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MANHATTAN, Kan. -- While industry professionals continue talks with government officials on using irradiation to kill anthrax spores in U.S. mail, a Kansas State University food scientist says that research indicates the technology can be an effective way of killing the deadly bacteria.
Randy Phebus, a food safety microbiologist with K-State Research and Extension, said that some U.S. mail already is being irradiated. Researchers liken the process to the well-established process of using irradiation to sterilize medical devices.
"I'm confident that using gamma irradiation at the levels that are routinely used to sterilize medical supplies would be effective in killing the anthrax spores," Phebus said.
On its website last week, the U.S. Postal Service announced that it is "adopting and immediately deploying" irradiation to fight the current anthrax threat. Two Washington D.C. postal workers died last week due to inhalation anthrax.
Killing anthrax spores with irradiation will require a level that is at least 10 times higher than the amount of radiation needed to protect food from harmful bacteria, according to researchers at Iowa State University. The level of irradiation used for poultry, red meat, spices, fruits and vegetables is 3 kiloGray (kGy) or less.
Jim Dickson, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology at Iowa State, said killing anthrax spores will require a 30 kGy level of irradiation. He noted the recommendation for killing anthrax -- scientifically known as Bacillus anthracis -- is partly based on testing irradiation against a comparable organism, Bacillus cereus.
"There's not a lot [of research] out there specific to anthrax," Dickson said.
But noting that irradiation is "not an unfamiliar technology," Dickson said that its current use for sterilizing medical items also gives a good indication that it will be successful in sterilizing mail. Medical supplies typically are irradiated with 25 kGy.
As with its other uses, irradiation would not make mail radioactive, Dickson said. It's also considered safe for people working around the irradiation systems, if they stay within the guidelines for using the technology.
Phebus and Dickson both discounted recent reports that mail could be sterilized by using a steam iron. Dickson said people would have to keep the iron directly on the mail for approximately 30 minutes, which may kill anthrax spores, but may also cause a fire.
U.S. companies with irradiation units were in discussions with government and postal officials last week. A spokesperson for one company -- the Steris Corporation in Mentor, Ohio, which has 16 facilities in North America to sterilize medical equipment -- said the companies "definitely have the technologies available."
A statement from the U.S. Postal Service notes that "this new technology will not be cheap, but we are committed to spending what it takes to make the mail safe." Early indications, said the Steris spokesperson, is that units to irradiate mail will have to be built on-site. Iowa State's Dickson said he knows of only one portable unit available in the country, built by Gray*Star Inc. of Mt. Arlington, N.J.
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