Fw: (Radfood-list) NYT Article and Radfood Alert!

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----- Original Message -----

From: " Mikhail " <mmikhail@...>

Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 6:16 PM

Subject: (Radfood-list) NYT Article and Radfood Alert!

> ***apologies for cross-posting***

> ***please distribute widely***

>

> New Newsletter Issue!

> The Jan/Feb issue of our Food Irradiation Alert! newsletter is up!

> Check it out for new food irradiation updates at

> http://www.citizen.org/documents/fiajanfeb2003.pdf

>

> New York Times Article on National School Lunch Program

> The New York Times ran a good article today about the USDA's plans to

> purchase irradiated food for the National School Lunch Program.

> However, the last paragraph was incorrect on the labeling issue. The

> food service directors of school districts will know what food is

> irradiated because the boxes delivered to them will be labeled.

> However, parents, teachers, and children will not know when irradiated

> food is served because irradiated food does not have to be labeled when

> served in schools. Check out the text of the article below.

>

> For more information on irradiated food in the National School Lunch

> Program, or to download an organizing kit and learn how to work with

> your local school board to ban irradiated food from your school

> district, check out www.citizen.org/cmep/foodsafety/schoollunch.

>

> *************

> January 29, 2003

>

> The Question of Irradiated Beef in Lunchrooms

>

> By MARIAN BURROS

>

> I RRADIATED beef may be coming soon to your local school cafeteria.

>

> The farm bill that was passed last May directs the Agriculture

> Department to buy irradiated beef for the federal school lunch program.

>

> It will be up to local school districts to decide if they want it.

>

> Americans have been reluctant to buy food that is irradiated, a process

>

> that uses electrons or gamma rays to kill harmful bacteria like

> salmonella and E. coli 0157:H7, which cause food poisoning. Some people

>

> fear, wrongly, that the food is radioactive. Others are concerned that

>

> the process hasn't been tested well. They may be correct.

>

> Based on European studies showing the formation of cancer-causing

> properties in irradiated fat, the European Union, which allows

> irradiation only for certain spices and dried herbs, has voted not to

> permit any further food irradiation until more studies have been done.

>

> Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Food Policy Institute at the

> Consumer Federation of America, said: " 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 schoolchildren. "

>

> Advocates of meat irradiation have been struggling for public

> acceptance; some irradiated meat is being sold. But some within the

> food

> industry criticize the tactics being used to gain acceptance for food

> irradiation. Diane Toops, the news and trend editor of Food Processing,

>

> a trade magazine, said in this column in 2001: " The irradiation

> business

> is making all of the same mistakes biotechnology has made, trying to

> force their new technology down the throats of consumers who have a lot

>

> of questions. "

>

> Because the word irradiation conjures up radioactivity and, more

> recently, the method by which anthrax spores have been killed, the

> industry has tried to keep it off food packaging. It is lobbying to use

>

> a word with which people are more comfortable: pasteurized.

>

> A farm bill provision, added by Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat,

>

> directs the Food and Drug Administration to look for a less

> fear-inducing word. Senator Harkin, a longtime proponent of food

> safety,

> is also responsible for the language in the bill that directs the

> Agriculture Department to buy irradiated meat.

>

> The same month the farm bill passed, according to the Federal Election

>

> Commission in 2002, Senator Harkin received a $5,000 campaign

> contribution from the Titan Corporation, which until last August owned

>

> the SureBeam Corporation of Sioux City, Iowa, the country's largest

> food

> irradiator. Tricia Enright, Mr. Harkin's spokeswoman, said: " Tom

> Harkin's record as a leader of food safety is unparalleled. His

> commitment to this technology goes back decades. "

>

> The Harkin provision has given the Bush administration what it asked

> for

> in 2001: irradiated beef in the school lunch program, in place of

> testing for bacterial contamination. School lunches fall under the

> jurisdiction of Dr. S. Murano, deputy administrator of the Food

> and Nutrition Service. He and his wife, Dr. Elsa Murano, the

> Agriculture

> Department's under secretary for food safety, are known for their

> writings on the use of irradiation to improve food safety. Previously,

>

> she ran the food irradiation program at Iowa State University.

>

> To convince the public that irradiation is necessary because food

> poisoning has been increasing in schools, the meat industry cites a

> General Accounting Office study issued on April 30, 2002, that

> maintains

> that such outbreaks are rising at the rate of 10 percent a year.

>

> But Dr. Tauxe, chief of the foodborne and diarrheal diseases

> branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, " The

> percent of outbreaks in schools hasn't changed in the last 10 years. "

> The statistical change, he said, is due to better reporting.

>

> Although the Agriculture Department is authorized to offer irradiated

> meat to schools, the secretary of agriculture, Ann M. Veneman, is

> moving

> slowly. So far, it is served only in schools in a pilot program in

> Minneapolis. According to the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit

> Washington advocacy group, which opposes irradiation of food, of more

> than 1,500 comments the Agriculture Department received from the public

>

> on the subject, two-thirds were against it.

>

> " I don't think the right place to start this is in the school lunch

> program, " said Caroline DeWaal, director of food safety at the

> Center for Science in the Public Interest. " There is not enough public

>

> acceptance. It's essential parents be allowed to sign off before

> irradiated meat is allowed. If kids don't have the right to refuse and

>

> it's not labeled, it's really taking consumer choice away. "

>

> The American School Food Service Association, a trade group, states

> that

> irradiation will make beef safer and save money, because salmonella

> testing will no longer be necessary. That idea angers people like Ms.

> DeWaal, who said, " Irradiation is not a substitute for testing. "

>

> Barry Sackin, a lobbyist for the food service association, said that

> school districts will have the right to refuse irradiated meat, and

> when

> it is used, it will have to be labeled. " The last thing we need is a

> reporter who puts out a story that kids are served irradiated meat and

>

> parents didn't know, " he said.

>

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