Poultry Industry Gets Irradiation Go-Ahead : Food safety: The idea is to destroy bacteria, insects and mold. But consumer groups worry about the health risks of ‘toxic technology.’
Poultry processors got the green light Friday to begin zapping chickens, turkeys and game hens with gamma rays to kill bacteria.
But the poultry industry isn’t wild about the idea. Only one plant is expressing interest in irradiating chicken. And consumer activists worry about the safety.
The Agriculture Department’s new regulations could allow irradiated chicken and other poultry products to start showing up in markets by late October.
The regulations will allow federally approved facilities to use irradiation to treat fresh or frozen, uncooked whole or cut-up poultry. The process involves passing food through a chamber containing rods of radioactive cobalt-60 or cesium-137, where it is bombarded with gamma rays. Illness-causing bacteria, insects and molds are destroyed.
H. Russell Cross, administrator of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said treating chicken with radiation controls bacteria “with no hazard to consumers and with no adverse affects on the poultry’s nutritional value.”
Food poisoning caused by the bacteria salmonella is among the food safety service’s top targets, and chickens are a major source of the problem.
USDA estimates that 35% of chicken carcasses are contaminated with salmonella, but Lawrence Glickman, head of pathobiology at Purdue University, puts the figure at more than 50%.
Kay Golan, spokeswoman for the national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, said the organization receives about 45,000 reports of salmonella cases a year. Golan said incidents of salmonella probably are much higher than that, between 800,000 and 4 million cases annually, because most cases aren’t reported to the CDC.
Consumer groups, however, say there are better ways of making chicken safer, starting with improved plant inspections.
“The approval of irradiation for poultry is a quick-fix approach to improving a highly inadequate poultry inspection system in this country,” said Ellen Haas, executive director of Public Voice for Food and Health Policy.
Consumer advocates worry that the process reduces the levels of some nutrients and may leave tiny amounts of undesirable chemicals in the meat. And they question the safety implications for plant workers, communities and the environment from the use and transportation of radioactive materials.
“The USDA is prematurely unleashing a potentially toxic technology on the American people with the hope that the process is safe. It is an outrageous scientific leap of faith,” said Michael Colby, national director of Food & Water, a food safety organization.
Treated poultry would have to carry a label with the green international symbol for irradiation and the words “Treated With Radiation” or “Treated by Irradiation.”
Poultry irradiation plants will be inspected by the Agriculture Department and must have a quality control program approved by USDA’s food safety service to ensure worker and product safety.
Only one plant has sought the agency’s approval--Vindicator Inc. of Mulberry, Fla., the nation’s first commercial food irradiation plant. Agency spokesman Jim Greene said final approval is expected by Oct. 21, when the regulations take effect.
Vindicator President Sam Whitney said he expects to begin irradiating poultry in about a month and has had unidentified companies lined up for more than a year to have their products irradiated.
“That’s why we built the damn plant,” Whitney said Friday. “Do you know of anybody who wants to vomit or have diarrhea from food he bought at the grocery store? I don’t. The American public is demanding irradiated foods.”
But the poultry industry said it does not believe that irradiation will be a “viable commercial process until the consuming public is ready to accept it.”
And there’s no evidence yet that consumers believe that irradiation is necessary to improve food safety, said a statement from the National Broiler Council.
The Food and Drug Administration approved poultry irradiation in 1990. The FDA has also approved irradiation for grains, spices, fresh fruit and vegetables. The agency and USDA have approved its use for controlling the parasite that causes trichinosis in pork, but U.S. companies are not using the process.
Consumers with questions about irradiation may call the toll-free USDA meat and poultry hot line at 1-800-535-4555 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT, Monday through Friday.
