In view of restraints within supply chains for medical devices and consumables, FDA is extending approval for gamma irradiation and other forms of sterilization. It is enigmatic that consumers are more than willing to accept that syringes used to inject their daily insulin are irradiated but at the same time are opposed to electron beam pasteurization of food products.

In the face of petitions to ban up to thirty-one Salmonella serotypes and intentions of intruding backwards through the production cycle onto farms.  FDA and USA should accept that irradiation is a physical process akin to heating to destroy non-spore-forming bacterial pathogens responsible for infection.  Instead of making futile and expensive efforts to suppress but not eliminate Salmonella and E. coli at the farm production end of the cycle, electron beam pasteurization could eliminate the risk of infection at minimal cost and high efficiency.