COM 0212.035 1996-1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

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^^4 Is food irradiation a financially sound investment for Hawaii? Is it a safe process? Is this site geologically suited? Will Hawaii still be competitive if lower wage countries also irradiate their fruits? Will consumers, mainland and Japanese, buy irradiated fruits? How many growers really need it? Will it help the small farmer? Why should we invest two million dollars in a private enterprise? What will the facility ead~-~isgesal cost Hawaiians? How will the companies dispose of the wastes? How will the plant's presence affect tourism and property values? Could your fire and emergency units handle a nuclear accident? What aze the alternatives? 1) Use this money to research other ways to kill the fiuit flies, 2) expand coffee and flower industries, 3) forestry (especially pest resistant high timber bamboos an~a m A 4) organize an interisland fiuit and vegetable co-op supporting truck farming. Consider even industrial hemp, under strict controls, before you invest in an unaccepted, unproven, and financially unsound technology such as food irradiation. Twelve years after FDA approval, chief FDA food irradiation reviewer, Marcia Van Gernert still states, "Food irradiation has not been proven to be safe." Discredited Army studies from the sixties and studies from the fraudulent Industrial Bio Test Corporation, as well as, biased Chinese nutrition studies, are still used as "scientific" basis for its safety. I'm reminded of the military A-Bomb, Agent Orange survivors, fifties covert civilian nuclear tasting, and Desert Storm... Studies of Indian children who developed high chromosome abnormalities (precursors to cancer) after being fed irradiated wheat, weren't considered, nor were documented tests on rats showing possible kidney and testiculaz damage and tumors when the FDA approved food irradiation Eighty to ninety percent of cancers Aar environmentally induced, according to the WHO (World Health Organization), with one out of every two point five people expected to contract cancer. The National Academy of Sciences has warned us that the FDA, USDA, and EPA have failed to protect our health. The NRC has recorded fifty-four accidents at one hundred and thirty-two irradiation facilities worldwide since 1974. There is no information concerning accidents in approximately thirty other states, as each monitors its own facilities. Worker and product safety, at the irradiation plants, aze at risk from contamination in the irradiation process. The NRC (Nucleaz Regulatory Commission) while developing licensing for lazgevradiators cited numerous examples of product contamina~on om exposure to radioactive coolant splash and found this unacceptable. This has occu ed 7 - - r Co alt 60, used in Isomedix irradiators, (See Isomedix Accident 1974), has contai ers whic~eak, possibly causing this contamination Cobalt residues remain when cannisters are replaced and if disposed of, these cannisters aze down graded to low level waste which can become the responsibility of the state. There is often many yeazs of radioactivity left in these cannisters, creating a safety and environmental hazard, plus a heavy cost burden for the state. If the monitoring devices to check products leaving the irradiation chamber fail to function properly, products and workers could be unknowingly contaminated. It is true that the DOE (Department of Energy) is promoting a technology it cannot control. Too many environmental and human health risks are involved. It is not accepted by the consumer, is financially unsound, and should be opposed by the committee. !j~K Sa""d`1 Qda"-" l%omnP, isi4 . V~./ St -529 kcrv. ~4w~ File no. D C IP ~Cc~a,,,o.- N-, Rb~3o r^ Ref. 70; Prosenta. ~l So 4 . 23'T ~ z 5 APR ~ ttef. I~te_