USDA's Food Irradiation Promotion

A USDA program billed to educate schools, parents and children on food irradiation was actually designed to promote irradiation and convince school districts to serve irradiated meat according to a new report by Public Citizen. The public interest group's study, "The Plan of Ten Thousand Mistakes: Minnesota's Misguided Food Irradiation Education Project," points out the project's "numerous flaws, including questionable survey research techniques, failure to provide balanced information, the withdrawal of one of the three school districts, dissemination of inaccurate information, and failure to translate material for non-English-speaking students and parents." Of particular concern is that nearly half of the pilot project's "partners" have ties to Sure Beam, a major food irradiation company, Public Citizen reports.