of the potential chromosomal damage Contributors: Mark Matthias Jessica Vallette Revere Emily Chapman Noel Petrie Nathan Willcox of irradiation, we should not be irradiating our foods.” Tony Corbo Sean Petrie Mark Worth Joan Coyle Christina Salvi Food Irradiation Alert! It’s a Jungle pton Sinclair should be turning over in dirty equipment be cleaned or from following a his grave. His 1906 book The Jungle contaminated piece of meat down the line to see if it Uexposed the meat industry’s harsh working is cleaned up. conditions and wretched slaughtering practices. As a As a result, HACCP relies on stop-gap measures result, Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act of such as irradiation and tri-sodium phosphate (an acid 1906, which created a government system for that “sanitizes” bacteria). Using radiation rather than inspecting meat. sanitation to deal with filth allows the industry to maxi- Nine decades later, under the pretense of mize profits and skirt responsibility. No wonder the protecting consumers from food-borne disease, meat industry is government and agribusiness joined forces to muscling its re- “modernize” meat inspection. The Clinton sources to force ir- Take Administration promised that the new system would radiation down the Action! create a second level of protection—and would not throats of Ameri- prevent USDA meat inspectors from examining each cans. carcass, using their eyes and noses to detect feces There is no end and other contamination. to the meat Rather than genuinely updating the meat industry’s greed. You have until August 29 to tell the inspection system and making it more protective, Even though the USDA you don’t want to eat cancer and however, the USDA is allowing the meat industry to U.S. Court of pus. Write: dictate how this new inspection program would work. Appeals recently As it is, so many animals are slaughtered so found the USDA’s FSIS Docket Clerk quickly that inspecting meat has become almost privatized meat- Docket #97-036A impossible. Chickens are killed at a rate of 91 birds inspection system USDA - FSIS per minute. Up to 330 cows per hour are slaughtered. to be illegal, the Room 102 - Cotton Annex Building This means meat inspectors barely have time to glance agency intends to 300 12th St. S.W. at carcasses as they whiz by. It also means that allow the industry to Washington, D.C. 20250-3700 slaughter is extremely inhumane. Some plants are inspect itself. The butchering as many as 3 out of 10 cows alive. meat industry is The new system, called Hazard Analysis and using its enormous political power to circumvent the Critical Control Points (HACCP), hands the meat court’s ruling by backing legislation in Congress giving industry the responsibility for preventing contamination them the right to self-inspection. and reduces the authority of government meat Self-inspection isn’t merely illegal, it’s inadequate. inspectors. Meat inspectors have reported finding more carcasses Under HACCP, meat inspectors can only inspect contaminated with feces, pus, and urine under the areas of slaughterhouses that the meat industry USDA’s experimental self-inspection program.