Will Irradiated Foods Save Lives?

"For years, our Center has been demanding irradiation for spinach, lettuce, and other high-risk produce—to kill the food-borne bacteria that present a last big preventable risk in our food supply. On August 22, the Food and Drug Administration granted our plea.

FDA permission to irradiate produce is the biggest step forward in U.S. food safety since irradiation was approved for meat (read hamburger) in 1990. That followed dozens of needless “burger deaths” due to the rare-but-vicious E. coli O157 bacteria.

There’s a problem, however: scare-mongers have warned the public that irradiation itself is not safe. We’re not even irradiating much of our hamburger, even as recalls continue to warn us of the danger.

One scare-monger—a former professor of environmental medicine—said, “Every man, woman and child who takes a bite of irradiated food increases their chance of getting cancer.” Could he say that publicly without evidence? He could, and the papers quoted him. The truth, based on thousands of studies: Irradiation does not create dangerous cancer-causing organisms, nor does it make the food radioactive."

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