031246 Groups Call For Ban on Irradiated Beef

Two consumer watchdog groups have called for a federal ban on irradiated ground beef after they said lab tests conducted on samples bought from a restaurant and three grocery stores - including a Publix in Florida - tested positive for cancer-causing chemicals.

Public Citizen and the Center for Food Safety, both based in Washington, D.C., reported recently that ground beef irradiated with gamma- and electron-beam irradiators were found to contain potentially harmful levels of 2-alkylcyclobutanones, or 2-ACBs.

Formed when commonly occurring fats are exposed to radiation, recent tests in Europe have shown evidence that 2-ACBs promote the growth of colon tumors in rats, the groups said in their report, "What's in the Beef?"

In addition to raw and uncooked beef, the chemicals have been detected in other irradiated foods, including chicken, eggs and mangoes.

In Florida, irradiated frozen beef patties purchased at a Publix store in Hollywood and sold under the "New Generation" label, tested positive for the chemicals, the groups said. The chain began selling irradiated beef and chicken earlier this year.

Fresh irradiated beef from Safeway stores in Washington, D.C., and New York City, and cooked patties from a Minneapolis Dairy Queen, also tested positive, the groups said. While not a widespread geographic sampling, the group said the tests showed that 2- ACBs are present regardless of the meat's state - frozen, fresh or cooked.

The groups said their findings should send a message to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that questions remain about the safety of irradiated food. "If you're going to permit irradiated meat on grocery store shelves and school lunch trays, you need to be certain that the product is safe - and no study has been able to adequately demonstrate that long-term health won't be affected," Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, said in a statement.

"The FDA has the responsibility to keep these potentially hazardous products off the market," Hauter said.

Laura Alvey, an FDA spokeswoman, confirmed in an e-mail message that the agency was reviewing the petition, but declined to comment further. "Once a petition is officially received by FDA we have 180 days to respond, but sometimes issues arise that delay that response," she said.

Still, despite calls for a ban, industry officials and experts in food science insist that the benefits of irradiated meat outweigh any potential risks.

They say the technology protects consumers from potentially deadly food-borne bacteria, such as salmonella and E. coli, by bombarding food with low levels of radiation or X-rays, a procedure that kills bacteria, parasites and insects without making the food radioactive.

The federal government requires products that have been irradiated and sold in supermarkets to be labeled with the words "treated by irradiation" and the symbol for irradiation, called a radura.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved irradiation for ground beef and poultry," Dwaine Stevens, a community affairs manager for Publix's Jacksonville division said. "We offer irradiated products as an alternative for our customers, and if people don't feel comfortable with purchasing irradiated products, they can purchase products that aren't irradiated."

But we stand by the product because the FDA has "found it to be safe," Stevens said.

Keith Schneider, an assistant professor at the University of Florida Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, agreed that most of the available science has found irradiation to be safe.

In the debate over irradiation's safety, "you will find that one group says yes, the other says no," Schneider said. "But what is the relative risk? If there is a risk, is it outweighed by the risk of food-borne illness."

Each year, food-borne pathogens result in 76 million illnesses, resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. If irradiated food were more widely consumed in the United States, the CDC says it could prevent more than 900,000 cases of those illnesses and more than 350 deaths each year.

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