ZAP, CRACKLE, POP

...In view of the wide implications of the data," concluded the authors, "there is a need for more extensive and critical evaluation of the extent and pathways of indirect radiation effects...

...Pop...

...The FDA says there Gary Gibbs, a student of osteopathic medicine at the University of New England, is the founder of Medical Students Against Food Irradiation...

...At the time, IBT had contracts totaling more than $8 million for animal feeding studies on beef, ham, and pork...

...The Food and Drug Administration itself raised disturbing questions in its Final Report of the Recommendations for Evaluating the Safety of Foods, issued prior to its authorization of food irradiation...

...Many of the studies supporting safety were done by the Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, Inc...

...But if an unbalanced diet was the problem, why did the animals in the control groups live and remain healthy, while the animals eating identical diets of irradiated food died or became seriously diseased...

...The FDA calls it "low-dose radiation...

...Communities which will be, or are, the sites of radiation plants have reason to be concerned about the transportation of radioactive materials...

...One of the biggest promoters is the Department of Energy, the makers of nuclear weaponry and reactors...

...Irradiation has an adverse effect on the nutritional quality of food, in direct proportion to the amount of radiation involved...

...it goes entirely through the food, altering its molecular chemistry...

...But one must ask who has done them and who has paid for them...

...The Report explains that it is difficult to feed human foods to animals since "the portion of the diet substituted, 35 per cent, did not provide the full complement of nutrients required...

...Twelve sets of experiments involving irradiated chicken meat were reviewed by the U.S...

...The hazards of having one in the neighborhood have already been documented...

...Radiation Technology has been cited by the NRC for dumping radioactive garbage with its regular trash, and state officials have charged the company with contaminating local water supplies with toxic chemicals...

...if the HHS forecast proves true, it will soon be a multibillion-dollar one...

...Bowing to food-industry fears that consumers will reject irradiated foods, the FDA has ruled that they may remain unlabeled...

...What's worse, consumers may have no way of knowing whether they are buying irradiated food...

...The food does not become radioactive, but it does appear to become radio-mimetic—that is, it produces effects similar to direct exposure to ionizing radiation...

...As for the study, Dr...

...Health and Human Services Secretary Otis Bowen calls irradiation "a new technology that can produce benefits to consumers...

...Rumpelstiltskin turned straw into gold...

...Radiation doesn't just selectively kill...

...The radiation dose was 75,000 rads, which is less than the 100,000-rad dose currently legal for wheat in the United States...

...In fact, the immune system, of which white blood cells are an integral part, is well known to be the most radiation-sensitive system of the body...

...Its 1986 ruling approving the irradiation of fruits and vegetables included some remarks on the subject: "FDA concludes that available animal test data are not necessary for determining the safety of [these] uses of radiation...

...Some had only one wing, some had no wings...

...At doses of 100,000 rads, for example, the vitamin content of apples is reduced to one-third its normal value...

...Department of Agriculture...

...IBT...

...Its 1984 report warned that mice that had eaten the meat in one study showed an increase in testicular tumors, cancer, and kidney disease...

...By the mid-1990s, predicts Henry Mussman of the National Food Processors Association, 1,000 plants will be built...

...Just like in medical radiation for cancer, you are selectively killing the micro-organisms that cause spoilage and insects...

...Vitamins A, C, E, and B are significantly depleted...

...The researchers' conclusion: "Though the biological significance of polyploidy is not clear, its association with malignancy Crackle, makes it imperative that the wholesome-ness of irradiated food be very carefully assessed...

...It found that 80 per cent of the children who ate irradiated wheat developed polyploid white blood cells in one month...

...The industry says yes and even claims it is a boon to humanity, a way to save the food lost to spoilage, estimated at perhaps one-fourth of the world's supply...

...Irradiation of herbs and spices was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1983...

...We could not repeat such studies just for the sake of scientific curiosity since we knew that some abnormality would result...

...Sponsored by Representative Douglas Bosco, a California Democrat, it would require not only the labeling of irradiated food but also additional studies of the health and environmental impacts of treating food with radiation...

...12.6 per cent of their offspring had visible mutations...

...the DOE wants to turn nuclear wastes into a saleable product by using them for food irradiation...

...Others had curly wings, cut wings, bloated bodies, yellow bodies, rotated abdomens, and so forth...

...The U.S...

...The control group, which ate an identical non-irradiated diet, showed no polyploid cells...

...She says, in fact, that she "cannot think of a case where a processed food would have to be labeled...

...Some of these concerns are addressed by a bill pending in Congress...

...Feeding studies are our best source of information, and, as we have seen, they are not reassuring...

...Can this possibly be safe...

...One hundred thousand rads—the dosage the FDA allows for processing of fruits, vegetables, and pork—is 2.5 million times the exposure one gets in a typical chest x-ray...

...Because this study involved humans rather than animals, it has been in the forefront of the safety debates...

...The mice ate a mixed diet of pork, chicken, milk, potatoes, and carrots...

...In addition, new chemical products, called "unique radiolytic products," are formed, the effects of which are still unknown...

...These include the production of formaldehyde and benzene, known cancer-causing agents...

...Why be afraid of labeling the food it treats...

...International Nutronics had a plant in Dover, New Jersey...

...However, as soon as some abnormality was observed in these malnourished children, we terminated the study for ethical reasons...

...Narasinga Rao, "almost amount to libel" of the Institute, "which is known world over for its important contributions in the field of nutrition...

...Chemical bonds are broken and new chemicals are formed called "radiolytic products...

...The FDA also criticized the study, referring to a report of the United Nations World Health Organization, which suggests the study is irrelevant because of the small number of children involved...

...The FDA] believes that the number of adequate chronic feeding studies on irradiated foods is irrelevant to its safety conclusion...

...Earlier, in 1977, the Army declared two out of three IBT animal-feeding studies in default...

...These "unjustified allegations," says Dr...

...The food is exposed to a radioactive dose of 100,000 rads...

...Now it is ready for you to eat...

...In 1983, IBT officials were found guilty of defrauding the Government in drug research...

...He says he has heard that "the Indian authorities at the Institute where the work was conducted have essentially refuted the concerns raised in the published study...

...The FDA permits exposure of other foods to higher dosages, with the upper limit being three million rads...

...This is not the beginning of a science-fiction horror story...

...His predecessor, Margaret Heckler, said, "Thirty years of research have proven this process to be safe...

...The effect of feeding irradiated food to fruit flies was tested by scientists who published their results in 1963 in Science, perhaps the most widely read scholarly scientific journal in the United States...

...the charges included faulty record-keeping and suppression of unfavorable findings...

...And the FDA gave irradiation the nod for fruits and vegetables in April 1986...

...In Congressional testimony before the House Committee on Agriculture, the Coalition claimed in November 1985 that "the benefits of the process to the American public are many...

...I would strongly counsel any consumer under no circumstances to eat irradiated food...

...The DOE wants to play the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin with a new twist," says Kitty Tucker of the Health and Energy Institute in Washington, D.C...

...had to be terminated before completion because of premature mortality and/or morbidity...

...International Nutronics, in Palo Alto, California, and Radiation Technology in Rockaway, New Jersey, are among those currently in the food-irradiation business, and many others are in the planning stages...

...Pork was added to the approved list in 1985...

...Food irradiation is just an adjunct to the use of radioactive materials," says Bruce Meyer of Radiation Sterilizers in Menlo Park, California...

...If the processing industry is as certain as it claims to be, why keep it so quiet...

...Asked to comment on the studies indicating possible dangers, Campbell says she has not read them...

...It has been used since 1963 on wheat but is a much more recent addition to other food items...

...are "no adverse effects...

...The Pentagon and the Department of Energy refuse to release their research on the effects of eating irradiated food, saying the results are classified in the interest of national security...

...Not just food is irradiated...

...The irradiation label is accompanied by a symbol that looks like a flower...

...And if the FDA is as certain as it claims to be, why allow the secrecy...

...beef, chicken, potatoes, onion, and papaya...

...The door closes behind it...

...The FDA does not consider irradiated processed food a material/act, as radiation does not change the food any more than any other types of processing...

...Irradiated canned peaches do not have to be labeled, nor do irradiated tomatoes in tomato soup or irradiated frozen peas-all examples cited by FDA spokeswoman Betty Campbell...

...The flies were fed food exposed to 150,000 rads...

...When mice were fed a vitamin-supplemented diet of irradiated cooked milk, 83 per cent died or were killed because of heart lesions occurring within eighty-five days...

...It was shut down by the NRC after water contaminated with radioactive materials was spilled on the floor, then flowed through a hairline crack between the wall and floor and down into the foundation...

...In reviewing the scientific literature, the Report says that "chronic feeding studies in the recent past which have substituted up to 35 per cent of the normal [lab animal] diet with specific irradiated foods, e.g...

...When radiation hits the food, electrons are excited and begin a chain reaction resulting in destruction of DNA and thus a slowing down of the ripening process...

...A research project by India's National Institute of Nutrition examined the effects of feeding irradiated wheat to the children...

...The Senate sponsor of the measure is Democrat George Mitchell of Maine...

...Polyploidy is excessive genetic material which is associated with leukemia, senility, and direct exposure to radiation...

...Finally, however, it declared all but five studies to be "deficient...

...Eating such food, he says, "is like inviting someone to play Russian roulette and not telling him there's one bullet in the revolver...

...A third star member of the radiation team is the private radiation industry...

...And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows plants a radiation-escape rate twenty times greater than it allows nuclear-power plants...

...Narasinga Rao explained, "We did not anticipate any adverse effects of feeding irradiated wheat to these children...

...It is, in fact, a description of a method of food-processing designed to extend the shelf-life of commodities and kill insects infesting them...

...Labels are required only for unprocessed, whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables...

...Who is pushing to expand food irradiation...

...Food irradiation is already a growth industry...

...The rods go back down into the water, and the shutter closes...

...In the control group, less than 1 per cent exhibited such mutations...

...There are now, in the United States, more than forty industrial gamma irradiators with the potential ability to process food...

...That's not quite the way it works, though...

...The safety of irradiating these consumer goods is an open question...

...A shutter opens, and rods of radioactive cobalt 60, the waste products from nuclear reactors, or rods of cesium 137, the waste products of atomic-bomb construction, rise out of a bed of water...

...Considering the HHS prediction that up to 40 per cent of our food will be irradiated under the new guidelines, the FDA certainly seems to have made a hasty decision—basing it on only five studies, all of which supported the safety of the process, and ignoring the research in which laboratory animals died when 35 per cent of their diet was irradiated...

...In one of two strains of mice studied, more than 17 per cent on the irradiated diet died or were killed because of rupture and/or expansion of the heart...

...Such items as blood agar and plasma, blankets and towels, bottles, cosmetics, needles, infant wear, peat moss, sanitary napkins and tampons, lubricating jelly, scalpel blades, and water also receive the treatment...

...But many scientists and consumer advocates disagree...

...Another player is the Coalition for Food Irradiation, which consists of several major food processors...

...According to a basic physics textbook, 10,000 rads will destroy living tissue...

...In other words, the animals got sick or died...

...The children who ate freshly irradiated wheat showed more polyploid cells than those who ate stored irradiated wheat...

...Narasinga Rao, director of the National Institute of Nutrition in Hyderabad, adamantly rejects the criticisms...

...But the Indian scientists stand firm...

...Consumers will be able to buy products that stay fresher longer...

...The shroud covering the process has left most Americans in the dark, and that is the environment the food-irradiation industry requires for growth...

...Some of the studies the FDA ignored are startling...

...How much radiation are we talking about here...

...No heart lesions were observed in the control group...

...Studies do exist, of course, that indicate irradiated food may be safe...

...A more likely explanation than the unbalanced-diet theory, says nutritionist Jeff Reinhart of the Marin Clinic of Preventive Medicine and Health Education in San Rafael, California, is that irradiated food contains toxic byproducts caused by the radiation process and that crucial nutrients are depleted or destroyed...

...Because we eat food, though, the safety of its irradiation is of primary concern...

...Food irradiation is an extraordinarily dangerous experiment in public health," says Samuel S. Epstein, professor of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago...

...Essential amino acids, nucleic acids, and enzymes are also significantly depleted by irradiation, and unsaturated fatty acids are converted to toxic lipids...

...Safety is not the only concern consumers need have...

...Isomedix in Parsippany, New Jersey...

...And after two years, the FDA plans to rule on whether the flower alone will be a sufficient label...

...Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has predicted that 10 per cent, and possibly as much as 40 per cent, of our diet will be exposed to such radiation in the near future...

...The effects of feeding irradiated food to mice were studied at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and published in 1960...

...Its task force checked into 441 studies and accepted 266 for further review...

...But still the FDA chose to rely on its chosen five studies to prove safety...

...Quick to condemn it is Martin Welt, former president of Radiation Technology, a major food-irradiation company...

...The door opens, the food leaves...

...So how did the FDA come to approve of food irradiation for American consumers...

...One of the studies reviewed by the FDA involved human beings—fifteen Indian children...