Scary word trumps reason

Efforts to zap bacteria in food are slow to catch hold

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of radiation to wipe out pathogens in dozens of food products, and for decades it has been used in other developed countries without reports of human harm. But it has barely caught on in the United States. The technology — called irradiation — zaps bacteria out of food and is highly effective, but for many consumers it conjures up frightening images of mutant life forms and phosphorescent food. Benso, who opened Gateway America 18 months ago, also knows his new venture pits him against the nation’s growing buy-local, back-to-nature movement that shuns industrial food processing. “Those naysayers better throw out their microwaves, because that is irradiation,” Benso said, standing in his 50,000-square-foot irradiation facility. Dozens of scientific studies have shown that irradiated food is safe for human consumption, and that no radioactive material has leaked outside any U.S. plant, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The three forms of energy that can be used — gamma rays, electron beams and X-rays — can virtually eliminate bacteria in minutes. All this has prompted the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and dozens of other groups to endorse its use.

Scary words trump reason. The worst part is that there are organizations fighting to keep it that way; only because the word radiation is scary. And by the way, people can die as a result:

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Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, blames an “anti-science movement” for the public resistance. He is frustrated with the federal government for endorsing irradiation but then not educating the public as it has with childhood immunizations and water fluoridation. “Not using irradiation is the single greatest public health failure of the last part of the 20th century in America,” said Osterholm, citing CDC estimates that 1 in 6 people will get food poisoning this year and 3,000 will die. “We could have saved so many lives.”

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A steadfast team of consumer advocates has successfully campaigned against its use, first at the nonprofit group Public Citizen and then after founding the nonprofit organization Food and Water Watch. The Washington-based group claims credit for keeping irradiated food out of the National School Lunch Program and blocking efforts to get rid of the federal requirement that all irradiated food in retail establishments carry a Radura label — a green plant in a circle — indicating it has been irradiated.

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