Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site rabbit.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!eagle!allegra!alice!rabbit!wolit From: wolit@rabbit.UUCP (Jan Wolitzky) Newsgroups: net.cooks Subject: Re: Irradiated Food Message-ID: <2534@rabbit.UUCP> Date: Wed, 22-Feb-84 15:18:57 EST Article-I.D.: rabbit.2534 Posted: Wed Feb 22 15:18:57 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 23-Feb-84 04:48:29 EST Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 74 While Pat Iurilli (and others) have every reason to be suspicious of the introduction of new food or drug processes to the marketplace, let's remember that it was the drug industry that gave us DES, and the food industry that gave us EDB, and not the "scientific community." Real scientists don't have an axe to grind; people who work for companies that pay them to develop products or "prove" their products safe aren't scientists, they're technologists. That said, let's look at the issue of irradiated food. (First, I want to emphasize that this is all armchair quarterbacking: I'm not an expert in either health physics or food processing.) It seems that there are three possible ways in which irradiating food could hurt you directly: 1. It could make the food itself radioactive. This depends on the type of source used. With neutrons, sure, atoms in the food could fission, creating radioactive products. With alpha (helium nuclei), beta (electrons), or gamma (photons) particles, I don't see how this could happen. Anyway, it would be very easy to detect, and thus control, so this isn't much of a problem. 2. It could transform some benign substance in the food into something dangerous. Again, only by fissioning could this sort of alchemy be accomplished. My guess is that we're talking about something completely different from what's being proposed. 3. It could cause living cells in the food to manufacture toxins. This is a more interesting possibility. Not at all applicable to anything not currently living, but it might present a problem for the treatment of fresh produce -- anybody know if this is being considered? This problem could arise if radiation levels were sufficient to induce genetic changes in the treated material (which they certainly must be, to be effective) but insufficient to completely destroy the nuclear (in the biological sense) machinery of every last cell. For instance, would anyone in the food industry care to speculate on how many nucleotide substitutions, deletions, etc., are needed to cause the DNA in the cells of an edible mushroom to code for the toxins that are normally produced by a closely related, poisonous species? (My guess would be one or two.) For this reason, I would hope that a distinction be made between the use of radiation to treat living and non-living products. Note that above I specified DIRECT dangers. While not exactly in the purview of the FDA, the widespread use of high-level radioactive products by the food industry presents several new risks to society that should be considered beforehand. Outside of the nuclear power and weapons industries, only a tiny amount of radioactive substances is now used, mainly in the scientific and medical fields. The food industry is a giant business, employing many unskilled and semiskilled workers, and operating under only loose government supervision. To introduce large quantities of highly radioactive materials to this industry may not be possible economically, with the kind of safety the public expects. (For example, explosions in grain storage elevators have become a big problem lately, exacerbated by the Reagan administration's elimination of many safety regulations. Right now, such explosions endanger only (!) the workers in this industry. If they had the potential to scatter radioactive debris over as wide an area as they now scatter dust, however...) Also, the addition of many tons of radioactive waste products to those now generated by the atomic power industry would only aggravate the need to find a quick solution to THAT problem (and we know the trouble with having to live with quick fixes, rather than well-thought-out solutions). In all, this issue is much more of a big can of worms than many proponents would have us think, though by no means is the evidence against it overwhelmingly compelling. As with Thalidomide in the early 50s, the public often has reason to be thankful for the FDA's cautiousness, even when the affected industry is screaming that we're falling behind other countries in the world because of big, bad government. No one's gonna go bust if this new technology is held in check for a few more years. Let's think this one out real carefully. Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ