(November 4, 2005) The following is an international statement opposing the irradiation of food (European version also available) and is being supported by around 50 organizations from around the world, including WISE. To add your organization to the signatories, please see contact details below.
We, the undersigned, declare that the world must be safe from the questionable and unnecessary technologies of food irradiation.
Food irradiation is another tool to increase the corporate control and monopoly of the world's food supply, thus exacerbating the already unsustainable global food and agriculture trading system that prioritizes profits over people.
Food irradiation puts at risk the health and safety of unsuspecting consumers. Irradiation destroys vitamins - up to 90% of vitamin A in chicken, 86% of vitamin B in oats and 70% of vitamin C in fruit juice. As shelf life increases, more nutrients are lost. Irradiation produces new compounds in food that have been linked to cancer development and genetic damage. Fifty years of research has shown serious health problems in lab animals that ate irradiated foods, including premature death, mutations, nutritional deficiencies, reproductive problems, fatal internal bleeding, suppressed immune systems and stunted growth.
Food irradiation is linked to several environmental problems. First, irradiation facilities that function with radioactive cobalt-60 or cesium-137 threaten workers and communities with radioactive leaks and accidents. Second, radioactive materials used in these facilities are transported long distances, increasing the risk of radioactive accidents that would damage the local ecosystem and threaten public health. The material in nuclear food irradiators is also widely considered as a potential source for dirty bombs. Food irradiation sacrifices ecological sustainability by encouraging delocalisation of production, wasteful and costly transportation of food and mass production.
Thus we demand the following:
- National legislation to be passed, banning food irradiation;
- Labelling of all irradiated products until such time as a ban has been passed. People have the right to know whether their food has been exposed to irradiation;
- A global halt to construction of new irradiation facilities (and a decommissioning of those that currently exist);
- Sustainable food production, which involves both ecological and social sustainability, i.e., conservation of environments and diverse ecosystems, respect for indigenous and local land management and food production systems, promotion of local consumption of local produce, promotion of energy minimalisation in food production. Sustainable production affirms that access to healthy and wholesome food is the right of all people and of future generations.
The European statement contains different demands, some specific to the European Union alone.
- The European Council should consider the list of foods that can be irradiated, which was voted by the European Parliament in December 2002, as closed (limited to spices and dried herbs). This harmonised list should apply in all member-states and current national exceptions should be abrogated;
- The European Commission should allocate more research funding on the toxicity and the carcinogenic effects linked to irradiated food. This research should be conducted by fully independent researchers and the results should be made public;
- The European Commission and member-state authorities should give no new approval for irradiation facilities;
- The European Commission and the member-state authorities should develop control programs to prevent fraudulent irradiated food to be sold and to guarantee that all irradiated food are labelled according to the EU directive; and,
- The World Health Organization (WHO) should withdraw its endorsement of food irradiation at any dose and to proceed with new research independent from the International Agency on Atomic Energy (IAAE).
For more information, visit www.irradiation.info
Contact: Morgan Ody, European Food Irradiation Campaign at mody@citizen.org
Tel: +32 2218 22 42