Room for a View

Death Warmed Over: The Onslaught of Irradiated Products

The year 2000 saw a dramatic escalation of an aggressive corporate push to place irradiated food at the end of your fork, and politics has everything to do with it. Both the Gore and Bush campaigns were enthusiastic supporters of food irradiation, as they were of genetically altered foods and other profitable but potentially hazardous objectives of multinational corporations.

In October 2000, a 70-page special report emerged analyzing the 45-year history of irradiation use and research. A Broken Record: How the FDA Legalized—and Continues to Legalize—Food Irradiation Without Testing It for Safety was prepared by Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environmental Program, The Cancer Prevention Coalition and Global Resource Action Center for the Environment. It is downloadable in its entirety, free of charge, at the PublicCitizen.org Web site.

This document reviews in detail the history of that irradiated substance sitting on your plate and provides a convincing rationale for how it got there. The story it tells is just one spoke in a wheel of evidence that identifies the corporate root of the problem and exposes the systemic pattern of world-wide corporate corruption of governments, infiltration of regulatory agencies and buy-offs of scientific research.

HOW IS FOOD IRRADIATED?
According to the federal Food and Drug Association, “Food irradiation is a process in which food products are exposed to a controlled amount of radiant energy to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella. The process also controls insects and parasites, reduces spoilage, and inhibits ripening and sprouting.” However, the Organic Consumers Association contends that this statement, like many found in FDA literature, is crafted to mislead the public. “Radiant energy” sounds like sunlight, but according to the OCA, “irradiated food is treated with high-speed energy beams that, unlike sunlight, ionize molecules. The free radicals caused by this ‘ionizing radiation’ ricochet through the food and damage the DNA in bacteria, insects and the food itself.” Free radicals are believed to promote cancer. In addition, irradiation depletes nutrients in foods, probably damages natural digestive enzymes found in raw foods, and it creates radiolytic molecules that many researchers believe are carcinogenic.

Essentially, irradiation facilities expose food, medical supplies and other items to a radioactive source—usually gamma rays from Cobalt 60 or Cesium 137—for a specific period of time. Aside from the potential dangers of ingesting irradiated food, there is the problem of how to safely transport and dispose of radioactive materials used in the process. Cesium-137, for example, is a highly toxic byproduct of nuclear energy generation. The US Department of Energy has promoted food irradiation for 20 years as a way to rid itself of dangerous Cesium-137.

Newer e-beam radiation techniques use electron accellerators to irradiate food. The radiation produced by these accellerators is the equivalent of that produced by 30 million chest x-rays, or 1.4 billion television sets. Food so treated becomes briefly radioactive as a result of the process. Titan Corporation, a military contractor tapped by the Reagan Administration for “Star Wars” development, is the leader in e-beam irradiation. Titan receives 80 percent of the funding for its irradiation operation from the government.

(ILL) HEALTH EFFECTS
In a report written October 11, 2000 for the Pacific Sun, Jill Kramer observes that the very nature of food is altered by irradiation, creating free radicals and making the body more susceptable to disease. She also points out that while the FDA’s original assumption was that irradiated foods would comprise a small portion of the American diet, it now appears that the vast majority of our food could be irradiated in the near future.

According to organic foods experts Patrica Dines and Danila Oder, “it’s important to eat a certain amount of raw foods, which provide us with digestive enzymes destroyed by cooking....People don’t eat enough raw foods to begin with. And irradiated food makes the problem even worse.” The FDA’s studies “show that foods lose vitamins when they’re radiated. Vitamins A, C, E, and the B complex are particularly depleted... It creates by-products like benzene and formaldehyde. And some bacteria escape and become super-bacteria. They become resistant... There have been some studies that have shown that fruit flies that ate irradiated sugar passed on genetic defects.”

Most critics of irradiation agree that the research into long-term effects is grossly inadequate. Chemist Jeffery Reinhardt, M.Sc. was so appalled by the scientific literature used by the FDA to legalize irradiation that he co-founded The National Coalition to Stop Food Irradiation. On his Web site at pfpf.org he’s published a study of the radiolytic products of irradiation. Reinhardt concludes, “I believe that ingesting irradiated ‘foods’ containing even 0.3 PPM (parts per million) of RP (radiolytic molecules) will inevitably lead to neoplastic transformations of liver cells in a fertile field for the ultimate growth of cancer cells; these will almost certainly evolve to produce hepatocellular (liver) carcinoma...Even at one-tenth the concentration of radiolytic products known by the FDA to be formed by irradiation at 100 Krad, irradiation of foods in the human diet represents predictably unacceptable risks to the public’s health.”

FOOD QUALITY—Making bad Food Worse
Food irradiation is a solution to a created problem. That is, food grown and processed healthfully, and eaten while it is fresh, doesn’t need to be irradiated. But much of our food no longer can be considered healthful. Widely publicized outbreaks of contaminated food have seemed to precede each industry push for further deregulation, as irradiation technology is presented as a quick and easy remedy to the problems created by factory farming.

But consumer advocates contend that irradiation may simply allow meat processors to be even more careless about their product. With irradiation, contaminants or pathological conditions that would ordinarily be screened out—pus, fecal matter, tumors, sores and the like—can be left on meats and merely zapped with radiation. This adds up to a great savings for the meat industry, 80 percent of which is controlled by three companies (the poultry industry is similarly concentrated).

This situation developed in 1996 as the Clinton Administration began dismantling the federal food inspection system that had been put in place in 1906. The inspection system had originated due to a single writer: Upton Sinclair. His investigative novel, The Jungle, which documented deplorable conditions in Chicago’s meat packing industry, sparked public outcry and led to government oversight.
Last September, a full report on the current situation was released by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and Public Citizen. Under the title, The Jungle 2000, the report explains how HAACP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) duties were transferred from federal inspectors to meat company employees in a system implemented in October 1999 as HIMP (HAACP-based Inspection Models Project).

Under the new system, carcasses which FDA inspectors might have thrown out for scabs, parasites, cancers or other diseases are reclassified as merely “aesthetic” problems by the Department of Agriculture’s Food S afety and Inspection Service (FSIS). These carcasses are salable to consumers. Company employees inspect as many as 100 or more birds per minute, while federal inspectors check their work by sampling 20 birds out of 40,000 per shift. When whistle blowers reported to GAP that one plant “failed 61 out of an estimated 76 government samplings,” with no effective corrective action taken, they reported that “animals with diseases, tumors, feathers, sores, scabs, bruises and smeared with potentially deadly digestive contents all received the USDA seal of approval and were sent to market...” GAP’s Felicia Nestor noted, “because consumers will not buy visibly defective products, we anticipate that such products will be funneled to baby food manufacturers, grinders or others who process, spice and/or disguise the food.”

The level of disease in animals coming into processing plants has been estimated as high as 50 percent. Why is this? In brief, most of the problems can be traced to the corporate structure of farming, which treats animals as units of production rather than living beings. A report from The Mirror of London on November 2, 2000 tells of genetically modified chickens with deformed and broken legs that are bred too fat to bear their own weight. The hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals pumped into livestock and poultry remain there to be passed on to the consumer as well.

Is there a chance that the corporate farming system is responsible for skyrocketing disease rates in the human population? A strong case has been made that similar practices in cattle breeding, along with forced animal cannibalism, are at the root of mad cow disease. To push us even farther into the discomfort zone, in November the US biotech company AviGenics announced a high meat-yielding transgenic chicken which incorporates human genes. Gregory Aharonian and David Hathaway, reporting for Patnews, write glowingly of the economic revolution in store for the industry: “By relying on existing poultry and vaccine industry infrastructures for pathogen-free egg production and pharmaceutical grade product processing, and the inherent efficiencies of chickens as protein producers, AviGenics can outperform other recombinant biopharmaceutical production systems due to short time-to-market, low production and capital costs, and safe production.”

LABELING (OR, SEE NO EVIL...)
Currently the FDA requires labels for irradiated raw meats and produce only. Millions of Americans have been unknowingly eating irradiated foods in packaged goods for years. In her report, Kramer notes that 40 million pounds of spices are irradiated each year without any documentation being required. Even where labeling is required, labels can be very small and may be on the back of the package. The label may also fall off by the time the food reaches the retail level, and grocers may not know that they are supposed to post signs alerting shoppers to irradiated goods. In short, there is no enforcement of the labeling rule. “No one knows how many markets across the country have been selling irradiated produce, or which ones they are,” says Kramer. “There is no tracking system.” And the $460 billion U.S. food industry has been pressuring Congress to require the FDA to lift all labeling requirements.

Even when the label is present, it may not be understood. Many consumer groups have complained that the “radura” symbol on the label, which looks like a flower, does not adequately convey the idea that the labeled food has been exposed to radioactivity. And industry groups are demanding a rewording that would replace “treated by radiation” with innocuous phrases like “cold pasteurized” or “electronically pasteurized.” (You can pasteurize milk in your kitchen. You can’t irradiate it without exposure to radioactive materials like Cobalt-60, Cesium 137 or e-beam radiation.)

To further obfuscate matters, irradiated food is only required to be labeled for the initial purchaser, which can be a restaurant, school, hospital, airline or food processor. None of these institutions or companies are required to label irradiated food they pass along to the consumer. There is no record of how many restaurants, hospitals, school cafeterias, retirement homes or other meal servers are using irradiated foods. But for an idea of the size of the problem, consider that the companies that produce over 75 percent of this country’s nine billion pounds per year of ground beef, and approximately 50 percent of our nearly 35 billion pounds per year of poultry, have already signed agreements to use irradiation technology. Ground beef and chicken will soon be the most commonly irradiated foods.

Meat, grains, fruits and vegetables (fresh or dehydrated), spices and seasonings, and shell eggs are currently among those foods permitted to be irradiated. In addition, a coalition of food industry groups has asked the FDA to approve irradiation of luncheon meats, prepared fresh foods (e.g., salad bar items), seeds, fresh juices, sprouts and frozen foods. The FDA will probably use the same science as 15 years ago to approve irradiation for these foods. If so, the only common foods not approved for irradiation would be seafood, dairy (which is pasteurized), baked goods, dried legumes, honey, coffee, chocolate, and oils (fats become rancid easily because of the free radical creation, so they won’t be irradiated if they could be eaten raw).

“EDUCATION” (OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING
AND LOVE IRRADIATED FOOD)
Motivated by the carrot and stick of food industry contributions and pressure, Congress was poised to allow the “less scary” labeling demanded by the food processing industry until a wave of consumer reaction resulted from the release of the PublicCitizen report. Congress announced a postponement of the decision for a year in October, but then slipped a rider into a spending bill signed by President Clinton in early November. This rider mandated the FDA to “come up with the (new label) wording by early 2002,” according to Associated Press Farm writer Philip Brasher.

In an interview with Brasher, Brian Folkerts, vice-president of government affairs for the National Food Processors Association, said that the word irradiation “clearly stirs some anxiety in some consumers. It’s construed by some consumers as a warning.” This comment inspired Brasher to conclude that industry groups, and some lawmakers, are more interested in finding a less threatening word to describe the irradiation process than in insuring the safety of the food they produce. He quotes Christine Bruhn of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California-Davis, who recently received a federal Agriculture Department grant to “devise programs to promote irradiation,” as suggesting the phrase “Treated with cold pasteurization (irradiation) for improved safety.”

Following a 1997 CBS News poll which found that 77 percent of Americans opposed irradiation, the International Food Information Council Foundation conducted a 1998 study showing that, “After education, consumers were willing to try irradiated foods for themselves and their families, including children.” The IFICF study also studied public response to the flower-like Radura symbol that adorns irradiated foods, finding that “When asked, unaided by text, about their understanding of the Radura symbol that is used for identifying products treated with irradiation, most consumers thought the symbol was ‘cute’, pleasant or appealing.” The study concluded by noting the “tremendous opportunity that exists for industry, government and consumer groups to join forces to provide leadership and guide consumer education about food irradiation.” This “education” would presumably emphasize the benefits and minimize the risks of irradiation.

Despite some criticism, most mainstream media has embraced irradiation. One Washington Post writer, who visited “one of the country’s largest irradiation facilities” (out of about 60 nationwide in 1997) in Chester, NY, said that “massive consumer education is needed” but saw an encouraging trend. Quoting a 1994 Food Marketing Institute survey which showed that 36 percent of consumers “would be very or somewhat likely to buy irradiated foods if they were available,” the Post added that, “In 1997, that percentage jumped to 60.” It follows that DC area readers should not have been surprised that by Spring of 2000, industry petitions could declare that most consumers were now demanding irradiation.

OUR OWN BACKYARD
The low profile Isomedix, Inc. irradiation facility in Chester could not provide a spokesperson when I called. Instead, they referred me to Dan Carestio of their Mentor, Ohio facility (one of 16 plants he owned when the Post story was written.) Carestio denied that there was any food being irradiated in Chester and stressed that the facility was currently sterilizing medical supply and other non-biological products by exposure to high levels of radioactivity. He did think, though, that food irradiation was coming. Isomedix has been a leader in food irradiation; it was a 1,300-page Isomedix petition that moved that FDA to legalize the irradiation of red meat in 1994.

Most Chester residents, even town officials, seem blissfully unaware of having a nuclear facility in their community. The Web site for the Isomedix subsidiary at the site, Skyland Scientific Services Inc; states only that they are a private company and gives a phone number that doesn’t work. Taxes are paid by the Ohio office.

Even if Chester residents don’t care about irradiated food, they might want to know that radioactive materials are being used in their community. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission records at least 45 accidents at irradiation plants between 1974 and 1989, along with at least two unsuccessful attempts at executive cover-up which were federally prosecuted. Several employee deaths from exposure in irradiation facilities are on record, and taxpayers in one southern state had to cough up over $40 million for an irradiation facility clean-up. Isomedix was cited at least once for a violation at their plant in Puerto Rico.

WHAT’S NEXT?
The gravity central of American political power has shifted out of Washington, DC. The nation’s political elite of the past two decades have sold it to the aliens we call multi-nationals.

On November 15, 2000, Public Citizen reported the next step in the irradiation plan directly from the source, Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the World Trade Organization and World Health Organization among other elites: “During a three-day meeting at the World Health Organization in Geneva that was closed to the public, the International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation (ICGFI) decided earlier this month that the maximum radiation dose for food could be eliminated without posing additional hazards to people. The current international radiation limit is 10 kiloGray—the equivalent of 330 million chest X-rays, or 2,000 times the fatal radiation dose for humans. The ICGFI reasoned that some food has to be irradiated at high levels to kill certain microorganisms, but it ignored evidence that food irradiated at high doses is nutritionally deficient and may be harmful when eaten.”

At the meeting were representatives of the major industry trade groups and irradiation companies, “including Titan of San Diego, Isomedix/STERIS of New Jersey, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, and the Association of International Industrial Irradiation. In fact, some of the corporate executives are government-appointed delegates to the ICGFI.”

“Democracy and science were both thrown out the window, and the population of the entire world could suffer as a result,” remarked Public Citizen’s Wenonah Hauter. “At a time when the need for thoughtful, transparent decision-making has never been greater, the outrageousness of this action cannot be overstated.”

And so goes the future of food, unless some urgent last hour action is taken. In times to come, we can sit down in a nice, thick electromagnetic field within our own homes, throw an irradiated, hormone-stuffed and genetically humanized chicken in the microwave and have a tasty mouthful in short order.
Bon Appetit, my friends.