An X-Rayed X-mas: Should the USPS Irradiate Your Mail?

Imagine if the fruitcake Aunt Emma sends you every year is, in 2001, subjected not just to auntie's stove, but to an oven the size of a house that zaps the poor loaf at 25 kiloGrays, delivering the radioactive equivalent of 825 million chest X-rays to the X-mas cake. And you thought it tasted funky last year.

In response to the current anthrax-in-the-mail scare, the federal government has bought eight such irradiation devices, with an option for 12 more, for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). At $5 million per device, they are possibly the USPS's most expensive attempt to quiet public fears about bioterrorism. But will the devices actually make the public safer? Or will irradiating our letters, bills, catalogs, mail-order do-dads and holiday presents have unintended health and environmental consequences, either in the long or short term?

Unfortunately, the government isn't answering those question, or hardly any questions at all, about mail irradiation. Unable to get such information, consumer advocates and activists who cut their teeth struggling against irradiated foods have filed a number of public information requests. On Nov. 1, Public Citizen filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for copies of scientific studies used by the USPS to prove that irradiation technology kills anthrax spores. The Nuclear Information and Research Service (NIRS), also sent a formal letter to the USPS on Nov. 2, asking for full disclosure on mail irradiation.

Among their concerns, according to NIRS Project Coordinator Cindy Folkers, are what might happen if the irradiation process isn't fully effective. "If spores are not destroyed with irradiation, mutation is risked," their Nov. 2 letter pointed out. As Folkers asks, "Might you end up with something worse if you irradiate anthrax?"

In a testimony to Congress at the end of October, USPS Vice President Tom Day referred to an armed forces microbiology study to support his claim that this irradiation technology kills anthrax spores, according to Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's energy project, who was at the hearing. But Hauter said the study was neither peer-reviewed in the scientific community nor published. "I just want to know how much radiation" will be used, she added.

In Hauter's experience with food irradiation, a process similar to mail irradiation, objects are bombarded with about 7 kiloGrays -- the equivalent of 233 million chest X-rays. She believes the USPS machines, which use a slightly different "e-beam" technology, would deliver 25 kiloGrays. Even at that high level of irradiation, Hauter and Folkers question the devices' efficacy for killing anthrax spores.

"There is not very much research out there," said Hauter, and what there is, she says, does not address the e-beam technology. What research Folkers found indicated there is scientific evidence that water must be present to have irradiation kill spores. But, she said, spores contain only 15 percent to 20 percent water, while normal cells contain about 70 percent water. "Radiation kills by breaking down water," she said. Hauter also claims that e-beams only penetrate 1.5 inches through a package, so thick materials with spores on the bottom would not be sterilized, even if the technology does work.

Titan Scan, the military contractor that is selling the e-beam units to the USPS, did not return numerous calls for comment. Its major competitor, Belgium-based IBA, would not remark on whether it was negotiating with the U.S. government over selling its irradiation units. IBA did announce, however, on Oct. 23, that its e-beam technology "can kill anthrax spores."

The American Postal Workers Union severely limited media interviews last week, so there's no official word on workers' choice between the dangers of anthrax inhalation or potential dangers from ionizing radiation. In the current climate of anthrax fears, it's likely that postal workers would choose the latter risk. However, if anyone may suffer from irradiation devices, it would be USPS employees.