By Jo Mountwinter
Dave Riley's article on food irradiation (GLW, March 17) issue was basically correct, though it overstated the effectiveness of food irradiation.
In fact, the process kills only some of the bugs, and slows down the ripening of only a very few fruits. As to fruit flies, a killing dose of radiation would damage the fruit too much for it to be saleable afterwards.
What the proponents of irradiation are saying is that the flies would be given a sterilising dose to prevent them from reproducing. This requires a precision quite beyond the powers of irradiators, and as someone recently pointed out, it might be quite difficult to prove to a buyer that the flies were, in fact, sterile. They might just not be in the mood!
The National Food Authority, formed in 1991, has invited submissions from groups or interested individuals on the subject — to be received before June 1. Our group, the Air, Food & Water Information Network, has put in a submission reminding the NFA of several things:
1. There has never been a genuine demand for the process.
2. The International Atomic Energy Agency stated in its "Guidelines for the acceptance of food irradiation" that the introduction of "enabling legislation" was essential if food irradiation was to be accepted. It seems that the formation of the National Food Authority itself could be an example of this — it certainly enables.
Protection of public health and safety has top priority in the NFA's terms of reference. We therefore pointed out that none of the 306 delegates at an annual congress of environmental health officers in the UK was prepared to accept a government advisory committee's recommendation that irradiation be
allowed.
Then we added a list of 48 scientific studies showing cell damage, plus a quote from the British Medical Association's Science Division saying that food irradiation could put children at risk.
The NFA's second priority concerns the provision of adequate information to enable consumers to make informed choices and prevent fraud and deception. A preliminary for this, we feel, is to establish whether foods have been irradiated or not.
The UK and several European countries have bought themselves testing devices based on thermoluminescence. Monash University has come up with a device based on electron-spin resonance, but our government has so far not shown much interest. It seems strange that an obvious course has never been suggested — that of requiring documentation for all food, giving details of whatever processes it has been subjected to, right back to its source.
The NFA's third priority is "the promotion of fair trade in food". Everything depends on the definition of fairness. Probably the NFA will choose to take a view that irradiation of food overcomes the unfair tyranny of distance from markets, and should therefore be okayed.
In fact, the only situation in which the question of fairness or otherwise is likely to arise, we think, will happen when traders who have been deceived into using food irradiation decide they've been unfairly treated by not being put in possession of the facts relating to health effects and consumer resistance.
We're urging anyone, whether or not they're members of a group, to get into the act and send a submission to the National Food Authority, Food Safety Section, PO Box 7186, Canberra MC ACT 2610
We have plenty of documentation, and anyone interested in details can contact us at 110 Emu Bay Road, Deloraine, Tasmania 7304.