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By Michael E. Ruane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 23, 2001; Page A11

It's already done with chicken, spice, ground beef and baby bottle nipples.

The U.S. mail may be next.

And soon.

In the midst of the growing anthrax scare, the government is exploring the possibility that irradiation or other state-of-the-art sterilizing technology might be used to cleanse the mail of pathogens.

In the weeks since mailed anthrax bacteria have infected people in Florida, New York and Washington, experts have been scrambling to figure out how to kill the microbe before it reaches mail handlers or recipients.

Irradiation appears to be one of the most viable solutions, experts said.

A fairly extensive industry exists that uses irradiation to sanitize food and medical, hygiene and packaging supplies, often in bulk or in assembly line settings. And industry officials believe irradiation might safely sanitize the mail, too.

"That is being explored," U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan said yesterday, adding that the agency did not want to divulge its strategy. "We are using the latest technology in targeted areas to ensure that the mail is safe."

Irradiation, for one, has been used in sterilization for decades.

"Irradiation is used for food to reduce pathogens and extend shelf life, and there is thinking now that irradiation does such a nice job . . . that maybe it can be applicable to mail also," said Jeffrey T. Barach, vice president for special projects at the National Food Processors Association.

"There is some evidence, and some strong evidence, that irradiating bacterial spores, whether they be food pathogens or anthrax spores, does a really nice job of destroying the spores so that they lose their pathogenicity," he said.

Although some scientists contend that the effects of radiation on food are not all known, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is "a safe and effective technology that can prevent many food-borne diseases."

Disease-causing germs are reduced or eliminated, the CDC says, and the food does not become radioactive.

"In the case of mail," Barach said in an interview yesterday, "if there was some powdered bacterial spores in there, it would have the effect of basically killing them or sanitizing them.

"With food, you have the concern about taste and quality after the radiation effects," he said. "So, generally, fairly low doses of radiation are used on food products. With mail, of course, nobody tastes mail. You could give it fairly healthy dosages. It doesn't do anything to the mail. It certainly doesn't make the product radioactive or leave any residue. So the mail opener or handler would have no problems in handling the mail after that."

There are three main methods of irradiation, according to the CDC:

• Radiation given off by a radioactive substance such as Cobalt 60, which can penetrate food up to several feet deep and has been used for decades to sterilize medical and dental products.

• Electron beams, a nonradioactive but highly accelerated stream of electrons sprayed from an electron "gun." They do not penetrate as deeply and are also used to sanitize medical and hygienic products such as baby bottle nipples and sanitary napkins.

• X-ray radiation, a more potent version of the device used in hospitals and dental offices.

The latter two technologies are the kind that might be installed in a postal facility, "where mail could be passed along a conveyor belt and the treatment given in that regard," Barach said. The first one, using a radioactive substance, requires larger, static, concrete-reinforced facilities to which mail might be brought in bulk for treatment, he said.

Food Technology Service Inc., of Mulberry, Fla., outside Tampa, has been treating food products for several years, and its gamma ray "cell" can handle pallets of several thousand pounds, plant manager Jonathan Locke said yesterday.

He said the plant sanitizes poultry, ground beef and spices in a process that now takes about seven hours but can be reduced to three hours.

Barach said there are only a few food irradiation centers in the United States so far, "because it hasn't really caught on that much," but there are scores of facilities that use electron beams to sanitize medical equipment.

Several are operated by San Diego's Titan Corp. and its subsidiary, SureBeam Corp.

The companies' equipment produces "the total elimination of all pathogens" on medical products it sanitizes and partial sterilization on food products, where certain bacteria need to be retained, such as in milk, said spokesman Wil Williams.

The electron beam apparatus, which can be installed on an existing assembly line, can kill pathogens "in a matter of seconds," he said.

Asked whether the beam could kill anthrax, he replied, "Yes, anthrax bacteria and spores."

He declined to reveal whether the Postal Service was interested, saying only that in recent days, "we've talked to many government entities about this."