Irradiation: A chronology

1896 Antoine Henri Becquerel, a French physicist and professor at the École Polytechnique, in Paris, discovers radioactivity in uranium.

1900 Samuel Prescott, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shows that gamma rays from radium destroy bacteria in food.

1920s-'30s The United States and France award patents for radiation-based methods of killing parasites in pork and bacteria in canned food.

1943-'68 MIT scientists, working at US Army research facilities, develop methods for using irradiation to treat and preserve food.

1963 Federal regulators approve the use of irradiation for wheat and wheat flour.

1972 Astronauts aboard Apollo 17 carry sandwiches made from irradiated ham, cheese, and bread.

1984 Food & Water, an environmental and health organization, is founded by New Jersey-based osteopath Wally Burnstein. Among Food & Water's goals: stopping the use of irradiation, which, it charges, creates cancer-causing substances and reduces food's nutritional value.

1986 The FDA approves the use of irradiation to destroy insects and mold in spices, fruits, and vegetables.

1990 In response to concerns about salmonella and other bacterial contamination in chicken, the FDA extends its approval for irradiation to poultry.

1991 In a piece for ABC's 20/20, conservative journalist John Stossel excoriates Food & Water's anti-irradiation information as "outdated" and "discredited." Not one scientist who agrees with Food & Water's views appears on camera.

1992 Carrot Top, a grocery store in Chicago, begins selling irradiated fruit.

1993 Four children die and hundreds of people become sick from eating undercooked, contaminated hamburgers at Jack in the Box.

1994 Isomedix, an irradiation company in Chester, New York, petitions the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the irradiation of red meat.

1996 Wally Burnstein, the founder of Food & Water, dies. His second-in-command and protege, Michael Colby, who had earlier moved the organization to Walden, Vermont, assumes leadership.

1997 Hudson Foods recalls 25 million pounds of ground beef contaminated with E. coli. Burger King, Hudson's largest customer, severs ties with the company.

1997 President Clinton unveils his $43 million National Food Safety Initiative. Clinton calls for "new steps using cutting-edge technology to keep our food safe," including irradiation.

1997 The FDA approves Isomedix's petition and approves the use of irradiation for red meat.

1998 Proponents of irradiation predict that food companies will finally begin to move toward widespread adoption of the technology. Food & Water vows to campaign against any company that seeks to use it.

-- DK

Sources: Technology Review (published by MIT); the Washington Post; the New York Times; The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia (Avon, 1983); ABC News.

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