PEOPLE who like their food irradiated before it鈥檚 cooked can now celebrate.
More than 80 supermarkets in Minneapolis are offering irradiated versions of
that all-American staple, the hamburger.
Food safety advocates who have been pushing irradiation as a solution to
food-borne illnesses welcomed the debut of irradiated hamburgers. The likes of
Salmonella and Escherichia coliO157 infect 77 million
Americans every year, leading to thousands of deaths. Irradiation kills the bugs
before the beef gets to the market. But suspicions about the things irradiation
might do to food have mostly kept irradiation inside the laboratory.
However, all that has changed with the introduction of 鈥渆lectronic
pasteurisation鈥�. The irradiation is provided by a new device that zaps food with
high-energy electrons produced by a linear accelerator. Anyway, the Food and
Drug Administration gave the technique its blessing. But the decision has split
the food safety pressure groups in Washington DC. Some say the suspected but
unproven risks of irradiation are better than 77 million illnesses a year.
Others, such as the group Public Citizen, are mounting a publicity campaign
against the technique. They鈥檝e labelled electronic pasteurisation a 鈥渆uphemistic
absurdity鈥濃�攔adiation is radiation, regardless of how it鈥檚 generated, they
say. With the experiment in Minneapolis under way, the proof of this pudding
will be inside the burger bun.
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WHILE I鈥檓 on the subject of risky things to do . . . well, it seems like risk
has been the preoccupation du jour the past few months among
Washington鈥檚 science policy makers. The Environmental Protection Agency decided
to lower the amount of pollutants in diesel fuel because they cause respiratory
disease and cancer. The government also told pesticide makers to cut the amount
of an organophosphate pesticide, chlorpyrifos, in the product Dursban. Then
policy makers said the amount of arsenic in drinking water has to come down 90
per cent below current levels. And a new study has found that strapping young
children into cars with seat belts instead of booster seats significantly
increases their risk of serious injury during car accidents.
No doubt those who follow the science news here feel a little less blithe
about how secure life in the US is after this barrage.
SCORE one for the scientists. Earlier this month, President Clinton ended a
knock-down drag-out battle between two agencies of the Department of Health and
Human Services.
In one corner, we have the National Institutes of Health. The research agency
wants health insurers to pay the routine costs of medical care for patients who
enrol in clinical trials. Why should researchers pay for tongue depressors and
bedpans out of their budgets? Those are routine costs of treating sick people,
say the researchers, so let the insurers pay.
In the other corner, there is the Health Care Financing Administration,
administrator of the government-run health insurance programme for senior
citizens, Medicare. HCFA officials did not want to use insurance money to pay
for research. They complained that whenever a researcher becomes involved,
so-called 鈥渞outine鈥� medical costs miraculously skyrocket鈥攁lthough recently
there have been a spate of articles, admittedly done by researchers, saying that
that just isn鈥檛 so.
The NIH and HCFA have squared off on this issue for years. Now, by
presidential decree, the NIH is the winner. For the most part, the folks at the
HCFA are taking it well, but don鈥檛 be surprised if you see a few rude gestures
with tongue depressors coming from the losing agency.
