Very Informative !

[Guest guest]

Many in the Scientific Community Are Opposed to Irradiation

Here is a sampling of what they have to say:

 

Yes, gamma rays can kill harmful bacteria in food, but one big problem

is that they kill the helpful microflora, too. Bacteria are not just

agents of disease.... One need not be a Luddite to recognize the cult of

nuclear idolatry.

 

Geoffrey Sea, Director

Atomic Reclamation and

Conversion Project

There are potentially serious concerns about the issues of waste

disposal, engineering safety, transport of radioactive material,

production of new isotopes, handling by poorly trained personnel, and

others we haven't even thought of yet.

 

Sheldon Margen, M.D.

Professor Emeritus

University of California, Berkeley

I am opposed to food irradiation because it is clear that this process

increases the levels of mutagens and carcinogens in the food. The

inevitable consequence of this is that in two to five decades in the

future, the incidence of cancer will increase from what we see now, in

direct proportion to the amounts of irradiated food consumed. Thus, food

irradiation becomes very expensive both in terms of human lives, as well

as health care costs.

 

George L. Tritsch, Ph.D.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Buffalo, NY

It is distressing to me that despite all the studies, many favorable and

many unfavorable, the FDA utilized only five safety studies.

 

I looked in detail at two of those studies. Each raises considerable

question. In one, the irradiated food was obtained from some other group

and we are never actually given any data to show that the food was

irradiated properly or even irradiated at all.

 

Additionally, the authors note an increase in abnormalities in dogs at

autopsy and then seem to feel that the abnormalities they found were

meaningless and should be ignored. In the other study from England, in

the group receiving the food irradiated most, there were increased

deaths in the offspring and this is completely ignored even though the

authors say there is no explanation for it.

To me, it is somewhat amazing that these are listed as two of the five

studies that are considered impeccable enough to be evaluated for

safety. Those studies have considerable imperfections. For the FDA to

selectively choose the five is, I believe, improper for deciding safety.

Donald B. Louria, MD

University of Medicine & Dentistry

of New Jersey

I am not against food irradiation. I am opposed to the hype, some of

which is voiced by people who should know better and therefore appear to

be deliberate falsehoods.... I and others worked very hard trying to

find a useful place for irradiation during the Atoms for Peace program.

Unfortunately, we were not able to find it.

Noel F. Sommer, Ph.D., Emeritus

Postharvest Pathologist

University of California, Davis

The large scale irradiation of food, as proposed by the industry and

administration, represents the largest prospective toxicological

experiment in human populations in the history of public health.

Samuel S. Epstein, MD

Professor of Occupational and

Environmental Medicine,

The University of Illinois at Chicago

What we do know with certainty is that irradiation causes a host of

unnatural and sometimes unidentifiable chemicals to be formed within the

irradiated foods, and that the number, kind, and permanence of these

foreign chemical compounds depend on the food itself and the dose of

radiation.

Our ignorance about these foreign compounds makes it simply a fraud to

tell the public that we know irradiated foods would be safe to eat; it

is dishonorable to trick people into buying irradiated foods, because

such behavior is a violation of the basic human right.

John W. Gofman, MD, Ph.D.

University of California, Berkeley

It has been shown repeatedly that mutagenic doses of formaldehyde are

formed during irradiation of carbohydrate. Meat, although protein, also

contains carbohydrates. Anyone can choose not to eat saturated fats and

cholesterol, but once the food supply is supplemented with mutagens, it

will take massive efforts to dislodge a well entrenched and financed

industry which will deny to the end that it is responsible for the

inevitable increase in neoplasia which in effect it has caused.

Furthermore, the organisms remaining in the irradiated food are by

definition radiation resistant, and no work whatever has been done on

what these new organisms populating the gastrointestinal tract and their

progeny will do to man and the environment.

George L. Tritsch, Ph.D.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute

Buffalo, NY

First, since we do not know what we are seeking in the experiments,

though they are designed with the best toxicological techniques

available, they can not prove the safety of the irradiated food in

question, but merely give us a measure of confidence that it is safe.

The ultimate test will be in the human after lifetimes or generations of

consumption.

Dr. Jacqueline Verrett

former FDA toxicologist

These studies reviewed in the 1982 memo from the FDA were not adequate

by 1982 standards, and are even less adequate by 1993 standards to

evaluate the safety of any product, especially a food product such as

irradiated foods.

Marcia van Gemert, Ph.D.

Toxicologist and former chair

of an FDA irradiation committee

Radiation is a carcinogen, mutagen, and teratogen. At doses of 100,000

rads to fruits and vegetables, the cells of the fruits and vegetables

will be destroyed, but fungi, bacteria, and viruses growing on the

fruits and vegetables will not all be killed or inactivated at these

doses. They will be mutated, possibly leading to more virulent

contaminants. Has anyone addressed this problem?

Geraldine Dettman, Ph.D.

Radiation Safety Officer,

Biosafety Officer, Brown University

Food and Water On-Line

 

Pearl (NY)

 

 

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