FDA Approves Beef Irradiation
By CURT ANDERSON WASHINGTON (AP) - Coming soon to your local meat market:
Fresh beef irradiated with cobalt gamma rays? The Food and Drug Administration today approved use of irradiation to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli in beef, a decision favored by an industry that was rocked this year by several meat recalls and consumer food safety fears. Dr. Michael Friedman, acting FDA commissioner, said in an interview that irradiation will become a useful tool in combating food-borne illness, but that ultimate responsibility still will rest with the food handler and preparer. ``We think it is safe and we think it is appropriate,'' Friedman said of the procedure. ``But the consumer should not believe that he or she does not have to use good cooking and handling techniques.''
Some anti-nuclear activists have protested irradiation as unsafe, but Friedman said FDA scientists determined that the process does not change the fundamental properties of meat and does not make it radioactive in any way. ``There is no contact with a radioactive substance. There is nothing left on the meat,'' Friedman said.
The FDA acted on a three-year-old petition from Isomedix Inc., a New Jersey company with long experience in medical sterilization that wants to offer meat processors irradiation with cobalt-60 gamma rays. There are many other ways to safely irradiate meat and other companies in the market. Such techniques would enable meat packers to kill bacteria at the end of the production line, after it is already sealed in packages and cannot be contaminated further. This is particularly important in ground beef, where bacteria can easily get beneath the surface during grinding.
Although irradiation has been available for years for poultry, pork, spices and some fresh produce, interest in the process for beef intensified after this summer's recall of 25 million pounds of Hudson Food Co. hamburger tainted with E. coli. The meat industry lobbied vigorously for irradiation as an alternative to Clinton administration proposals for greater government authority to recall contaminated products and punish violators.
``I think there is a greater degree of interest,'' said Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, a meatpacking industry organization. In this year's FDA spending bill, Congress ordered the agency to act within 60 days on the Isomedix petition. The bill also changed labeling requirements for all foods treated with irradiation so that the words need be no larger than those for the ingredients. The three years it took to act on the petition were necessary, Friedman said. ``There were some very complex scientific issues that had to be dealt with,'' he said. But, he added: ``We believe the safety of food is so important that we will be focusing our efforts in a more effective way in the future.''
The FDA's action today approves safe irradiation dosage levels for various forms of meat, such as frozen, fresh and so on. It is now up to the Agriculture Department to issue regulations for processing plants that conform to those levels. Once that is done, Boyle said meat plants would have to figure out how to use irradiation, whether they can afford it and whether there is a consumer demand.
It is uncertain how adaptable the process would be for hamburger that is ground in the grocery store. Most likely, consumers would see products marketed in the future that would offer them the choice of purchasing irradiated meat. ``I think it's going to take a little time for industry and consumers to move towards the adoption of irradiation as a purchasing option,'' he said. One reason irradiation is not widely used on other products is consumer wariness of the process and lack of education about it, said Brian Folkerts, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Food Processors Association. ``We need to stop giving consumers the impression that the label is a warning when it has been found safe,'' Folkerts said.
AP-NY-12-02-97 0943EST Press.
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