Whole Living Guide > Devilish Doctors

Cafeteria Cobalt 60: IRRADIATED BEEF IN SCHOOL LUNCHES
BY ROSE MARIE WILLIAMS • ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID COOPER

Media coverage of food poisoning from tainted meat products has been increasing over the past several years. The unfortunate reason for this is that the problem hasn’t gone away since it got the public’s full attention in the early 1990s, when E. coli-tainted hamburgers at Jack in the Box restaurants killed four children and sickened hundreds of people. In spite of meat industry assertions that their handling practices are safe, something is awry. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that E. coli alone causes 62,458 illnesses, 1,843 hospitalizations, and 52 deaths yearly. Last year, a woman died and 46 people became ill from ground beef from the ConAgra plant in Colorado, which had been cited previously 66 times by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for fecal contamination of its meat.

The USDA knows there is a problem. It has mandated new sampling and handling procedures to improve hygiene during animal slaughtering. It also endorses another strategy: food irradiation. First patented in the early 1900s, irradiation was recognized in the 1940s and 1950s as a way to sterilize foods for military troops in the field; research by the military concluded it was safe, and in 1958 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was given authority by Congress to regulate the process for consumer foods. (The USDA has jurisdiction over meat products.) Irradiation currently is being used in the US on wheat, potatoes, pork, spices, poultry, fruits and vegetables, and red meat.

Pushing for public acceptance of irradiation to reduce food poisoning, the agricultural industry points to a study by the General Accounting Office issued April 30, 2002, which claims food poisoning outbreaks are increasing 10 percent each year. However, Dr. Robert Tauxe, chief of the food-borne and diarrheal diseases branch at the CDC, disputes this, explaining that the statistical change is the result of better reporting.

Food irradiation does have the potential to reduce dangerous pathogen outbreaks. It also extends the shelf life of perishable foods by inhibiting the spread of organisms responsible for mold or other decay and slows sprout growth of root vegetables like potatoes and onions. Irradiation also kills insect pests in grains and on imported fruits and vegetables. Irradiation is widely used on herbs and spices because they lose flavor when heat-treated to kill unwanted organisms.

Opponents of irradiation point out that treating nutritious foods in a manner that prevents them from doing what they are designed to—like sprouting—might damage molecules related to these processes and which might be beneficial to human health. Indeed, plants’ dozens of antioxidants and other potentially valuable molecules besides the well-known vitamins are being studied for anticancer properties. The impact of irradiation on these is unknown.

The American Medical Association and the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO) endorse irradiation, but not everyone likes the idea. The European Parliament passed an amendment in February that limits irradiation to those currently approved—spices, dried herbs, and seasonings—“until adequate scientific evidence proving its safety is conducted.” This disallows the sale of irradiated meat within the European Union. McDonald’s, the world’s largest fast food chain, has indicated it will not be using irradiated foods. Consumer Reports taste-testers noted a slight but distinct off-taste and smell in most of the irradiated beef and chicken sampled, likening it to “singed hair.” Irradiated beef is more expensive too—by as much as 20 cents per pound.

A report in the International Journal of Health Services (Vol. 31, No.1, 2001) claimed that the food and nuclear industries, backed by government support, are using outbreaks of meat poisoning as a rallying call to “mobilize public acceptance of large scale food irradiation.” The report was authored by Samuel Epstein, MD, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Medicine and Chair of the Cancer Prevention Coalition at the University of Illinois’ School of Public Health—and a longtime critic of cancer misinformation—and Wenonah Hauter, Director at Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. They have joined forces to raise awareness of health risks associated with irradiated foods, and to challenge government agencies to focus less on “sanitizing” the label of irradiated foods and more on industry measures to improve its sanitation practices.

Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, recently released a report entitled “Bad Taste: The Disturbing Truth About the World Health Organization’s Endorsement of Food Irradiation” (www.citizen.org/cmep), which outlines how the WHO is glossing over 40 years of scientific evidence that indicates serious health impacts associated with eating irradiated foods. There are additional risks from transporting nuclear waste on superhighways, and dangers posed to workers and communities from increased numbers of such facilities springing up across the nation. Citizens in Milford Township in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, are already facing legal challenges to grant permits for controversial irradiator plants; they are concerned about dangers posed by radioactive Cobalt 60 to be used at the plant. Many other communities will be facing similar challenges, and hundreds of neighborhoods will have radioactive materials traveling on their roadways.

IRRADIATION: HOW IT WORKS
Irradiation works by damaging the DNA of potentially harmful bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella, and of parasites, insects, and fungi, thereby preventing them from reproducing. The levels of radiation approved by the FDA for food does not kill all pathogens, nor does it destroy bacterial toxins nor prevent recontamination. In addition, as with any food, subsequent exposure to contaminated surfaces, utensils, or other foods can recontaminate the food. Irradiated meat must be cooked as thoroughly as untreated meat.

The process involves exposing food to a source of radiation, usually radioactive cobalt (Cobalt 60), a nuclear byproduct. Radioactive cesium (Cesium 137), X-rays, and high-energy electron beams are sometimes used instead. Also referred to as “ionizing radiation,” exposure to these sources breaks chemical bonds and dislodges electrons from molecules, converting them into electrically charged particles called ions (hence, “ionizing” radiation). Irradiated food does not itself become radioactive at the FDA-approved exposure levels.

Specialized facilities are required for irradiation. For example, Cobalt 60 is kept in a pool of water from which it is raised to expose food that passes over it on a conveyor system; the cobalt is resubmerged when the proper exposure time has been achieved. Facilities that use gamma radiation carry out food exposure in an area surrounded by concrete walls at least 6-feet thick.

WHAT’S IN A LABEL?
Currently, the FDA requires that whole irradiated fruits and vegetables carry an official radura logo and the words “treated with irradiation.” Spices and processed foods made with irradiated ingredients are exempt. The USDA requires whole meats, poultry, and any multi-ingredient product (e.g., sausage) to state any irradiated meat ingredients.

Federal labeling regulations only cover irradiated food when it is purchased. Foods prepared for consumers, such as in cafeterias, hospitals, or restaurants, are excluded from labeling requirements.

Congress is considering accepting the term “electronic pasteurization” instead of irradiation on labels. Dr. Epstein calls this “a euphemistic absurdity, especially since the FDA’s approved meat radiation dosage of 450,000 rads is approximately 150 million times greater than a chest x-ray.” It also misleads consumers as to the nature of the process.

TRADING CARCINOGENS FOR BACTERIA?
One argument against food irradiation is that it would allow meat-processing facilities to be more lax in their handling practices, increasing the bacterial contamination problem. However, the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service states that irradiation is “not a substitute for good manufacturing practices. Establishments that use irradiation must meet the same sanitation and processing standards required by all meat and poultry plants.”

But opponents of food irradiation question its safety for reasons unrelated to the pathogens it’s meant to defeat. Irradiation of meat produces chemically altered molecules that include highly reactive free radicals and peroxides. Benzene, recognized as a carcinogen for over 100 years, was found to be 10 times higher in irradiated, cooked meat. In addition, unique radiolytic chemicals suspected of causing cancer are additional by-products of irradiation.

Many important micronutrients, such as vitamins A, C, E, and those in the B-complex, are destroyed by irradiation. The US Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) states “irradiation does not significantly change the nutrient content of food. It changes the nutrient value of food about the same as cooking or freezing does.” Thus, cooked foods like meat will suffer the combined effects of irradiation and thermal inactivation of vitamins.

IRRADIATED MEAT IN THE
SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM
In January 2003, the USDA gave each school district in the nation the option of ordering irradiated ground beef for their federal School Lunch Program. Two years ago, the Bush Administration proposed allowing irradiated poultry and ground beef in school lunches, but met with such great resistance from parents and school administrators that the USDA banned irradiated foods from the School Lunch Program. What has changed the USDA’s policy in the last two years?

An obscure provision authored by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) in the May 2002 Farm Bill opened the door, recommending that the USDA “consider” using irradiated food for its programs. And Dr. Peter S. Murano, who oversees the School Lunch Program, is married to Dr. Elsa Murano, who is the Agricultural Department’s undersecretary for food safety; Dr. Murano previously ran the food irradiation program at Iowa State University, which may explain some of the emphasis on irradiation.

Monroe Central School District students in rural Indiana might have been the first in the nation to eat ground beef exposed to gamma rays, electron beams or X-rays. Seth Slabaugh, writing for the Star Press, in East Central Indiana on July 31, 2003, reported that school board president and farmer, Clifford Coulter, admitted not doing any research on the issue. Approval was based on the letter sent by the USDA to all school districts around the nation. Mr. Coulter commented, “If it’s approved by the USDA, then we have no reason to not approve it. We should be able to trust them.”

As with food irradiation in general, its application in the school setting doesn’t sit well with some. The State of Indiana has now banned irradiated meat from its schools, as have 15 other states, according to Monique Mikhail at Public Citizen. “Schools across the nation are suffering from budget problems,” she says. “And yet, the federal government is pushing a more expensive and unnecessary product. The good news is that most school districts seem wary, and rightly so.”

Pressure from parents will be a deciding factor in whether irradiated meat is actually served at school, since school boards can pass their own restrictions banning irradiated foods. The USDA encourages school districts to educate and inform parents and students before serving irradiated ground beef. Some communities are taking a proactive position by choosing to just say no. Berkeley, California’s school district was the first to pass a resolution prohibiting the purchase of irradiated foods for its students. Los Angeles Unified Schools, the second largest district in the country with 721,000 students, passed a similar resolution in September. Several other districts, including New York City, have verbally agreed not to offer irradiated food in their school lunch programs.

Irradiated beef will not be available to students in New York State for the 2003–2004 school year because the state has already used all of its funding to purchase nonirradiated beef for this time period. New York State has not passed a resolution banning future purchase of irradiated beef. School districts will be surveyed in the spring for their opinions.

The USDA has launched a pilot program, giving $151,000 to three Minnesota school districts and sending irradiation information kits to parents. The program will review public acceptance of irradiated meat, but will not evaluate potential short and long term health risks to children. Says Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America: “There is nowhere in the world where a large population has eaten large amounts of irradiated food over a long period of time. It makes me queasy that we are going to feed it to school children.”

CHILDREN MORE SUSCEPTIBLE
The EPA has drawn up new guidelines for evaluating dangers posed by pesticides and other cancer-causing chemicals that are considered to be more accurate than previous methods. For the first time the unique vulnerability of children will be addressed. EPA’s new proposal is designed to incorporate greater scientific understanding that has emerged since 1986 of how chemicals can cause cancer and at what doses, and how people of various ages may be affected differently.

How are the new guidelines addressing benzene and other radiolytic products in irradiated meat? William H. Farland, Acting Deputy Assistant at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, explained in a phone call that the new guidelines were intended to form the framework for considering children’s exposure to chemicals, including how early exposure to mutagens can create potential health risks later in life, but that investigating toxic chemicals in irradiated food did not fall within EPA’s current framework. He acknowledged that information gaps existed, but that the issue of irradiated food fell within the domain of the FDA and the USDA.

At present, the consideration of health risks posed to children from eating irradiated food has fallen into a gap. Neither the EPA, USDA, nor FDA is questioning whether children might be serving as “guinea pigs” in the School Lunch Program. Parents must contact their schools if they wish to have a say in what their schools purchase, and many are doing so, seeing this as a time to employ the “precautionary principle” of safe avoidance in the absence of sufficient information.

FOLLOW THE MONEY
The USDA is promoting irradiation of meat and poultry as a public health measure. But there is another benefit: food irradiation facilities serve the nuclear industry’s need to recycle nuclear waste. Dr. Samuel Epstein emphasizes that an important but under-reported reason for the decades-long promotion of food irradiation is the Department of Energy’s (DOE) need to reduce disposal costs of spent military and civilian nuclear fuel by providing a commercial market for it.

There is also a push to deregulate and privatize the industry, and to allow for self-regulation through the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP). Those who believe less government is better support this move, but critics see it as another example of the fox guarding the henhouse.

And according to the Federal Election commission in 2002, Senator Harkin, whose provision to the Farm Bill changed policy on irradiated foods, received a $5,000 campaign contribution from the Titan Corporation, a major defense contractor based in San Diego that now uses costly linear accelerator “E-beam” technology, originally designed for President Reagan’s Star Wars program, to irradiate food with electrons traveling at the speed of light.

CONSUMER ACTION
Irradiation may fill the gap of reducing pathogen outbreaks while the meat industry continues to grapple with its sanitation practices. It also has become the standard of treatment for certain foods to extend shelf-life. But the process remains highly debated. Says Public Citizen spokesperson Monique Mikhail, “The World Health Organization’s negligence could put at risk the health of millions of people throughout the world. These risks will only deepen as food supply systems become more globalized. It is irresponsible to promote the use of a questionable method while ignoring evidence that points to the dangers associated with it.”

For more information about the concerns with bringing irradiated foods into the national School Lunch Program, contact Public Citizen at (202) 546-4996, visit www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety, or email Monique Mikhail at mmikhail@citizen.org. Parents who wish to raise awareness in their own school district can obtain an organizing kit from www.safelunch.org. For a sample letter to send to Congress demanding the federal School Lunch Program not be allowed to use irradiated meat, write Nukewatch, PO Box 649, Luck, WI, 54853, or email them at nutewatch@lakeland.ws. Some additional health and environmental organizations concerned about problems associated with irradiated food host Web sites at www.foodandwater.com, www.preventcancer.com (Dr. Samuel Epstein), and www.nukewatch.com.