Mr. Wells:
Thanks for sending me a copy of the letter you sent to the Press. I didn't see it appear in the Press, but I think your letter deserves a response, so we can understand each other better.
The radiation used to sterilize food is gamma radiation, which is a type of electromagnetic waves, similar to microwaves. But while the microwaves are produced by an electric process, the gamma radiation is produced by unstable atomic nuclei. The radioisotope Cobalt-60, for example, is one of the sources of gamma radiation in food treatment. So food irradiation is very much a nuclear process, and falls well within the field of nuclear science.
There are risks involved in everything. Do you tell parents the risks to students in riding the bus to school? Or in using scissors in the classroom? Of course not, because while there are real risks of harm, the risks are minimal. Broadcasting these risks would only serve to scare people needlessly. And you couldn't possibly tell parents about every little thing, so you choose to tell them what's important - it's not censorship, it's common sense.
Being an independent thinker does not mean that you always believe the opposite of whatever the government says. The opposite of blind faith is not no faith – it is faith supported by reason. Independent thinkers still accept conclusions made by others – they just insist that those conclusions be supported by evidence. The CDC's conclusions about food irradiation are supported by experimental evidence.
Randy Moehnke