The radiation is created by cobalt. The food never comes anywhere near the cobalt, it's just exposed to the gamma rays within a chamber. It has been proven to kill all bacteria without a trace of residue. NASA has used and studied the technology for about 30 years. It works but is being resisted because someone somewhere might get sick.

This is kind of a sore subject with me at the moment. I spent last weekend suffering from some form of illness, perhaps a mild form of food poisoning. It was no fun. I lost 3 pounds in 2 days in a most uncomfortable manner. I have no idea what caused me to get sick.

As for lowering the arsenic levels, there is always a cost-benefit analysis. Some people say you can't put a value on a human life, that if it saves a single life then it's worth whatever it costs. That simply isn't true. Would you advocate spending a billion dollars to save a single life? How about $100 billion, a trillion, or the entire federal budget? Obviously, there comes a point where we have to say that we can't afford to save that single life. When that point is reached, we've just put a value on a human life.

Would lowering the arsenic level in water save lives? Perhaps, but there is some scientific evidence that challenges that assertion. Now, the question becomes, how much would it cost to meet the new standards? In some areas such as New Mexico, the naturally occurring amount of arsenic in the water is pretty high. New Mexico is a sparsely populated state with a lot of small communities that lack the resources to spend a fortune meeting the new standards. What happens then - do we subsidize these communities? Do we force them to upgrade their systems anyway - giving them the choice of sharply increasing their taxes and/or cutting all other government services? Or do we evaluate on a case by case basis and grant waivers where necessary? The alternative could be that the city water services shut down and people go back to wells - without the benefits of water treatment which would lead to far higher arsenic levels in their water?

You see, everything has a cost. The question is, is the cost worth the benefit. Given the economic realities of virtually unlimited demands against limited resources, we can't afford to do everything. That being the choice, we have to prioritize so that we provide the maximum benefit from the resources available. That arsenic level served the country for some 50 years without people dying in the streets. Is it really worth the costs - many billions of dollars nationwide - to lower those standards when there are other things that could be done with the money that would save far more lives?

However, I see a trend developing from the other side. Namely, there's a threat (arsenic in drinking water) and we need to lower the risk to save an unspecified small number of lives each year. Hang the expense, this is a political issue! Who cares if communities can't afford it? Who cares if the results could be worse than the current situation? There are political points to be scored, charge!