Ask your senator to oppose Sen. Feinstein's flawed food safety bill

Would you feel safer about your dinner if it had been zapped with a dose of radiation?  How about if it had been rinsed with chemicals before being sent to your store? A new bill in the senate proposes to irradiate and chemically treat more of our food in the name of “food safety.”  Can you tell your senators to oppose it?

This week, Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the “Processed Food Safety Act,” which advocates for danerous technologies like irradiation as a cure-all. While it’s clear there are serious problems with our food safety system, this bill does not address the real problems of food contamination.

Senator Feinstein’s bill essentially forces food processors to use a “pathogen reduction” treatment unless they can certify that every ingredient in their products is free of bacteria.   While that may sound kind of appealing, the devil is in the details:  the “pathogen reduction” treatments this bill promotes include irradiation and chemical rinses, sprays, or additives.

This is not the right way to tackle food safety problems.  The focus should be on preventing contamination, not trying to zap it away with dangerous technologies like irradiation or chemical rinses or sprays that may cause more problems than they solve.

Tell your Senators not to support this unrealistic approach to food safety.