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From: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: sterilizing food with radiation
Message-ID: <814@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Nov-85 10:42:36 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.814
Posted: Wed Nov 27 10:42:36 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Nov-85 08:32:37 EST
References: <6202@amdcad.UUCP> <225@redwood.UUCP> <2253@amdahl.UUCP> <11084@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: dgary@ecsvax.UUCP (D Gary Grady)
Organization: Duke U Comp Ctr
Lines: 55

In article <11084@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> spp@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Stephen P Pope) writes:
>
>    About a year ago a local liberal muckraking weekly
>(the Bay Guardian) did a feature on food irradiation.
>Their arguments against make sense to me:
>
>(4) . . . .  Contamination
>of the food, and leaks into the environment, are certain
>to occur, given the lousy safety record of the nuclear
>industry (please, no flames from you nuclear types out there).

Not being a nuclear type, I guess I can point out that the nuclear
industry, while far from perfect, has a rather good safety record.  Sure
beats the chemical industry.

>(5) The whole motivation is to justify the creation of lots
>of nuclear waste by utilizing it in this fashion.  

Considering that we already have a far more than sufficient stock of
nuclear waste, this doesn't seem too credible.

>(7) Very little economic benefit to the public results.

Seems to me that long-term shelf storage without refrigeration could be
of considerable economic benefit.  And since we live in a market
economy, I suspect if it's not of economic benefit it won't be used.
You might wonder if the economic benefit will be passed on to the
consumer.  Since the grocery business is among the most competitive,
low-margin businesses going, I would tend to expect so.  If you could
cut your prices and gut the competition wouldn't you?

>    I am unaware as to how close the food irradiators are
>to implementing their idiot scheme.

I'd suggest reading something more than one inflamatory newspaper
article before making such a sweeping condemnation.  It's possible the
people who favor food irradiation are fools and scoundrels.  It's also
possible they are quite decent, bright folks who are simply mistaken.
Heck, they might even be right and the well-meaning folks at the Bay
Guardian (wasn't that a roller derby team?) mistaken (though quite
innocently and reasonably so, despite the flecks of foam around their
lips).  The pros and contras of food irradiation have been discussed in
the news and letter columns of Science, among other places, and might
represent a more balanced view.

If I haven't made it clear, let me say that I am not claiming food
irradiation is safe (as someone else noted, even cooking can produce
carcinogens and toxins).  I simply don't know enough to say one way or
the other.  On the other hand, opponents don't serve their cause well
when they resort to name calling and unlikely conspiracy theories.
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
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