Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [78]
FIGURE 9. The friendly radura symbol of irradiation used on food package labels is shown on the left. Perhaps by coincidence, its color (green) and design resemble the logo of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, shown at right.
Other groups also advocated approval of irradiation, charging that opposition to it was antiscientific. For example, Elizabeth Whelan of the industry-supported American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), proposed a much friendlier euphemism for the process in an article in the Wall Street Journal:
Pasteurization through irradiation is safe and effective and is used in other countries and in the U.S. for pork, poultry, and other foods. . . . Antitechnology advocates . . . are circulating unfounded claims that irradiation poses a health hazard. . . . It is time for all of us to stop responding to the scaremongers. We must listen, instead, to scientists, who are unanimous in their conclusion that food irradiation—not more government regulation—will make America’s food supply even safer.22
The Produce Marketing Association, an industry trade group, also supported irradiation for reasons of both science and values, in this case the value of “consumer choice”: “Sound science must be the basis for decisions about all food issues. . . . Irradiation has been deemed to be a safe and viable technology . . . providing consumers the choice in the marketplace.” Such statements, as we have seen, mistakenly equate safety (a scientific concept) with acceptability (a social concept). Meat industry officials, while lobbying for approval of irradiation, wanted to make sure that using it would not increase their accountability for foodborne illness: “Irradiation . . . is particularly important for ground beef . . . but the ultimate responsibility for food safety still rests with the food handler and preparer.”23
The FDA delayed approval of irradiation for beef and lamb, not only because its approval processes are always slow, but also because its staff still needed to evaluate the effects of the process on meat from sheep as well as cattle and on fresh cuts as well as those that had been refrigerated and frozen. While the FDA was plugging along on its proposals for these rules, Congress passed the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act of 1997 which, among other things, restricted the agency’s ability to regulate irradiated foods: “No provision . . . shall be construed to require on the label or labeling of a food a separate radiation disclosure statement that is more prominent than the declaration of ingredients,” and “FDA must act on petition within 60 days of enactment or provide to House and Senate an explanation of the process followed . . . and the reasons action on the petition was delayed.”24 Congress, therefore, insisted that the FDA allow food labels to disclose irradiation in very small type and approve irradiation requests within months rather than years.
Under that kind of pressure, the FDA immediately authorized irradiation of beef and lamb, explaining that the process “will not present a toxicological hazard, will not present a microbiological hazard, and will not adversely affect the nutritional adequacy of such products.” The American Meat Institute hailed the approval as “a victory for consumers and the red meat industry.”25 Rodney Leonard of the Community Nutrition Institute (CNI) offered a different opinion. Although he firmly opposed HACCP (as noted in chapter 3), he also opposed irradiation:
In addition to blaming the victim, government and industry are proposing a quick fix—food irradiation—to a problem of official neglect and industry abuse. . . . Bombarding contaminated foods with gamma rays will not improve public health, however, because it does not remove