Schools to Be Allowed to Serve Irradiated Meat

October 27, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 - Schools will be allowed to serve
children meat that has been sterilized through irradiation,
the Agriculture Department has decided.

Irradiation sterilizes food by using low levels of gamma
rays or electrons to kill bacteria and parasites, like E.
coli and salmonella.

In 1999, the government approved the sale of irradiated
meat to the public, but irradiated meat was prohibited in
the school lunch program. The farm bill approved in May
changed that, said Alisa Harrison, spokeswoman for the
Agriculture Department.

Under the new policy, announced on Friday, schools will be
allowed to buy irradiated meat by the end of the year, Ms.
Harrison said, emphasizing that doing so was optional.

The meat industry has been urging the agency to approve
such a policy, saying it will make products safer.
Companies want the department to start a pilot program for
buying irradiated ground beef for school lunches.

"It's time for U.S.D.A. to acknowledge the food safety
benefits of this technology and begin purchasing irradiated
ground beef products for the nation's schoolchildren," J.
Patrick Boyle, chief executive of the American Meat
Institute, said in a statement.

Some advocacy groups say irradiated food is unhealthy,
though the World Health Organization and the American
Medical Association have said it is safe. The consumer
group Public Citizen has strongly opposed irradiation,
saying the process destroys vitamins and nutrients and can
cause chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects to
develop.

Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation
of America's Food Policy Institute, said she accepted that
irradiated food was safe to eat but warned that it was "not
a silver bullet" for food-borne illnesses.

Food poisoning in American schools has been increasing 10
percent a year, the General Accounting Office, the auditing
agency of Congress, reported this year. Fifty
school-related outbreaks of food poisoning were reported
nationwide in 1999, with 2,900 illnesses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/27/national/27MEAT.html?ex=1036695306&ei=1&en
=a688d70b35982a0f