New technologies

I was disturbed to read the March 7 Op-ed piece, “Genetic engineering can be a mouthful.” In particular, I was disturbed that the person writing this piece found it necessary to apply an argument ad hominem against a much-respected Orono physician. Clearly there are reasons to approach new technologies with more care than was often the case in the past. Likewise, we must all agree that human technologies sometimes have sobering consequences. At the same time, Maine cannot indefinitely pretend that food irradiation doesn’t exist and that if we just hold out long enough, “it” will eventually go away and quit bothering us.

Several years ago I spent a half day listening to presentations on food irradiation at a national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was impressed with some of its potential uses. For example, the threat of a Medfly investation is an ongoing serious concern to California agriculture and irradiation of infected fruit can destry Medfly larvae. Another example discussed was irradiating food in a Washington hospital to sterilize it before giving it to individuals who had to be isolated from all sources of potential infection.

Food irradiation is obviously not the answer to all food safety problems, but neither is it a Trojan horse that must be kept from our gate. I often think that if microwave ovens had come along a few years later than they did, there would be strenuous arguments made against them as well. For that matter, any type of cooking changes the chemical composition of food as well as changing its taste and texture. Should we stop cooking food?

The February issue of Environmental Health Perspectives had the following heading on an article, “Since we have no choice but to be swept along by this vast technological surge, we might as well learn to surf” (Michael Soule in “Conservation for the 21st Century,” 1989). Few would suggest thoughtless “surfing.” However, let’s discuss issues rationally. Let’s deal directly with issues instead of attacking the person whose opinions we don’t like. Marquita K. Hill Orono