Shellfish Irradiation To Reduce Food Poisoning Gets FDA Nod. Covering up lax food inspection with DNA altering stopgap measure that could lead to dangerous byproducts.

Shellfish Irradiation To Reduce Food Poisoning Gets FDA Nod

April 12, 2014 by Carla Gillespie

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of ionizing radiation to kill foodborne pathogens on crustacean shellfish and extend their shelf life. The April 11 decision is in response to a food additive petition submitted by the National Fisheries Institute 13 years ago.

The decision will allow processors of crustaceans including crab, shrimp, lobster, crayfish, and prawns use small amounts of ionizing radiation to reduce, but not eliminate, dangerous foodborne bacteria such as E.coli, Vibrio and Listeria. The maximum permitted dose is 6.0 kiloGray.
The rule covers shellfish sold raw, frozen, shelled, dried, cooked and partially cooked. It also covers crustaceans processed with spices or a small number of other ingredients.

Read More Here

.....

Forbes

Will Irradiated Burgers Turn You Radioactive? The Truth About Food Irradiation

As prolific and commonplace as they are in our lives, “foodstuffs” and “food processes” still confound us. I recently received a query in my inbox; the sender was anxious over some irradiated burgers he had bought. Would they harm him? Would they turn him radioactive? Upon reflection, it seemed ripe fodder for a Forbes post.
I noticed a symbol on a package of burgers that I bought, and saw that it meant the beef had been irradiated. I didn’t eat them. What does this mean to have food irradiated, what does involve, is it bad for me, and were the burgers radioactive?
Radiation at the best of times doesn’t elicit warm, fuzzy feelings. When it gets anywhere near our food supply, we’re prone to panic, hysteria even. But, with irradiated food, where the results are comparable to pasteurization, there’s absolutely no need for frenzy, or to let perfectly fine fare go to waste.
While conventional pasteurization depends on heat, irradiation relies on energy generated by ionizing radiation. This can come from either gamma rays from a radioactive element like cobalt-60, electron beam technology or x-rays. Higher doses of irradiation can kill disease-causing microorganisms like E.coli and Salmonella – this would have been the case with your burgers. Lower doses can replace other forms of fumigation to eradicate insects such as fruit flies and weevils from produce, and extend shelf life by retarding spoilage and natural processes such as ripening and sprouting.
All irradiated food is required by law to carry an internationally recognized symbol, known as a radura — usually green and resembling a circular flower flanked by two leaves within a broken circle. The packaging must also bear a statement indicating the food has been irradiated.
The radura should embolden you to tuck in rather than to throw out your burgers. Irradiation is by no means intended as a substitute for scrupulous hygiene standards, but it does provide that extra measure of safety. The off-putting reality is that burgers and other ground meat products are prone to contamination being frequently made from off-cuts and trimmings that may have been in contact with fecal matter. If a single cut of meat, say a steak or a chicken breast, is contaminated with E.coli or Salmonella, the pathogens harbor only on the surface of the meat being unable to permeate to the interior. Searing the outside over high heat will kill off any nasties. With a burger however, surface bacteria can become mixed into the ground meat. The risk of food poisoning then is inordinately higher despite a well-browned crust - especially if you like your burgers pink and well below 160F in the middle.

US News & World Report

The Basics on the Foodfight Over Irradiation

Should you look for the "radura" symbol?

Video: Healthful Eating Recipes

By Adam Voiland Sept. 5, 2008 SHARE

The Food and Drug Administration's approval late last month of pathogen-zapping irradiation technology for fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce has reignited a long simmering debate about how to improve the safety of food. The news comes as the latest food safety scare—the salmonella outbreak probably caused by hot peppers—winds down after infecting 1,442 people across 43 states and killing two of them. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths each year in the United States.
Given the less than spotless state of the nation's food supply, is bombarding a product with radiation to kill microorganisms such as E. coli and salmonella a good thing? Or should you avoid irradiated food, as some groups urge? U.S. News asked food safety experts some key questions to help you decide.
What is irradiation?

The process involves treating a food with a short burst of high energy radiation that damages the DNA of bacteria. Though the FDA has only just approved the technique for use with fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce, the technology is not new. In fact, the agency has conducted safety tests on the technology for more than 40 years, and its use on meat has been approved since 1997. Spinach and iceberg lettuce are the first types of produce approved for irradiation at levels intense enough to kill pathogens. (Lower doses have been approved for other purposes, such as controlling insect infestations and slowing ripening produce's maturation.) Why do some food processors want to irradiate food?

Groups that represent food processors, such as the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the American Meat Institute, want to irradiate certain products to kill problematic pathogens and to extend shelf life. Research shows that irradiation destroys 99.9 percent of common foodborne pathogens. However, advocacy groups such as Food & Water Watch and the Organic Consumers Association oppose the irradiation of food on the grounds that it doesn't address the root causes of outbreaks, such as unsanitary conditions at farms and food processing plants, and reduces the nutritional quality, taste, and texture of food. Why has the Food and Drug Administration decided to approve the technology for use with spinach and lettuce now?

FDA Expands Irradiation of Food Supply; Harmonizing with Codex Alimentarius

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Demonstrating the lack of concern held by regulatory agencies for public safety or public opinion as well as the increasing attempts to become compliant with Codex Alimentarius regulations, the FDA has recently expanded the amount of ionized radiation that can be used to treat unrefrigerated raw meat.

As reported by Food Safety News, the two new policies decided upon by the FDA were issued in response to two petitions filed in 1999 by the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

While the previous policy was that only refrigerated or frozen meats could be irradiated, the new rule allows for the irradiation of unrefrigerated raw meat. The second rule change allows for increasing the dose of ionizing radiation in poultry from 3.0 kGY to 4.5 kGy.

Although a period for public comment is always set aside for regulatory agency decisions regarding potential changes to policy, the FDA promptly ignored the many comments it received from individuals all over the country as well as consumer advocacy groups which requested the denial of the two FSIS petitions.

The response from the FDA was that all of these comments, made by individuals and by groups such as Public Citizen and the Center for Food Safety, “were of a general nature” and “did not contain any substantive information that could be used in a safety evaluation of irradiated poultry.” This statement was made regarding both the poultry irradiation rule and the passage of a new meat temperature rule.

Predictably, the FDA has defended its decision by circular logic that flies in the face of science and common sense. The agency is claiming that “irradiating unrefrigerated meat was not found to increase meat’s toxicity, change the food’s nutritional properties or increase the likelihood of certain bacteria thriving on meat; therefore FDA has determined that this is a safe application for the process.”

Of course, while the FDA claims that irradiation is not found to increase toxicity or change nutritional properties, the very reason that the FDA has jurisdiction over food irradiation to begin with is because the process of irradiation can do just these very things. Even the FDA admits[1] that, because irradiation “can affect the characteristics of the food,” it is considered a “food additive.” Thus, because food additives fall under the purview of the FDA, irradiation is regulated (or not) by the agency.

By allowing for higher doses of irradiation in food, the FDA is knowingly complicit in covering up unsanitary food production practices by major corporations as well as accepting the inclusion of clearly harmful material (i.e. radiation) into the food supply. Keep in mind, irradiation is mostly used by corporations in order to cover up deplorable manufacturing conditions and dangerous food contamination.

Food Irradiation Supports Agribusiness, Harms Health

by Heidi Stevenson
Gaia-Health.com
Agribusiness is polluting and destroying the food on which we depend . Irradiation destroys nutrients and creates poisons. Despite claims, it’s largely hidden from us. It exists for the benefit of Agribiz, not for our health.
Food irradiation exists only because Agribusiness exists. It isn’t to support your health. As we’ve seen recently with outbreaks of food-borne disease, modern food production is innately unhealthy. It utilizes monoculture, long term storage, and chemicals. None of these are good for us, but all create enormous profits for a money-hungry industry. The need to sterilize foods on a mass scale simply did not exist until Agribusiness changed the nature of what we eat.
Modern food processing and distribution is highly mechanized, with tremendous pressure placed on employees to simply push things through and money carefully spent to grease the palms of those who might have called a stop to the madness. Agribusiness considers it cost-effective to irradiate foods, which sterilizes them and significantly increases their shelf life.
The efforts to utilize irradiation cover the spectrum from propaganda to hiding it from the public. We’re told that food irradiation is safe, effective, and doesn’t affect food quality. Let’s call these claims the myths that they are and examine them.

Myth: Irradiation is effective.

Fact: This is a very slippery claim. Yes, it does kill many infectious organisms, in particular, bacteria. However, it does not protect against toxic elements, such as the neurotoxin produced by Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium that causes botulism. Killing the bacteria can create a sense of security, though the actual disease cause is still present.
Irradiation’s effectiveness against viruses is limited, so anthrax and hepatitis may still survive after irradiation. Prions, the cause of mad cow disease, are untouched by it.
Reinfestation of food is not prevented by irradiation. In fact, it holds the potential of allowing worse contamination. By eliminating most infectious organisms, beneficial ones are also destroyed. This results in there being nothing to prevent reinfection, allowing opportunistic bacteria and viruses free rein in irradiated foods.
Factory farms are not healthy places. Pigs are kept for their entire lives in horrifically unsanitary conditions, with their droppings and urine left uncleared where they fall through the cages, so they rot and release constant toxic fumes. Irradiation is a means to avoid dealing with this inhumane and unhealthy situation.
Urine, feces, pus, tumors, and vomit are not removed by irradiation.

Myth: Irradiation is safe.

Fact: This is simply false. As documented in Food Irradiation, Cats, and Doublespeak: Researchers Reinvent Reality, it’s well known to cause neurological damage in cats.
Irradiation generates furans in food. Carbofuran is a member of this class. It’s the poison, which is banned in Europe and severely curtailed in the US, that FMC sells under the name of Furadan, as reported in PsychoCorp #1—FMC Product Banned in U.S. Kills Lions in Africa. All furans are considered carcinogenic. Fruits, in particular, are affected by the generation of furans.
Public Citizen reports laboratory animals fed irradiated foods suffered “a myriad of serious health problems in laboratory animals that ate irradiated foods, including premature death, fatal internal bleeding, a rare form of cancer, stillbirths and other reproductive problems, mutations and other genetic damage, organ malfunctions, stunted growth and vitamin deficiencies.”
The growth of aflatoxin, implicated in liver cancer in southern states, is stimulated by irradiation. The World Health Organization considers aflatoxin to be a significant health risk. Unique Radiolytic Products (URPs) are produced by irradiation. These chemical compounds have not been well studied, but one group of them, cyclobutanones, have been found to promote cancer and genetic damage in rats, and to cause genetic and cellular damage in both rats and humans. Cyclobutanones are radiation by-products of palmitic acid, which is present in nearly all foods.
Other chemicals known to cause cancer and birth defects are formed by irradiation, including benzene, toluene, and methyl ethyl ketone.
Free radicals are formed by irradiation. These are the targets of antioxidants, supplements that are very popular now. Consider that some antioxidants, such as vitamin A, are destroyed by irradiation. So irradiation holds a double whammy against health—destroying the antioxidants that might help resolve the chemicals it creates.
The journal, Nutrition and Cancer reported in 2002 that colon cancer can be caused by a chemical compound found only in irradiated food.

Myth: Irradiation doesn’t affect food quality.

Fact: There is extensive documentation for the loss of key nutrients from irradiation of food. The Center for Food Safety reports that anywhere from 2-95% of the vitamins can be lost. They cite losses of as much as 80% of vitamin A in eggs, 95% of vitamin A and lutein in green beans, 50% of vitamin A and lutein in broccoli, and 40% of beta carotene in orange juice. Irradiation is also reported to destroy the B, C, E, and K vitamins.