Posted: Monday, December 18, 2006

ACSH IN THE NEWS
Publication Date: December 18, 2006

A December 18, 2006 Wall Street Journal piece notes that irradiation of food would help fight food-borne illness, quoting ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and the author of ACSH's report on Irradiated Foods, Paisan Loaharanu:

The Centers for Disease Control concluded its investigation by noting: "An overwhelming body of scientific evidence demonstrates that irradiation does not harm the nutritional value of food, nor does it make the food unsafe to eat." According to Paisan Loaharanu, a former director at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "The safety of irradiated foods is well established through many toxicological studies...No other food technology has gone through more safety tests than food irradiation."

The Food and Drug Administration bears some of the blame for bending to political pressure and slowing the spread of food irradiation. The food processing industry requested permission to apply irradiation to enhance the safety of produce in 1999, but seven years later the agency still hasn't approved this "food additive." The FDA does allow irradiation for meat, but it requires warning labels that send a message to consumers that eating such beef or chicken is risky. Elizabeth Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health points out that the FDA would be wiser to require that meats and produce that aren't irradiated have a safety warning label. Those are the potentially unsafe foods.