Your Daily Dose of Health

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) has sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting that they put a stop to a petition that would give clereance to ionizing irradiation on dietary supplements in the United States.  The letter includes these statements from the AHPA:

• “…proper handling of these ingredients under current good manufacturing practice is usually sufficient to ensure that dietary supplements are not subject to microbial contamination that presents any risk to the health of consumers of these products…,” (2)
• “the use of ionizing irradiation on herbal dietary ingredients will mask one of the factors that is currently relevant to the determination of ingredient quality.”  (2)
• And if the petition is granted, “the United States will become the dumping ground for poor quality herbal ingredients from around the world, since irradiation of herbal ingredients is not permitted in many countries.” (2)

Currently, the FDA allows ionizing irradiation to be used on foods.  “The effect of ionizing radiation on living matter is characterized by cellular destruction stemming from the disruption of the genetic material. That is, the radiation-induced cleavage of chemical bonds in the cell’s DNA results in the inability of the cell to reproduce. On the organism level, the cellular inability to reproduce results in death of the organism. The breaking of chemical bonds described above involves the formation of stable radiolytic products from the reactive ions or free radicals which are formed when  molecules absorb ionizing radiation. These radiolytic species, including glucose, formic acid, and carbon dioxide, are generally the same as those that are formed when food is treated by heat (that is, cooked). In fact in over 30 years of intensive investigation, no radiolytic products specifically unique to irradiated foods have been identified.” (1)

This shows that we would be killing the supplements, just as we do with plant based foods. 

(1) http://www.ebeamservices.com/ebeam_spe_poly.htm

(2) http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/printNewsBis.asp?id=82158