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Would you like your eggs poached, fried, boiled, or
irradiated? If the Bush administration gets its way, producers of
some eggs, fruits, veggies, and spices will be allowed to zap their
products with high doses of ionizing radiation — without bothering to
tell us about it. The Food and Drug Administration has proposed a new rule
approving the use of radiation treatment to help extend the shelf lives of
the foods. This is a technological fix that can fatten the profits of the
corporations, even though it can also do unpleasant things to the
food’s taste, smell, and texture — and increase the price. Oh, and one more bit of unpleasantness. The health and
safety effects of dosing our edibles with a level of radiation that’s
the equivalent of 33 million chest X-rays is, to say the least,
problematic. So the irradiators are making you part of a grand health
experiment! Good luck! Even when the FDA determines that a certain irradiated
food should be labeled, the Bush administration proposes to let them use
the more benign phrase “pasteurized” rather than
“irradiated.” This is because lobbyists for the big food
processors complain that irradiation is a word that “has such a
negative impact on the consumer that it acts as a warning label.”
Well, duh . . . yes! We should be warned that the food
we buy and feed to our families has been zapped with radiation. If this
process is perfectly safe, as the industry shills insist it is, why
don’t they want us to know about it? Why should we buy a process that corporations are
afraid to put on their labels? FDA’s public-comment period runs until
July 5. To tell ’em what you think, call Food & Water Watch:
202-797-6550.
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator,
columnist, and author.
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2007.
