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Australian & New Zealand Food Safety Council approve Steritech’s A413 (to irradiate herbs, spices & herbal infusions), based on a recommendation by Australia & New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA). This is Australia’s first legal food irradiation licence. Although Steritech’s original application also included seed oils and nuts, it was revised to omit seed oils. Nuts were included in ANZFA’s draft recommendation, but it is unsure what has happened to them, as they are not mentioned n ANZFA’s press release. Steritech have been given to irradiate herbs at THREE TIMES the dose recommended. Does this have something to do with the fact that their 2 existing plants are for commercial products, and not for food and can therefore not emit the doses low enough for their application to comply with the lower world standards? As was feared, this first application has opened the door. A second application from a US company called SureBeam (who have set up an Australian subsidiary) has applied to ANZFA for a licence to irradiate tropical fruit. SureBeam’s website (www.surebeam.com) mentions “electronic pasteurisation” – a good euphemism (in the same class as “ethnic cleansing” and “collateral damage”!). The current labelling standards state that food sold loosely (as fruit often is) requires a label “on or near the display”. Consumers will not know that fruit has been irradiated unless they hunt for the hidden information – under the counter, on an adjacent wall, wherever. However, NZ consumers WILL know, because ALL tropical fruit coming from Australia WILL be irradiated. Any application to ANZFA is assessed on what they call a “case-by-case” basis, which really means a food-by-food basis. Any approval given for the irradiation of a food item means that anyone with an approved irradiation facility can then irradiate that food (at the min/max doses), with no further permissions sought. SureBeam can now irradiate spices. If SureBeam get their fruit application approved, Steritech could irradiate fruit. (And so on.) Steritech want to set up an irradiation plant in Narangba, Qld. This is in the middle of a large fruit-growing area. Coincidence? As ANZFA has ignored the vast majority of submissions against the first application (303 : 13), and scientific studies proving irradiated food can be BAD for you, this sets a dangerous precedent for not having to review these matters for this second or any subsequent application. It is doubtful whether the members of the Food Safety Council ever heard the objections. They were probably given a sanitised, biased report from ANZFA and signed without even knowing the full issues, or the public concerns. Steritech and SureBeam are competitors. Will this lead to a rush of applications from both of them to see who can irradiate how much of whichever foodstuffs first? Any politicians who thinks they have enough on their plates and wishes to ignore what is happening to our food should think again. This irradiated food will BE on their plates before long! |
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