Protest Irradiated Foods in Schools

(please forward widely)
Urge Your Senator to Vote YES on AB 1988!
Protect Parents Right to Know What Their Children Eat at School!

Irradiated ground beef, a questionable product promoted by the meat industry to cover up dirty slaughterhouses, may soon be in your child’s lunch! Ignoring intense opposition from concerned parents and the public, the USDA approved irradiated ground beef for the National School Lunch Program in May of 2003. Schools can now choose to serve irradiated foods without a public discussion or parental notification, despite widespread concern about the safety of consuming these foods.

"Serving irradiated beef in our free school lunch program is a systematic public policy of testing questionable lunchmeat on California’s poorest children."
- California Assemblymember Loni Hancock

AB 1988 (Hancock) requires school board approval before a school district can serve any irradiated foods, and requires schools that serve irradiated food to notify parents and to label it. This bill will go to the Senate Floor around August 23.

Call Your Senator, and Urge Him/Her Your Senator To Support AB 1988!
To find out who your Senator is, visit http://www.sen.ca.gov Scroll down for a sample phone rap.

Below is a list of targeted Senators. Call or send them a FREE FAX by clicking on the link next to their name.

Senator Dede Alpert: 916-445-3952
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=359&source=56

Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny: 916-445-6767
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=362&source=56

Senator Mike Machado: 916-445-2407
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=361&source=56

Senator Dean Florez: 916-445-4641
http://www.citizen.org/fax/background.cfm?ID=360&source=56


Sample Phone Rap
“Hi, I am a constituent of Senator _________ and I am calling to urge her to support AB 1988. I believe that parents should have the right to know if irradiated foods will be served in their children’s lunch, and that a decision to serve these foods should involve a public discussion. Please keep me informed of the Senator’s position on this bill. Thank you.”

For more information visit http://www.citizen.org/california/food
To read the text of the bill, visit http://www.leginfo.ca.gov

Background
Irradiation exposes food to extremely high doses of ionizing radiation in order to kill bacteria. This process destroys essential nutrients and hastens their depletion during storage and cooking. Irradiation also creates known toxins and carcinogens in food, such as benzene and toluene, and a new class of chemicals, called “unique radiolytic products” some of which the FDA has never tested for safety.

Research on irradiated foods has linked them to a wide range of health problems in humans and animals, including reproductive dysfunction, genotoxicity, cytotoxicity, fatal internal bleeding, and, in some cases, cancer. There is no research on the health effects of consuming irradiated foods over a long period of time, and no population has ever consumed irradiated foods as a substantial part of their diet.

Food irradiation also perpetuates the unsanitary environment found in many feedlots and slaughterhouses, where animals wallow in their own filth and are slaughtered at extremely fast linespeeds. Workers in these facilities are often the victims of numerous accidents that result in serious injury or even death. By treating food after it has been processed, irradiation will only allow these conditions to continue and even worsen, increasing the likelihood that meat will be contaminated by excrement and other carriers of dangerous pathogens, and risking the lives of workers.

In May of 2003, the USDA approved irradiated foods for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which provides free or reduced price meals to needy schoolchildren. This USDA decision was made despite overwhelming opposition from parents, teachers, students, and concerned citizens who oppose serving irradiated food to children.