Well, here I go again. NEW INFO!
I'm hoping someone here, knows someone, or,,,,,
Anyway, this is sounding worse with each article, so if anyone can find out anything, WE ALL NEED TO KNOW!!
Zapping Our Mail November 23 By Elizabeth Lee For years, Barb Wojhoski has sent mail-order fruit baskets to far-flung relatives for Christmas. This year, she's breaking that tradition. Anthrax contamination in the mail and some post offices has convinced the Atlanta free-lance editor to scratch food and other perishables off her gift list. ``I'm not worried about someone actually receiving something from me that's contaminated,'' she explains. ``I'm worried about a scare taking place where they close the post office and the food is stuck there.'' Timeliness of delivery aside, should people be worried about mailed products as the Postal Service begins sanitizing mail with irradiation? Maybe. Which may make you wonder: Will mail-order pharmaceuticals and food be safe and in their original condition? How soon will irradiation begin, and where will the machines be? How can items unsuitable for irradiation be separated without undermining the safeguards against bioterrism? There are clear answers to only some of those questions. Irradiation has been tested extensively on food and is generally considered safe even at the high levels needed to kill anthrax bacteria. But it can change food's smell, taste and texture, resulting, for example, in rancid cookies or soft fruit. For pharmaceuticals, many of the answers simply aren't known. ``This is an issue that needs to be carefully studied,'' says Jeff Trewhitt, spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a Washington-based trade association. ``Irradiation could affect the effectiveness and the stability of medicine and, particularly, biological products,'' which include vaccines, blood and laboratory samples. Zapping food packages at levels high enough to kill anthrax - about 10 times the dose used on products such as fresh ground beef - also would violate Food and Drug Administration regulations. The FDA must first approve any use of irradiation on specific foods, including the dose amount, and requires that all irradiated food be prominently labeled. ``There are some items you should not be irradiating, because you would make it unusable, as in film, or you would exceed the dose allowed by the FDA, as in food,'' says Wil Wheaton, a vice president of Titan Corp., the majority owner of the company supplying irradiation equipment to the U.S. Postal Service. Other products likely to be affected, Wheaton says, are anything containing live DNA, such as seeds and blood products, and electronics, especially circuit boards. FDA spokeswomen said the agency is working with the Postal Service to resolve food and pharmaceutical concerns but would give no other details. The Postal Service plans to install eight electron beam accelerators in East Coast post offices and is working on one in Washington. It is also considering adding X-ray irradiation, which would treat larger packages. Both of those methods are non-nuclear; a third irradiation technique, using gamma rays, is nuclear. The agency is releasing limited information about where the machines will be and how soon they will be in service. It's not clear how much irradiation will be used during the holiday season, a crucial time for mail-order food businesses and families sending food packages, although a postal spokesman says the technology won't be widespread before Christmas. Businesses are taking note of customer concerns about mail safety, even if they ship through other carriers, such as United Parcel Service or Federal Express. Many are reassuring customers about their packaging. Sunnyland Farms in Albany started sorting its mail well away from its pecan-packing facilities after anthrax contamination hit post offices. Byrd Cookie Company in Savannah has begun asking for e-mail addresses of gift recipients so it can notify them to expect a package, says owner Benny Curl. Of the 1.5 million fruitcakes it sells every year, Collin Street Bakery of Corsicana, Texas, sells 90 percent between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with most shipped through the mail or UPS. Company President Bob McNutt believes in irradiation as a way to make food safer, but he wasn't familiar with the doses that would be needed to sterilize mail. He doesn't think it will affect his products, but he says customers have the option of picking another shipper if they don't want food sent through the mail. The Postal Service is trying to work out a way to prevent packages likely to be adversely affected by irradiation from going through the process, says spokesman Gerry Kreienkamp. Part of that screening process will include working with known shippers to set aside their products and asking consumers to prominently label packages with items that might be damaged by irradiation, such as home-baked cookies. Yet some products may wind up irradiated regardless, such as mail-order drugs purchased abroad. Such purchases are illegal but not uncommon, and packages may be unlabeled or mislabeled to escape detection. The Postal Service says it will rely on additional safeguards - think of it as package profiling - to prevent terrorists from taking advantage of procedures meant to keep food, drugs and film from being irradiated. ``It really feels like there was a jump to the apparent quick-fix solution, and now they're finding the quick fix is partially broken,'' says Peter Lurie, deputy director of health research for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, a longtime critic of irradiated food. Anthrax bacteria are much harder to destroy than food-borne pathogens such as listeria and E. coli. To kill anthrax, machines must be set for higher doses. ``You can use as much as you want, and the food would not be unsafe,'' says Lester Crawford, director of the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at Virginia Tech. But at higher doses, irradiation can oxidize fats, giving food a rancid taste, and affect texture, says Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California at Davis. Irradiation Basics There are several ways to irradiate products, including electron beam acceleration, a non-nuclear method; X-rays; and cobalt-60, a nuclear method. Medical supplies such as tampons and baby bottle nipples are sterilized at higher doses than food. The FDA allows up to 30 kilograys to irradiate spices, with levels for raw meat and fruit much lower. Refrigerated raw beef, for example, can be treated with 4.5 kilograys, frozen meat with 7 kilograys and fresh fruit with 1 kilogray. Food for astronauts, treated to prevent any spoilage for up to a year in space, receives 35 kilograys, says a spokesman for Titan Corp., which makes irradiation equipment. A dose of at least 41.5 kilograys is needed to kill anthrax, Titan says. The FDA first approved irradiation of food in the 1960s, for wheat and white potatoes. It has approved the process for products such as raw meat, dehydrated spices and fresh fruit for various purposes, including killing bacteria, controlling insects and extending shelf life. Consumer acceptance has been slow. Irradiation makes food safer from bacteria that can cause food-borne illness, such as salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and E. coli, says Christine Bruhn, director of the Center for Consumer Research at the University of California at Davis. Irradiation is endorsed by the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Dietetic Association. ``Most people have not heard what the benefits of irradiation are,'' Bruhn says. ``They may be more hesitant to try it.'' ----- (The Cox web site is at
http://www.coxnews.com) Copyright: c. 2001 Cox News Service
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