Could irradiation have prevented the E. coli outbreak?

See The precautionary principle does not take into account the deaths caused by NOT adopting a new technology by Matt Ridley. Excerpts:

"A technology that might have prevented contaminated produce from infecting thousands of Germans with E. coli was vetoed—by Germany—11 years ago for use in the European Union. Irradiating food with high-voltage electrons is a process that can kill bacteria on or in solid objects, just as pasteurization can kill them in liquid foods.

When the European Commission proposed in 2000 that irradiation be allowed for a greater range of foods and at a higher dose, the German government vetoed the measure. In the U.S., food irradiation is used for various products, including ground beef, but most retailers resist the practice, lest the word "irradiated'' on the label scare off customers.

In Europe, irradiation is used only for some spices and herbs. The German veto was a perfect example of what is wrong with the "precautionary principle"—the idea, long advocated by environmentalists, that the burden of proof is on innovators to demonstrate that a new technology is safe before it is approved.

The food-irradiation industry has argued strenuously for decades that its technology is proven to be safe, cannot leave food radioactive and does not taint the taste of food. Yet even in the U.S., legislation requires that irradiation be shown not just to have net benefits but to do no harm at all—no diminution of vitamin content, for example.

As Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, pointed out in an interview, that is a standard to which microwave ovens, grills and even medical products such as vaccines and hip replacements cannot aspire. The technology is effectively judged guilty until proven innocent."

He also mentions that the irradiation process is better now that "the most common means of food irradiation is to use an electron gun of the kind found, until the arrival of flat screens, in every ordinary TV set." Organically grown food is not as carefully regulated, either.