Lawmakers think so, and they blame it on irradiation, the word.
A spending bill that President Clinton recently signed into law directs the agency to come up with the wording by early 2002. It's construed by some consumers as a warning. Even before that approval, industry officials worried that consumers would balk at the term irradiation. Food is irradiated when it is exposed briefly to electrons, gamma rays or X-rays. A leading advocate of alternative labeling is Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, whose state has a facility that treats ground beef with electron-beam radiation.