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From: spp@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Stephen P Pope)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: sterilizing food with radiation
Message-ID: <11159@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 5-Dec-85 17:25:15 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.11159
Posted: Thu Dec  5 17:25:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 03:34:41 EST
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Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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>>    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.
>
>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

     To my way of thinking, the fact that (1) the would-be irradiators
don't want to own up to the fact by labeling the irradiated food
(2) they are trying to pass off irradiation as so safe as to be
above scrutiny and (3) they are trying to act anonymously, leaves
the irradiators open to name calling.  If what they're doing is
so good, why don't they act on the up-and-up?
     Any plan which forces something on consumers, without them 
asking for it and without informing them, and without even claiming
to give them any benefit, qualifies as an idiot scheme in my book.
     Various people who have heard about the planned mass irradiation,
are well informed, and support it for various reasons, have argued
in favor of it.  But I haven't heard anything from the irradiators
themselves in anything resembling a public forum.  They're just
quietly trying to make a few bucks.  Correct me if I'm wrong.
     A few years ago, during the height of fruit-fly paranoia
here in California, food irradiation outfits offered to
dose the fruit as an alternative to quarantines.  Public
disapproval killed the idea, but it does demonstrate how
the irradiators are acting opportunistically, trying to
take advantage of a situation to gain entry into the industry.
     Are we supposed to believe, all of a sudden, that the food
we're eating is no good because it hasn't been zapped? 
We're talking about normal everyday food, not survivalist stashes
or third-world situations which lack distribution and
refrigeration.
     And these statements that it's O.K. to irradiate food to
the point of carcinogenesis, simply because cooking does the 
same thing, don't convince me of much.  I like to cook, I like
to eat cooked food, and therefore am willing to weigh the
increased risks against these benefits.  I see no benefits of
comparable value coming from food irradiation.
     The fact that irradiation is commonplace in many countries
is no argument either.  Adverse health effects would be very
hard to identify since everybody eats food.
     I apologize for a little name calling.  After all, it's us
fools who continue to eat who are the real idiots.

steve pope