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Around the globe, multinational corporations such as Philip Morris-Kraft, Del Monte foods, and even Mitsubishi are planning to use irradiation for increasing their global reach. Irradiation doubles or triples the shelf life of food products, kills invasive insects on fruits and vegetables, and masks the contamination that is the result of industrialized meat production.
Multinational food corporations are interested in growing more fruits and vegetables in the developing world where labor is cheap and agricultural chemicals are in many cases almost not regulated. Irradiation not only allows food to be shipped longer distances because of increased shelf life, it kills insects and other invasive species, which are considered "barriers to trade." Irradiation is promoted as a replacement for methyl bromide, a fumigant used to control insects, weeds, and pathogens in more than 100 crops, that is being phased out because it causes environmental damage.
Countries like Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Morocco and Tunisia are planning to use irradiation on products for export. Likewise, the U.S., France, and the Netherlands, the three highest value agricultural exporters in the world, will use irradiation for many types of food.
The meat industry is also promoting irradiation as a way to kill the bacteria remaining on meat, which is the result of filthy and cruel practices at factory farms and slaughtering facilities. Animals live in filthy crowded conditions and are butchered in dirty meat processing plants with fast moving and inhumane slaughterlines-resulting in meat contaminated with feces, pus and vomit. Meat corporations want to mask the deadly bacteria remaining by irradiating it.
Irradiation advances the industrialization of our food supply, thus enabling large corporations to gain command and control over the entire world's food supply. To maximize their profits and influence, multinational meat companies including Excel/Cargil, ConAgra, IBP and Tyson are using their influence in international trade negotiations to promote irradiation.
Family farmers and small food producers cannot compete with corporate farms where workers are exploited. Industrialized corporate food operations also treat the soil and water as commodities available to exploit for the purpose of making a profit.
Trade agreements that promote global food trade increase the pressure on small food producers. As a result, independent farmers are losing their land and are forced to move to cities, where they live in poverty and are often coerced into working in sweatshops-if they work at all.
IRRADIATED FOOD = UNSAFE & NUTRITIONALLY DEFICIENT FOOD
Irradiation blasts food with the equivalent radiation of millions of chest x-rays. The high levels of radiation initiate a complex sequence of reactions that literally rip apart the molecular structure of the food. This process creates new and unidentified chemicals that have not been proven safe. One such chemical, known as 2-DCB, caused "significant DNA damage" in the colons of rats that ate the substance. This chemical has never been found naturally in any food on Earth. Ironically, it is a well-known "marker" for determining whether food has been irradiated.
Irradiated food is also depleted of its nutritional content. The vitamin B complex, for example, can be up to 96% lower than is typically found in some foods. This problem is compounded by lengthened shelf life because as food sits in storage, its nutritional content declines. If irradiated foods are stored longer and shipped further from the farm, these foods will arrive at the dinner table with nearly no nutritional value. Everyone will be eating plastic food.
NEW INTERNATIONAL LAW PROVIDES COVER
More than 130 nations will soon be allowed to irradiate food (at any dose), trade it "freely" with any other country (whether they want to import it or not), and serve it to people who might not know that the food they're eating could make them sicker than the pathogens irradiation is intended to kill.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, created in 1961, is an unaccountable international body that creates global standards for globalized food trade.
Under the innocuous-sounding policy of "harmonization," the Codex Commission - whose members are neither elected nor subject to removal by citizens - has been instrumental in breaking down trade "barriers" to promote "free" trade in agricultural products. Under harmonization, the U.K., for example, would not be allowed to block food imports from France if its own food safety laws are stricter.
In the case of food irradiation, it's the United States that's trying to lower the standards of countries that have banned or strictly limited the production, sale and/or importation of irradiated food, such as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and most member nations of the European Union by pushing for irradiation.
The International Consultative Group on Food Irradiation (ICGFI) is another secretive, undemocratic appointed body of decision makers that is promoting the use of food irradiation. Like the Codex, the ICGFI meets in secret and has undemocratically chosen leaders, many of whom work within or have close ties with private industry.
On Nov. 3, 2000, the ICGFI decided in a private meeting in Geneva that any food could be safely irradiated at any dose - without studying, much less identifying, the chemical compounds formed by high-dose irradiation. This decision now goes to the Codex, which could adopt it as the official global standard within two years.
Adding yet another layer of undemocratic behavior to the pile, the ICGFI, which has 45 member nations (including the U.S., Hungary, Greece and China; all of which are proponents of irradiation), helps set food safety standards for the World Trade Organization, which has more than 130 member nations.
Tellingly, ICGFI approved high-dose irradiation without a quorum (have a majority of members present); only 22 of 45 member nations were represented at the meeting.
Globalization of food safety and food quality standards means that citizens will have little control over the food they eat. Global agribusiness, will exert their influence on these international bodies, as they will be the only ones that can afford to play on the international stage. In the name of promoting free trade, hard-fought consumer protections will either be weakened or eliminated entirely.
Some countries, fearful that their consumers might be forced to eat irradiated, genetically modified and other harmful foods, have called for the implementation of the "precautionary principle" as a way to protect their sovereignty over food safety issues (see box) . Thus far, however, the United States has opposed this policy, arguing that it would impede free trade.
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"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof."
-1998 Wingspread Conference, which defined the precautionary principle.
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