1984 - Consumer Protection

Consumer Protection

The Infant Formula Action Coalition announces January 29 that it is ending a 7-year boycott of Nestlé products pending ratification of an agreement at Mexico City February 2 (see 1982). The 70 members of the Coalition include the National Organization for Women.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposes February 14 to allow irradiation of fruits and vegetables, with doses up to 100,000 rads, to inhibit maturation, retard spoilage, and kill certain insects which infest produce. The controversial process has been known since the 1940s and subjected to years of testing by the U.S. Army but has not been considered economically viable despite widespread concern about pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables (it could replace use of pesticides after harvesting). Radiation-sterilized food has been used at British cancer centers for patients whose treatment has left them extremely vulnerable to infection, and food preserved by irradiation is sold in more than two dozen foreign countries. Opposition to irradiation in the United States has been based on worries about possible exposure of workers to radiation burns and about the resistance of botulinum bacteria to irradiation.

Georgia state inspectors remove a brand of cornmeal from store shelves in February after finding that the five-pound bags contain more than 1,000 parts per billion of aflatoxin—50 times the level deemed safe for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration (see 1977; 1988).