[PEN-L:34269] Irradiated Beef in School Lunches

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

NYT  January 29, 2003
The Question of Irradiated Beef in Lunchrooms
By MARIAN BURROS

IRRADIATED 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."...

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. Peter 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....

<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/dining/29WELL.html>
--
Yoshie

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