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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Food Irradiation coming to Chicago |
Current rating: 0 |
by Alloy
Email: alloy182 (nospam) disinfo.net (unverified!)
Phone: 773.880.5085 |
16 Jun 2001
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Chicago June 13, Thursday night, 60 people gathered at Loyola Park to hear a panel speak about food irradiation in Chicago and the planned irradiation centers that soon may be opened. Attendants listened to the science, reason for and possible dangers of food irradiation. |
Food irradiation is a process of sterilizing food that uses radiation. The sources can be nuclear material or electron accelerators. Both are meant to kill bacteria and insects that might be in food. Dr Donal Day, from the University of Virginia Department of Physics, explained the huge amount of energy that is required to sterilize food; some foods are treated with the equivalent of up to one billion chest x-rays.
During the irradiation process, changes can occur in the food. Dr. Samuel Epstein, Emeritus Professor of Public Health at University of Illinois Chicago, explained the problems of the Food and Drug Administration\'s testing methods. \"All the tests have been done on the gases coming off [the food]\".
What has rarely been tested have been the changes that can take place in the food itself.
One result of irradiating food is a ten time higher level of benzene in the food. Benzene is a natural result of the cooking process, but the FDA has not addressed what health effects from high doses might have on consumers. Another, more frightening, byproduct results with the irradiation of meat. During the irradiation process certain fatty acids can become altered in to substances that science has never seen before in food. One chemical, 2-DCB, has been found to cause colon abnormalities and genetic defects in rats.
The Bush Administration had proposed to allow irradiated beef to be served in the National School Lunch Program.
While gaining new chemicals, food loses nutritional value. Two-thirds of nutrients, such as vitamins A, B, C and E, can be destroyed during the process. After cooking, the rest of the nutritional value of the food might be lost, resulting in empty calorie foods, just like Wonder bread.
So what are the driving forces behind the push for food irradiation? Wenonah Hauter, the director of Public Citizen\'s Critical Mass Energy Project, went into detail. One is globalization.
\"Food Irradiation allows food to be transported long distances for cheap,\" said Hauter. \"It kills insects so that foods can be easily imported\".
Irradiating food allows agribusiness companies to transport food by ship instead of plane which saves them money. Food that would normally be inspected for insects or disease as it enters the country is given a pass if it is irradiated.
Agribusiness has been demanding that irradiation be implemented at the same time that traditional methods of governmental food inspection have been cut back. Unsanitary factory farm conditions and high speed slaughter house butcher lines has resulted in meat contaminated with e-Coli 0157. Some slaughter houses can kill 400 cows and hour and 200 birds a minute. At that rate there is no time to clean and wash the meat seeing as the animal is still conscious by the time it reaches the end of the line. Factory farms have also resulted in watershed contamination due to the number of animals in tight packed conditions. Some factory hog farms in Iowa have upwards of 10,000 swine.
\"The FDA has been guilty of the worst case of malfeasance in the history of our country\". That is what Mark Worth said of the governmental agency that is suppose to be responsible for Food safety. Worth, author of the book The Broken Record, went on to show how the agency has undermined public safety in the interest of business.
During the 1960s, the FDA refused irradiated pork to be fed to army members serving in Vietnam after army studies found sever health problems. By 1982, the FDA changed its mind on irradiation.
\"The test went against FDA protocols for studies,\" commented Worth. \"[The] studies used were labeled deficient.\" The deficient label came from the FDA\'s Irradiated Food Task Committee. The FDA approved the irradiation of fruits and vegetables in 1982 and the irradiation of poultry in 1986. In 1997, the agency approved the irradiation of red meat after citing five studies that \"appeared to show adverse effects,\" according to Worth. The \"adverse effects\" included cancer and death.
Not concerned with the common procedures of having a petitioner supply the toxicity studies, the FDA approved the irradiation of eggs in 2000 by using a 1959 study that was labeled reject.
Currently the FDA is in the process of approving the irradiation of processed foods, like microwave dinners, at the request of the National Food Processor Association. Again, studies labeled deficient are being used.
Locally, Chicago might have to deal more directly with food irradiation if two companies are allowed to open irradiation plants in the region. One called SteriGenics plans to convert a building that it already owns in Schaumburg into an irradiation plant. SteriGenics was until recently called Radiation Sterilizers Inc. The company was responsible for a June 1988 accident at its Decatur, Georgia plant that released cesium 137 on the site. Two workers spread the radioactive material to their cars and homes. The accident also contaminated 70,000 milk cartons, and other product containers, of which only 900 were recalled.
The other company called SureBean plans to open a plant in Glendale Heights. |
See also:
http://chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3004&group=webcast
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