If you have ever had an injection or used a sterile wound dressing you have already benefitted from the industrial radiation processing industry. For example, 80% of surgical gloves are sterilised using gamma radiation from cobalt-60. Most of the single use medical devices that we take for granted as being sterile, such as wound dressings, syringes, scalpel blades, masks, gowns, stents, grommets, artificial joints …. the list goes on; most are made sterile and safe to use by radiation processing using gamma, electron beam and x-radiation. Without radiation processing healthcare would be severely impaired.
Food irradiation has been researched for more than 100 years. It is endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as safe and wholesome.
Some foods may be unavoidably exposed to pathogenic organisms (those that produce food poisoning if eaten by humans) during the production process. A good example of this is herbs and spices that may be fertilized with organic manure and irrigated with impure water. Once harvested, they are often dried out in the open where they are prone to contamination with bird and animal droppings. Herbs and spices may be pasteurised without loss of flavour or colour intensity using radiation.
Bulk crops such as exotic fruit, coffee beans and grain for export can be irradiated to remove quarantine pests to avoid introduction of the pest into the importing country. This replaces the use of methyl bromide fumigation which is a danger to the ozone layer and to those who administer it. MeBr, a Class I cancer causing agent, was banned from agricultural use in the developed world by 2005 and by 2015 in the developing economies but it is still allowed for quarantine treatment of export commodities. Radiation processing of fresh produce at a very low dose has the additional benefits of slowing the ripening process; this allows tree ripened fruits to be harvested for better flavour, whilst also reducing spoilage during transit.