Donald Louria; Food Irradiation

Well, it's clear that Helen is really no friend of mine because she has gotten me to moderate this whole day, and that's a mistake. Now, as moderator,I had a tiny bit to do with the--with planning the time schedule, my job is to stimulate vigorous debate and at the same time keep order. That is: A: an oxymoron, and in this field, probably impossible. But we're going to try and do that. We're going to try and keep everybody on time, speakers will get a message from me five minutes before the end of their, ah, their appointed time, and two minutes from the end I will come up and stand by them. There is a very full schedule and we have to--we have to keep on time.

Now in regard to debate, we really, ah,--this is a contentious topic and we want, vigorous and unrestrained debate, but in a time in which our country's going through a--an astoundingly uncivil time, ah, the rules of debate are civility and decorum and ah, and these are somewhat traumatic times for this country, I--I'm reminded of what ah, [...?...] said, and he said a bad manner ah, destroys everything--even reason and justice. So let's have a lot of debate but let's keep it within--within bounds.

Now, ah, I'm going to try and get us back on--on time, ah, I'm going to talk about food irradiation. I know nothing about radiation safety, or very little, but I do know something about food irradiation and I'm only going to make two points: First I am not an implacable foe of food irradiation. I am opposed to the use of food irradiation until we get some answers. And I'm just going to mention to you two major concerns of mine.

The first relates to potential chromosomal, that is, genetic damage from eating irradiated food. Now the problem is that ah, the proponents are focusing on test tube studies and animal studies, and the test tube studies favor them but they're not all in favor of them by any means. Ah, the animal studies, ah, look reasonably impressive, but it is human studies that are critical. And to my knowledge there are really only two relevant studies. One is a study in India that ah, is ah, a problem because of very small numbers of malnourished chil--children, so there's a problem with numbers and there's a problem with selection bias, nevertheless, those studies performed ah, perhaps 20 years ago, show that children who ate freshly irradiated grains had increased chromosomal abnormalities with [breaks and polyploidy....?].

That study has been harshly criticized. Some of the criticism is clearly valid. The second study is done in China and it is a larger study with young and middle age adults fed irradiated foods for a much longer period of time, but there are few publications in peer review journals. The one we found was in a Chinese medical journal and that journal, ah, article purports to show that there was no--there were no chromosomal abnormalities--at least no increased breakage or [polyploidy?] in those who ate the irradiated foods. The best statistician I have, who is a marvelous statistician reviewed the adumbrated data that were available in the article and found that there were indeed increased chromosomal abnormalities with a P-value of .07. That is not a negative study. It is an uncertain study, but that study has been used to say this is a good study, the Indian study is a poor study, a good study [trumps?] a poor study--no further debate. That, in my judgment, is not proper.

Can any of you imagine a new drug that is studied overseas and [ah, you're?] looking for adverse affects and there are only two studies in different countries and one of the studies shows adverse affects but is not a very good study, and the other study may or may not show adverse affects and that we would then utilize that drug in the United States without doing our own study. What's the solution? The solution is very easy. We should have a study done in the United States with young people, older people, less affluent, more affluent, black, white, hispanic, and it should be a short term study. It should be a study that a substantial amount of irradiated foods, proper controls, proper design and do it for about four months, looking for chromosomal abnormalities, and if you don't find anything by the end of four months, call it a negative study. Not very expensive, ah, doesn't take a long period of time, is absolutely no reason for the proponents not to agree to this.

What do they say? Well, I was ah, recently at a major conference in Washington D.C. and here's what they say: They say that that study is ah, improper to be done on human beings. Number 2: It is unethical. Number 3: It is impractical, because nobody would get involved if they knew there was a possibility of chromosomal abnormalities and 4: It is unnecessary. So it is unethical, impractical, should not be done on humans, but by the way, we should have radiation plants all around this country and all around the world and feed people in unregulated fashion irradiated foods. That makes no sense to me, so all I'm asking is for a simple study--short term study that doesn't cost a lot of money. My personal, ah, bias is that it'll be a negative study, but it has to be done.

Number 2 issue is ah, detriment in nutrient value of foods. I don't really think this is debatable. The fact of the matter is we know--we know that if you irradiated--radiate foods, you are likely to decrease some of the nutrient content and there's particular concern about vitamins A, B, C, E, thiamine, perhaps other B vitamins and ah, maybe fatty acids. Well, this is dose-dependent. It's radiation technique-dependent, the lower the temperature, the less likely you're going to get these problems, but there are derivative problems, namely that irradiated food may loose excess vitamin content during storage and may loose vitamin content during processing particularly ah, cooking for example. So, compared to cooking, irradiated food that's cooked looses vitamins --certain vitamins more rapidly.

Now when this was brought up at the conference in Washington, the FDA representative, ah, said that, worse case scenario, you would--in regard to thiamine which is what we were discussing--if you lost 50% of the thiamine in irradiated foods, that would reduce the thiamine intake in the United States by about 10%--no problem. I said, have you stratified these studies by economic status and by age? Because older people tend to have problems with vitamin deficiencies unless they're taking supplemental vitamins and that's at about the 25 to 40% level, measuring circulating vitamins.

The answer by the FDA representative was A: we didn't know that older people had vitamin stud--ah, problems, B: we're not sure we believe your data, even though the data are irrefutable, and C: it really doesn't matter cause we're only talking about 10%. Well, I will tell you what the data show. The data show that older people have about 1/3 less circulating thiamine levels in the blood. The data show that older people have less thiamine biochemical activity in the blood, and it's either a problem of diminished absorption or that you need more thiamine in older people to achieve the same biochemical effects as is true with Pyridoxine and there's increasing evidence that with vitamins, that if you're on the lower part of the normal curve, still in the normal range, this is disadvantageous for you in terms of health.

So, reducing vitamin intake in older people is a bad idea. We ought to be increasing it, not diminishing it. What is the solution to this problem? Again, it is very simple. What I've asked is that bef--that if you are going to sell irradiated foods, you'd be willing to test those foods, pre-irradiation, post-irradiation, post-storage, post-processing and see what happens to the vitamin content or on the face--case of fish, the ah, Omega 3 and the Omega 6 fatty acids and if the answer is nothing, put that on the label--no detriment. If the answer is 50% loss, put that on the label so that the public knows. That's all we're asking. That is not expensive, it is not time consuming. It is a matter of allowing the public to know what is being done to their foods during this process. I think that unless the proponents are willing to test the foods for nutrient loss before and after radiation and letting the public know what happens to it, that they should not be allowed to sell these foods.

As far as I'm concerned, it is indeed very simple. If -- the proponents want to -- give me contravening data than what I've just said, I'm not going to listen I--I d--I really think we know what the--the argument and counter-argument is. All I want them to tell me is whether or not they're willing to do the test for chromosomal damage in this country, whether or not they're willing to test their foods for nutrient content before and after radiation processing. If they are, then as far as I'm concerned, this is one critic who's off their backs. If they are not, I will continue to believe that they have absolutely no right to sell irradiated foods in this or any other country.

Now, end of diatribe. Ah, we are not quite on time--ah, we're on--but now we're only five minutes behind, and ah, speakers [applause] ah, speakers who--you each have ah, 30 minutes, ah, and that's from ah--includes time to walk up and start your talk. Ah, as I said, I will ah--I will let you know five minutes before and then ah, two minutes before I will, ah, join you at the podium. Ah, it's essential we keep on time. I want to be sure that we have time for our free discussion.

Ah, the ah, the other thing, speakers, please take off your name tags ah, before you ah, you speak because the--the cameras, ah, need to have those removed. And you have to ah--you have to stick to the podium. Here are your pointers. Here's the forward and the ah, the reverse, but ah, for the purposes of the recorders, you have to stay right here.

Ah, the next speaker ah, is--is--you all know who the next speaker is. The next speaker is Alice Stewart [applause].