Businesses reassured on plans to zap U.S. mail with radiation

Associated Press

BOSTON — For many companies, the U.S. Postal Service’s plans to irradiate mail might be an inconvenience. For Ed McCabe’s, they could have been a disaster.

"Even the radiation on (checked) luggage going on an airplane can fog a film," said McCabe, whose Mystic Photo Lab in Mystic, Conn., is one of three large mail-in film-processing companies in the country. "I knew this radiation would be more powerful than that."

Experts say radiation used to kill anthrax wouldn’t damage the vast majority of objects sent through the mail. But there are exceptions: film might be exposed, prescription drugs weakened or food essentially cooked.

"When the word came out that the Postal Service was considering this approach, it got our attention," said Blair Jackson, a spokesman for Irving, Tex.-based Advance PCS, which sends 10 million prescriptions through the mail each year.

Those fears, however, have generally evaporated — largely because the Postal Service has made it clear it has no intention of irradiating the enormous amount of corporate mail that comes from so-called "known senders."

Mystic, Advance PCS and other companies say they’ve met with postal officials to make sure their products avoid the machines, which the Post Office plans to set up over the next 18 months. Some companies also say they’re redesigning mailing material to ensure the packages they receive don’t arouse suspicion.

Postal Service spokesman Jerry Kreienkamp says separating the mail of corporate bulk-mailers, which should not need to be irradiated, is one of the easier challenges.

"The contents are known, the preparation is known, we know how much of it there is," he said. "That’s the bulk of the mail we deal with. It’s not the stuff you drop off at the mailbox."

San Diego-based Titan Corp., which has sold eight irradiation devices to the Post Office, says testing has shown credit cards, compact discs, videotapes and most other products are safe. But spokesman Wil Williams says companies sending film, sensitive electronics and "living" products such as seeds or lab samples should talk to the Post Office about making sure their products avoid the process.

Some prescription drugs could also be rendered less effective, though not actually dangerous, by high radiation doses, said both Williams and Food and Drug Administration spokesman Brad Stone.

Irradiated food, meanwhile, would be safe — safer than usual — Williams said, but might taste funny from a kind of overcooking effect.

Large food shippers such as Omaha Steaks and Wisconsin Cheeseman say irradiation of mail hasn’t been a worry because they use UPS and FedEx. Several smaller food shippers who use the Postal Service say they aren’t worried either.

"We haven’t really changed our plans on how we’re sending out our product," says Carolyn Thomas of Thomas Orchards in Kimberly, Ore. "I don’t think anybody’s worried about it."

For now, the Postal Service is only irradiating mail addressed to the federal government in Washington, D.C., and mail that piled up in the New Jersey and Washington post offices where anthrax was found.

But even as it expands the practice, the focus will likely be on high-risk mail; for instance, envelopes without return addresses mailed at corner boxes. Companies and people whose correspondence is clearly labeled and bears return addresses would have little to worry about, Kreienkamp said.