The Rural Voice, 1988-10, Page 25The reasons why food irradiation
is not more widespread revolve around
several major issues, including the
safety and quality of food, how
economical or necessary irradiation is,
and whether or not it is appropriate to
be using nuclear technology in any
way, shape, or form, let alone on food.
This last concern brought food
irradiation to the attention of Irene
Kock, president of the Nuclear
An example often cited
is a 1975 Indian study,
which showed that
malnourished children
fed a diet containing
freshly irradiated wheat
developed chromosomal
abnormalities .. .
Awareness Project in Oshawa. Her
concern about the long-term health
hazards created by the nuclear indus-
try led her to research food irradiation.
She says that as she learned more
about it, she became more concerned
about how safe the process was.
Kock presented her concems to a
Standing Committee on Consumer and
Corporate Affairs, which examined
the question of food irradiation and
the labelling of irradiated foods. The
committee echoed many of her points
in its report, tabled in May of 1987.
The committee concluded that the
wholesomeness of irradiated food was
not proven adequately, recommending
that a panel of experts be formed to
examine the safety issue and that food
irradiation be regulated as an additive
rather than a process.
A further recommendation was
about the prominence of a logo and
descriptive wording used to alert
consumers to the fact that food has
been treated.
Most of the committee's recom-
mendations, except the one regarding
labelling, were not accepted by the
government. Food irradiation is now
to be considered a process rather than
an additive, meaning that toxicological
studies need no longer be conducted.
This pleases Conrad L'Ecuyer,
director general of commodity co-
ordination for the Agriculture Canada
Policy Branch, who says that enough
research has been done on the issue of
food safety to ensure that nothing
remains in the food after irradiation.
He says this does not mean that there
will be no more analysis of how
irradiation changes food, but that the
analysis will be appropriate to the
technology.
Despite one side saying that the
food produced by the process is unsafe
and the other saying that it is safe,
both sides agree on one fundamental
point: food irradiation does not make
the food radioactive. Atoms in food
would need to be "bumped up" to
higher energy levels by the ionizing
radiation before they would become
radioactive. At the energy levels
proposed, radiation does not impart
enough energy to create these unstable
atoms, although one uncommon form
of treatment (which uses an electron
accelerator instead of a passive radia-
tion source) may induce radioactivity
when used with certain packaging
material.
The concerns about safety lie with
the substances created in the food by
the ionization of molecules, the radio -
lytic products (RPs). The concern is
that some RPs may be toxic, so that
ingesting irradiated food will poison
consumers.
Many people believe that research
has dispelled these fears. According
to Dr. L'Ecuyer, the conventional
system of scientific review has done
its job well, and the process has been
shown to be safe. He points out that
this review has been going on for 20
years, culminating in a (take a breath)
joint Food and Agriculture Organi-
zation (FAO)/International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA)/World Health
Organization (WHO) committee on
the wholesomeness of irradiated food
which met in 1970, 1976, and 1980.
After the 1980 meeting, the com-
mittee declared that "the irradiation of
any food commodity up to an average
dose of 10 Kilo -grays presents no
toxicological hazard: hence toxicolo-
gical testing of foods so treated is no
longer required." These conclusions
were accepted by the Codex Alimen-
tarius Commission of the United
Nations, an organization set up to
protect the health of consumers.
Dr. L'Ecuyer says the fact that
these international bodies reached a
consensus shows the process is safe —
if there is any dissent in such commit-
tees a decision is put off until the next
meeting, which may be a year or two
away.
This assessment prevails in the
scientific community. The Science
Council of Canada (SCC) agrees with
the FAO/IAEA/WHO report, endor-
The greatest use of the
technology, Dr. L'Ecuyer
says, will be in the Third
World, where refrigeration
is not common. Irradiation
will help food to make it to
market and allow more
exports.
sing the technology wholeheartedly
in a report tabled in April, 1987. The
three -volume Preservation of Food by
Ionizing Radiation, an international
review of the technology edited by E.
S. Josephson and M. S. Peterson
(published in 1982), does not even
consider the subject of food safety in
its many articles — safety is taken as a
given. The weekly science magazine
New Scientist is firmly in favour of the
technology, saying "there is no evi-
dence that foods treated with the
proposed amounts of radiation are in
any way harmful" (3 Sept. 1987).
Irene Kock and other groups
opposed to the technology are not so
sure about the safety data. She says
most of the research on the subject has
come from the nuclear industry, and
therefore is biased in favour of the
technology. Many criticisms of the
safety studies have never been
published, she adds, and much of this
independent work gives cause for
concern.
An example often cited is a 1975
Indian study published in the Ameri-
can Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
which showed that malnourished
children fed a diet containing freshly
irradiated wheat developed chromo-
somal abnormalities while the control
group developed none. After irradi-
ated wheat was removed from their
OCTOBER 1988 23