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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
should withdraw its approval of food irradiation, a process
that involves applying ionizing radiation to food, says the consumer
advocacy group Public Citizen,
claiming that the agency based its acceptance of the technology
on faulty studies.
Public Citizen was joined
by the Cancer Prevention
Coalition and several environmental protection organizations.
The groups charge that there are numerous public health threats
posed by applying ionizing radiation to food and documented their
charges in a 70 page report entitled "A Broken Record - How
the FDA Legalized and Continues to Legalize Food Irradiation Without
Testing it for Safety", that reveals that the FDA failed in
its responsibility to protect the public. Both the full
70-page report and the Executive
Summary can be found on the group's website at www.citizen.org
Wenonah Hauter, director of Public
Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, maintains
that the food industry is trying to remove any evidence that food
has been irradiated from product labeling, and noted that such a
proposal was included in the Agriculture Appropriations bill currently
being considered by a House and Senate conference.
Public Citizen says that the FDA's approval of irradiating food
products has been based on at least 100 studies that the agency's
own advisers determined were faulty or inconclusive about safety.
In 1982, an internal FDA task force concluded that only five of
409 studies on irradiating food supported it as safe and effective
technology, they say.
"For 17 years, the FDA has knowingly and systematically ignored
its own testing protocols -- protocols that must be followed before
irradiated food can be legalized for human consumption," said
one Public Citizen representative.
The FDA first approved of food irradiation in 1983 for use on spices.
Since that time, the FDA has approved irradiation of:
- Pork
- Fruit
- Vegetables
- Red meat
- Poultry
- Eggs
Public Citizen's calls for
public hearings on this issue prior to each of these approvals have
been ignored.
In the most recent approval, the group notes that the company
seeking to irradiate eggs did not submit any of its own toxicology
studies, but instead relied on some of the same published data
that had been previously labeled by the FDA's own experts as flawed
or inconclusive.
The Cancer Prevention Coalition
and Public Citizen are calling
for the following several actions, including the following:
-
The FDA should rescind all irradiation
approvals granted since 1983.
-
A Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General
investigation of FDA's role in regulating the irradiation process
should be conducted.
- An overhaul of farming, ranching, and
processing practices to encourage greater sanitation should take
place.
In comments to The Optimal Wellness Center (www.mercola.com), Noel
F. Petrie of Public Citizen
stated that food irradiation causes some new chemicals to be
created which normally do not appear in food at all, as well
as increased concentrations of some chemicals which are created
during the cooking process.
Some of the chemicals that appear in cooked food, but are increased
by irradiation include:
- Benzene*
- Formaldehyde*
- Octane
- Butane
- Methyl Propane
*EPA-classified carcinogens
Some of the chemicals that do not occur naturally in any food,
even during cooking, include:
- Hexadecadiene
- Octadecenal
- Pentadecadiene
- Pentadecanal
- Undecyne
In addition, "hundreds, or perhaps thousands of Unique
Radiolytic Products and Free Radicals that have never been identified
or evaluated for safety," also are generated during the irradiation
process..
For more information on this you can take a look at the full-text
version of Public Citizen's report "A
Broken Record", which can be viewed on their website.
According to Public Citizen, "Studies have shown every
food that is irradiated undergoes a chemical reaction,"
which depends upon the food and the radiation dose. These chemical
reactions can have a significant impact upon the nutritional content
of the foods.
Some vitamins that are depleted during irradiation include:
- Vitamin B / Thiamin / Riboflavin (15-96%)
- Vitamin C (20-70%)
- Vitamin E (5-90%)
- Niacin (2-88%)
The National Food Processors Association, an industry group, disputes
Public Citizen's charge that FDA has not acted appropriately is
"just plain wrong." In a statement, Rhona Appelbaum, executive
vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the group
said, "The process by which FDA determines the safety of irradiation
for use of various foods is both science-based and rigorous."
Although individual food items that have been irradiated, such
as meats and spices, carry a special "radura" symbol,
packaged foods that contain irradiated ingredients are not required
to be labeled as such, nor are foods served in restaurants or other
food service establishments.
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