NEWS2U Health & WellnessLiving Healthy in an Unhealthy World

2012-02-01T07:48:00.000-05:00

Blood type may affect stroke risk

Your blood type might affect your risk for stroke. People with AB and women with B were a little more likely to suffer one than people with O blood — the most common type, a study found.

USA Today
Nov. 2011

The research can't prove such a link. But it fits with other work tying A, B and AB to more risk of blood clots in the legs and heart attacks. Blood type O also has been tied to an increased risk of bleeding, which implies less chance of clots, the cause of most strokes.

"There's increasing evidence that blood type might influence risk of chronic disease," said one of the study leaders, Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"It's not at the level where we want to alarm people and we want to make that clear. But it's one more element of risk that people would want to know about," and it could give them one more reason to keep blood pressure and cholesterol in line, she said.

The study, led by Brigham's Dr. Lu Qi, was presented Wednesday at an American Heart Association conference. It involved 90,000 men and women in two observational health studies that have gone on for more than 20 years.

Looking at the 2,901 strokes that have occurred and taking into account other things that can cause them, such as high blood pressure, researchers found:

Men and women with AB had a 26 percent increased risk of stroke compared to those with type O.
Women but not men with B blood had a 15 percent greater risk compared to those with O.

What's the explanation?

Blood type depends on proteins on the surface of red blood cells. A pattern of immune system responses forms early in life based on them. Certain blood types may make red cells more likely to clump together and stick to the lining of blood vessels, setting the stage for a blood clot, Manson said.

"You can't change it, and we don't know if it's the blood type per se or other genes that track with it" that actually confers risk, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, director of Duke University's stroke center.

"There are other things that are more important" than blood type for stroke risk, such as smoking, drinking too much and exercising too little, he said.

About 45 percent of whites, 51 percent of blacks, 57 percent of Hispanics and 40 percent of Asians have blood type O, according to the American Red Cross. Such people are called "universal donors" because their blood can safely be used for transfusions to any other blood type.

AB blood type is the least common type, present in 4 percent of whites and blacks, 2 percent of Hispanics and 7 percent of Asians.
B is second least common overall, in 11 percent of whites, 19 percent of blacks, 10 percent of Hispanics and 25 percent of Asians.
A is in 40 percent of whites, 26 percent of blacks, 31 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of Asians.

Source:
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011-11-16/Blood-type-may-affect-stroke-risk-study-finds/51245948/1
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2012-01-21T20:02:00.000-05:00

10 Fashion Habits That Exacerbate Pain

Pain from rheumatoid arthritis can be hard to deal with on its own, but some fashion choices can make the pain even worse. Here are a few of the biggest pain culprits.

Big bags

Some handbags really qualify as carry-on luggage or tote bags. Why do women need to tote around so much stuff?

Heavy bags

Put your purse on a diet. Some people carry brushes, makeup, notepads, mirrors, energy bars, water bottles, pacifiers, phones, and money (well, maybe just plastic). Have you weighed your purse lately?

Spouse asking you to carry things

For goodness sake, your purse is heavy enough without carrying everyone else's stuff too! If you read about the history of purses, you will find that men used to carry purses. How did women end up with the heavy load? The answer is fashion.

Small bags with skinny straps

Even the small ones with the really skinny straps might be digging you into a painful hole. Some women have indentation along their shoulders from straps.

Purse strap on one shoulder

Even if a purse is well designed to fit comfortably over the shoulder, it could still be causing discomfort because the owner only wears her purse strap over one particular shoulder. We are all creatures of habit. Sometimes that repetition can lead to enough muscle and joint asymmetry to cause pain.

Using the same purse

Pain from purses can include neck pain, shoulder pain, thoracic outlet pain, arm pain and even hand pain. Variation can be a good thing. Different purse, different shoulder, no purse, fanny pack, and backpack are all various ways to break up a cycle of pain caused by a purse.

High heels
High-heeled shoes cause so many problems like bunions, knee and back pain. The misalignment caused by anything over a one-inched heel places stress on all the parts from toe to head.

Flip Flops

Without good support from shoes, the tires of our lives, you are greatly increasing your risk of injury to the feet, ankles, knees and low back.

Toning shoes

Well, the shoe companies fooled millions with claims that these shoes toned your legs and butt while you walk. Not only do these claims prove false, but the toning shoes actually cause painful injuries.

Bras

Bras in general can be painful for people with chronic pain. Some features that might be helpful include, a front-hook closure, a "vanishing back" which has no seams, hems or stitching and is made out of a soft, stretchy fabric, and underwire that doesn't poke.

Source:
http://www.healthcentral.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/cf/slideshows/10-fashion-habits-that-exacerbate-pain/heavy-bags/?ap=825
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2012-01-18T07:55:00.001-05:00

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/sopa-pipa/

STOP SOPA

http://news2umedia.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html#55969514831571283
http://onecandleinthedark.blogspot.com
http://www.cbsyousuck.com
http://www.justart.net

A rapidly growing community

Opposition to the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) grows with each day. This brief list is just a sampling of businesses. Visit the Center for Democracy and Technology’s list for a more complete look at the individuals, organizations, experts and legislators that know how bad this legislation could be.

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2012-01-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods

by Ari LeVaux

theAtlantic.com

Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.

The type of RNA in question is called microRNA, due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.

Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we're eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well.

The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in Monsanto's claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA, which can, in fact, be hazardous.

That knowledge could deepen our understanding of cross-species communication, co-evolution, and predator-prey relationships. It could illuminate new mechanisms for some metabolic disorders and perhaps explain how some herbal medicines function. And it reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health.

Monsanto's website states, "There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans." This viewpoint, while good for business, is built on an understanding of genetics circa 1950. It follows what's called the "Central Dogma" (PDF) of genetics, which postulates a one-way chain of command between DNA and the cells DNA governs.

The Central Dogma resembles the process of ordering a pizza. The DNA knows what kind of pizza it wants, and orders it. The RNA is the order slip, which communicates the specifics of the pizza to the cook. The finished and delivered pizza is analogous to the protein that DNA codes for.

We've known for years that the Central Dogma, though basically correct, is overly simplistic. For example: Pieces of microRNA that don't code for anything, pizza or otherwise, can travel among cells and influence their activities in many other ways. So while the DNA is ordering pizza, it's also bombarding the pizzeria with unrelated RNA messages that can cancel a cheese delivery, pay the dishwasher nine million dollars, or email the secret sauce recipe to WikiLeaks.

Monsanto's claim that human toxicology tests are unwarranted is based on the doctrine of "substantial equivalence." This term is used around the world as the basis of regulations designed to facilitate the rapid commercialization of genetically engineered foods, by sparing them from extensive safety testing.

According to substantial equivalence, comparisons between GM and non-GM crops need only investigate the end products of DNA translation: the pizza, as it were. "There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods," Monsanto's website reads. "DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard."

The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in that claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA, which can, in fact, be hazardous.

"So long as the introduced protein is determined to be safe, food from GM crops determined to be substantially equivalent is not expected to pose any health risks," Monsanto's website goes on. In other words, as long as the pizza is OK, the introduced DNA doesn't pose a problem.

Chen-Yu Zhang, the lead researcher on the Chinese RNA study, has made no comment regarding the implications of his work for the debate over the safety of GM food. Nonetheless, his discoveries give shape to concerns about substantial equivalence that have been raised for years.

In 1999, a group of scientists wrote a now-landmark letter titled "Beyond Substantial Equivalence" to the prestigious journal Nature. In the letter, Erik Millstone et. al. called substantial equivalence "a pseudo-scientific concept" that is "inherently anti-scientific because it was created primarily to provide an excuse for not requiring biochemical or toxicological tests."

To these charges, Monsanto responded: "The concept of substantial equivalence was elaborated by international scientific and regulatory experts convened by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1991, well before any biotechnology products were ready for market.

This response is less a rebuttal than a testimonial to Monsanto's marketing prowess. Establishing the concept of substantial equivalence worldwide was a prerequisite to the global commercialization of GM crops. It created a legal framework for selling GM foods anywhere in the world that substantial equivalence was accepted. By the time substantial equivalence was adopted, Monsanto had already developed numerous GM crops and was actively grooming them for market.

The OECD's 34 member nations could be described as largely rich, white, developed, and sympathetic to big business. The group's current mission is to spread economic development to the rest of the world. And while that mission has yet to be accomplished, OECD has helped Monsanto spread substantial equivalence to the rest of the world, selling a lot of GM seed along the way.

The news that we're ingesting information as well as physical material should force the biotech industry to confront the possibility that new DNA can have dangerous implications far beyond the products it codes for. Can we count on the biotech industry to accept the notion that more testing is necessary? Not if such action is perceived as a threat to the bottom line.

Source:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-very-real-danger-of-genetically-modified-foods/251051/
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2011-12-30T21:07:00.000-05:00

Ten Drugs that Kill more Americans than Auto Accidents

by Kevin Gray
Alternet.org

For the first time in nearly a century, automobile accidents are no longer the nation’s leading cause of accidental deaths, according to a major report released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. The new number one killer is drugs—not smack, crystal meth or any other stepped-on menace sold in urban alleyways or trailer parks, but bright, shiny pills prescribed by doctors, approved by the government, manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and sold to the consumer as “medicine.” Yet of the billions of legit pills Americans pop every year for medical conditions serious and otherwise, the vast majority of lives are claimed by only a select few classes—painkillers, sedatives and stimulants—that all share a common characteristic: they promote abuse, dependence and addiction.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg of the prescription drug abuse problem,” says Dr. Margaret Warner, the federal report’s lead author. “The take-home here is, this should be a wake-up call.” Some 41,000 Americans died from what the report refers to as “poisonings” in 2008, compared with 38,000 traffic deaths. That tally marks a 90 percent increase in poisonings and a 15 percent decrease in car accidents since 1999.

Nearly nine out of ten of those poisonings were caused by prescription drug overdoses, with the chief culprit being opiate-based pain relievers such as Vicodin (hydrocodone), OxyContin and Percocet (oxycodone), codeine, morphine—and let’s not forget Actiq (fentanyl), the infamous berry-flavored lollipop that is 100 times stronger than morphine and—like most opiate analgesics—so overprescribed that only about 10% of its sales come from its original indication to treat cancer pain.

These legal opiates accounted for 40 percent, or 15,000, of the fatalities, up from 25 percent, or 4,000, in 1999. Deaths by painkiller now outpace the combined nationwide number of deaths by cocaine (5,100) and heroin (3,000); these fatal overdoses often involve mixing painkillers with other prescription drugs—for example, Klonopin, Xanax, Valium or another benzodiazepines, which are the second most lethal class.

Other report findings: Three quarters of the poisoning are unintentional—likely the result of overdoses rather than drug interactions or allergic reactions—and some 13 percent are suicides. The five states with the highest oxy-type drug death rates (per 100,000 of the population) were New Mexico (30.8), West Virginia (27.6), Alaska (24.2), Nevada (21.0), and Utah (20.8).The most likely to die: white men, American Indians and Native Alaskans, usually between the ages of 45 to 54.

Warner’s death report is but the latest in a disturbing accumulation of evidence, ranging from scientific surveys to celebrity deaths, that underscore what we already know about our painkiller nation: pill mills and doctor shoppers are not just creating a land of bathroom-cabinet addicts—their bodies are packing morgues.

With our surging “oxy addiction” showing no signs of letting up, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this year officially named it an “epidemic.” President Obama has repeatedly invoked prescription drug abuse as the nation’s leading drug problem responsible not only for a rising number of overdoses and deaths but also ratcheting up the incidence of break-ins and burglaries of pharmacies.

Warner and her colleagues at the agency, which is overseen by the CDC, are at pains to draw comparisons between oxy-type drug deaths and those from auto accidents, because they hope that the same comprehensive approach that helped cut traffic deaths in half during the previous decade can save just as many lives on the drug front. Auto fatalities fell following a concerted government focus on national highway safety, resulting in car safety improvements as well as a wide range of regulatory, legal, and public health measures. Seat belt laws were enforced; drunk driving laws became stricter. The fact that alcohol—yet another legal intoxicant—is responsible for close to 40% of all traffic fatalities indicates how difficult it is to apply policy to substance abuse and get significant results. Still, drunk driving is playing a smaller and smaller role in automobile fatalities, falling by close to 40% since 1982.

You need to look at policy, laws, individual behavior, community behavior and health care provider behavior,” says Dr. Chris Jones, a consulting pharmacist with the CDC. One of the most innovative interventions includes building a database on patients who abuse painkillers and identifying doctors who overprescribe (or do so without examining the patient or his medical history). So far, five states have adopted specific pill-mill laws to flush out such doctors. “We’re looking at these laws to evaluate them and for guidance on policy,” says Jones.

That includes sharing information from state medical licensing boards and pharmacy licensing boards to monitor prescribers and set thresholds for how many pills are hitting the street and why.

The Drug Enforcement Administration launched an annual National Prescription Take-Back Event; the third drug dump, in October, collected 188 tons of old pills nationwide. The agency also operates 26 Tactical Diversion Squads—agents specializing in identifying wholesale traffickers and suppliers of black-market pharmaceuticals.

Some 48 states have adopted prescription monitoring programs (PMPs), which typically encourage (rather than require) doctors to record the data of every controlled drug prescribed, but only 37 are currently operational. In 2011, Florida implemented its PMP after its Tea Party governor reversed his controversial opposition to the surveillance tool, and the Sunshine State has already seen an exodus of pill mills to Georgia, which still has no PMP.

These federal and state campaigns come not a moment too soon, either. Painkillers have become the most common drug taken by adults between the ages of 20 to 59. The trends in sales, deaths and abuse treatment admissions for oxy and the like have all risen fourfold or more since 1999, according to a new state-by-state study. In 2009, for the first time, emergency-room visits resulting from prescription drug ODs topped 1 million, with some 343,000 due to opiate analgesics like oxy, 363,000 due to benzodiazepines and other sedatives, and 22,000 due to stimulants. (For a ranking of the top 10 drugs whose use or abuse led to overdose deaths or survival in ER visits in 2009, see the list at the end of the article.)

In 2010, enough prescription painkillers were sold nationwide to keep every American medicated around the clock for an entire month. Some 12 million Americans admitted that they were using painkillers without a prescription, and at least 14% of these nonmedical users met the criteria for abuse or dependence. In one recent survey, more than 5 million Americans reported using them to get high—in a single month period. The majority of those people say they obtained (or stole) them from friends or their family.

Jones does see one bright spot in the otherwise grim report. Methadone, which is used as a pain reliever as well as to treat opioid dependency, had been on the uptick for nearly a decade—from about 800 deaths in 1999 to about 5,500 in 2007. But for reasons not yet clear, that number dropped by remarkable 600 deaths in 2008. “For many years it had been the most common opioid in overdose deaths,” says Jones. “We don’t know if it’s just that people have shifted to these other drugs of what. But it’s promising. We’ve have to wait and see what we find when we look at 2009.”

In terms of the big picture, however, the fact that prescription drugs have overtaken automobiles as the nation’s leading cause of accidental deaths marks a deeper societal transformation. One of the most defining developments in twentieth-century America was motorization; as more people bought more cars and drove more miles, more accidents, injuries and deaths were the inevitable result until government intervention bent the curve. The 21st century is shaping up to be about, among other things, the pharmaceuticalization of America, as lifelong prescription drug use starting in early childhood becomes the norm.

How will pill popping transform our lives? Certain things are predictable: The drug industry will develop and sell more and more chemicals targeted at the brain, which remains medical science’s “black box”; that will result in treatments to enhance the performance of mood, cognition, attention, memory and other mental functions that will have become, in due course, “medical conditions.” Any pill that promises to make you smarter or happier invites abuse, and some will be as addictive as Oxy or the “morphine popsicle.” But with the enforcement of effective policies—the seat belts and DUI laws of pharmaceuticalization—the drug industry’s off-label marketing and the medical profession’s overprescribing could be dramatically curtailed.

Given the current state of corporate influence over politics, these reforms are anything but predictable. What's at stake is nothing less than the nation’s expanding medicine cabinet doubling as its morgue.

The Top 10 Most Dangerous Rx Drugs in America
This list of brand name and generic drugs was compiled from the Drug Abuse Warning Network's (DAWN's) database of emergency room visits in 2009, including drug poisonings that lead to both deaths and survivals.

1. Xanax (alprazolam) 112,552 (benzodiazepine class)
2. OxyContin (and other oxycodone drugs) 105,214 (opiate class)
3. Vicodin (and other hydrocodone drugs) 86,258 (opiate class)
4. Methadone 63,031 (opiate class)
5. Klonopin (clonazepam) 57,633 (benzodiazepine class)
6. Ativan (lorazepam) 36,582 (benzodiazepine class)
7. Morphine drugs 31,731 (opiate class)
8. Seroquel (quetiapine) 29,436 (antipsychotic class)
9. Ambien (zolpidem) 29,127 (sedative class)
10. Valium (diazepam) 25,150 (benzodiazepine)

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153576/the_10_most_dangerous_meds_driving_america%27s_pill_crisis/

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2011-12-16T19:11:00.004-05:00

Created by: Healthcare Management Degree

2011-12-11T10:23:00.002-05:00

Europe Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used at U.S. Airports

A small number of cancer cases would result from scanning hundreds of millions of passengers a year. For some, that's a health issue.

By Michael Grabell and ProPublica
Scientific American
November 15, 2011
[emphasis added]

The European Union on Monday prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which has deployed hundreds of the scanners as a way to screen millions of airline passengers for explosives hidden under clothing.

The European Commission, which enforces common policies of the EU's 27 member countries, adopted the rule “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.”

As a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation detailed earlier this month, X-ray body scanners use ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to damage DNA and cause cancer. Although the amount of radiation is extremely low, equivalent to the radiation a person would receive in a few minutes of flying, several research studies have concluded that a small number of cancer cases would result from scanning hundreds of millions of passengers a year.

European countries will be allowed to use an alternative body scanner, on that relies on radio frequency waves, which have not been linked to cancer. The TSA has also deployed hundreds of those machines – known as millimeter-wave scanners – in U.S. airports. But unlike Europe, it has decided to deploy both types of scanners.

The TSA would not comment specifically on the EU’s decision. But in a statement, TSA spokesman Mike McCarthy said, “As one of our many layers of security, TSA deploys the most advanced technology available to provide the best opportunity to detect dangerous items, such as explosives."

“We rigorously test our technology to ensure it meets our high detection and safety standards before it is placed in airports,” he continued. “Since January 2010, advanced imaging technology has detected more than 300 dangerous or illegal items on passengers in U.S. airports nationwide.”

Body scanners have been controversial in the United States since they were first deployed in prisons in the late 1990s and then in airports for tests after 9/11. Most of the controversy has focused on privacy because the machines can produce graphic images. But the manufacturers have since installed privacy filters.

As the TSA began deploying hundreds of body scanners after the failed underwear bombing on Christmas Day 2009, several scientists began to raise concerns about the health risks of the X-ray scanner, noting that even low levels of radiation would increase the risk of cancer.

As part of our investigation, ProPublica surveyed foreign countries’ security policies and found that only a few nations used the X-ray scanner. The United Kingdom uses them but only for secondary screening, such as when a passenger triggers the metal detector or raises suspicion.

Under the new European Commission policy [4] , the U.K. will be allowed to complete a trial of the X-ray scanners but not to deploy them on a permanent basis when the trial ends, said Helen Kearns, spokeswoman for the European transport commissioner, Siim Kallas.

“These new rules ensure that where this technology is used it will be covered by EU-wide standards on detection capability as well as strict safeguards to protect health and fundamental rights,” Kallas said.

Five-hundred body scanners, split about evenly between the two technologies, are deployed in U.S. airports.

The X-ray scanner, or backscatter, which looks like two large blue boxes, is used at major airports, including Los Angeles International Airport, John F. Kennedy in New York and Chicago's O’Hare. The millimeter-wave scanner, which looks like a round glass booth, is used in San Francisco, Atlanta and Dallas.

Within three years, the TSA plans to deploy 1,800 backscatter and millimeter-wave scanners, covering nearly every domestic airport security lane. The TSA has not yet released details on the exact breakdown.

Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=europe-bans-x-ray-body-scanner
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2011-12-04T19:04:00.001-05:00

There's Arsenic in Your Kids' Apple Juice

By Tom Philpott
Motherjones
11/30/2011

"I'd hate to take a bite out of you," Burt Lancaster hisses at Tony Curtis in the classic '50s film Sweet Smell of Success. "You're a cookie full of arsenic." The line resonates to this day, because it's jarring to picture something as comforting and innocuous as a cookie being laced with a notorious poison.

And that's precisely what Consumer Reports forces us to do with its just-released story on apple and grape juice—you know, the stuff millions of people feed to their kids every day, sometimes several times a day, in those little boxes. And as with the confection in Lancaster's insult, the poison in question is arsenic.

The FDA currently does not regulate arsenic levels in fruit juices, CR reports. But for bottled and tap water, the agency enforces a standard of no more than 10 parts per billion of arsenic.

The magazine tested 88 samples of apple and grape juice, acquired from retail outlets in three different states. Samples were drawn from juice in both concentrate and ready-to-drink forms, including juice boxes. All of the samples contained discernible arsenic samples; nine of them, or 10 percent of the total, were found to have arsenic levels that exceeded the drinking-water limit of 10 parts per billion. The samples were also tested for lead—and 25 percent showed levels higher than the FDA's lead standard for bottled water, which is 5 ppb.

The Consumer Reports findings follow on the heels of the recent set of tests conducted by the personal-health TV program The Dr. Oz Show, which found similar results and aired them on national television. In a September 9 letter to the show's producer, an FDA official dismissed the findings, charging the tests did not distinguish between arsenic in its inorganic form, which is highly toxic, and its organic form, which is relatively benign. The letter rebuked the show for publicizing the results, calling it "irresponsible and misleading."

But the Consumer Reports data won't be so easily dismissed. According to the article, "most" of the arsenic it found in juices was of the toxic inorganic variety. And while in an online Q&A about apple juice and arsenic, the FDA calls organic arsenic "essentially harmless," it adds a few paragraphs later that "some scientific studies have shown that two forms of organic arsenic found in apple juice could also be harmful, and because of this, the FDA counts these two forms of organic arsenic in with the overall content for inorganic arsenic."

In other words, the agency contradicts its own "essentially harmless" claim about about organic arsenic. Indeed, its entire stance on arsenic in juice is laced with contradiction. Its website contains a page intended for consumers called "Apple juice is safe to drink," which states: "There is no evidence of any public health risk from drinking these juices. And FDA has been testing them for years."

But in a November 21 letter to the watchdog group Food and Water Watch, the agency revealed that its own testing had turned up alarming levels of arsenic in juice. The letter states that the FDA tested 160 apple juice samples between 2005 and 2011 and found that "almost 88 percent had fewer than 10 ppb total arsenic, and 95 percent had total arsenic levels below 23 ppb total arsenic." Turning that around, though, shows that more than 12 percent of samples had arsenic levels above 10 parts per billion—the agency's own drinking-water standard—and 5 percent had levels above 23 ppb. These results are similar to those of Consumer Reports.

And despite its public insistence that apple juice is safe to drink, full stop, the Food and Water Watch letter also reveals that the FDA is in fact "seriously considering" setting limits on the amount of arsenic it will allow in juice and is "collecting all relevant information to evaluate and determine an appropriate level."

So how much reason is there to be concerned about the trace of poison lurking in your kids' juice box? To find out, Consumer Reports commissioned an analysis by of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which is conducted annually by the National Center for Health. The results are not comforting:

The resulting analysis of almost 3,000 study participants found that those reporting apple juice consumption had on average 19 percent greater levels of total urinary arsenic than those subjects who did not, and those who reported drinking grape juice had 20 percent higher levels. The results might understate the correlation between juice consumption and urinary arsenic levels because NHANES urinary data exclude children younger than 7, who tend to be big juice drinkers.

And steady exposure to low levels of arsenic is linked to reduced intellectual capacity. Consumer Reports points to a 2004 study by Columbia University researchers showing decreased intellectual function in children exposed to drinking water with arsenic levels above 5 ppb as well as a 2011 study by Texas researchers finding that low-level arsenic exposure is "significantly related to poorer scores in language, visuospatial skills, and executive functioning" and "poorer scores in global cognition, processing speed, and immediate memory."

Moreover, kids—a prime target market for the juice industry—are the most vulnerable of all. "Recent studies have shown that early childhood exposure to arsenic carries the most serious long term risk," researcher Joshua Hamilton of the Marine Biological Laboratory told Consumer Reports. "So even though reducing arsenic exposure is important for everyone, we need to pay special attention to protecting pregnant moms, babies, and young kids."

So how is arsenic entering the juice supply in the first place? In terms of geographic region, it's hard to say, because despite the dizzying array of juice brands, the big companies buy and repackage concentrates from the same set of global suppliers. In its study, Consumer Reports could not tie the presence of arsenic to any one place.

A much bigger test than ours would be needed to establish any correlation between elevated arsenic or lead levels and the juice concentrate's country of origin. Samples we tested included some made from concentrate from multiple countries including Argentina, China, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey; others came from a single country. A few samples solely from the U.S. had elevated levels of lead or arsenic, and others did not. The same was true for samples containing only Chinese concentrate.

The likely main source of contamination both in the United States and abroad, Consumer Reports reckons, is soil tainted with arsenate pesticides, which have been banned for decades in the US but persist in soil. Arsenic-based pesticides were once a staple on US apple orchards, Urvashi Rangan, director of consumer safety and sustainability, told me. And that factor means that not even buying organic juice necessarily protects you from this one—even organically managed apple trees can take up poisons applied long ago.

Until the FDA steps up its monitoring of arsenic in juice and imposes limits that make sense—Consumer Union, the advocacy group that publishes Consumer Reports, is pushing for 3 ppb—it might be time to wrestle that juice box out of junior's hand.

In the meantime, what brands turned up with the most arsenic? The article emphasizes that the sample size was too small to say anything definitive about any particular brand. That said, Consumer Reports has produced this highly informative chart, (linked below,) which shows the arsenic and lead content of each sample, breaking down inorganic versus organic arsenic and country of origin for each one. The brands that fared worst (again, I should stress the caveat about sample size) were Walgreens grape juice, Welch's grape juice, Walmart's Great Value apple juice, and Mott's apple juice in juice boxes. Samples of the two organic brands in the test, Whole Foods' 365 Everyday Value organic apple juice and Gerber Organic apple juice, had arsenic content of around 7 parts per billion (Whole Foods) and 5 parts per billion (Gerber)—well above Consumer Union's desired threshold, but below the FDA's drinking-water standard.

Source:
http://motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/11/theres-arsenic-your-kids-apple-juice

https://motherjones.com/files/consumer_reports_arsenic_test_results_january_2012.pdf

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2011-11-23T11:16:00.004-05:00

Created by: Health Science

2011-11-10T20:41:00.000-05:00

WARNING!!! Health Warnings May be Hazardous to Your Health!!!

David Ropeik
Bigthink.com

Will the people sounding dramatic warnings about the latest risk-du-jour ever realize that in some cases the fear they cause may well do more harm than whatever it is they’re trying to protect us from? Real harm, from the dangerous choices we sometimes make when we’re afraid. Real harm, in the way our fears sometimes drive government to spend time and money protecting us more from the things we’re afraid of than from what actually threatens us the most. But most of all, real harm from the stress we experience when we are afraid. Alarmism from a long list of advocacy groups have indeed made this an excessively worried world.

The current example is the alarm raised by The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics about the presence in a popular baby shampoo of a chemical linked to cancer. OMG!!!! CANCER!!!! AAAIIIGHH! Never mind that the level of the chemical, a preservative, is so low that the risk is tiny, if indeed there is any risk at all. That qualification is nowhere to be found in the group’s frighteningly titled report “Baby’s Tub is Still Toxic”; “Quaternium-15 releases formaldehyde into cosmetics products. Formaldehyde is classified as a known human carcinogen by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The National Cancer Institute, the World Health Organization and the National Toxicology Program have all identified a possible link between formaldehyde exposure and leukemia.”

The group tells us nothing about what dose is associated with what level of risk (the risk from infinitesimally small doses like this is usually infinitesimal or non-existent). They don’t explain what period of exposure is associated with the risk (it usually takes repeated exposures to a carcinogen over time, not just once or a few times, to raise the risk). They tell us the National Cancer Institute links formaldehyde with leukemia, but not that the NCI website on formaldehyde also says; “In 1987, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified formaldehyde as a probable human carcinogen under conditions of unusually high or prolonged exposure.” That hardly describes washing your baby’s hair a couple times a week. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which operates in the name of public health, doesn’t tell us a lot of what we need to know so we can make informed judgments about our health.

But of course sounding the alarm, and helping inform people so they really understand the risk, are two different things. Warnings that include caveats don’t scare people as much, don’t generate as much dramatic news coverage (“Group Says Carcinogens Exist in Popular Baby Shampoo”, “Popular baby shampoo still contains carcinogens”, “Are baby shampoos poisoning infants”?) and don’t create the same pressures on government and companies, the way a more dramatic warning like “TOXIC TUB!!!!!” does. So in the name of protecting the public, many advocacy groups go over the top with their alarms…leave out information that might help us put the risk in perspective…and make us more afraid than the evidence warrants. Which is bad for our health.

I found out about this shampoo issue when a Facebook friend of my wife posted her fears; “Been sick to my stomach about this all day. We've been bathing Sylvia in a carcinogen for the past 14 months. F%$* you, (shampoo company).” Note the ‘SICK to my stomach” part. That’s not just a figure of speech. Stress – the biological name for worry – is bad for us in all sorts of ways. Chronic stress that lasts more than a couple weeks;
- Raises our blood pressure and contributes to cardiovascular disease.
- Depresses our immune system and raises the frequency and severity of infectious disease. There is even strong evidence suggesting that stress impairs our ability to defend ourselves against or recover from cancer. (Here’s what the National Cancer Institute says about that.) That’s right. Excessive worry about carcinogens that aren’t very likely to cause cancer may contribute to more cancer cases, and deaths, than the carcinogen itself! (Please take note of this, any advocacy group that over alarms about a possible carcinogen. YOU may be the greater risk!)
- Impairs memory, growth, fertility.
- Exacerbates digestive system disorders like ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome.
- Increases the likelihood of clinical depression and Type 2 diabetes.
(For much richer and more entertaining detail on the health effects of stress, read Robert Sapolsky’s classic “Why Zebra’s don’t Get Ulcers”. You’ll laugh, and learn.)

Frightened, worried, scared, concerned. Whatever word you want to use, biologically it equates to stress. Which we could live with if it were just this one case. But of course what The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has done is just one tiny example of a pervasive trend in our modern worried world. Add this frightening alert to so many dramatized warnings about carcinogens, and to the hundreds of “Be Afraid. Be VERY Afraid!” alerts about chemicals, and the endless excessive alerts about any kind of radiation, and about genetically modified food, and on and on. And those are just the environmental bogeymen. Throw in excessive alarms about child abduction, and terrorism, and vaccines, all magnified in the 24/7 “He Who Screams Loudest Wins” new media age, and you have the insidious gnawing constant undercurrent of stress captured wonderfully by Aaron Wildavsky when he said “How extraordinary! The richest, longest lived, best protected, most resourceful civilization, with the highest degree of insight into its own technology, is on its way to becoming the most frightened.”

Watchdogs are necessary. Alerts are good. And many of the risks we are alerted to are real, or at least the evidence is strong enough that they might be real and we should take note. But over-the-top alarmism to advance an agenda that dramatizes the peril at the expense of a fair assessment of the actual danger is dangerous all by itself. So for all those dedicated and passionate people genuinely interested in helping keep us safe, here’s a warning to put on the wall in your office.

WARNING! THE WAY YOU WARN PEOPLE
ABOUT POSSIBLE THREATS TO THEIR HEALTH,
POSES A REAL THREAT TO THEIR HEALTH.

2011-11-07T19:21:00.000-05:00

Truth comes out:
2009 H1N1 flu pandemic 'deaths' of children were actually caused by MRSA

by S. L. Baker
Natural News
November 07, 2011

Remember two years ago when every news show featured hysterical reports about the so-called H1N1 pandemic and how the supposed killer flu was striking down healthy kids? True, many previously healthy children became critically ill, developing severe pneumonia and respiratory failure. And some tragically died after being diagnosed with H1N1. But was that really the accurate explanation of what caused their death?

According to the largest nationwide investigation to date of the flu in children who became critically ill, scientists from Children's Hospital Boston have found another reason to explain the severity of the youngsters illness. It turns out that it most likely wasn't H1N1 alone that caused healthy children to become so ill many died.

Instead, these kids were unknowingly infected with something else. That additional infection, the superbug known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), spiked the risk for flu-related deaths 8-fold in children who were otherwise believed to be totally healthy before they became ill.

Almost all of these children who were found to be infected with the superbug were immediately treated with vancomycin, considered to be best treatment for MRSA. Yet they died despite being administered this powerful antibiotic and their deaths were blamed on the flu. But the new research suggests it was the MRSA that played a huge role in killing these children.

"There's more risk for MRSA to become invasive in the presence of flu or other viruses," study leader Adrienne Randolph, MD, MsC, of the Division of Critical Care Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston. Said in a statement to the media. "These deaths in co-infected children are a warning sign." He added this is especially alarming given the rising rates of MRSA infections being carried widely among children.

"It is not common in the U.S. to lose a previously healthy child to pneumonia," Randolph said. "Unfortunately, these children had necrotizing pneumonia eating away at their tissue and killing off whole areas of the lung. They looked like immunocompromised patients in the way MRSA went through their body. It's not that flu alone can't kill - it can - but in most cases children with flu alone survived."

MRSA risk continues to spread

Sixty percent of the youngsters investigated for the new study already had sometimes serious health problems before contracting the flu. But of the 251 children (30 percent) previously healthy children included in the research, the only risk factor that was identified which likely contributed to their increased risk of dying was a diagnosis of a MRSA infection in the lung. The researchers expressed surprise that the antibiotic used to treat the MRSA-infected children didn't work and suggested the drug couldn't penetrate the lungs or the disease moved too rapidly.

Recent studies have shown a worrisome rise in the number of youngsters who are carriers of MRSA. A 2010 study published in Pediatrics found that the number of children hospitalized for MRSA infections increased from 2 in 1,000 admissions in 1999 to 21 in 1,000 admissions by 2008. The cause appears to be the never-ending and growing use of antibiotics in people and animals. "The more antibiotics we take, the more we colonize ourselves with antibiotic-resistant organisms such as MRSA," Randolph noted.

Curiously, the researchers are not emphasizing going after the cause and spread of MRSA infections as much as they are using their findings to push for flu shots. Their study, just published in the journal Pediatrics, promotes flu vaccination among all children aged 6 months and older.

Source:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034081_flu_pandemic_MRSA.html
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2011-10-24T20:06:00.001-04:00

Created by: Public Health Degree

2011-10-17T23:41:00.001-04:00

Poll: 50% of Americans -- a record high -- favor legal marijuana

LA Times
October 17, 2011

Slowly but surely, Americans seem to be making peace with the pot pipe.

According to a poll released by Gallup on Monday, 50% of Americans surveyed say marijuana use should be legal — up from 46% last year. This year, 46% percent said it should be illegal.

Those numbers mean that, for the first time in the poll's 42-year-history, Americans who say that marijuana should be legal outnumber those who say it should be illegal.

Societal acceptance of marijuana has come a long way since 1969, when Gallup first posed the question "Should marijuana use be legal?" Back then, only 12% of Americans favored legalization of the drug. From the '70s through the mid-'90s, support remained in the 20s, but it has been climbing steadily since 2002.
Some interesting results from the most recent poll:

Men are more likely to support legalizing marijuana than women (55% vs. 46%).
People in the West are more likely to support it than people in the East (55% vs. 51%).
People ages 18-29 are twice as likely to support marijuana use as people 65 or older (62% vs. 31%).

The findings come less than six months after the federal government ruled that marijuana should remain classified as a Schedule 1 drug, which means the government considers it as dangerous as heroin.

In June, Michele M. Leonhart, head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said that marijuana would remain classified as Schedule 1 because it "has a high potential for abuse" and "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States."

That now appears slightly out of step with what most Americans think. A Gallup survey last year found that 70% of people favored making it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana to reduce pain and suffering.

Source:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/10/record-high-50-percent-of-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana-use.html
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2011-10-15T18:36:00.001-04:00

Marijuana Crackdown By Obama
Big Pharma set to take over medical marijuana market

By Steve Elliott
TokeoftheTown.com
Oct. 11, 2011

Federal prosecutors in the Obama Administration are going after medical marijuana dispensaries. How are pharmaceutical companies involved? Some leaders in this movement will actually tell you they aren't; be very careful in whom you believe.

As pointed out on The Young Turks, this crackdown is nothing more than a process of eliminating the competition for Big Pharma. GW Pharmaceutical and other manufacturers want to take over the marijuana market with products like Sativex, a liquid extract of cannabis that contains both THC and CBD.

"Every single decision comes back to some lobbyist who paid for it," Young Turks host Cenk Uygur said.

Related Article:
Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/20/big-pharma-set-to-take-over-medical-marijuana-market/

Source:
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2011/10/marijuana_crackdown_by_obama_yes_its_big_pharma.php
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2011-09-13T19:10:00.003-04:00

Created by: Medical Billing and Coding

2011-08-31T07:52:00.001-04:00

WikiLeaks Cables Show Monsanto Interests Guide U.S. Diplomacy

by Sarah Damian
Food Integrity Campaign
August 29, 2011

We know Monsanto and other biotech giants have been pushing genetically modified crops around the globe, but new diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks last week make it clear how entangled our government is in corporate agricultural interests.

U.S. diplomats have certainly been making an effort to protect GM interests abroad.Truthout reports:

Several cables describe "biotechnology outreach programs" in countries across the globe, including African, Asian and South American countries where Western biotech agriculture had yet to gain a foothold. In some cables (such as this 2010 cable from Morocco) US diplomats ask the State Department for funds to send US biotech experts and trade industry representatives to target countries for discussions with high-profile politicians and agricultural officials.

The promotion of agricultural biotechnology in dozens of countries was referenced in U.S. embassy documents ranging from 2005 to 2010. France, in particular, seems to be a major target since it has been slow to adopt GM crops despite outside pressure.

A 2008 cable summarizes a French documentary, "The World According to Monsanto," that attacks the U.S. biotech regime, including the "revolving door" between Monsanto and the U.S. government which has allowed little government oversight over biotech products. The cable reads:

The film argues that Monsanto exerted undue influence on the USG. Former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman is interviewed saying he had felt that he was under pressure and that more tests should have been conducted on biotech products before they were approved. Jeffrey Smith, Director, Institute for Responsible Technology, who is interviewed says that a number of Bush Administration officers were close to Monsanto, either having obtained campaign contributions from the company or having worked directly for it: John Ashcroft, Secretary of Justice, received contributions from Monsanto when he was reelected, as did Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health; Ann Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture, was director of Calgene which belonged to Monsanto; and Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, was CEO of Searle, a Monsanto subsidiary; and Justice Clarence Thomas was a former lawyer for Monsanto.

Clearly disturbed by these points, embassy diplomats requested "that Washington agencies provide talking points" so the officers could respond to the documentary on an "if asked" basis. They didn't want to draw attention to the film, but instead focus on "the positive role ag biotech can play in meeting world food needs." Sounds like Monsanto's PR claims … straight from the mouths of government officials (do they get commission for that?).

Talking points are one thing. Systematic retaliation against dissenting countries is another. You see, when it came to French efforts to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety, a more aggressive reaction resulted, as shown in a 2007 cable released by WikiLeaks in December 2010. Craig Stapleton, former ambassador to France under the Bush administration, "asked Washington to punish the EU countries that did not support the use of GM crops," reported AlterNet. Stapleton wrote:

Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.
Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.

So not only were U.S. diplomats working on behalf of the biotech industry, they were also advocating threatening other governments who didn't follow suit.

It's not exactly breaking news that corporate and government power are intertwined at the federal level. But even for us dealing with whistleblowers every day, it's astonishing to see more evidence of how commonplace it is for corporate marketing to be propelled on government dollars.

Sarah Damian is New Media Fellow for the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leadingwhistleblower advocacy organization.

Source:
http://foodwhistleblower.org/blog/22-2011/217-monsanto-interests-guide-us-diplomacy-wikileaks-cables-show
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2011-08-16T07:36:00.001-04:00

Two Wheels vs. Four

How far do I have to ride my bike to pay back its carbon footprint?

By Brian Palmer
Slate
Aug. 9, 2011

I'm thinking about switching my daily commute from four wheels to two. But I'm concerned about all the energy it takes to manufacture and ship a new bicycle. How many miles would I need to substitute a bike for my car before I've gone "carbon neutral"?

It's tough to say exactly how much greenhouse gas making a bicycle requires, since none of the major manufacturers has released data on their energy consumption. Independent analysts have used a couple of different measures. Shreya Dave, a graduate student at MIT, recently estimated that manufacturing an average bicycle results in the emission of approximately 530 pounds of greenhouse gases (PDF). Umbra Fisk, a research associate at Grist, came up with a total carbon footprint of one ton of carbon dioxide-equivalents for every $1,000 of manufacturing cost. These two estimates intersect at a bike that costs $265 to build—well within the range of manufacturing costs for the wide variety of bicycles on the market.

So that's the goal: To trim about 530 pounds of CO2 emissions from your commute.

There's been a lot of hemming and hawing about how biking or walking might not be so eco-friendly because your body burns more calories during those activities than while driving. But, frankly, that's bunk: As the Pacific Institute has shown, you'd have to be eating an all-beef diet to offset the environmental benefits of walking or bicycling. Given a "typical U.S. diet," you would have to ride your bike instead of driving for around 400 miles to cover the bike's initial carbon footprint.

Calculating the total environmental impact of a mode of transit, however, involves more than just the easy-to-measure metrics like mileage per gallon. To get a full sense of the comparative eco-friendliness of bicycles and automobiles, you have to consider additional factors like their toll on the roadways, useful lifetime, and maintenance costs.

Shreya Dave's research went on to measure the full carbon footprint of commuting by bike using life-cycle assessment, the analytical tool that environmental consultants employ to compare products that are often very different. She concluded that an ordinary sedan's carbon footprint is more than 10 times greater than a conventional bicycle on a mile-for-mile basis, assuming each survives 15 years and you ride the bike 2,000 miles per year (or slightly under eight miles per weekday).

A huge portion of that difference came from fuel combustion, but bicycles also require less infrastructure than cars. Even if you assume that all bicycles travel in dedicated bike lanes rather than free-ride on car-lane construction—would that we were all so lucky as to have bike lanes between our homes and work—Dave calculated building, paving, and maintaining roads for cars emits almost four times the greenhouse gases as doing the same for bike lanes.

Bikes also damage roads far less than cars do. A heavy bicycle weighs around 30 pounds, just under 1 percent of the weight of a Toyota Prius and less than 0.4 percent of the weight of a Hummer H2. Simply put, your bike isn't exactly tearing up the asphalt.

Bicycles aren't maintenance-free, but the occasional brake-pad replacement and cable adjustment are responsible for one-sixteenth as much carbon emissions as all oil changing, tire rotation, and alignment work cars require.

What about other ways to get to work?

According to Dave's life-cycle analysis, the only vehicle that comes close is the peak-hour bus—and it's not really that close. A fully loaded bus is responsible for 2.6-times the carbon emissions total of a bicycle per passenger mile. But the night and weekend service ruins the bus's overall environmental credentials. Off-peak buses account for more than 20 times as many greenhouse gases as a bicycle. (Each additional passenger contributes very little to a bus's carbon footprint until all the new riders require adding another bus to the route. As a matter of convention, environmental analysts divide the overall carbon footprint by the number of passengers, rather than attributing the entire carbon output of a bus to the single passenger who forced the tipping point.) The mostly empty steel behemoths are even worse, in terms of climate change, than private sedans, SUVs, and pickup trucks.

Those of you thinking that taking the subway is just as good as riding your bike should think again. Subways and light rail systems trail behind peak-hour buses, and way behind bicycles, in life-cycle assessment. They're relatively comparable to a packed bus on fuel use, but they need their own dedicated infrastructure. Even if you prefer to ignore the energy needed to build and maintain a subway line—it is, after all, going to be there whether you take it or not—the fuel alone on Boston's Green Line accounts for almost four times the bicycle's overall carbon footprint per passenger mile.

Source:
http://www.slate.com/id/2300676/
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2011-07-20T18:53:00.001-04:00

Are Chemicals Making Us Fat?

by Dr. Brian Moench

The global obesity/diabetes epidemic is receiving wide-spread attention like the June 26 article in The Washington Post by David Brown. One-fourth of our national health care bill of $2.3 trillion is linked to the treatment of diabetes and its complications. Average American life expectancy is now dropping because of this disease complex. Even children are being recommended for gastric bypass.

Fingers everywhere are pointing at the usual suspects: too much junk food and lack of exercise. But there is much more to the story than a recent, contagious lack of discipline among the masses.

A growing body of evidence in animals and humans suggests that many man-made chemicals contaminating our environment mimic some of the body's own hormones like testosterone and estrogen. Researchers have called these chemicals endocrine disruptors because they wreak havoc with endocrine organs like the thyroid, pancreas, testes and ovaries that depend on hormones to develop and function properly. But a new, more relevant term for these chemicals has emerged. They are now also called obesogens.

Exposure to tiny amounts of obesogens during embryonic development has startling effects on animals, resulting in obesity, infertility, feminization of male species, ambiguous sexual characteristics and high death rates.

Wishful thinking by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration and outright propaganda from chemical manufacturers have upheld the notion that the doses of human exposure to such chemicals have been too small to matter. Medical science now clearly repudiates such a position and environmental contamination is emerging as a significant contributor to the obesity/diabetes epidemic.

In a remarkable study of over 2,000 Americans those people with the highest blood levels of PCBs, dioxins and pesticides had a rate of diabetes 38 times higher than those with the lowest levels. Just as startling, in the group with the lowest levels of chemical pollutants there was no correlation between diabetes and obesity.

In another study, newborn babies' blood was analyzed for HCB (hexachlorobenzene), a ubiquitous contaminant byproduct of chemical manufacturing processes that use chlorine. Six years later, those same children with the highest blood levels of HCB had a rate of obesity two to three times higher than other children.

Even though the insecticide DDT hasn't been used in this country for 35 years, one of its metabolites, DDE, is still measurable in virtually all of us. People who have higher blood levels of DDE have higher rates of diabetes.

Recently, the lead article in the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrated increased rates of heart disease and diabetes in people with higher levels of the additive in plastic drinking bottles and food can linings, Bisphenol A (BPA). But these studies merely confirm hundreds of previous studies regarding the far-reaching health impacts of endocrine-disrupting/obesogen chemicals at blood levels most of us and our children live with right now. Many obesogens appear to increase levels of cholesterol and trigger cancer as well. For the first time in 200 years, children now have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, primarily due to obesity and diabetes.

Perhaps most startling of all, it's not just people that are getting fatter. A statistical analysis of more than 20,000 animals, from eight different species, suggests that the obesity epidemic involves family pets, wild animals living in close proximity to humans and animals housed in research centers. Last time I wandered the forest I did not see wild animals sitting around watching NASCAR, eating Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew. But like humans, they live in an environment contaminated with endocrine disrupting/obesogen chemicals. The air, water and soil of even the most wild and remote places on earth are now contaminated with obesogens from agribusiness food production, growth hormones, pesticides, residues from pharmaceuticals and personal care products, and the rest of the 83,000 chemicals manufactured and emitted by modern industrial society that have penetrated every ecosystem on the planet. In the second half of the 20th century, synthetic chemical production has doubled every seven to eight years with a 100 fold increase over the last two generations. Every year, the world produces six billion pounds of BPA alone and it is detectable in 93 percent of Americans.

Our regulatory agencies and even the courts are still playing by a rule book written by the tobacco industry, which states that we must always wait for unequivocal proof of damage before we can regulate. Of course, there is never unequivocal proof, more study is always needed. But that is not an excuse to not act on the evidence that we already have.

Take a look in the mirror and at your glucometer. If you don't like what you see, you may want to reconsider whether you support the anti-regulation/personal accountability fever sweeping over the country with the new Congress. Whether you can ever be thin again or get over your diabetes may be more a matter of what happens in Congress than what happens on your treadmill.

Source:

http://www.truth-out.org/obesitydiabetes-epidemic-rise-obesogens/1309380259

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2011-07-17T00:27:00.000-04:00

Mass Psychosis in the US: How Big Pharma Hooked Americans on Drugs

by James Ridgeway

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry's development of a new class of medications known as "atypical antipsychotics." Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs - in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

The atypical anti-psychotics were the bright new stars in the pharmaceutical industry's roster of psychotropic drugs - costly, patented medications that made people feel and behave better without any shaking or drooling. Sales grew steadily, until by 2009 Seroquel and Abilify, numbered 5th and 6th in annual drug sales, and prescriptions written for the top three atypical antipsychotics totaled more than 20 million. Suddenly, antipsychotics weren't just for psychotics any more.

Not just for psychotics anymore
By now, just about everyone knows how the drug industry works to influence the minds of American doctors, plying them with gifts, junkets, ego-tripping awards, and research funding in exchange for endorsing or prescribing the latest and most lucrative drugs. "Psychiatrists are particularly targeted by Big Pharma because psychiatric diagnoses are very subjective," says Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, whose PharmedOut project tracks the industry's influence on American medicine, and who last month hosted a conference on the subject at Georgetown. A shrink can't give you a blood test or an MRI to figure out precisely what's wrong with you. So it's often a case of diagnosis by prescription. (If you feel better after you take an anti-depressant, it's assumed that you were depressed.) As the researchers in one study of the drug industry's influence put it, "the lack of biological tests for mental disorders renders psychiatry especially vulnerable to industry influence." For this reason, they argue, it's particularly important that the guidelines for diagnosing and treating mental illness be compiled "on the basis of an objective review of the scientific evidence" - and not on whether the doctors writing them got a big grant from Merck or own stock in AstraZeneca.
Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a leading critic of the Big Pharma, puts it more bluntly: "Psychiatrists are in the pocket of industry." Angell has pointed out that most of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of mental health clinicians, have ties to the drug industry. Likewise, a 2009 study showed that 18 out of 20 of the shrinks who wrote the American Psychiatric Association's most recent clinical guidelines for treating depression, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia had financial ties to drug companies.

In a recent article in The New York Review of Books, Angell deconstructs what she calls an apparent "raging epidemic of mental illness" among Americans. The use of psychoactive drugs—including both antidepressants and antipsychotics—has exploded, and if the new drugs are so effective, Angell points out, we should "expect the prevalence of mental illness to be declining, not rising." Instead, "the tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007 - from one in 184 Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling - a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children." Under the tutelage of Big Pharma, we are "simply expanding the criteria for mental illness so that nearly everyone has one." Fugh-Berman agrees: In the age of aggressive drug marketing, she says, "Psychiatric diagnoses have expanded to include many perfectly normal people."

Cost benefit analysis
What's especially troubling about the over-prescription of the new antipsychotics is its prevalence among the very young and the very old - vulnerable groups who often do not make their own choices when it comes to what medications they take. Investigations into antipsychotic use suggests that their purpose, in these cases, may be to subdue and tranquilize rather than to treat any genuine psychosis.
Carl Elliott reports in Mother Jones magazine: "Once bipolar disorder could be treated with atypicals, rates of diagnoses rose dramatically, especially in children. According to a recent Columbia University study, the number of children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder rose 40-fold between 1994 and 2003." And according to another study, "one in five children who visited a psychiatrist came away with a prescription for an antipsychotic drug."

A remarkable series published in the Palm Beach Post in May true revealed that the state of Florida's juvenile justice department has literally been pouring these drugs into juvenile facilities, "routinely" doling them out "for reasons that never were approved by federal regulators." The numbers are staggering: "In 2007, for example, the Department of Juvenile Justice bought more than twice as much Seroquel as ibuprofen. Overall, in 24 months, the department bought 326,081 tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for use in state-operated jails and homes for children…That's enough to hand out 446 pills a day, seven days a week, for two years in a row, to kids in jails and programs that can hold no more than 2,300 boys and girls on a given day." Further, the paper discovered that "One in three of the psychiatrists who have contracted with the state Department of Juvenile Justice in the past five years has taken speaker fees or gifts from companies that make antipsychotic medications."

In addition to expanding the diagnoses of serious mental illness, drug companies have encouraged doctors to prescribe atypical anti-psychotics for a host of off-label uses. In one particularly notorious episode, the drugmaker Eli Lilly pushed Zyprexa on the caregivers of old people with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, as well as agitation, anxiety, and insomnia. In selling to nursing home doctors, sales reps reportedly used the slogan "five at five"—meaning that five milligrams of Zyprexa at 5 pm would sedate their more difficult charges. The practice persisted even after FDA had warned Lilly that the drug was not approved for such uses, and that it could lead to obesity and even diabetes in elderly patients.

In a video interview conducted in 2006, Sharham Ahari, who sold Zyprexa for two years at the beginning of the decade, described to me how the sales people would wangle the doctors into prescribing it. At the time, he recalled, his doctor clients were giving him a lot of grief over patients who were "flipping out" over the weight gain associated with the drug, along with the diabetes. "We were instructed to downplay side effects and focus on the efficacy of drug…to recommend the patient drink a glass a water before taking a pill before the meal and then after the meal in hopes the stomach would expand" and provide an easy way out of this obstacle to increased sales. When docs complained, he recalled, "I told them, ‘Our drug is state of the art. What's more important? You want them to get better or do you want them to stay the same--a thin psychotic patient or a fat stable patient.'"

For the drug companies, Shahrman says, the decision to continue pushing the drug despite side effects is matter of cost benefit analysis: Whether you will make more money by continuing to market the drug for off-label use, and perhaps defending against lawsuits, than you would otherwise. In the case of Zyprexa, in January 2009, Lilly settled a lawsuit brought by with the US Justice Department, agreeing to pay $1.4 billion, including "a criminal fine of $515 million, the largest ever in a health care case, and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a United States criminal prosecution of any kind,''the Department of Justice said in announcing the settlement." But Lilly's sale of Zyprexa in that years alone were over $1.8 billion.

Making patients worse
As it turns out, the atypical antipsychotics may not even be the best choice for people with genuine, undisputed psychosis.

A growing number of health professionals have come to think these drugs are not really as effective as older, less expensive medicines which they have replaced, that they themselves produce side effects that cause other sorts of diseases such as diabetes and plunge the patient deeper into the gloomy world of serious mental disorder. Along with stories of success comes reports of people turned into virtual zombies.

Elliott reports in Mother Jones: "After another large analysis in The Lancet found that most atypicals actually performed worse than older drugs, two senior British psychiatrists penned a damning editorial that ran in the same issue. Dr. Peter Tyrer, the editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry, and Dr. Tim Kendall of the Royal College of Psychiatrists wrote: "The spurious invention of the atypicals can now be regarded as invention only, cleverly manipulated by the drug industry for marketing purposes and only now being exposed."
Bottom line: Stop Big Pharma and the parasitic shrink community from wantonly pushing these pills across the population.

Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/20117313948379987.html
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2011-06-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

Council of Europe demands EMF reductions

The potential dangers of electromagnetic fields and their effect on the environment

PowerWatch
May 28, 2011

A new Council of Europe Resolution, passed today in plenary session in Strasbourg calls for a dramatic reduction in human exposure to EMFs and microwave radiation from mobile phones and other wireless devices.

This Resolution makes a strong call for properly applying the precautionary principle / approach to EMFs - both from electric power and from wireless communications technologies, something that all governments have so far completely failed to do. The Council of Europe represents all 47 Member Countries ensuring respect for its fundamental values: human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Individual Member Governments are the ones empowered to actually take action. However, the Council of Europe carries some influence.

The Resolution calls on Member Governments to impose restrictions on mobile phones, DECT cordless phones, WiFi or wLAN systems in classrooms and schools. It also requires that we take all reasonable measures to reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields on "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) principles, especially to radio frequencies from mobile phones, and particularly the exposure to children and young people who seem to be at most long-term risk from head tumours.

It asks for targeted information campaigns aimed at teachers, parents and children to alert them to the specific risks of early, ill-considered and prolonged use of mobiles and other devices emitting microwaves.

As well as the above mentioned, other requirements include:

to reconsider the scientific basis for the present electromagnetic fields exposure standards set by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), which have serious limitations and instead apply "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) principles, covering both thermal effects and the athermic or biological effects of electromagnetic emissions or radiation;

to set preventive thresholds for levels of long-term exposure to microwaves in all indoor areas, in accordance with the precautionary principle, not exceeding 0.6 volts per metre, and in the medium term to reduce it to 0.2 volts per metre

to introduce planning measures to keep high-voltage power lines and other electric installations at a safe distance from dwellings;

to apply strict safety standards for low EMF electrical systems in new dwellings;

to put in place information and awareness-raising campaigns on the risks of potentially harmful long-term biological effects on the environment and on human health, especially targeting children, teenagers and young people of reproductive age;

to pay particular attention to "electro sensitive persons" suffering from a syndrome of intolerance to electromagnetic fields and introduce special measures to protect them, including the creation of wave-free areas not covered by the wireless network;
to raise awareness on potential health risks of DECT-type wireless telephones, baby monitors and other domestic appliances which emit continuous pulse waves, if all electrical equipment is left permanently on standby, and recommend the use of wired, fixed telephones at home or, failing that, models which do not permanently emit pulsing electromagnetic radiation 24-7;

See the final Resolution wording: Council of Europe Resolution.

We applaud the Council of Europe for passing this important Resolution which stands alongside and confirms the 2009 Ries Resolution which was passed in the European Parliament two years ago. It is long past the time when governments all around Europe should have started being more precautionary about these issues.

These strong new proposals will meet with great opposition not only from the industry, but also from governments who now receive large annual tax incomes from wireless devices, especially mobile phone use.

Source:
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/news/20110528-council-europe-resolution.asp
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2011-05-15T12:53:00.001-04:00

Ignite Your Brainpower with the 20 Smartest Foods on Earth

by Sara Ost
EcoSalon

August 19, 2008

Simply put, your brain likes to eat. And it likes powerful fuel: quality fats, antioxidants, and small, steady amounts of the best carbs.

On a deadline? Need to rally? Avoid the soda, vending machine snacks and tempting Starbucks pastries and go for these powerful brain boosters instead. The path to a bigger, better brain is loaded with Omega-3 fats, antioxidants, and fiber. Give your brain a kick start: eat the following foods on a daily or weekly basis for results you will notice.

20 foods that will supercharge your brain:

1. Avocado
Start each day with a mix of high-quality protein and beneficial fats to build the foundation for an energized day. Avocado with scrambled eggs provides both, and the monounsaturated fat helps blood circulate better, which is essential for optimal brain function. Worst alternative: a trans-fat-filled, sugar-laden cream cheese Danish.

Green it: you don’t need to buy an organic avocado – conventional is fine. But make sure your supplementary protein is free range, cage free, or organic.

2. Blueberries
These delicious berries are one of the best foods for you, period, but they’re very good for your brain as well. Since they’re high in fiber and low on the glycemic index, they are safe for diabetics and they do not spike blood sugar. Blueberries are possibly the best brain food on earth: they have been linked to reduced risk for Alzheimer’s, shown to improve learning ability and motor skills in rats, and they are one of the most powerful anti-stress foods you can eat. Avoid: dried, sweetened blueberries.

Green it: buy local and organic, and be mindful of seasonality. When blueberries are out of season, opt for cranberries, grapes, goji berries, blackberries or cherries to get your brain boost.

3. Wild Salmon
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for your brain. These beneficial fats are linked to improved cognition and alertness, reduced risk of degenerative mental disease (such as dementia), improved memory, improved mood, and reduced depression, anxiety and hyperactivity. Wild salmon is a premium source, but we’ll highlight a few other sources on this list for vegetarians and people who just don’t like salmon. Avoid farmed (read: sea lice infested) salmon.

Green it: the California salmon stock is threatened, so choose wild Alaskan salmon only, and eat small portions no more than twice a week.

4. Nuts
Nuts contain protein, high amounts of fiber, and they are rich in beneficial fats. For getting an immediate energy boost that won’t turn into a spike later, you can’t do better than nuts. The complex carbs will perk you up while the fat and protein will sustain you. Nuts also contain plenty of vitamin E, which is essential to cognitive function. You don’t have to eat raw, plain, unsalted nuts, but do avoid the ones with a lot of sweetening or seasoning blends. Filberts, hazelnuts, cashews, and walnuts are great choices, with almonds being the king of nuts.

For those avoiding carbs, macadamia nuts are much higher in fat than most nuts. By the way, peanuts just aren’t ideal. Aside from the fact that many people are allergic, peanuts have less healthy fat than many other types of nuts…maybe that’s because peanuts are not actually a nut! They’re still much better than a candy bar, however.

Green it: try to choose organic, raw nuts, and if you can’t get those, at least avoid the tins of heavily-seasoned, preservative-laden nuts that may have taken many food miles to get to your mouth.

5. Seeds
Try sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, flax seed, and tahini (a tangy, nutty sesame butter that tastes great in replacement of mayo and salad dressing). Seeds contain a lot of protein, beneficial fat, and vitamin E, as well as stress-fighting antioxidants and important brain-boosting minerals like magnesium.

Green it: Again, just look for organic and try to avoid the highly-seasoned, processed options. In general, things like fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts are pretty low-impact, environmentally speaking, in comparison to meats and cheeses.

6. Coffee
Thine eyes do not deceive (even if you are in the midst of a sugar crash). Coffee is good for your brain. Did you know coffee actually contains fiber? That’s going to help your cardiovascular system. Coffee also exerts some noted benefit to your brain in addition to providing you with a detectable energy boost.

The trick is not to have more than a few cups. But you can safely enjoy 2-4 cups daily – we are talking about supercharging here. Just please don’t go ruining a good thing by loading it up with sugar! Espresso beans are actually a phenomenally healthy snack, by the way.

Green it: brew yourself some fair-trade organic coffee to benefit both the planet and the workers who grow your beans. Use a thermos instead of a throwaway cup.

7. Oatmeal
Nature’s scrub brush is one of the best foods for cardiovascular health, which translates to brain health. Additionally, oatmeal is packed with fiber, a reasonable amount of protein, and even a small amount of Omega-3′s. It’s a good grain that will sustain you throughout the morning so you aren’t prone to irritability or an energy crash.

Green it: the healthiest oatmeal is the real, steel-cut deal. Steer clear of those little microwavable packets that are loaded with sugar. All that packaging isn’t very green.

8. Beans
One more for carb-lovers. (The brain uses about 20% of your carbohydrate intake and it likes a consistent supply.) Beans are truly an amazing food that is sadly overlooked. They’re humble, but very smart. Not only are they loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals and protein, they’re ridiculously cheap. An entire bag of beans usually costs only a few dollars and will provide many meals. Beans provide a steady, slow release of glucose to your brain – which means energy all day without the sugar crash. Don’t go eating a whole platter of frijoles, though – just 1/4 of a cup is fine.

Green it: look for heirloom beans that are raised sustainably, like those from Rancho Gordo.

9. Pomegranate
Opt for the fruit over the juice so you get more fiber. Pomegranates contain blueberry-like levels of antioxidants, which are essential for a healthy brain. Your brain is the first organ to feel the effects of stress, so anything you can do to offset stress is a smart choice.

Green it: pomegranates are seasonal and not generally local for most of us, so enjoy sparingly and rely on other berries like acai, grapes and cherries when you can’t get this fruit.

10. Brown Rice
Brown rice is a low-glycemic complex carbohydrate that is excellent for people sensitive to gluten who still want to maintain cardiovascular health. The better your circulation, the sharper your brain.

Green it: don’t buy the excessively-packaged “boil in a bag” rice packets. Just make up a big batch of brown rice in a rice cooker on Sunday so you have it on hand for easy lunches all week.

11. Tea
You have to brew tea fresh or you won’t get the benefits of all those catechines (antioxidants) that boost your brain. Because tea has caffeine, don’t have more than 2-3 cups daily.

Green it: buy organic, fair trade loose leaf or packets to support sustainable business practices.

12. Chocolate
Things are looking increasingly better for chocolate. It’s got brain-boosting compounds, it’s loaded with antioxidants, and it has just the right amount of caffeine. Chocolate sends your serotonin through the roof, so you’ll feel happy in short order. Dark chocolate is also rich in fiber. (Remember, fiber = healthy cardiovascular system = healthy brain.)

Green it: go for super dark, fair-trade, pure organic chocolate, not the sugary, processed milk chocolate candy bars.

13. Oysters
Oysters are rich in selenium, magnesium, protein and several other nutrients vital to brain health. In one study researchers found that men who ate oysters reported significantly improved cognition and mood! Not all shellfish are good for you but oysters are a sure bet.

Green it: oysters are actually one of the most eco-friendly seafood options, so eat up!

14. Olive Oil
Though we know the brain does need a small, steady supply of glucose, don’t overlook fat. Studies have consistently shown that a low-fat diet is not the health boon we hoped it would be (remember the 90s low-fat craze?). In fact, avoiding fat can increase foggy thinking, mood swings, and insomnia. A diet rich in healthy fats is essential to clear thinking, good memory, and a balanced mood. Your brain is made of fat, after all.
One study of men found that those who relied on the processed vegetable fats found in salad dressings, snacks and prepared foods had 75% higher rates of mental degradation (dementia, memory loss) than men who ate healthy fats. Most processed foods and fast foods use corn oil, palm oil, soybean oil and other Omega-6 fats. You don’t want Omega 6 fats. Even saturated fat is safer than Omega 6′s.

Choose healthy fats such as those present in olive oil, nut butters, nuts and seeds, flax, oily fish, and avocados. Avoid processed fats found in pastries, chips, candy bars, snacks, junk food, fried foods and prepared foods. Eating the wrong fat can literally alter your brain’s communication pathways.

Green it: look for organic, local, or farmers’ market options when it comes to your food. You should also explore herbal remedies for mood swings and brain health.

15. Tuna
In addition to being another rich source of Omega-3′s, tuna, particularly yellowfin, has the highest level of vitamin B6 of any food. Studies have shown that B6 is directly linked to memory, cognition and long term brain health. Generally, the B vitamins are among the most important for balancing your mood. B6 in particular influences dopamine receptors (dopamine is one of your “feel good” hormones along with serotonin).

My personal cocktail: SAMe (nature’s happiness molecule) and a mega-dose of B-complex keeps me humming even when I’ve got a mountain of work to do. Which, like you, is all the time.

Green it: only eat tuna from sustainable fisheries, and if you’re looking for a B6 source that is vegetarian, opt for a banana, which contains a third of your day’s requirement (tuna offers nearly 60%).

16. Garlic
Garlic – the fresher the better – is one of the most potent nutritional weapons in your arsenal. Eat it as much as your significant other can stand. Not only is it fabulous for reducing bad cholesterol and strengthening your cardiovascular system, it exerts a protective antioxidant effect on the brain.

Avoid: I know it makes life easier, but don’t even think about buying the chopped or peeled garlic. Nutritional benefits = zero.

Green it: just choose organic, and go for local if you can get it.

17. Eggs
Eggs contain protein and fat to provide energy to your brain for hours, and the selenium in organic eggs is proven to help your mood. You really needn’t worry about the overblown cholesterol fears. (I have quite a bit to say on this topic but I’ll restrain myself for once.)

Green it: choose organic, free range, vegetarian fed eggs.

18. Green Leafy Vegetables
Spinach, kale, chard, romaine, arugula, lolla rossa – whatever green you like, eat it daily. Green, leafy vegetables are high in iron (slightly less “green” iron sources include beef, pork and lamb). Americans tend to be deficient in iron, which is too bad, because the deficiency is linked to restless leg syndrome, fatigue, poor mood, foggy thinking, and other cognition issues.

Green it: choose organic, and shop at your farmers’ market or order from a local CSA. Leave out the red meat a few days a week and rely on a big, well-seasoned green stir fry or salad.

19. Tomatoes
Go figure, but tomatoes don’t usually make the brain-boosting food lists. (Thank goodness I found the one that did so I’m not the only one.) Tomatoes contain lycopene, an antioxidant that is particularly good for your brain – it even helps prevent dementia. You have to cook tomatoes to get the lycopene – take that, raw foodies! Just kidding. But this does mean that ketchup is good for your brain. Although because of the sugar in it, you should look to other sources for most of your lycopene intake, such as fresh tomato sauce.

Green it: try to eat tomatoes that are local and get your lycopene in vitamin form when tomatoes aren’t in season. You’ll know when that is – the tomatoes will be pale, tasteless, and pithy.

20. Cacao nibs
That’s right, I’m putting chocolate on this list twice. My boyfriend knows I need it. I eat chocolate or cacao nibs daily and I think you might want to consider it, too. Cacao nibs are among the top five most powerful brain foods, right next to wild salmon and blueberries. My girlfriends and I like to mix cacao nibs with frozen blueberries and a generous splash of organic heavy cream while we watch really bad television on Sunday nights.

Green it: as long as it’s fair trade and organic, it’s green.

Things that drain your brain:

Alcohol kills your brain cells outright! Alcohol also interferes with dopamine production. Moderate amounts of alcohol, particularly resveratrol-rich red wine, can help improve your health, but anything beyond a glass or two of wine daily is a recipe for reduced brain function and energy loss.

Corn Syrup and Sugar lead to health problems like diabetes and obesity, and they’re terrible for your brain. Don’t eat sugar except on special occasions or as an infrequent treat. If you can’t cut back that much, try to limit yourself to just two bites of whatever tempts you daily.

Nicotine constricts blood flow to the brain, so while it may “soothe” jittery nerves, smoking will actally reduce your brain function severely – and the effects are cumulative.

A high carbohydrate lunch will make you sleepy and sluggish. Opt for a light meal with some quality protein, such as a salad with grilled chicken breast or vegetables and hummus or wild American shrimp and avocado.

Source:
http://ecosalon.com/ignite_your_brainpower_with_the_20_smartest_foods_on_earth/
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2011-04-30T21:46:00.000-04:00

Damning New Evidence About Monsanto's Most Widely Used Herbicide Is Silenced

by Jill Richardson

Alternet.org

It turns out that Monsanto's Roundup herbicide might not be nearly as safe as people have thought, but the media is staying mum on the revelation.

Dr. Don Huber did not seek fame when he quietly penned a confidential letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in January of this year, warning Vilsack of preliminary evidence of a microscopic organism that appears in high concentrations in genetically modified Roundup Ready corn and soybeans and "appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably human beings." Huber, a retired Purdue University professor of plant pathology and U.S. Army colonel, requested the USDA's help in researching the matter and suggested Vilsack wait until the research was concluded before deregulating Roundup Ready alfalfa. But about a month after it was sent, the letter was leaked, soon becoming an internet phenomenon.

Huber was unavailable to respond to media inquiries in the weeks following the leak, and thus unable to defend himself when several colleagues from Purdue publicly claiming to refute his accusations about Monsanto's widely used herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) and Roundup Ready crops. When his letter was finally acknowledged by the mainstream media, it was with titles like "Scientists Question Claims in Biotech Letter," noting that the letter's popularity on the internet "has raised concern among scientists that the public will believe his unsupported claim is true."

Now, Huber has finally spoken out, both in a second letter, sent to "a wide number of individuals worldwide" to explain and back up his claims from his first letter, and in interviews. While his first letter described research that was not yet complete or published, his second letter cited much more evidence about glyphosate and genetically engineered crops based on studies that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals.

The basis of both letters and much of the research is the herbicide glyphosate. First commercialized in 1974, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world and has been for some time. Glyphosate has long been considered a relatively benign product, because it was thought to break down quickly in the environment and harm little other than the weeds it was supposed to kill.

According to the National Pesticide Information Center, glyphosate prevents plants from making a certain enzyme. Without the enzyme, they are unable to make three essential amino acids, and thus, unable to survive. Once applied, glyphosate either binds to soil particles (and is thus immobilized so it can no longer harm plants) or microorganisms break it down into ammonium and carbon dioxide. Very little glyphosate runs off into waterways. For these reasons, glyphosate has been thought of as more or less harmless: you spray the weeds, they die, the glyphosate goes away, and nothing else in the environment is harmed.

But Huber says this is not true. First of all, he points out, evidence began to emerge in the 1980s that "what glyphosate does is, essentially, give a plant AIDS." Just like AIDS, which cripples a human's immune system, glyphosate makes plants unable to mount a defense against pathogens in the soil. Without its defense mechanisms functioning, the plants succumb to pathogens in the soil and die. Furthermore, glyphosate has an impact on microorganisms in the soil, helping some and hurting others. This is potentially problematic for farmers, as the last thing one would want is a buildup of pathogens in the soil where they grow crops.

The fate of glyphosate in the environment is also not as benign as once thought. It's true that glyphosate either binds to soil or is broken down quickly by microbes. Glyphosate binds to any positively charged ion in the soil, with the consequence of making many nutrients (such as iron and manganese) less available to plants. Also, glyphosate stays in the soil bound to particles for a long time and can be released later by normal agricultural practices like phosphorus fertilization. "It's not uncommon to find one to three pounds of glyphosate per acre in agricultural soils in the Midwest," says Huber, noting that this represents one to three times the typical amount of glyphosate applied to a field in a year.

Huber says these facts about glyphosate are very well known scientifically but rarely cited. When asked why, he replied that it would be harder for a company to get glyphosate approved for widespread use if it were known that the product could increase the severity of diseases on normal crop plants as well as the weeds it was intended to kill. Here in the U.S., many academic journals are not even interested in publishing studies that suggest this about glyphosate; a large number of the studies Huber cites were published in the European Journal of Agronomy.

If Huber's claims are true, then it follows that there must be problems with disease in crops where glyphosate is used. Huber's second letter verifies this, saying, "we are experiencing a large number of problems in production agriculture in the U.S. that appear to be intensified and sometimes directly related to genetically engineered (GMO) crops, and/or the products they were engineered to tolerate -- especially those related to glyphosate (the active chemical in Roundup® herbicide and generic versions of this herbicide)."

He continues, saying, "We have witnessed a deterioration in the plant health of corn, soybean, wheat and other crops recently with unexplained epidemics of sudden death syndrome of soybean (SDS), Goss' wilt of corn, and take-all of small grain crops the last two years. At the same time, there has been an increasing frequency of previously unexplained animal (cattle, pig, horse, poultry) infertility and [miscarriages]. These situations are threatening the economic viability of both crop and animal producers."

Some of the crops Huber named, corn and soy, are genetically engineered to survive being sprayed with glyphosate. Others, like wheat and barley, are not. In those cases, a farmer would apply glyphosate to kill weeds about a week before planting his or her crop, but would not spray the crop itself. In the case of corn, as Huber points out, most corn varieties in the U.S. are bred using conventional breeding techniques to resist the disease Goss' wilt. However, recent preliminary research showed that when GE corn is sprayed with glyphosate, the corn becomes susceptible to Goss' wilt. Huber says in his letter that "This disease was commonly observed in many Midwestern U.S. fields planted to [Roundup Ready] corn in 2009 and 2010, while adjacent non-GMO corn had very light to no infections." In 2010, Goss' wilt was a "major contributor" to an estimated one billion bushels of corn lost in the U.S. "in spite of generally good harvest conditions," says Huber.

The subject of Huber's initial letter is a newly identified organism that appears to be the cause of infertility and miscarriages in animals. Scientists have a process to verify whether an organism is the cause of a disease: they isolate the organism, culture it, and reintroduce it to the animal to verify that it reproduces the symptoms of the disease, and then re-isolate the organism from the animal's tissue. This has already been completed for the organism in question. The organism appears in high concentrations in Roundup Ready crops. However, more research is needed to understand what this organism is and what its relationship is to glyphosate and/or Roundup Ready crops.

In order to secure the additional research needed, Huber wrote to Secretary Vilsack. Huber says he wrote his initial letter to Secretary Vilsack with the expectation that it would be forwarded to the appropriate agency within the USDA for follow-up, which it was. When the USDA contacted Huber for more information, he provided it, but he does not know how they have followed up on that information. The letter was "a private letter appealing for [the USDA's] personnel and funding," says Huber. Given recent problems with plant disease and livestock infertility and miscarriages, he says that "many producers can't wait an additional three to 10 years for someone to find the funds and neutral environment" to complete the research on this organism.

If the link between the newly discovered organism and livestock infertility and miscarriages proves true, it will be a major story. But there is already a major story here: the lack of independent research on GMOs, the reluctance of U.S. journals to publish studies critical of glyphosate and GMOs, and the near total silence from the media on Huber's leaked letter.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/food/150733/why_is_damning_new_evidence_about_monsanto%27s_most_widely_used_herbicide_being_silenced/
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2011-04-20T19:17:00.000-04:00

Scientists Discovesr 3 Types of Gut Microbes

by Eryn Brown
LATimes.com
When European researchers set out to use gene sequencing to catalog the hundreds of species of microbes in the human gut, they expected to find variation between individuals and perhaps even between geographic groups -- but they assumed that there would be a large number of different possible combinations of bacteria.
Instead, said bioinformatics expert Peer Bork of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, gut bacteria seem to cluster into just three distinct and stable combinations that show up across populations from a variety of backgrounds -- a discovery that could have implications for medicine in the future.
The results were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Bork, the senior author of the paper, said that finding the three enterotypes (as the team called them) was "a big surprise...we expected more variation."
To find out what microbes were present in the samples, the team took stool samples from 22 European individuals, extracted the DNA, and then attempted to determine the composition of the DNA. That's more complicated than it sounds. Unlike describing the DNA of a single individual, they were looking at gene fragments from hundreds of organisms (mostly bacteria) per sample. They used powerful computers to sort the fragments and match them to the DNA of known organisms. They also compared what they found with published results from Japanese and American subjects.
The three distinct microbe combinations appeared throughout the samples.
"This was a mammoth study," said Russell Doolittle, a molecular biologist and bioinformatics pioneer at UC San Diego. "I can't exaggerate the complexity of keeping [these data] all straight."
Aside from being a technical feat, the discovery of the enterotypes might be useful for diagnosing and treating disease, if Bork and the European team can correlate the three microbe types to "host properties" -- if, for example, it is someday found that people with one disease or characteristic all share enterotype A and people with another all share enterotype B, and so on.
For now, Bork said, the team did not find such global correlations. "We have no clue what is driving the three types," he said. But he added that they did find genes within the enterotypes that matched up with host properties such as age -- hinting at the potential for using gut flora to identify disease sometime in the future.

Bacteria serve an important function in the human digestive system. They help the body process food and acquire nutrients and vitamins. Researchers have begun to find links between gut microbes and diseases including obesity, cancer and perhaps most notably, peptic ulcers, which are caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori.
"We hope there's an application" for this finding, Bork said. If physicians knew a diseased patient's original gut microbe profile, for example -- much as they now take note of a person's blood type -- they might be able to shift his gut microbes back to their original state to treat the illness, he suggested. Or, since it's known that different microbes help the body process drugs differently, doctors might be able to prescribe the medications that work best for a patient's enterotype.
Companies peddling probiotics are keen on the research, too, he added. "Yogurt companies are extremely interested," he said.

Source:
http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/mostviewed/~3/LDMPhv45PLk/la-heb-gut-microbe-types-nature-20110420,0,4096601.story

2011-04-13T22:24:00.000-04:00

Vegetarian diet helps prevent heart disease, diabetes and stroke

by David Lui, PhD
foodconsumer.org

A new study suggests vegetarians are less likely than non-vegetarians to develop metabolic syndrome, which is a precursor to heart disease, diabetes and stroke. This means a plant-based diet may help prevent these diseases and vascular events.

The study published in the journal Diabetes Care showed vegetarians were 36 percent less likely to suffer metabolic syndrome, compared with those who ate meat.

Metabolic syndrome is a set of at least three of the five risk factors including high blood pressure, increased HDL cholesterol, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and larger waist circumference.

Nico S. Rizzo, PhD of Loma Linda University and colleagues looked at data from more than 700 adults randomly picked from the subjects in Loma University's Adventist Health Study 2 and found the association.

Vegetarians accounting for 37 percent Of the subjects were found to have lower triglycerides, blood sugar, blood pressure, waist circumference, and body mass index or BMI compared with those meat-eaters.

Even semi-vegetarians were found to have a significantly redcued BMI and waistline, compared with those who ate meat more frequently.

Previous studies have shown that eating plant-based diet can even reverse adverse heart conditions.

President Bil Clinton, who was influenced by a book titled China Study authored by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a distingushed Cornell University nutrition professor, has adopted a vegetarian diet and improved his physics drastically, according to media reports.

"This work again shows that diet improves many of the main cardiovascular risk factors that are part of metabolic syndrome," said Gary Fraser, MD, PhD, principal investigator of Adventist Health Study 2.

"Trending toward a plant-based diet is a sensible choice."

Source:

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Nutrition/Diet/vegetarian_diet_prevents_heart_disease_diabetes_0413110821.html

2011-03-09T18:41:00.000-05:00

Healthy Food Costs More--A Myth?

by Dr. David L. Katz

The conventional wisdom is that more nutritious foods cost more. Here in the proverbial nutshell (walnuts score a deservedly impressive 82 on the 100-point NuVal scale, so let's make it a walnut shell) is what's right, wrong, and downright ugly about this persistent bit of prevailing perception.

What's right is what made it conventional wisdom in the first place. In the modern food world, government subsidies are largely tied up with mass-production of crops used for purposes other than feeding people. Corn, for instance, is subsidized both for use in fattening feed animals which are in turn consumed by people, and for production of such derivatives as high-fructose corn syrup. Soybeans are subsidized, and put an astonishing variety of uses -- many having nothing to do with the nourishment of man, or beast.

Where the subsidies have not gone traditionally is to the most nutritious foods, such as vegetables and fruits intended for human consumption. It is perhaps ironic that the foods best suited to extend the 'shelf life' of human beings tend to have the shortest shelf life themselves. The converse, of course, is also true; some highly processed, glow-in-the-dark foods are all but immortal, while conspiring against the longevity of those consuming them.

The frailty and short shelf-life is among the factors that tend to make produce pricey, in the absence of subsidies. Spoilage happens, and cuts into profit margins; higher prices compensate. Produce is also subject to the vagaries of climate, and the price built into bumper crops must account for the years when an early frost or lack of rain wrought devastation.

Other high-cost, highly nutritious foods are subject to these and related considerations. By definition, wild salmon is ... wild, and thus much less reliable than, say, chickens. They must also be shipped long distances from where they are caught. Crops can fail, fish can be hard to find -- but marshmallows, chips, and cookies tend to be perfectly reliable. And thus, less costly.

But there is, as well, a downright ugly, hidden face to the cost of nutritious food. Namely, some food pretends to be nutritious, presumably so that a premium may be charged for it! This is truly ugly because the result is as follows: a health-conscious shopper is hoodwinked into thinking something is more nutritious when it is less, and spends more for the privilege of the deception. A classic addition of insult to injury, if you ask me.

How do I know this to be true? Well, having been devoted to the world of nutrition for 20 years or more, I have long had this perception. But my focus has certainly sharpened since the launch of the NuVal system. NuVal has now scored the overall nutritional quality of well over 90,000 foods. Along the way, we have seen innumerable examples of food products in almost every conceivable category that sport front-of-pack messages about better nutrition (e.g., lower fat, lower sodium, lower sugar, more vitamins, more whole grain, etc.) but that are actually less nutritious overall.

In one instance, we saw the nutrition score decline when a popular children's cereal came out in a "1/3 less sugar" version. It indeed had 1/3 less sugar, but it also had a lot more salt, a lot less fiber, less whole grain, more harmful fats and so on. A fancy multigrain bread will charge you a premium, but may have no more "whole" grain than white bread, and less than a humbly packaged, far less expensive whole wheat bread.

The average NuVal score for regular peanut butter is about 20. The average score for fat-reduced peanut butter, for which health conscious and "choosy" moms will pay a premium is a 7! A bit of healthful oil is taken out, while copious additions of sugar and salt are made. The front of the jar is mum on that topic.

But let's move on to what is merely wrong with the conventional wisdom about nutrition and cost.

Having long heard the two were linked, I did what researchers tend to do; I asked, where are the data? It turns out there are hardly any. So we set out to get some.

We devised a study, the results of which were just published in Public Health Nutrition, in which we sent a volunteer shopping in some typical U.S. supermarkets with criteria for more and less nutritious foods based on our Nutrition Detectives program. We asked the volunteer to buy equal numbers of products meeting, and failing, the criteria in diverse food categories. We then used NuVal to confirm that the seemingly more and less nutritious products truly were just that -- and we then compared the prices.

NuVal, which has itself been validated against actual health outcomes in over 100,000 people, confirmed that the Nutrition Detectives clues reliably distinguished more from less nutritious foods. And these two groups differed in price ... not at all. Sometimes the more nutritious foods were more expensive, sometimes less. Except in the produce aisle, price and nutrition do not correlate in the supermarket. The trouble is not really that more nutritious foods invariably cost more -- it's that most people have trouble identifying the truly more nutritious foods in the first place.

Cost is still a barrier, of course -- and some of the least nutritious foods do offer the most calories for the buck. We need to address this with policies -- such as linking food price directly to objectively measured nutritional quality, especially for those struggling financially, such as SNAP program participants. We have the means to do this, and should put it to the test.

We need to make an objective measure of nutritional quality available to all, so that the false perception of nutrition and cost is dispelled. Often you can trade up nutritionally at no increased cost.

Fundamentally, though, we need a new societal perspective on the value of food. Throughout most of human history, calories were relatively scarce and hard to get. More calories per dollar was a logical metric for food value in such a world.

But that is no longer our world. Ours is a world of epidemic obesity, and more calories per dollar simply means the chance to gain more weight at no extra charge. Many people are willing to spend a fortune to lose the pounds they gained for free! Perhaps it's time to recognize that nutrition per dollar is the better measure of value.

Supersize me and my kids? No thanks. Supervitalize us? We'll take it -- and at no extra charge, please!

Source:
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=15947688

2011-02-20T15:12:00.001-05:00

Simple Map to the Land of "Wholesome"

by Jane Brody
nytimes.com

For the first time since it began issuing dietary guidelines, the government offered new recommendations last month that clearly favor the health and well-being of consumers over hard-lobbying farm interests.

The new science-based Dietary Guidelines for Americans, released Jan. 31 by the Departments of Agriculture and of Health and Human Services, are comprehensive, sensible, attainable and, for most people, affordable. They offer a wide variety of dietary options to help you eat better for fewer calories without undue sacrifice of dining pleasure.

Now it’s up to consumers to act on this advice and put the brakes on runaway obesity and the chronic diseases that cost billions of dollars before they kill.

It’s a lot easier than you may think, especially if you make the adaptations gradually and avoid declaring war on every deviation from the straight and narrow. Moderation, rather than constant deprivation and denial, is the key to a wholesome diet that you can stick with and enjoy. I say this with confidence because I’ve lived this way for most of my adult life and I’ve watched my sons do the same for more than four decades.

Here is a summary of the guidelines, which combine the goals of fewer calories — and especially nutrient-poor calories from sugars, fats and refined grains — with more emphasis on nutrient-dense foods:

-Eat lots more vegetables and fruits, filling half your plate with them.
-Choose lean meats and poultry, and replace some of them with seafood.
-Consume mainly nonfat or low-fat milk and other dairy products.
-Choose low-sodium products and use less salt and salty ingredients in food preparation.
-Eat more fiber-rich foods; replace most refined grains and grain-based foods with whole-grain versions.
-Use vegetable oils like olive and canola oil instead of solid fats like butter and margarine, but remember that all fats have lots of calories.
-Eat out less; cook at home more often.
-Drink water, calorie-free beverages like coffee and tea, and 100 percent fruit juice instead of regular sodas, fruit drinks and energy drinks; limit alcoholic drinks to one a day for women, two for men.
-Eat less and exercise more to achieve a better balance of caloric intake and output.

Tips From the Trenches

Here are some ideas to help you put the new guidelines into practice.

Before you make any changes in your eating habits, keep a detailed food diary for a week. Write down everything you eat and drink, listing the amounts, the circumstances, your emotional state and anything else that may be relevant. That will give you a clearer picture of what you may need to modify and how to do it.

Make less seem like more by eating on smaller plates. Pay attention to what you’re eating and eat slowly. Avoid distracted eating, while watching television for example. Eat only until you are satisfied, not full. But don’t think you are eating less if you take only a small portion at first, then repeatedly go back for more. You’ll have no idea how much you really consume.

Eat more beans and peas, nuts and seeds for protein. Bake, broil or grill meats, poultry and fish. Discard skin and avoid breading. If I had to choose only one pan, it would be a stove-top grill pan with a nonstick surface. If I were allowed two, the other would be a nonstick wok-type skillet for stir-frying vegetables in a small amount of olive or vegetable oil. And if three, I’d choose a steamer.

When fresh vegetables and fruits are out of season and expensive, switch temporarily to frozen ones (plain, not packaged in sauces or sugary syrup). Make sandwiches on those new whole-wheat or multigrain sandwich thins, only 100 calories each.

Don’t be fooled by advertising. Some products that make health-related claims may be less than wholesome. Read nutrition facts on food packages (you may want to take a magnifying glass to the store). Note serving size, calories per serving, amounts of sugars, saturated and trans fats, and sodium in a serving, as well as health-promoting dietary fiber, protein and potassium. Also check the ingredients; contents are listed in order of amount (highest first). For desserts, rely more on fruits (fresh or dried), perhaps with nonfat or low-fat vanilla yogurt, than on ice cream or baked goods. Or bake your own with whole-grain flour, fruit purée and oil (a personal favorite is below). For another delicious and nutritious treat, press bite-size pitted prunes to form shallow cups and top each with a ball of finely chopped blanched almonds mixed with a little honey.

Snacks can be the undoing of an otherwise healthful diet. Nutritious choices include unsalted nuts, in moderation, and cut-up vegetables with a yogurt-based dip or hummus. Satisfy a sweet craving with fresh fruit, unsweetened dried fruit or a small bowl of a lightly sweetened whole-grain dry cereal.

When dining out, consider choosing two appetizers instead of a main course, or share an entree with a dining partner. If restaurant portions are over the top, take half home.

Adjust your caloric intake to your needs. According to the report, the average sedentary man in his 40s needs 2,200 calories a day; one who is active needs 2,800. Comparable numbers for women are 1,800 and 2,200.

If you are sedentary, start with 10-minute bouts of activity a couple of days a week and gradually build up to longer bouts more often and at a faster pace. (For an activity guide, go to www.presidentschallenge.org, click on “download tools and resources,” then on “fitness guides.” Or track your progress at www.health.gov/paguidelines, click on “be active your way,” then “keeping track of what you do each week.”)

The best way to know whether you are consuming too many calories is to monitor your weight — if it’s creeping upward, you need to eat less or move more, preferably both. I weigh myself every day to keep within a range of two pounds up or down — a strategy favored by the “successful losers” in the National Weight Control Registry, a long-term study of how people stay trim.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/health/15brody.html?ref=health
____________________

2011-01-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

Organic Beef, Dairy and Many Vegetables Threatened

By Ari LeVaux

Alternet.org

Monsanto has been trying for years to gain approval for its genetically modified Roundup-Ready alfalfa seed. On January 27th, 2011, it finally got the green light in the form of "deregulation." This means that farmers are free to plant GE Alfalfa, and the USDA won't even be keeping track of who plants it where. There will be no tracking, no notification system, and no responsibility on the part of Monsanto for any business that's lost as a result of the genetic contamination that is certain to occur. If the ruling stands, we can kiss organic dairy and beef goodbye, and many organic vegetable growers will have to switch the cover crops they use on their fields.

The Center for Food Safety is planning on dragging the issue back to court, where the organization has a good track record in recent years against Monsanto, even in the notoriously business-friendly US Supreme Court, which in June upheld a ban on the planting of Roundup-Ready alfalfa until the USDA drafts an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

That EIS was dutifully drafted and released in December, 2010. The document airs the concerns expressed by the vast majority of the 200,000-plus comments on GE alfalfa, yet somehow concludes: "...consumer preferences for organic over GE foods are influenced in part by ethical and environmental factors that are likely unrelated to minor unintended presence of GE content in feed crops."

That's quite a use of the word "likely": When the organic rules were drafted in 1997, big ag tried very, very hard to include GE products in organic-labeled foods. In response to this attempt, USDA received over 275,000 comments against GE in organics. It was the largest number of comments USDA had ever received on a single issue. How the USDA managed to conclude that consumers of organic food are likely unconcerned by contamination of organic products is a mystery - at least, until we recall that Tom Vilsack, Obama's agriculture boss, used to fly around in a Monsanto corporate jet while governor of Iowa. During that same period he was also named "Governor of the Year" by the Biotechnology Industry Council.

Another word in the above statement that bears scrutiny is the "minor" in "minor unintended presence of GE content in feed crops." While it may be true that the public may in fact be OK with a little "minor" genetic contamination, there's nothing minor about the threat posed by Roundup-Ready alfalfa.

Alfalfa is the main forage crop for dairy cows and one of the principle foods for beef cows, especially grass-fed cattle. Alfalfa is a perennial, easily lasting five years once planted. And it's bee-pollinated, which means each year, every non-GE alfalfa plant within five miles of every GE alfalfa plant will likely be contaminated by GE genes.

According to the Organic Consumers Association, "...the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa [is] guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S."

When Tom Vilsack was named as Agriculture Secretary by President Obama in late 2008, sustainable food activists felt they had been duped. The appointment followed a flood of opposition that resulted in Vilsack's name being removed from Obama's short list of USDA chiefs. This rope-a-dope took the wind out of opposition sails, and foodies let down their guard and began optimistically ruminating on who should run the agency. Then, out of the blue, Vilsack was appointed. Two years into Obama's administration, he appears to embody Obama's centrist approach, praising organic foods out of one side of his mouth while supporting GE foods out of the other, as if the two are separate but equal.

But the deregulation of GE alfalfa throws the possibility of coexistence out the window. And if history is any guide, the victims of genetic contamination will not only have no legal recourse, but they will face being sued by Monsanto for illegal use of its patented genes.

The battle lines drawn on the issue of GE alfalfa highlight a fracture in the organic movement that could be described as between the "haves" (well funded, politically connected groups and businesses that have forfeited their voices for the sake of politics and money) and the "have-nots" (small, grassroots groups and individuals, unbeholden, who speak their minds). The haves include Whole Foods and other major retailers of organic food, as well as producers like Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farms.

While the decision makers in these companies may oppose GE food in their hearts, they've made the calculated business decision to cave on the issue in hopes of assurance that attempts at keeping GE alfalfa separate from non-GE alfalfa will be made. According to a January 24th statement from Whole Foods, "The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must."
Given that public sentiment is overwhelmingly against genetically engineered food, it's not surprising that the Monsantos and Forage Genetics of the world are against labeling. What's telling is that retailers like Whole Foods also oppose labeling foods that have GE ingredients. Instead, the company has put its weight behind the effort to label foods that do not contain GE ingredients. This may sound like the same thing, but as Norman Braksick, president of Monsanto subsidiary Asgrow Seed Co., once said, "If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

The Organic Consumer Association asserts that two-thirds of Whole Food's product line is not organic, which means they could be contaminated by GE genes. It's no surprise Whole Foods doesn't want to put what amounts to a "skull and crossbones" on two-thirds of its products. Kristina Hubbard, Director of Advocacy for the Organic Seed Alliance, says that while hers and other organic watchdog groups oppose GE alfalfa, it's important to remember that conventional farmers are also put at risk by the ruling. Via email she told me:
"We believe USDA's decision to deregulate alfalfa puts the integrity of organic and non-genetically engineered seed, and thus the integrity of organic food, at risk. While the media paints this as organic versus biotechnology, it's important to note that conventional producers, including exporters, also feel threatened by GE alfalfa. In fact, the lead plaintiff in the alfalfa lawsuit is a conventional seed producer. I represent organic interests at OSA, but I've noticed that more conventional stakeholders are standing up in opposition to GE alfalfa than any other GE crop type (i.e., corn, soy, etc.) that has been deregulated."

This is an important point, but while individual conventional farmers are among the victims of genetic contamination, the organic industry as a whole is threatened by USDA's deregulation of GE alfalfa.

By deregulating its first perennial crop, which happens to be a bee-pollinated plant that is the foundation for the organic dairy and beef industries, USDA is breaking ground that cannot be easily repaired. Widespread genetic contamination has for years been threatening to make the entire GE discussion mute, because once everything is contaminated there will be nothing pure left to protect. In the same way, GE alfalfa threatens to make the whole idea of organic mute. Or at the very least, finally bring about the biotech industry's long-desired change of the organic standards to include GE ingredients. Once non-GE crops become impossible to find, what choice will we have?

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/food/149716
___________________

2011-01-13T07:44:00.000-05:00

WikiLeaks Cables Reveal U.S. Sought to Retaliate Against Europe over Monsanto GM Crops

Democracy Now
Dec. 23, 2010

U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration drew up ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn produced by biotech giant Monsanto. He also warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across Europe. We speak with Jeffrey Smith of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

[transcript]

JUAN GONZALEZ: U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration drew up ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. In 2007, then-US ambassador to France Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn produced by biotech giant Monsanto. He also warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across Europe.

In the leaked cable, Stapleton writes, quote, "Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission...Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice."

AMY GOODMAN: Ambassador Stapleton goes on to write, quote, "Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory," he wrote.

Well, for more, we’re going to Iowa City to speak with Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, author of two books, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating and the book Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods.

Jeffrey Smith, joining us by Democracy Now! video stream, thanks so much for being with us. Talk about the significance of these documents leaked by WikiLeaks.

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, we’ve been saying for years that the United States government has joined at—is joined at the hip with Monsanto and pushing GMOs as part of Monsanto’s agenda on the rest of the world. This lays bare the mechanics of that effort. We have Craig Stapleton, the former ambassador to France, specifically asking the U.S. government to retaliate and cause some harm throughout the European Union. And then, two years later, in 2009, we have a cable from the ambassador to Spain from the United States asking for intervention there, asking the government to help formulate a biotech strategy and support the government—members of the government in Spain that want to promote GMOs, as well. And here, they specifically indicate that they sat with the director of Monsanto for the region and got briefed by him about the politics of the region and created strategies with him to promote the GMO agenda.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, they apparently were especially interested in one Monsanto product, MON 810. Could you talk about that?

JEFFREY SMITH: Yes. This is the first seed that was approved for widespread planting. You see, the biotech industry was concerned initially about the European Union accepting genetically modified foods. Although that had been approved for years by the commission, the food industry had rejected it because consumers were concerned. And so, there hasn’t been a lot of food going to the European Union that’s genetically modified.

However, they had planned to allow the growing of genetically modified seeds. Now that MON 810 has been allowed, individual countries have stepped forward to ban in. And so, in 2007, they were concerned about that, and so they were trying to create a strategy to force these countries to accept the first of the genetically modified seeds. Since then, there’s been more evidence showing that this genetically modified corn damages mice and rats, etc., can cause reductions of fertility, smaller litter sizes, smaller offspring, immune responses, etc. And these have gone largely ignored by both the European Food Safety Authority and the United States FDA.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about these health effects. Jeffrey Smith, you wrote a fascinating "Anniversary of a Whistleblowing Hero" piece about a British scientist and about the repercussions he suffered. He was one of the biggest GMO advocates. And explain what happened and what he actually learned.

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, Dr. Arpad Pusztai was actually working on a $3 million grant from the U.K. government to figure out how to test for the safety of GMOs. And what he discovered quite accidentally is that genetically modified organisms are inherently unsafe. Within 10 days, his supposedly harmless GMO potatoes caused massive damage to rats—smaller brains, livers and testicles, partial atrophy of the liver, damaged immune system, etc. And what he discovered was it was the process, the generic process of genetic engineering, that was likely the cause of the problem. He went public with his concerns and was a hero.

AMY GOODMAN: But I think you have to—Jeffrey Smith, if you could explain this. This is very significant, because he was an expert on the protein that was—it’s this kind of insecticide. And everyone thought, oh, that might be the thing that would hurt people. But he said, actually, it wasn’t the thing that was injected into the—or however it works when you genetically modify a potato, when you put that chemical inside, the protein inside the potato—it wasn’t that.

JEFFREY SMITH: Exactly. You see, he was testing with rats that were eating the genetically modified potato, engineered to produce an insecticidal protein. But he also tested other groups of rats that were eating natural potatoes that were spiked with that same protein, and then a third group that was just eating natural potatoes without the insecticide. Only the group that ate the genetically engineered potato got these problems, not the group that was eating the potatoes along with the insecticide. So it clearly wasn’t the insecticide; it was somehow the process of genetic engineering.

Now, that process creates massive collateral damage inside the DNA of the plant. Hundreds and thousands of mutations can be formed. There could be hundreds or thousands of genes that are natural genes in the plant that change their levels of expression. For example, with MON 810 corn, they found that there was a gene that is normally silent that is switched on and now creates an allergen in corn. They found 43 different genes that were significantly up-regulated or down-regulated, meaning that there’s massive changes in these crops and they’re not being evaluated by the U.S.—by the FDA or any other regulatory authority around the world before being put onto the market.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, was there any indication from the cables or from your research that the pressure that Ambassador Stapleton and other U.S. officials were putting on the E.U. had the desired effect? Because obviously Ambassador Stapleton, or former Ambassador Stapleton, was not just any former ambassador, he was the former co-owner of the Texas Rangers with former President George W. Bush.

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, we’ve seen a consistent effort by the U.S. to bully Europe. But, you see, European—the European mind on this is kind of divided. Some countries are clearly in the camp of precautionary principle and protecting interests for health. Others are basically moving in lockstep with the U.S. government and Monsanto. So it’s a fiercely pitched battle on every front in Europe.

A lot of the focus of the State Department has been on developing countries. They try and push GMOs into Africa. They deployed the Secretary of State’s chief advisory—scientific adviser, Nina Fedoroff, to Australia and to India. They tried to engage the Indian government with a contract or a treaty that would allow their scientists to be trained in the U.S. So they’ve been working around the world to try and influence policy on every single continent. And in some cases, they’re doing—they’re actually winning, where they’re overtaking the regulatory authorities and making it quite weak, like it is in the U.S. And in some cases in Europe now, there’s more resistance than ever, now that it’s "not in my backyard" politics, "no planting in my country" type of politics.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeffrey Smith, can you compare the Obama administration on biotechnology with the Bush administration?

JEFFREY SMITH: Unfortunately, we were hoping for a lot more success. President Obama, while he was campaigning here in Iowa, promised that he would require labeling of genetically modified crops. And since most Americans say they would avoid GMOs if labeled, that would have eliminated it from the food supply. But, you see, he and the FDA have been promoting the biotechnology. And unfortunately, the Obama administration has not been better than the Bush administration, possibly worse.

For example, the person who was in charge of FDA policy in 1992, Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor, he allowed GMOs on the market without any safety studies and without labeling, and the policy claimed that the agency was not aware of any information showing that GMOs were significantly different. Seven years later, because of a lawsuit, 44,000 secret internal FDA memos revealed that that policy was a lie. Not only were the scientists at the FDA aware that GMOs were different, they had warned repeatedly that they might create allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. But they were ignored, and their warnings were even denied, and the policy went forth allowing the deployment GMOs into the food supply with virtually no safety studies. That person in charge is now the U.S. food safety czar in the Obama administration.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And what is your general assessment of the sweeping reform that the Obama administration pushed through of the FDA, considered one of the biggest reforms of that agency in decades? Your assessment of it?

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, if the FDA were absolutely dedicated to protecting public health, giving them more power makes sense. But investigation after investigation for years, it turns out that they often serve their, quote, "clients," which is industry. Even one-third of their own surveyed members in September revealed that they believe that corporate and special interests really dictates policy in the area of public health. So, my opinion is, giving them more power without first eliminating that bias towards corporations is a dangerous formula. In fact, they are officially mandated with promoting the biotech industry, which is obviously a conflict of interest.

AMY GOODMAN: I know both Eric Schlosser and also Michael Pollan have hailed the food safety legislation, but on the issue of talking to the State Department and what they’re pushing abroad, I want to just say we did call the State Department and did not get a response. We wanted them to come on today’s broadcast.

Finally, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Jeffrey Smith, your assessment?

JEFFREY SMITH: Well, he was our governor here in Iowa, and he was the biotech governor of the year in 2001. And unfortunately, he’s been following that course of action since he has been put in office. They released today the environmental impact statement for alfalfa, where they ignore their own data regarding the increase of pesticides because of GMOs. They ignore the data of their own scientists and other scientists, which show the use of Roundup, which will be promoted through this Roundup Ready alfalfa, is actually very toxic both for the environment and for human health. And so, he, as well as many others of the Obama administration, have been taken essentially from the biotech ranks and are now calling the shots there. And I’m very disappointed.

There was some indication in the EIS, however, for the alfalfa that he might take into consideration concerns about contamination, which we all know is permanent, where the self-propagating genetic pollution of genetically modified foods can outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste. It’s being released now without—with very little concern. Finally, we see some ray of light, where they’re actually paying attention, but it’s not enough. It’s not based really on science.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there, but we will certainly continue to follow this issue, Jeffrey Smith, it’s great to be with you, joining us from Iowa City, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, author of two books, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies about the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You’re Eating and also Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We’ll link to our stories on Monsanto over the years and of course to our continued coverage of the WikiLeaks cables, the largest trove of U.S. diplomatic documents that have been ever released.

Source:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/23/wikileaks_cables_reveal_us_sought_to

Contributing Stories:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops?
http://www.alternet.org/world/149393/wikileaks%27_most_terrifying_revelation:_just_how_much_our_government_lies_to_us/?page=entire
__________________

2011-01-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

Scientists uncover truth about fluoride and other water contaminants

by Anthony Gucciardi
Natural News
January 8 2011

There have been numerous studies highlighting the adverse effects of water fluoridation and other drinking water contaminants, but a slew of new scientific findings have sparked even more opposition to these chemicals than ever before.

Most shockingly, a study has even linked fluoride to lower IQ in children. In the same vein, deadly carcinogens have been found in cities across the United States.

Hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, is a deadly carcinogen that was found in the drinking water of 31 U.S. cities. With the surge of new information exposing our drinking water as toxic sludge, a question arises. Could this information put a stop to the pollution and fluoridation of the public water supply?

Fluoride is added to 70% of the U.S. water supply. Kids who drink this water suffer from decreased cognitive function, according to research published in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The study followed 512 children between the ages 8 and 13, with varying degrees of fluoride exposure. One group lived in a Chinese village with high fluoride levels, and the other in a Chinese village with low fluoride levels. The scientists conducting the study even eliminated other variables that may have affected brain health, such as iodine deficiency and lead exposure.

With these variables eliminated, researchers found that the number of intelligent children in the village with low fluoride levels was 350 percent higher than those in the high fluoride village. Even more disturbing, 15% of the highly fluoridated children scored low enough to indicate mental retardation, verses 6% in the other village.

According to Paul Connett, Ph.D., director of the Fluoride Action Network, "This is the 24th study that has found this association, but this study is stronger than the rest because the authors have controlled for key confounding variables and in addition to correlating lowered IQ with levels of fluoride in the water, the authors found a correlation between lowered IQ and fluoride levels in children's blood. This brings us closer to a cause and effect relationship between fluoride exposure and brain damage in children."

In the first ever public analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) uncovered even more disturbing information regarding the quality of the country's drinking water. The EWG found that hexavalent chromium was present in the drinking water of 31 U.S. cities.

This is a chemical that was labeled a "probable carcinogen" in 2008 by the National Toxicology Program. Despite causing cancer in laboratory rats, the federal government allows for a "safe" level of total chromium. This "total" chromium figure also includes trivalent chromium, which is a mineral that the body can actually utilize. What this means is that in many cases, hexavalent chromium could have made up the majority of total chromium in the water supply. Unfortunately, this seems to be the case for many of the 31 U.S. cities tested.

In Noman, Oklahoma, the water contained 200 times what California has declared to be the "safe" level of this carcinogen. California legislatures set this level at 0.06 parts per billion in their recent public health proposal, which means that Noman had around 12 parts per billion. Bethesda and Washington were next on the list with 0.19 parts per billion, more than three times the California limit.

The rise in hexavalent chromium is most likely tied to its industry use, with Pacific Gas & Electric forced to pay $333 million in damages due to leaking the carcinogen into the water of a California town. The federal government, however, is not being forced to pay the millions of people in this country who are regularly consuming deadly tap water.

While fluoride and hexavalent chromium are cause for concern, there are other substances in the country's drinking water that also warrant concern. The first of which is lead, which can enter the water supply through corrosive pipes or improper water treatment. Pathogens, which are infectious agents, can also be found in many cities worldwide. Chlorine, while a hazard itself, actually reacts with other chemicals to create even more poisonous substances. Trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids are two such by-products, which have been linked to cancer and reproductive problems. While it is not possible to discuss the long list of drinking water toxins in depth, as it is too extensive, arsenic and radon are among the other primary chemicals found in the water.

It is important to remember that exposure to these chemicals is not limited to simply drinking the water. Showering and bathing in tap water will lead to the absorption of these substances through the skin, and can account for even more toxic buildup than drinking the water.

The studies are conclusive, and the information is being compiled more steadily than ever before. Water fluoridation and pollution now stands as a mainstream issue that must be addressed. The solution is simple, and all it takes is activism.

The citizens of many countries around the world have successfully eliminated water fluoridation through petitioning their respective governments, and the same can be done in the remaining countries. When the people loudly voice their opposition to the chaotic state of their drinking water, it will be the end of governmental water contamination.

[Editor`s Note: NaturalNews is strongly against the use of all forms of animal testing. We fully support implementation of humane medical experimentation that promotes the health and wellbeing of all living creatures.]

About the author

Anthony Gucciardi is a health activist and wellness researcher, whose goal is centered around educating the general public as to how they may obtain optimum health. He has authored countless articles highlighting the benefits of natural health, as well as exposing the pharmaceutical industry. Anthony is the creator of Shatter Limits (http://www.ShatterLimits.com), a natural health website. Anthony has been accurately interpreting national and international events for years within his numerous political articles. Anthony's articles have been seen by millions around the world, and hosted on multiple top news websites.

Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com/030948_fluoride_water.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/ontario-fluoride-may-make-minor-difference/article1535873/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/18/AR2010121802810.html?sid=ST2010121803715
http://www2.fluoridealert.org/Alert/China/Fluoride-in-Water-Linked-to-Lower-IQ-in-Children
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/09/17/manganese-drinking-water-iq-children.html

Google News on Flouride:
http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=0z&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=fluoride&oq=fl
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2010-12-30T18:59:00.005-05:00

Dangerous Neurotoxins in Soy Products

By Ari LeVaux
Alternet

Food purists often fuss about the inadequacies of USDA's organic food standards, how pitifully watered down they are from the lofty principles that built the organic movement. They have a point.

After all, the USDA's National Organic Program was created to deal with the big agribusinesses determined to exploit the lucrative organic market. But for all the complaints about federal organic standards, the non-certified alternatives -- with some foods especially -- can be downright scary.

It's ironic that many of the scariest, non-certified organic foods are labeled "natural" -- a term that could not mean less, or mislead more. Like "home-style" or "old-fashioned," the label "natural" can mean whatever the labeler wants it to mean. You could put "natural" on a lab-grade jar of MSG crystals, or on a packet of 10-year-old Twinkies, without violating any law. And all too often it's the companies playing the "natural" card that are doing the most unnatural things to your food.

Consider the widespread use of hexane, a neurotoxin, in processed foods that aren't certified organic (those lame organic standards do at least prohibit hexane use). Hexane is a highly flammable EPA-listed air pollutant that is used in the manufacture of cleaning agents, glues, roof sealer, automobile tires, energy bars, veggie burgers, and soy, corn, and canola oils. If these food products are not certified organic, some of the ingredients have probably been processed with hexane, no matter how many times the word "natural" is stamped on the package. Since hexane is used in the manufacturing process, it's not listed as an ingredient in the foods it helps produce, though residues find their way into the finished product. The European Union has strict standards for acceptable hexane residue levels in soy and oilseed products, but in the U.S., there are no such limits.

The organic watchdog group Cornucopia Institute arranged for a lab to test samples of U.S. soy products for hexane content.

Hexane was found, in levels as high as 21 parts per million -- more than twice the 10 ppm allowed by the EU in comparable products.

Technology and Solvents for Extracting Oilseeds and Nonpetroleum Oils is a manual for managers and engineers. According to this book, published in 1997, the principle reason that hexane has been the solvent of choice for oilseed extraction since the 1930s is "its availability at a reasonable cost."

The reason hexane is so reasonably priced is that it's a byproduct of gasoline production that would otherwise be expensive to dispose of properly. Petroleum companies gain handsomely from the fact that industrial oilseed extraction -- under status quo production methods since the 1930s -- provides a profitable market for its toxic waste. Oilseed extraction is currently responsible for more than two thirds of hexane use nationwide. Not surprisingly, much of the research cited in the book is funded by the likes of Exxon and Phillips Petroleum.

A chapter devoted to "Toxicity Data for Commercial Hexane" appears to give serious consideration to concerns about hexane's impact on human health, while presenting no evidence that such concerns have been seriously investigated. The chapter explains that "commercial hexane," the type used to extract oilseeds, is a mix of petrochemicals. One of these, n-hexane, which composes more than 50 percent of commercial hexane, has been shown to be a neurotoxin.

The chapter acknowledges that humans are about four times as sensitive as rats to n-hexane, especially over prolonged exposures. Nonetheless, in the very next paragraph it's revealed that only one acute neurotoxicity study was considered. The study evaluated the ability of rats to retain a learned behavior immediately following inhalation of commercial hexane, and 1 and 2 days later. That's like conducting a carcinogen trial that only monitors the subjects for signs of cancer in the two days following exposure. The chapter concludes that "commercial hexane is a relatively safe chemical," despite the fact that it consists mostly of a known neurotoxin.

Hexane-extracted soy protein, a favorite of vegetarians and body builders, turns up in some unexpected places, according to the November Cornucopia Institute report on ways that soy proteins and chemical solvents intermingle in nutrition bars and meat alternatives.

Popular protein bars like Clif, Mojo, Balance, and Luna all contain hexane-processed soy, according to the report, as do Boca veggie burgers, Gardenburger products, Trader Joe's veggie burgers, and many more.

Because the supply chain of many soy-containing products is long and complex, companies have some wiggle room in how they respond to inquiries from concerned consumers. According to Cornucopia, companies that make soy-based food products have responded to inquiries about hexane with answers like "Our soy ingredients are not hexane-derived" and "[Our company] does not use hexane to process soybeans."

Both answers are worded to give the impression that the product did not come into contact with hexane. But in the first sentence, "hexane-derived" actually means "created from" hexane, rather than "treated with." And the latter claim leaves open the possibility that the company's supplier did the hexane-laced dirty work. I got a similar answer when I contacted Dean Foods, which owns White Wave, the company that makes Silk Soymilk: "Silk does not use hexane in the manufacturing of any of our products."

According to the Cornucopia Institute, Silk's non-organic "Light" and "Heart Health" soymilk products are made with soy flour instead of whole soybeans, and the "only known" sources for non-organic soy flour involve hexane. Of course, it's possible that White Wave has found a way to source its soy flour from hexane-free sources, which buys a measure of hope for Silk lovers who are concerned about hexane.

Soy products have been under fire from many directions for more than just the hexane issue. The heavily subsidized crop isn't easily digested without some form of processing, and there are concerns that estrogen-like molecules in soy can mess with the human hormonal system. That's why many consumers have switched from soy milk to other non-dairy milk substitutes, like almond milk.

Nonetheless, another soy product, soy lecithin, manages to make its way into most of these alternatives. And guess what? Unless the product is organic, that soy lecithin was probably processed with hexane.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/food/149357
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2010-12-13T22:02:00.000-05:00

Hazards: Mercury Prompts a New Call to Limit Tuna

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Consumers Union is urging pregnant women to avoid eating tuna altogether and advising small children to limit consumption after tests on dozens of cans and pouches of tuna found mercury in every sample. The tuna was bought in the New York metropolitan area and online.

“White” tuna generally contained more mercury than “light” tuna, but some light tuna contained enough that a woman of childbearing age eating less than a can a week would exceed federal recommendations for mercury consumption, the new Consumer Reports study says. The metal can affect fetal development.

The average amount of mercury found by Consumer Reports in white tuna samples was 0.427 parts per million, compared with the average 0.353 p.p.m. found in F.D.A. tests in 2002-04. The average in light tuna was 0.071 p.p.m., lower than the 0.118 p.p.m. found by the F.D.A.

Consumers Union urges women of childbearing age to be more careful about their tuna consumption than current F.D.A. guidelines advise, because mercury accumulates in the body over time.

Children who weigh less than 45 pounds should limit intake to 4 ounces of light or 1.5 ounces of white tuna a week, and heavier children no more than 12.5 ounces of light or 4 ounces of white tuna a week, Consumers Union says.

The National Fisheries Institute took issue with the report, saying the Consumer Reports recommendations were “reckless” and had “the potential to harm public health,” because fish contains omega-3 fatty acids, which may be beneficial during pregnancy.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/research/14hazards.html?ref=health
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2010-11-27T23:55:00.000-05:00

How Our Dependence on Cheap Meat Is Helping to Destroy the Fabric of the Country

By Dena Hoff, Other Words

Most Americans view cheap meat as a good thing, but they generally don't understand who pays the high cost of the policies making it inexpensive. More than 80 percent of the beef, pork and poultry consumed in this country comes from livestock fed and processed by only three meatpacking companies: JBS-Swift, Cargill and Tyson. Through deregulation and antitrust practices, these companies have been allowed to devour smaller companies that both feed and process meat.

The giant meatpackers often have contracts with owners of livestock feeding operations and therefore don't bid on the livestock they purchase to slaughter. Independent producers frequently aren't paid enough to pay for the cost of raising their livestock, so they're forced to sell or forfeit their farms and ranches.

Consequentially, local feed, seed, and farm machinery stores shut down because their customers can't pay their bills. Local restaurants, theaters, and furniture stores close when no one has spare funds. Ultimately, rural communities die when their local businesses fold and young people leave to find opportunities elsewhere.

Giant meatpackers and poultry companies hurt consumers, as well. Consumer choice has become more and more limited to meat from livestock raised on questionable feed sources and antibiotics in overcrowded conditions. Furthermore, cattle are slaughtered and processed in some facilities at the astounding rate of 1.5 million head per day.

That unsafe scale and speed increases the likelihood of workers being injured by intense rote activities and deadly implements, not to mention E. coli breakouts through insufficient attention to proper sanitation. This unsustainable system has spread from my home state of Montana and is exported around the world.

The seismic shift in Congress following the midterm elections will make or break the enactment of key regulations in the 2008 farm bill that could benefit both consumers and independent meat producers. At stake is whether the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be allowed to implement a rule that limits the influence giant meatpackers exert over our meat supply.

The 2008 farm bill required new rules to interpret the meaning of "undue or reasonable preference" in the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act. The USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) finally released the proposed rules in June.

These rules would help end meatpackers' discriminatory practices, such as paying higher prices for livestock from their preferred feeding operations than for livestock of comparable quality from independent producers. Furthermore, a producer harmed by a meatpacker's action (e.g., unfair pricing) wouldn't have to prove the action also harmed the entire industry before seeking protection under the Packers and Stockyards Act. This is the case under the current system.

Not surprisingly, the largest meatpackers are fighting the proposed rules in a big way. In August, they filled the room in the USDA-Department of Justice hearing on livestock concentration in Fort Collins, Colorado. Now they're flooding USDA and Congress with scores of opposing comments and issuing industry-funded studies claiming these rules will raise consumer prices.

The current system hurts family farms and ranches, rural communities, the environment, and farmworkers. It also endangers consumer health. In addition to those increasingly frequent E. coli outbreaks, feeding operations (a.k.a. factory farms) depend on antibiotics to keep animals alive in unhealthy conditions--increasing human resistance to life-saving drugs.

The USDA's effort to issue these new rules is the first opportunity in decades to rein in the meatpackers and make them play fairly. We have a unique opportunity right now to shift the power in this industry toward consumers and independent producers while setting the stage for fair farm and trade policies in the future.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/story/148966/
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2010-11-22T21:51:00.000-05:00

They Said They Would Push Me "Off a Cliff"

By Michael Moore

November 17th, 2010

Yesterday, on the TV and radio show "Democracy Now" hosted by Amy Goodman, the former Vice President of CIGNA, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies, revealed that CIGNA met with the other big health insurers to hatch a plan to "push" yours truly "off a cliff."

The interview contains new revelations about just how frightened the health industry was that "Sicko" might ignite a public wave of support for "socialized medicine." So the large health insurance companies came together over a common cause: Stop the American people from going to see "Sicko" -- and the way to do that was to cause some form of harm to me (either personally, professionally or...physically?).

Take a look at this stunning section of the interview with Wendell Potter:

WENDELL POTTER [former executive, CIGNA]: ...We were concerned that the movie ["Sicko"] would be as successful as "Fahrenheit 9/11" had been. And we knew that if it were, it really would change public opinion about our health care system in ways that would be harmful to the profits of health insurers. So, it was very important for this [attack] campaign to succeed. At one point during a strategy meeting, one of the people from [the insurance companies' public relations firm] APCO said that if our efforts, our initial efforts, were not successful, then we'd have to move to an element of the campaign to push Michael Moore off a cliff. And not meaning to do that literally, but to—

AMY GOODMAN: Are you sure?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, I'm not sure. To tell you the truth, when I started doing what I'm doing [as a whistleblower], I was concerned about my own health and well-being, maybe just from paranoia. But these companies play to win. And we're talking about some big bucks at stake here—billions and billions and billions of dollars.

AMY GOODMAN: So what were they talking about when they said, "If this doesn't work, we're going to push him off the cliff"?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, it would be just an incredibly intense PR effort, if necessary, to spend more premium dollars to defame Michael Moore, to discredit him even more as a filmmaker.

AMY GOODMAN: So, were you doing research on him?

WENDELL POTTER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You were going—personally?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, I was a part of the effort. I didn't—that was part of the reason for hiring APCO and to work with a trade association, is that it relieved me of the responsibility of doing that kind of work. You paid for it to be done by people who were experts in doing that kind of research.

AMY GOODMAN: But they were doing an investigation into him personally?

WENDELL POTTER: Well, absolutely. We knew as much about him probably as he knows about himself.

AMY GOODMAN: About his wife, about his kid, about—

WENDELL POTTER: Oh, yeah. You know, it's important to know everything that you might be able to use in some kind of a campaign against someone, to discredit them professionally and often personally.

AMY GOODMAN: And did you use that?

WENDELL POTTER: You use it if necessary.

The interview goes on as Potter reveals how his front group was able to get its talking points and smears into stories in the New York Times and CNN. It is a chilling look inside how easy it is to manipulate our mainstream media -- and just how worried the health insurance companies were that the American people might demand a true universal health care system.

In particular, Potter talks about how they may have succeeded in influencing CNN to run a factually untrue story about "Sicko" by its reporter, Sanjay Gupta (which led to my infamous encounter with Wolf Blitzer and later, an apology from CNN for getting their facts wrong).

Potter believes his work to defame "Sicko" succeeded, as the film didn't end up posting "Fahrenheit 9/11" grosses. To be clear, "Sicko" went on to become the 3rd largest grossing documentary of all time at that point. And as the release of "Sicko" in June of 2007 was the first time since the defeat of Hillary Clinton's healthcare bill in 1994 that the issue of health insurance was brought to the forefront of the national media, I believe it helped to reignite the issue during the 2008 election year by exposing millions of Americans to the truth about the health insurance industry. More than one person on Capitol Hill will admit that "Sicko" was a big help in rallying public support for the compromise bill that eventually passed earlier this year. But I agree, their smear campaign was effective and did create the dent they were hoping for -- single payer and the public option never even made it into the real discussion on the floor of Congress.

(There was really only one reason "Sicko" didn't sell as many tickets as "Fahrenheit" and that was because of a felony that was committed -- a felony that I will discuss for the first time on this site in the coming weeks or months ahead. Stay tuned.)

Please read or watch the entire interview with Wendell Potter. It's a fascinating peek behind the curtain of how corporate America really runs this country. And how if any of us get in their way, then those people must be stopped. It begs the question: Seeing how there's more of us than there are of them, how long will we let their takeover of our democracy continue?

God Bless the Ruling Class,
Michael Moore

P.S. Over the next few days I will continue this examination of the Wendell Potter revelations on "Democracy Now" and in his new book. Please check in here on MichaelMoore.com.

Source:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/they-said-they-would
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2010-11-18T22:20:00.000-05:00

Hightower: How Wal-Mart, Google and Other Corporate Giants Are Trying to Trick Progressive Consumers

Large corporations are trying to put on a progressive face. Don't be fooled.

The signature phrase of America's booming good food movement has been expanded from "organic" to "local and sustainable."

Good! The phrase suggests great quality, strong environmental stewardship and a commitment to keeping our food dollars in the local economy. If you support the local-economies movement, as I do, no doubt you'll be thrilled to hear that a new, local food store is coming soon to your neighborhood. In fact, it's even named Neighborhood Market.

Only, it's not. It's a Wal-Mart. Yes, the $400-billion-a-year retail behemoth, with 2 million employees laboring in 8,500 stores spread around the globe, now is putting on a "local" mask. The giant is promising to buy 9 percent of the produce it'll sell from local farmers. Big whoopie. This means that 91 percent of the foodstuffs offered in its "Neighborhood" chain will come from Wayawayland. Wal-Mart is to local what near beer is to beer. Near beer is not beer ... and Wal-Mart is not local.

But even the 9 percent number is a deceit, for Wal-Mart says that it defines "local" as grown in the same state. Excuse me, but in California, Florida, Texas and other such sizable states, that can be a mighty long truck-haul away. Not exactly what us locals would call "local."

As for being sustainable, Wal-Mart is bragging about a billion-dollar investment it'll make to shrink its environmental footprint a bit. That's a nice gesture, but come on, this outfit has humongous feet that bestride the whole world, and even a billion bucks won't shrink that footprint. Also, it's made no commitment to organic production, nor did it rule out peddling genetically engineered Frankenfoods as part of its "sustainability" gimmick.

Who does Wal-Mart think it's fooling? It's not coming to our neighborhoods to be local and sustainable, but to drive out our homegrown enterprises and extract profits from our own communities.

Flimflamming seems to be the favorite corporate sport these days, even by outfits that pose as ethical paragons. For instance, if you Google Google, you might learn that this Internet powerhouse once proudly promised to do no evil.

In CorporateWorld, however, ethics are often discarded like an old suit that no longer fits. Thus, this $24-billion-a-year, do-no-evil corporation is now a voracious tax-dodger.

A Bloomberg News reporter reveals that Google transfers a big chunk of its annual profits to a subsidiary in Ireland. Then, prior to tax time, Google funnels these profits into a shell corporation in the Netherlands, from which they are bounced into yet another shell corporation in Bermuda. It's not natural beauty that draws Google to the islands, but the fact that Bermuda assesses no taxes on corporate profits. Bottom line: Google escapes paying a billion dollars a year that it ethically owes in U.S. taxes.

Meanwhile, such computer powers as Cisco and Oracle are lobbying furiously to reprise a tax flimflam that multinational corporations pulled on us during the George W. Bush regime. They were allowed to pay a mere 5 percent tax rate on profits they had stashed abroad -- in exchange for pledging to invest this money in American factories and jobs. They got their tax break, then reneged on their job-creation promise, with many corporations actually grabbing the giveaway while firing employees.

Now, they're demanding another tax holiday in return for bringing home a trillion dollars in profits they've squirreled away in foreign tax havens. Amazingly, like rubes at a medicine show, Republicans in Congress are swallowing this same old snake oil, pushing legislation to let super-rich corporations do it to us again.

Before GOP leaders give in, they should recall the words of George W., the guy who enabled the first scam. "Fool me once, shame on -- shame on you," he said.

"Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Of course, it's us taxpayers who'll get shafted by this corporate tomfoolery.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/food/148893/hightower%3A_how_wal-mart%2C_google_and_other_corporate_giants_are_trying_to_trick_progressive_consumers/

2010-11-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

Chemicals in Fast Food Wrappers Show Up in Human Blood

by Environment News Service

Chemicals used to keep grease from leaking through fast food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags are migrating into food, being ingested by people and showing up as contaminants in blood, according to new research at the University of Toronto.

The contaminants are perfluoroalkyls, stable, synthetic chemicals that repel oil, grease, and water. They are used in surface protection products such as carpet and clothing treatments and coating for paper and cardboard packaging. Earlier research by University of Toronto environmental chemists Scott Mabury and Jessica D'eon, established in 2007 that the wrappers are a source of these chemicals in human blood. Their new study shows that perfluorinated chemicals can migrate from wrappers into food.

The specific chemicals studied are polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters, or PAPs, breakdown products of the perfluorinated carboxylic acids, or PFCAs, which are used in coating the food wrappers.

"We suspected that a major source of human PFCA exposure may be the consumption and metabolism of polyfluoroalkyl phosphate esters, or PAPs," said D'eon, a graduate student in the University of Toronto's Department of Chemistry.

"PAPs are applied as greaseproofing agents to paper food contact packaging such as fast food wrappers and microwave popcorn bags," she explained.

In their latest study, D'eon and Mabury exposed rats to PAPs either orally or by injection and monitored for a three-week period to track the concentrations of the PAPs and PFCA metabolites in their blood.

The researchers used the PAP concentrations previously observed in human blood together with the PAP and PFCA concentrations observed in the rats to calculate human exposure to the chemical perflurooctanoic acid, PFOA.

"In this study we clearly demonstrate that the current use of PAPs in food contact applications does result in human exposure to PFCAs, including PFOA," said Mabury, the lead researcher and a professor in the university's Department of Chemistry.
Elevated levels of PFOA in blood have been associated with changes in sex hormones and cholesterol, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances. Exposure to PFOA also has resulted in early death and delayed development in mice and rat pups, the agency says.

Rats that ingested PFOA for a long time developed tumors. However, based on differences between rats and humans, scientists have not determined for certain whether this could also occur in humans, the agency says.

"We found the concentrations of PFOA from PAP metabolism to be significant and concluded that the metabolism of PAPs could be a major source of human exposure to PFOA, as well as other PFCAs," said Mabury.

"This discovery is important because we would like to control human chemical exposure, but this is only possible if we understand the source of this exposure," Mabury said.

"In addition," he said, "some try to locate the blame for human exposure on environmental contamination that resulted from past chemical use rather than the chemicals that are currently in production."

The study is published today in the journal "Environmental Health Perspectives," published by the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

"We cannot tell whether PAPs are the sole source of human PFOA exposure or even the most important, but we can say unequivocally that PAPs are a source and the evidence from this study suggests this could be significant," Mabury said.

The researchers concluded that due to the long time that PFOA remains in human blood, even low-level PAP exposure could, over time, result in significant exposure to PFOA.

Although humans are exposed directly to PFCAs in food and dust, the University of Toronto researchers said that because of the way the human body processes these chemicals, "PAP exposure should be considered as a significant indirect source of human PFCA contamination."

Regulatory interest in human exposure to PAPs has been growing. Governments in Canada, the United States and Europe have signaled their intentions to begin extensive and longer-term monitoring programs for these chemicals.

Regulators have made three assumptions, said Mabury, releasing the results of his 2007 study. "That the chemicals wouldn't move off paper into food, they wouldn't become available to the body and the body wouldn't process them. They were wrong on all three counts."

Source:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/09-0
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2010-11-06T10:32:00.000-04:00

Is the Gulf of Mexico safe?

Experts, fishermen and residents disagree with federal agencies' claims that the Gulf and its seafood are safe.

by Dahr Jamail
Al Jazeera
Nov. 5, 2010

Gulf Coast residents, fishermen, seafood distributors, and scientists believe that living on the coast and eating seafood from the Gulf has become hazardous to their health.

In response to their oil disaster last summer that released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic Corexit dispersants (which have been banned in 19 countries) to sink the oil. The dispersants contain chemicals that many scientists and toxicologists have warned are dangerous to humans, marine life, and wildlife.

Earlier this year on May 20, the EPA told BP it had 24 hours to find a less toxic alternative, but the EPA's request was ignored. Then on May 25, BP was given a directive by the EPA to scale back their spraying of the Gulf of Mexico with dispersants. The Coast Guard overlooked the EPA's directive and provided BP with 74 exemptions in 48 days to use the dispersants.

A March 1987 report titled Organic Solvent Neurotoxicity, by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), states: "The acute neurotoxic effects of organic solvent exposure in workers and laboratory animals are narcosisanaesthesiaia, central nervous system (CNS) depression, respiratory arrest, unconsciousness, and death."

Several chemicals and chemical compounds listed in the NIOSH report, such as styrene, toluene, and xylene, are now present in the Gulf of Mexico as the result of BP’s dispersants mixing with BP's crude oil.

Government testing repudiated

On October 29 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced in a press release, new chemical testing for BP's dispersants.

Prior to the federal government's announcement, a "rigorous sensory analysis" (a sniff test), was the only measure in place to test seafood samples for dispersant contamination. According to the press release, the new testing measure checks for the level of dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (known as DOSS), a major component of the dispersants.

Surprisingly, the press release admits to dispersant chemicals being present in some of their seafood samples: "Using this new, second test, in the Gulf scientists have tested 1,735 tissue samples ... Only a few showed trace amounts of dispersants residue (13 of the 1,735) and they were well below the safety threshold of 100 parts per million [ppm] for finfish and 500 parts per million for shrimp, crabs and oysters."

"This test adds another layer of information, reinforcing our findings to date that seafood from the Gulf remains safe," Jane Lubchenco, undersecretary for commerce and NOAA administrator, said of the test.

However the press release does not specify which type of analytical testing was carried out on what types of seafood, nor what the "trace amounts of dispersants" were. Al Jazeera's requests last week for this information from both NOAA and the FDA have not been answered.

Hugh Kaufman is a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) office of solid waste and emergency response. Kaufman, a leading critic of the US government's decision to use Corexit, told Al Jazeera this about the press release: "They say it perfectly clear: the purpose of the test they developed is to make the public confident, not whether the seafood was safe or not."

"They selected the one compound that doesn’t bio-accumulate, as opposed to testing for the toxic ingredients that have a low safety threshold and do build up in tissue. They are not looking for those."

Kaufman, who has been the EPA's chief investigator on several contamination cases, including Love Canal and Times Beach, said: "They want to be able to tell the public the seafood is safe. But if you are going to test seafood to see if it’s safe or not, you want to test for the ingredients of Corexit that have a low safety threshold and do bio-accumulate in tissue."

"However, if you want the public to think everything is fine, then you do what they said in their press release they are doing, which is to look for an ingredient with a high safety threshold that doesn’t build up in tissue."

"They told you they are doing a cover up, how they are doing the cover up, and notwithstanding that, they still have some positive results for chemicals."

Inaccurate safety levels

Chemist Bob Naman with the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been testing samples from across the Gulf for oil and dispersant also takes issue with these recent government statements.

"500 ppm is an incredible amount," Naman explained to Al Jazeera, "I don't know what moron set that level, but 500 ppm is an extreme amount. It is probably 100 times too high. A reasonably insignificant number would be five parts per billion [ppb], not something being tracked in ppm."

Naman gave an example of a government standard that seemingly undermines information in the recent press release.

"The amount of chemicals the EPA allows in storm water draining from a site containing salvaged cars into a body of water is 15 ppm," he said.

"If the EPA won’t allow more than 15 ppm of that, why in the hell would they consider a number that is 33 times higher than that as acceptable for something you are going to put in your body? Their people that are setting that kind of number apparently don't have a clue what that number even means. The threshold limits they are setting are extremely absurd to a chemist like me. I'm appalled they would use such high numbers for their thresholds."

Naman also expressed concern over the fact that from his understanding neither the FDA nor NOAA are testing for propylene glycol and 2-butoxyethanol, the two marker chemicals for BP’s dispersants.

"Since they are testing in ppm, these two marker compounds are not being picked up," Naman said.

"They are not using low enough detection limits. They need to be looking for parts per billion, not parts per million. It's a world of difference."

The EPA's website states that, "EPA believes dispersants should only be used sparingly and when absolutely necessary," yet conversely stated that while BP’s well was gushing oil, "[dispersants] appeared to be having a positive effect on the oil at the source of the leak and thus far has had no significant ecological impact".

Al Jazeera requested information from the EPA's Region 6 Public Information Centre about their ongoing testing of the water and air for chemicals associated with the oil disaster, also asking for information the EPA has that is related to illnesses caused by the oil disaster.

Last week we were told by Joe Hubbard in EPA's office of external affairs that this information would be provided, but Al Jazeera has yet to receive this information.

Kaufman believes one of the main problems with federal response to the oil disaster is that, "BP called most of the shots, and that was the problem, and clearly from this press release, looks like they still are. The more the public thinks everything is back to normal, the less people who were harmed by the mess will be reimbursed. Follow the money".

Seafood concerns

Fisherman from Louisiana and Florida have voiced their concerns to Al Jazeera about the safety of seafood they are catching.

Karen Hopkins, who works for the seafood distributor Dean Blanchard Seafood, in Grand Isle, Louisiana, told Al Jazeera: "I will never again eat any seafood that comes from the Gulf of Mexico."

Clifford Troxler, also from Louisiana, worked in the seafood distribution business for 25 years, and told Al Jazeera: "You couldn’t force feed me a shrimp from the Gulf."

Hopkins is also concerned about what she sees as an attempt by the federal government to shift responsibility of seafood safety "away from BP and the feds and placing it square on the shoulders of fishermen and distributors".

Hopkins provided Al Jazeera with a letter from Best Sea-Pak, a seafood distributor Dean Blanchard Seafood works with, that says: "Due to the recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and customers concerns of oil tainted seafood, we must implement measures to prevent oil tainted seafood from entering the food supply."

"A new mandatory requirement by the United States Food and Drug Administration is to ensure no fish (seafood) may be harvested from an area that is covered by a Local, State, or Federal closure or for which there is additional information that indicates potential hazards related to an oil spill."

"Our lawyers looked this over and told us it is basically an attempt to make us and the fishermen take full responsibility for the seafood, even though it has been BP and the feds that have pushed to open up all the previously closed waters for fishing," Hopkins said.

"That means that we’ll be the ones who get sued if somebody gets sick from contaminated seafood, instead of BP or the feds, who are the ultimately the responsible parties for all of this in the first place."

Ongoing sickness

Al Jazeera is finding a growing number of people along the Gulf Coast who are exhibiting symptoms they attribute to chemical poisoning and exposure to BP's oil and dispersants.

Susan Price is a small business owner who lives in Chauvin, Louisiana. While volunteering for a community outreach program in Grand Isle, Louisiana in late August, Price became ill.

"When I drove over the bridge to Grand Isle, I felt heavy exposure to chemicals," Price told Al Jazeera. "My nose instantly clogged, I began to cough, my throat hurt, my voice became instantly hoarse, and my tongue felt and tasted like I'd licked a battery."

A return trip to the island a short while later brought her symptoms back, so Price saw a doctor.

"I was diagnosed with pneuminitis, which is an inflammation of the lungs that the doctor told me is caused by inhalation of chemicals," Price said. "He gave me an inhaler and pumped me up with antibiotics, but I’m still sick."

Furthermore, Price said that while she was engaged in her community outreach work on Grand Isle, "every person I was dealing with was sick and had the same symptoms I did. Those people that are living there, heaven help them".

Donny Matsler, a commercial fisherman from Dauphin Island, Alabama, has been suffering acute symptoms for months that have led him to several emergency room visits, time in intensive care, and finally to detoxification treatment with Dr William Rea in Dallas, Texas, at the Environmental Health Center.

The centre tests and treats human health problems related to chemical exposure, among other environment related ailments.

"Dr Rea told me I am Corexit-drunk," Matsler told Al Jazeera, "My wife is the same, and everybody in Dauphin Island is sick from this stuff."

Source:
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/11/201011465847225269.html
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2010-10-19T23:05:00.000-04:00

Lawsuits Say Pharma Illegally Paid Doctors to Push Their Drugs

by Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber
ProPublica
Oct. 18, 2010

Drug companies say the millions of dollars they pay physicians for speaking and consulting justly compensates them for the laudable work of educating their colleagues.

But a series of lawsuits brought by former employees of those companies allege the money often was used for illegal purposes — financially rewarding doctors for prescribing their brand-name medications.

In several instances, the ex-employees say, the physicians were told to push “off-label” uses of the drugs — those not approved by the U.S. regulators — a marketing tactic banned by federal law.

In the past three years alone, pharmaceutical companies have anteed up nearly $7 billion for settlements in cases such as one filed by Angela Maher, a former drug sales rep for Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical.

Maher sued the company in Massachusetts federal court in 2003, alleging it pushed an anti-seizure drug for 27 off-label uses. She said company officials rigorously tracked whether their payments to physicians were worthwhile.

Maher said she would regularly hear commentary from her boss after a physician spoke at a dinner program: “‘After he talked last week, our sales went up 8 percent’ or ‘I listened to doc ABC and he barely mentioned’” the drug.

The company settled for $81 million earlier this year and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misbranding a drug; Maher was awarded $3 million.

Allegations in other whistleblower lawsuits provide a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the drug marketers:

-- Allergan, the maker of Botox, created faux advisory boards solely “to reward hundreds of its top injectors,” federal prosecutors charged this month. More than 200 doctors, for example, were put up at an oceanfront resort in Newport Beach, Calif., in 2005 and 2006 and paid $1,500 to listen to presentations, according to their sentencing memorandum.

Allergan settled with the government for $600 million last month and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for misbranding Botox. Allergan said in a statement that it is “committed to conducting its business with the highest ethical standards and in compliance with all applicable laws.”

-- Forest Laboratories created “preceptorship” programs in which physicians were paid up to $1,000 each to allow a sales rep to spend time observing their practice. “In reality, Forest sales representatives used the preceptorships to induce physicians to prescribe [anti-depressants] Celexa and Lexapro,” according to a 2009 complaint filed by federal attorneys in Massachusetts.

The reps filled out “return on investment” forms to justify the payments from 1999 until 2003. One rep noted that a psychiatrist’s prescription “numbers were trending up,” and “we need to keep a good thing going as long as we are still getting this kind of growth,” the complaint said.

A Forest subsidiary pleaded guilty to one felony and two misdemeanors and the company paid $313 million in criminal and civil fines. In a statement, Forest’s CEO said the firm had improved its “compliance program since the events at issue in this investigation, which occurred a number of years ago.”

-- In a 2005 lawsuit pending in Pennsylvania , Wyeth Pharmaceuticals is accused of hiring speakers until 2003 based on how often they prescribed the kidney transplant rejection drug Rapamune. “Wyeth management was able to exclude speakers who did not promote Rapamune, and reward those who did so with repeated speaking engagements and resulting honoraria,” according to an amended complaint filed this year by two former sales reps.

Speakers who were “unfavorable or even unenthusiastic” about Rapamune were counseled by drug reps on the “ways in which the speaker might treat Rapamune more favorably,” the complaint said.

The federal government has taken over the lawsuit, which is pending in federal court in Pennsylvania. Pfizer, which owns Wyeth, said in a statement last month that the company is “committed to ensuring that information provided to physicians on the uses, benefits and risks for Rapamune is consistent with its FDA-approved label.”

Last year, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion to settle allegations in other cases that it had illegally promoted its drugs.

-- Cephalon was accused of rewarding even poor speakers if they heavily prescribed its narcotic lollipop Actiq and other drugs, according an amended complaint filed in 2008 by a former sales manager. Physicians were paid to attend speaker training even though the company never intended them to speak. Some were paid even when no one showed up to hear them, said the complaint filed in federal court In Pennsylvania.

“Even good public speakers have been dropped by Cephalon,” the lawsuit said, “if experience later showed that they did not themselves write substantial off-label prescriptions.”

Cephalon pleaded guilt in 2008 to a misdemeanor count of selling misbranded drugs and paid $425 million in penalties. In a statement, an official said the company had put a “strong compliance infrastructure” in place that has “improved the accountability of our employees and the transparency of our actions.”

One company continued to pay doctors to discuss its products even after it settled a lawsuit that singled out those speakers for alleged misconduct.

The case, filed against AstraZeneca, detailed how California psychiatrist Rimal Bera discussed the antipsychotic Seroquel for “conduct disorders” in children even though it was not approved for that use.
AstraZeneca settled with the government for $520 million in April, and like the other firms, signed a corporate integrity agreement promising to follow federal rules.

AstraZeneca paid Bera at least $10,530 for speaking this year, company data show. It paid another doctor named in the case nearly $42,000. A company official would not discuss Bera but said speakers are terminated if they violate company standards. In an interview, Bera said he has become more conscious of when it is permissible to discuss off-label uses.

“We have done a better job certainly as speakers — and I think the industry really has hammered this home,” he said.

Source:
http://www.propublica.org/article/lawsuits-say-pharma-illegally-paid-doctors-to-push-their-drugs
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2010-10-09T19:21:00.000-04:00

Is Gulf Seafood Really Safe to Eat?
Government Withholding Key Data on Seafood Testing, Scientists Say

By Brad Jacobson, Raw Story

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and FDA officials maintain they've provided results of ongoing Gulf seafood safety tests with the utmost transparency. But outside scientists, eager to perform independent evaluations of the government's findings, complain the information released contains far too many unknown variables that preclude peer review.

In recent interviews, FDA and NOAA officials told Raw Story that they've been completely transparent in sharing ongoing Gulf seafood testing data, protocol and methodologies.

Whenever we reopened [waters], we'd post the data that we used and the FDA certified it as good enough to reopen," said NOAA spokeswoman Christine Patrick. "So that's all publicly available and it has been since we started reopening."

"There's nothing we are withholding," echoed FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott.

Yet in wide-ranging interviews with Raw Story, multiple independent scientists involved in studying the effects of the Gulf oil spill not only revealed that government claims of sufficient transparency are wholly misleading, but they also provided several key examples of how withholding this information precludes independent evaluation and opens a raft of critical unanswered questions.

Raw Story's investigation also found that federal officials continue to publicly claim (as they as did as well in our interviews) that Gulf states follow the agreed-upon protocol set by NOAA and FDA for the reopening of previously closed waters.

But scientists in close discussions with these agencies informed Raw Story that the Gulf states are actually making their decisions for reopening waters on a case-by-case basis with no consistent set criteria -- making the basis for state reopenings of previously closed waters an even greater unknown for independent scientists.

Released data insufficient for independent evaluation
"We're a little worried that these samples so far may not be as thorough as they might need to be and there could be areas that are missed," said Gina Solomon, a doctor and public health expert in the department of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.

"That's the fundamental concern," added Solomon, a co-author of the recent peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study on Gulf seafood safety.

Timothy Fitzgerald, a marine scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund who testified last week to the National Oil Spill Commission, said, "Given the work that we do and the level of resolution we usually rely on, if they're going to provide technical detail I would very much like them to actually provide it in as raw a form as possible."

"What they've done in a lot of instances is [provide] kind of first or second order binning or summarizing or distilling, which makes a lot of the data unusable or unavailable," Fitzgerald continued.

"It's not that it doesn't exist," he said. "It's just that it hasn't been provided in a way that scientists could really make a lot of use out of it."

Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and a contributor to the JAMA study, said there is no clear description of the scientific method being applied to determine how they select the locations to sample, how many samples they take, or how they are sampling to ensure that the areas they are reopening are free of oil.

"All of this remains information that we have asked various different agencies for, and this includes NOAA and the FDA, and they have not provided it," Ellman said. "It's not part of the materials that are on their website and it remains this very big blank to the transparency of how these safety considerations are being made."

Solomon and Ellman said NOAA officials have described a more specific sampling plan for federal waters by phone but have not provided them with a copy despite repeated requests.

"So the question is, why?" Solomon said. "It seems strange that it hasn't been made available for peer review."

Solomon, Ellman and other scientists interviewed by Raw Story noted that while there is much information lacking from the sampling plans and data released for the reopening of federal waters, even less is known about the determinations behind the reopening of state waters.

For every reopening of federal waters for commercial and recreational fishing, NOAA and FDA follow an agreed-upon protocol for the testing of seafood and water samples.

The Gulf states, which must submit a proposal to the FDA for any waters reopened, follow no consistent protocol for the reopening of state waters, Raw Story has found.

Federal officials publicly claim that Gulf states also follow "the same" agreed-upon protocol set by NOAA and FDA. Before reopening any previously closed state waters, Gulf state officials must submit a sampling plan for certification to the FDA.

But according to Solomon and Ellman, who have had several discussions with federal agencies regarding state reopenings, each individual Gulf state makes its decision for reopening waters on a case-by-case basis, with no uniform criteria or protocol.

They asserted to Raw Story that when they requested a specific sampling plan for the reopening of state waters, a senior FDA official, Donald Kraemer, was "really quite clear" that none existed.

Solomon said Kraemer told them "that there are no criteria, that there is no sampling plan, that there is no clear protocol, that there is no minimum number of samples required, that there's no specific buffer zone between oil contaminated areas and reopened areas that the agency's requiring."

Solomon lamented, "All of that was surprising and somewhat disturbing."

When Raw Story emailed Kraemer directly and requested that he respond to these statements attributed to him, he wrote back, "Sorry…you need to come in through the press office."

Yet after forwarding our request to his direct press office liaison, Michael Herndon, Raw Story did not receive a response.

Gaping holes in data may impact integrity of testing
FDA and NOAA officials repeatedly assured Raw Story that they've taken a "conservative" approach to testing Gulf seafood.

At the close of an elaborate presentation to Raw Story on seafood safety procedures, NOAA toxicologist John Stein averred, "We're confident that we have a well-designed seafood safety program and comprehensive testing."

But independent scientists not only said there's no way to confirm this, but also provided specific examples of what's missing from the data and how it can impact the integrity of the test results.

Ellman, staff scientist at the NDRC, noted that there's no information to conclude that there is adequate testing of the water below the surface for the presence of oil before areas are reopened.

"We know that dispersants made the oil move from the surface, so it's less likely to be a surface slick and much more likely to be below the surface, a sub-surface plume," she pointed out.

Carys Mitchelmore, an aquatic toxicologist and associate professor at the University of Maryland, agreed.
"Most of this oil is below the surface. So I would be more concerned with the stuff you don't see," Mitchelmore said.

Indeed, Raw Story confirmed that the language in the protocol is vague regarding the testing of waters for the presence of oil before reopening waters to commercial and recreational fishing. Under "Specific Re-opening Criteria" in the protocol, it states:
"Evaluation of oil movement -- Confirmation that the closure area is free of sheen on the surface by visual observation and/or aerial reconnaissance, or the presence of oil in the water column through visual observation or water testing."

Chris Pincetich, a toxicologist and marine biologist at the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, criticized the "very ambiguous" nature of this passage.

"That doesn't define anything. It doesn't give you any detection limits," Pincetich said with a note of exasperation.

He continued, "In one case, they may say, ‘My satellite shows a cloud. Oh, what about aerial? Well, no one saw anything. What about water sample? We didn't get a water sample either.' Well, they may be able to say, ‘Well, our aerial survey didn't see any oil. Let's reopen it.' That's really ambiguous."
Specificity on buffer zones -- areas between closed oiled waters and waters open for commercial and recreational fishing -- is also conspicuously absent from the protocol and is a point of contention for outside scientists.

The only mention of buffer zones in the protocol states:
"Fishery closure areas also include areas that NOAA projects will have surface oil and a precautionary buffer zone around known contaminated waters to account for uncertainty."

When Raw Story pointed out to the FDA that there's insufficient information for other scientists to ascertain how buffer zones are being determined, the response was less than forthcoming.

"Are they proposing something different that they think would be a better [method]?" agency spokeswoman Scott replied.

After Raw Story reiterated that outside scientists are merely trying to pinpoint how such determinations are being made, Scott said, "By hundreds and hundreds of scientists."

Raw Story then noted that while it may be based on findings by "hundreds and hundreds of scientists," independent scientists are saying that these kinds of determinations are not clear enough in the materials being released online.

"Uh, sure," Scott said. "If that's what they're saying, I agree that's what they're saying."

Additionally, scientists pointed out that knowing what the contaminant levels of the fish and shellfish in the closed areas are would help them assess how safe it is to fish outside the buffer zones.

But to date, no information has been released on contaminant levels of marine life within closed areas.
"I would like to see the data from a polluted site, from a closed site," Mitchelmore said. "Just for me as a scientist, I would like to see the flip side. I'd like to see what these organisms look like when they've taken them from a closed area."

Raw Story found a related passage in the protocol that alarmed scientists.

"After confirming through subsequent evaluation that oil did not enter an area," it states, "the area may be re-opened without subjecting seafood samples to evaluation under this protocol. This protocol is an added layer of protection being applied to seafood only in areas known to have been contaminated."

That seafood may be deemed uncontaminated based solely on water sampling, scientists said, does not adequately take into account the movement of both oil and marine life.

"There's a defined spatial and temporal context here -- oil moves," explained Mitchelmore. "With these undersea [oil] plumes, you're not going to see sheens on the surface. Sediment resuspends. Organisms move from one area to another."

"So how representative is each sample in a huge big area on a temporal and a spatial scale?" she continued. "What if there's something in the sediment or a plume you're not seeing? Waters are not well mixed."

Bottom-feeders such as shrimp, which also migrate daily from the seabed to the surface, are at an even greater risk for undetected contamination in waters where seafood is not being tested, scientists said.

"The ecology of shrimp is that they stay on the bottom all day long and at night they come up and that's when they fish for them," said Pincetich. "So any oil in the sediment, any oil in the bottom of the ocean, is interacting with the shrimp on a daily basis."

"So now we're talking about long-term chronic exposure of these shrimp to the oil," he added. "And that's a concern, that's really a concern for public safety."

Many scientists also expressed frustration over the lack of clarity in the released sensory and chemical analyses of the seafood, which they say may be inflating both the quality and quantity of the testing.

Scientists explained that while the data might show that ten different fish have been tested, those ten fish are often ground up into one sample. Then one test would be run on that sample.

So ten fish may have been tested but only in one sample, which, in some cases, scientists said, could inflate the number of seafood tested.

"The takeaway number from that is one and not ten," said Fitzgerald of the Environmental Defense Fund. "But that's why you may see numbers like 40,000 fish have been tested. Well, not really -- 40,000 fish may have been collected."

Mitchelmore pointed out that government scientists utilize such sample sizes in analyses to reduce variability, because even within the same species tested there's a great deal of individual variability -- from size, age and sex to "whether one of them just fed on a big plump oil-laden oyster."

She said this methodology would be sound but only if they're repeating such analyses of the same species multiple times in a given area before and after waters are reopened, thus increasing their sample sizes to make up for dilution.

"If you think of the scenario where you've got nine little things that haven't accumulated [contaminants] but one big one that has accumulated a lot, then that one gets diluted out by those other nine," Mitchelmore explained. "So your levels appear lower."

"Increased sample sizes is key," she added.

But based on the data released, it's not clear this is occurring.

Fitzgerald also noted that the numbers are "not nearly as convincing" when you start to get into a finer level of details.

When he analyzed how many sensory tests (or "sniff tests") versus chemical tests have been performed, he found that the number of samples actually sent to a lab to be chemically analyzed is far lower.

"If you count up every single animal that was collected to be tested either by the sniff or the chemical, it's probably in the tens of thousands," Fitzgerald said. "But then if you actually look at how many tests they've done, whether it's sniff or chemical, it's much lower than that."

Catastrophic spill and sluggish response demand greater transparency
Every researcher interviewed by Raw Story -- from marine biologists and toxicologists to public health experts and oceanographers -- agreed that the massive size of the spill, the unprecedented use of dispersants and early ineptitude in responding to the disaster puts the onus on federal and state officials to maximize the transparency of their seafood safety testing.

"Part of food security is the sort of peace of mind that people have about eating it," said Ian MacDonald, an oceanography professor at Florida State University and an expert in measuring oil spills. "People are deeply anxious about the security of all aspects of the Gulf following this spill -- whether it's seafood safety or the dispersants or food chain effects and all that. That's the legacy of this."

Testifying before the National Oil Spill Commission last week, MacDonald said that, contrary to Obama administration claims that the majority of oil is "gone," he estimates that over fifty percent of the oil remains in the Gulf in "a highly durable material that resists further dissipation," with much of it "now buried in marine and coastal sediments."

"Everybody's credibility has been damaged by all this," MacDonald continued in his interview with Raw Story. "Many changes of course that NOAA took. The great concern about EPA and the licensing of dispersant use. The fact of the way it was handled has undermined public confidence."

"So I think it overwhelms the sort of standard approach towards reassuring the public in terms of food safety," he added.

Pincetich, the marine biologist and toxicologist from the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, cautioned, "They really need to throw out their old rulebook. This is a massive, toxic situation with millions of peoples' health at risk."

"And if they're not using the best technology in the most transparent, comprehensive ways," he continued, "then they're really falling short of being public servants and protecting our health and well being with their decisions."

"They have a long, long way to go to restore public trust," MacDonald said.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/story/148433/
________________

2010-10-05T21:08:00.000-04:00

This Supermarket "Health Food" Killed These Baby Rats in Three Weeks

By Jeffrey Smith
Mercola.com
October 4, 2010

Arpad Pusztai

Biologist Arpad Pusztai had more than 300 articles and 12 books to his credit and was the world’s top expert in his field.

But when he accidentally discovered that genetically modified (GM) foods are dangerous, he became the biotech industry’s bad-boy poster child, setting an example for other scientists thinking about blowing the whistle.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Pusztai was awarded a $3 million grant by the UK government to design the system for safety testing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). His team included more than 20 scientists working at three facilities, including the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, the top nutritional research lab in the UK, and his employer for the previous 35 years.

The results of Pusztai’s work were supposed to become the required testing protocols for all of Europe. But when he fed supposedly harmless GM potatoes to rats, things didn’t go as planned.

Within just 10 days, the animals developed potentially pre-cancerous cell growth, smaller brains, livers, and testicles, partially atrophied livers, and damaged immune systems. Moreover, the cause was almost certainly side effects from the process of genetic engineering itself. In other words, the GM foods on the market, which are created from the same process, might have similar affects on humans.

With permission from his director, Pusztai was interviewed on TV and expressed his concerns about GM foods. He became a hero at his institute -- for two days.

Then came the phone calls from the pro-GMO prime minister’s office to the institute’s director. The next morning, Pusztai was fired. He was silenced with threats of a lawsuit, his team was dismantled, and the protocols never implemented. His Institute, the biotech industry, and the UK government, together launched a smear campaign to destroy Pusztai’s reputation.

Eventually, an invitation to speak before Parliament lifted his gag order and his research was published in the prestigious Lancet. No similar in-depth studies have yet tested the GM foods eaten every day by Americans.

Irina Ermakova

Irina Ermakova, a senior scientist at the Russian National Academy of Sciences, was shocked to discover that more than half of the baby rats in her experiment died within three weeks. She had fed the mothers GM soy flour purchased at a supermarket. The babies from mothers fed natural non-GMO soy, however, only suffered a 10% death rate. She repeated her experiment three times with similar results.

Dr. Ermakova reported her preliminary findings at a conference in October 2005, asking the scientific community to replicate her study. Instead, she was attacked and vilified. Her boss told her to stop doing anymore GM food research. Samples were stolen from her lab, and a paper was even set fire on her desk.

One of her colleagues tried to comfort her by saying, “Maybe the GM soy will solve the overpopulation problem.”

Of the mostly spurious criticisms leveled at Ermakova, one was significant enough to raise doubts about the cause of the deaths. She did not conduct a biochemical analysis of the feed. Without it, we don’t know if some rogue toxin had contaminated the soy flour. But more recent events suggest that whatever caused the high infant mortality was not unique to her one bag of GM flour.

In November 2005, the supplier of rat food to the laboratory where Ermakova worked began using GM soy in the formulation. All the rats were now eating it. After two months, Ermakova asked other scientists about the infant mortality rate in their experiments. It had skyrocketed to over 55 percent.

It’s been four years since these findings were reported. No one has yet repeated Ermakova’s study, even though it would cost just a few thousand dollars.

Andrés Carrasco

Embryologist Andrés Carrasco told a leading Buenos Aires newspaper about the results of his research into Roundup, the herbicide sold in conjunction with Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready crops.

Dr. Carrasco, who works in Argentina’s Ministry of Science, said his studies of amphibians suggest that the herbicide could cause defects in the brain, intestines, and hearts of fetuses. Moreover, the amount of Roundup used on GM soy fields was as much as 1,500 times greater than that which created the defects.

Tragically, his research had been inspired by the experience of desperate peasant and indigenous communities who were suffering from exposure to toxic herbicides used on the GM soy fields throughout Argentina.

According to an article in Grain, the biotech industry “mounted an unprecedented attack on Carrasco, ridiculing his research and even issuing personal threats.” In addition, four men arrived unannounced at his laboratory and were extremely aggressive, attempting to interrogate Carrasco and obtain details of his study. “It was a violent, disproportionate, dirty reaction,” he said. “I hadn’t even discovered anything new, only confirmed conclusions that others had reached.”

Argentina’s Association of Environmental Lawyers filed a petition calling for a ban on Roundup, and the Ministry of Defense banned GM soy from its fields.

Judy Carman

Epidemiologist Judy Carman used to investigate outbreaks of disease for a state government in Australia. She knows that health problems associated with GM foods might be impossible to track or take decades to discover. Moreover, the superficial, short-term animal feeding studies usually do not evaluate “biochemistry, immunology, tissue pathology, gut function, liver function, and kidney function” and are too short to test for cancer or reproductive or child health.

Dr. Carman has critiqued the GMO approval process on behalf of the Public Health Association of Australia and speaks openly about her concerns. As a result, she is repeatedly attacked. Pro-GM scientists threatened disciplinary action through her Vice-Chancellor, and circulated a defamatory letter to government and university officials.

Carman was awarded a grant by the Western Australia government to conduct some of the few long-term animal feeding studies on GMOs. Apparently concerned about what she might find, GMO advocates wrote letters to the government demanding that the grant be withdrawn. One scientist tried to convince the Western Australia Agriculture minister that sufficient safety research had been conducted and he should therefore cancel the grant.

As his evidence, however, he presented a report summarizing only 60 GMO animal feeding studies -- an infinitesimal amount of research to justify exposing the entire population to GM foods.

A closer investigation, however, revealed that most of the 60 were not safety studies at all. They were production studies, measuring, for example, the animals’ carcass weight. Only 9 contained data applicable to human health. And 6 of the 9 showed adverse effects in animals that ate GM feed!

Furthermore, there were several other studies with adverse findings that were mysteriously missing from the compilation. Carman points out that the report “does not support claims that GM crops are safe to eat. On the contrary, it provides evidence that GM crops may be harmful to health.”

When the Western Government refused to withdraw the grant, opponents successfully interfered with Carman’s relationship with the university where she was to do the research.

Terje Traavik

Prominent virologist Terje Traavik presented preliminary data at a February 2004 meeting at the UN Biosafety Protocol Conference, showing that:

1. Filipinos living next to a GM cornfield developed serious symptoms while the corn was pollinating;
2. Genetic material inserted into GM crops transferred to rat organs after a single meal; and
3. Key safety assumptions about genetically engineered viruses were overturned, calling into question the safety of using these viruses in vaccines.

The biotech industry mercilessly attacked Dr. Traavik. Their excuse? -- he presented unpublished work. But presenting preliminary data at professional conferences is a long tradition in science, something that the biotech industry itself relied on in 1999 to try to counter the evidence that butterflies were endangered by GM corn.

Ironically, three years after attacking Traavik, the same biotech proponents sharply criticized a peer-reviewed publication for not citing unpublished data that had been presented at a conference. The paper shows how the runoff of GM Bt corn into streams can kill the “caddis fly,” which may seriously upset marine ecosystems.

The study set off a storm of attacks against its author, ecologist Emma Rosi-Marshall, which Nature described in a September 2009 article as a “hail of abuse.”

Companies Prevent Studies on Their GM Crops

When Ohio State University plant ecologist Allison Snow discovered problematic side effects in GM sunflowers, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Dow AgroSciences blocked further research by withholding GM seeds and genes.

After Marc Lappé and Britt Bailey found significant reductions in cancer-fighting isoflavones in Monsanto’s GM soybeans, the seed seller, Hartz, told them they could no longer provide samples.

Research by a plant geneticist at a leading US university was also thwarted when two companies refused him GM corn. In fact, almost no independent studies are conducted that might find problems. According to a scathing opinion piece in an August 2009 Scientific American,

“Agritech companies have given themselves veto power over the work of independent researchers ... Only studies that the seed companies have approved ever see the light of a peer-reviewed journal.”

A group of 24 corn insect scientists protested this restriction in a letter submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency. They warned that the inability to access GM seeds from biotech companies means there can be no truly independent research on the critical questions. The scientists, of course, withheld their identities for fear of reprisals from the companies.

Restricted access is not limited to the US. When a Japanese scientist wanted to conduct animal feeding studies on the GM soybeans under review in Japan, both the government and the bean’s maker DuPont refused to give him any samples. Hungarian Professor Bela Darvas discovered that Monsanto’s GM corn hurt endangered species in his country. Monsanto immediately shut off his supplies.

Dr. Darvas later gave a speech on his preliminary findings and discovered that a false and incriminating report about his research was circulating. He traced it to a Monsanto public relations employee, who claimed it mysteriously appeared on her desk -- so she faxed it out.

GMO Contamination: Don’t Ask and Definitely Don’t Tell

In 2005, a scientist had gathered seed samples from all over Turkey to evaluate the extent of contamination by GM varieties. According to the Turkish Daily News, just before her testing was complete, she was reassigned to another department and access to her lab was denied.

The unexpected transfer may have saved this Turkish scientist from an even worse fate, had she discovered and reported contamination.

Ask Ignacio Chapela, a microbial ecologist from UC Berkeley. In 2001, he discovered that the indigenous corn varieties in Mexico -- the source of the world’s genetic diversity for corn—had become contaminated through cross pollination with GM varieties.

The government had a ban against GM corn to prevent just this possibility, but apparently US corn imported for food had been planted nonetheless.

Dr. Chapela submitted the finding to Nature, and as a courtesy that he later regretted, informed the Mexican government about the pending publication. He was called in to meet with a furious Director of the Commission of Biosafety and GMOs. Chapela’s confirmation of contamination would hinder introduction of GM corn. Therefore the government’s top biotech man demanded that he withdraw his article. According to Chapela, the official intimidated and threatened him, even implying, “We know where your children go to school.”

When a traumatized Chapela still did not back down, the Underminister for Agriculture later sent him a fax claiming that because of his scientific paper, Chapela would be held personally responsible for all damages caused to agriculture and to the economy in general.

The day Chapela’s paper was published, Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek began posting messages to a biotechnology listserve called AgBioWorld, distributed to more than 3,000 scientists. They falsely claimed that Chapela was biased, that his paper had not been peer-reviewed, that Chapela was “first and foremost an activist,” and his research was published in collusion with environmentalists. Soon, hundreds of other messages appeared, repeating or embellishing the accusations. The listserve launched a petition and besieged Nature with a worldwide campaign demanding retraction.

UC Berkeley also received letters from all over the world trying to convince them not to grant Chapela tenure.

He had overwhelming support by his college and department, but the international biotech lobby was too much. Chapela’s tenure was denied. After he filed a lawsuit, the university eventually reversed its decision.

When investigators later analyzed the email characteristics sent by agitators Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek, the two turned out not to be the average citizens they claimed. According to the Guardian, both were fabricated names used by a public relations firm that worked for Monsanto. Some of Smetacek’s emails also had the internet protocol address of gatekeeper2.monsanto.com -- the server owned by Monsanto.

Science and Debate is Silenced

The attacks on scientists have taken its toll. According to Dr. Chapela, there is a de facto ban on scientists “asking certain questions and finding certain results.” He says, “It’s very hard for us to publish in this field. People are scared.” He told Nature that young people “are not going into this field precisely because they are discouraged by what they see.”

New Zealand Parliament member Sue Kedgley told a Royal Commission in 2001: “Personally I have been contacted by telephone and e-mail by a number of scientists who have serious concerns about aspects of the research that is taking place ... and the increasingly close ties that are developing between science and commerce, but who are convinced that if they express these fears publicly ... or even if they asked the awkward and difficult questions, they will be eased out of their institution.”

University of Minnesota biologist Phil Regal testified before the same Commission, “I think the people who boost genetic engineering are going to have to do a mea culpa and ask for forgiveness, like the Pope did on the inquisition.” Sue Kedgley has a different idea. She recommends we “set up human clinical trials using volunteers of genetically engineered scientists and their families, because I think they are so convinced of the safety of the products that they are creating and I’m sure they would very readily volunteer to become part of a human clinical trial.”

To learn more about the health dangers of GMOs, and what you can do to help end the genetic engineering of our food supply, visit www.ResponsibleTechnology.org

To learn how to choose healthier non-GMO brands, visit www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com

About the Author
International bestselling author and filmmaker Jeffrey Smith is the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the world’s bestselling and #1 rated book on the topic. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, provides overwhelming evidence that GMOs are unsafe and should never have been introduced. Mr. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, whose Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to create the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs, forcing them out of our food supply.

Sources:

Chickens Not Fooled by GM Crops

Could Monsanto Be Responsible for One Indian Farmer's Death Every Thirty Minutes?

Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Food

Source:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/10/04/watch-out-there-are-more-problems-with-genetically-modified-foods-than-youre-allowed-to-know.aspx
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2010-09-24T19:12:00.000-04:00

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!

Your U.S. House & Senate Democrats & Republicans have voted themselves raises, $4,700 in the House and $5,300 in the Senate.

1. They voted to NOT give you a Social Security cost of living raise in 2010 and 2011

2. Your Medicare premiums will go up $285.60 for the 2-years and you will not get the 3% Cost Of Living Allowance of $660/yr. Your total 2-yr loss and cost is -$1,600 each or -$3,200 for husband and wife

3. Over 2-yrs The House & Senate each get $10,000 raises

4. Do you feel SCREWED?

5. WILL your cost of drugs - doctor fees - local taxes - food, etc., increase? You better believe they will! WILL THEIRS? NO WAY.. They have a raise and better benefits. Why care about you?

You never did anything about it in the past. You're obviously too stupid or don't care.

No offense; just making a point!

6. Do you really think that Nancy, Harry, Chris, Charlie, Barnie, et al, care about you?

SEND THE MESSAGE-- You're FIRED.

IN 2010 YOU WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO GET RID OF THE SITTING CONGRESS, THAT IS 1/3 OF THE SENATE, AND 100% OF THE HOUSE.

MAKE SURE YOU'RE STILL MAD IN NOVEMBER 2010 AND TELL THEIR REPLACEMENTS NOT TO SCREW UP.

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2010-09-15T19:48:00.000-04:00

With Salmonella, It's A Chicken-Or-Egg Conundrum

by Anna Vigran
NPR Science
August 31, 2010

Eggs have been getting a bad rap lately as the number of people being made sick by eggs contaminated with salmonella continues to rise. But from an egg's point of view all of this is a bit unfair. Eggs get contaminated because the hen that's laying them is infected. Eggs themselves — if they come from a healthy bird — are remarkably resistant to contamination.

John Ingraham is particularly interested in how eggs stay microbe-free. He is a microbiologist and a chicken owner, and he happens to be my grandfather. He has spent years exploring the world of tiny organisms and so-called "retirement" hasn't changed that.

About a dozen chickens strut and peck in a large chicken coop tucked in between the clothes line and the gleaming pool in Ingraham's back yard in suburban Sacramento. They're quite vocal, and Ingraham points out the distinctive cackle that means one has laid an egg. They sound quite proud of the accomplishment.

Microbes and the Egg

There are very few places in the world that are naturally germ-free, but eggs from a healthy bird are one of them. Ingraham says they stay that way because of their chemical defenses. Bacteria may get through a crack in the shell and the membrane underneath, but then the egg white fights back. In the egg white, there are three proteins that are very effective at combating bacteria.

One of these is called lysozyme. It isn't just in egg whites — it's also in tears, saliva and the drippy stuff that comes out of your nose. In fact, that's how it was discovered by Alexander Fleming (who also discovered penicillin) — Fleming happened to notice that when drips from his nose fell onto certain bacteria, they died.

It's a pretty neat trick. Lysozyme breaks the wall of the bacteria. And since bacteria are under pressure — like a balloon — if you break the wall, they explode. Lysozyme doesn't work on everything, but it can pop a lot of bacteria.

But the egg has two other ways to kill invaders. One is a protein that prevents bacteria from getting an essential vitamin that they need. The other is called conalbumin, and it's this protein keeps bacteria from getting the iron they need to grow.

It's a pretty effective system, but Ingraham says that several years ago there was an incident where a certain egg processor suddenly had all of its eggs go bad. "No one could figure out why, and it turned out they were washing their eggs in iron pans," he says. There was just more iron than the conalbumin could mop up, leaving plenty for the microbes.

We've been hearing some egg announcing cackles, so Ingraham reaches into the nest box and pulls out two very fresh eggs. The barnyard smell is unmistakable, and the eggs have a little sawdust stuck to them. Ingraham says the eggs will stay microbe-free for several weeks, even at room temperature.

What About Salmonella?

But don't we have to keep eggs in the refrigerator, and not eat things with raw eggs in them so we don't get exposed to salmonella?

Ingraham says if the egg comes from healthy chickens, like his, there's no problem. But as the current egg recall shows, chickens are notoriously susceptible to infection with salmonella. And if the chicken that's laying the egg is infected with salmonella, it's likely its eggs will be infected, too. That's why we're told to cook eggs and keep them cold — cooking kills the bacteria and cool temperatures slows microbial growth and helps the eggs last longer.

"Even a broken egg can last quite a while if it's not cooked, but a cooked egg won't last very long because you've inactivated the proteins," Ingraham says.

Source:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129472951
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2010-09-04T13:12:00.004-04:00

Study Finds Commercial Organic Farms Have Better Fruit and Soil & Lower Environmental Impact

ScienceDaily
Sept. 2, 2010

Side-by-side comparisons of organic and conventional strawberry farms and their fruit found the organic farms produced more flavorful and nutritious berries while leaving the soil healthier and more genetically diverse.

"Our findings have global implications and advance what we know about the sustainability benefits of organic farming systems," said John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science and lead author of a paper published in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLoS ONE. "We also show you can have high quality, healthy produce without resorting to an arsenal of pesticides."

The study is among the most comprehensive of its kind, analyzing 31 chemical and biological soil properties, soil DNA, and the taste, nutrition and quality of three strawberry varieties on more than two dozen commercial fields -- 13 conventional and 13 organic.

"There is no paper in the literature that comprehensively and quantitatively compares so many indices of both food and soil quality at multiple sampling times on so many commercial farms," said Reganold. Previous Reganold studies of "sustainability indicators" on farms in the Pacific Northwest, California, British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand have appeared in the journals Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

All the farms in the current study were in California, home to 90 percent of the nation's strawberries and the center of an ongoing debate about the use of soil fumigants. Conventional farms in the study used the ozone-depleting methyl bromide, which is slated to be replaced by the highly toxic methyl iodide over the protests of health advocates and more than 50 Nobel laureates and members of the National Academy of Sciences. In July, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked the EPA to reconsider its approval of methyl iodide.

Reganold's study team included Preston Andrews, a WSU associate professor of horticulture, and seven other experts, mostly from WSU, to form a multidisciplinary team spanning agroecology, soil science, microbial ecology, genetics, pomology, food science, sensory science, and statistics. On almost every major indicator, they found the organic fields and fruit were equal to or better than their conventional counterparts.

Among their findings:

* The organic strawberries had significantly higher antioxidant activity and concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds.
* The organic strawberries had longer shelf life.
* The organic strawberries had more dry matter, or, "more strawberry in the strawberry."
* Anonymous testers, working at times under red light so the fruit color would not bias them, found one variety of organic strawberries was sweeter, had better flavor, and once a white light was turned on, appearance. The testers judged the other two varieties to be similar.

The researchers also found the organic soils excelled in a variety of key chemical and biological properties, including carbon sequestration, nitrogen, microbial biomass, enzyme activities, and micronutrients.

DNA analysis found the organically managed soils had dramatically more total and unique genes and greater genetic diversity, important measures of the soil's resilience to stress and ability to carry out essential processes.

Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Washington State University.

Journal Reference:
1. John P. Reganold, Preston K. Andrews, Jennifer R. Reeve, Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, Christopher W. Schadt, J. Richard Alldredge, Carolyn F. Ross, Neal M. Davies, Jizhong Zhou. Fruit and Soil Quality of Organic and Conventional Strawberry Agroecosystems. PLoS ONE, 2010; 5 (9): e12346 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012346

Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100901171553.htm
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2010-08-16T09:41:00.005-04:00

WHO Reveals H1N1 Experts’ Ties With Pharmaceutical Industry

AFP
August 12, 2020

GENEVA — Five of the 15 experts that advised the World Health Organisation about swine flu pandemic alerts had received support from the drugs industry, including for flu vaccine research, the WHO revealed on Wednesday.

The agency released for the first time a list of the 15 members of the Emergency Committee headed by Australian tropical diseases professor John Mackenzie, who was the only member publicly named during the outbreak.

They came from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and North America, the list posted on the WHO's website showed.

Most were scientific researchers and epidemiologists, along with a Senegalese diplomat, public health officials from Thailand and Chile as well as two specialists on international air travel and health. The list can be seen at http://www.who.int/ihr/emerg_comm_members_2009/en/index.html.

Critics had raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest that might have helped the drugs industry influence decisions on huge orders for special vaccines against A(H1N1) flu.

The WHO has repeatedly denied those claims, underlining that it had vetted members and maintained secrecy over their identities to protect them from undue pressure while the outbreak of swine flu was underway.

Six people declared interests to the UN health agency, including five researchers who disclosed past or current support from pharmaceutical firms, according to the WHO list.

Nancy Cox, from the US Centers for Disease Control, disclosed financial support from a drugs industry group, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) for flu vaccine research and work on viruses in her unit.

US professor Arnold Monto declared current and past consultancies on pandemic or seasonal influenza research for GSK, Novartis, Roche, Baxter and Sanofi Pasteur.He also declared a grant from Sanofi for a clinical trial in 2007-2008 related to influenza vaccines.

John Wood's research unit at Britain's National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), had undertaken research for Sanofi Pasteur, CSL, IFPMA, Novartis and Powdermed on influenza vaccine.

Professor Maria Zambon's laboratory at the UK Health Protection Agency Centre for Infection received funding from several vaccine makers, including Sanofi, Novartis, CSL, Baxter and GSK.

British professor Neil Ferguson, an advisor to the committee, had acted as a consultant for Roche and GSK Biologicals until 2007, according to the list.

The WHO said those interests "do not give rise to a conflict of interest such that the experts concerned should be partially or totally excluded from participation in the Emergency Committee."

The panel provided expert advice to the WHO Director General Margaret Chan about the new swine flu virus, allowing her to raise the alert when it was first uncovered in Mexico and the United States in April 2009.

It was also instrumental in the declaration of a pandemic with global spread of the disease in June 2009, triggering a chain of public health precautions including development and production of an influenza vaccine.

However, swine flu turned out to be less severe than feared. As the virus petered out in North America and Europe in late 2009, governments sought to offload costly and huge stocks of unused vaccines and some European parliamentarians claimed the scare was unjustified.

Chan announced on Tuesday that the A(H1N1) influenza pandemic was officially over after more than 18,500 people died.

The WHO estimated that about 300 million people had been vaccinated worldwide.

Source:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ifwZFBD8rvvsxIpb_Q0q8AAKjOKQ
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2010-08-12T07:28:00.001-04:00

Why Is the Food Industry Pumping Food Dyes That Cause Cancer Into Our Food?

By Michael Jacobson
Alternet Other Words
August 9, 2010

Try pronouncing disodium 6-hydroxy-5-((2-methoxy-5-methyl-4-sulfophenyl) azo)-2-naphthalene-sulfonate.

It's not easy, right? That explains why this mouthful goes by its friendlier name, Red 40. It might sound innocent, but this ingredient and others like it are far from harmless. And they're in our food.

For years, we at the Center for Science in the Public Interest and food-safety officials in Europe have highlighted studies linking food dyes to hyperactivity and other behavioral problems in children.

The British government and the European Parliament even decided to phase out artificial dyes based on these concerns alone, but the same can't be said for the United States. So why do food manufacturers continue to pour about 15 million pounds of eight synthetic dyes into the American food supply every year?

Well, we've tried to do something about it. In 2008, my organization petitioned the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban food dyes because of evidence that they cause hyperactivity and other problems in children. So far, the agency has made little progress dealing with this grave problem.

Now, after a close review of all of the major animal tests of food dyes, I fear these dyes may pose an even graver risk than hyperactivity: Cancer.

The FDA has recognized that one food dye (Red 3) is a carcinogen, and two widely used dyes contain cancer-causing contaminants. Somehow, these conclusions haven't been enough for the FDA to ban them.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is hoping to see more action because our new investigation exposes the rainbow of risks posed by Red 40, Yellow 5, and other synthetic petroleum-based food dyes. We found that Yellow 5 caused mutations in numerous studies, and that most other food dyes have not been adequately tested.

Consider Yellow 6. A rat study linked this dye to possible tumors of the adrenal gland and testicles (though the study wasn't conclusive). Neither of the two mouse studies tested the dyes on the animals in utero--which ensures that animals are exposed to dyes throughout their lifespan, including as embryos and newborns.

Moreover, like Red 40 and Yellow 5, it is contaminated with illegally high levels of benzidine and 4-aminobiphenyl, known carcinogens. The FDA has done nothing.

Red 3 caused thyroid tumors in rats. Back in 1985 the acting commissioner of the FDA said the dye was "of greatest public health concern," but the FDA did nothing.

Since then, companies have dumped five million pounds of the dye into our food.

Citrus Red 2 is used to color the skins of some oranges and has caused bladder cancer in mice and rats. Yellows 5 and 6 and Blue 1 cause occasionally severe allergic reactions in some people. The abstract of one unpublished mouse study says Blue 1 caused kidney tumors.

Knowing this, you'd think the food industry would use less, or even eliminate, these chemicals. But thanks in part to the proliferation of brightly colored breakfast cereals, fruit drinks, and candies pitched to children, per-capita consumption of dyes has increased five-fold since 1955. And of course, these dyes are often used to simulate the presence of missing fruits in fruit-flavored kids' foods.

Since the ban of food dyes in the United Kingdom, companies such as McDonald's, Mars, and Kellogg have reformulated their products sold there, but have neglected American consumers. In the United Kingdom, a McDonald's Strawberry Sundae is colored only with strawberries, but in the United States it contains Red dye 40.

Kellogg's Strawberry Nutri-Grain bars have Red 40, Yellow 6, and Blue 1 in the U.S., but use beetroot, annatto, and paprika extract as colorings in the U.K. Starburst Chews and Skittles, both Mars products, contain synthetic dyes in the U.S., but not in Britain.

Frankly, we'd all be better off if we just ate more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains and stopped consuming packaged foods. But I'm certain that if the geniuses at, say, Kraft, got together they could find a way to make Macaroni and Cheese without Yellow 5. Actually, the company already makes a dye-free version meant for adults.

The FDA can help too by banning these discredited dyes once and for all, reducing the cancer risks in our cupboards.

Michael F. Jacobson is the executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. www.cspinet.org.

© 2010 Other Words All rights reserved.

View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/147793/
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2010-07-27T07:26:00.002-04:00

Spread of disease linked to warming climate

CDC warns doctors to be on the alert after concluding a once-tropical disease is spreading in the Pacific Northwest.

By Douglas Fischer
Daily Climate editor
July 27, 2010

A deadly infectious disease once thought to be exclusively tropical has gained a toehold in the Pacific Northwest, and health experts suspect climate change is partially to blame.

Last week the CDC issued a report warning U.S. doctors to be alert for patients showing signs of a cryptoccocal infection.

The infection is spread by a fungus, Cryptococcus gattii, that attacks the nasal cavity and spreads to other body sites, causing pneumonia, meningitis and other lung, brain or muscle ailments. The disease also affects animals.

Until 1999 most human cases were limited to Australia and other tropical and sub-tropical regions, including Asia and Africa, along with parts of southern California.

But in 2004 the first case was reported in Oregon, and as of July 60 cases in the Pacific Northwest have been reported to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Of the 45 cases in the region with known outcomes, nine patients died because of the infection and another six died with it, the CDC reported.

"This is not insignificant. These people died," said Dr. Ted Schettler, science director for the Massachusetts-based Science and Environmental Health Network, a group that advocates for the use of science in policy decisions.

"When I went to medical school many years ago, Cryptococcus was a rare pathogen," he added. "If you saw it in a patient, it was someone who was immuno-compromised. Here now you're seeing it in the Pacific Northwest - where you wouldn't expect to see it - in people who wouldn't normally be sick."

The CDC alert stressed that other factors could be at play in the disease's spread besides climate change: The fungus may have adapted to a new climate niche, or environmental conditions favorable to C.gattii might be broader than suspected.

Oregon epidemiologist Emilio DeBess, also the state veterinarian, cautioned against drawing direct links to climate change. "The answer is we really don't know," he said. "We need to step back a little bit and find out how diverse is this organism. That's going to tell us about the age - did it just show up or has it been here a long time."

But the CDC report notes that epidemiologists have ruled out increased disease awareness and reporting. And its emergence fits with the redistribution of infectious diseases predicted by various climate models, Schettler said.

"It's very consistent with the literature," he said. "It appears this was a pathogen finding a new home. It is just sort of interesting to put this alongside other parameters of climate change."

There are other recent examples of tropical pathogens exploiting newly hospitable ecosystems.

Last week the CDC issued a bulletin on a dengue fever outbreak in Puerto Rico, noting that while the disease is common on the island, the most recent epidemic is large and started earlier than usual.
Last year health researchers concluded warmer temperatures, higher humidity and increased precipitation - the types of weather forecast as greenhouse gas concentrations increase - have triggered higher rates of West Nile virus infection across the Western United States. (TDC - Changing climate ups West Nile threat in US - 20 Mar 2009)
And researchers at the University of Arizona suspect hotter temperatures and more intense dust storms are propelling an epidemic of Valley Fever across the Southwest. (TDC - Valley fever blowin' on a hotter wind - 15 April 2009)

DeBess was careful to put the Northwest's C.gattii outbreak in perspective. Only 60 cases have been detected over nearly six years in two or three states.

Meanwhile 36,000 people die annually in the United States from influenza.

"It doesn't mean we aren't paying any attention," he said. "But you have to make your own decision: Do we worry about C.gattii, or do we worry about influenza more?"

DailyClimate.org is a nonprofit news service covering climate change. Reach editor Douglas Fischer at dfischer [ at ] dailyclimate.org

Photo credits: Map showing spread of C.gattii into Pacific Northwest courtesy CDC.

This work by The Daily Climate is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Source:
http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2010/07/disease-spread
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2010-07-11T08:47:00.006-04:00

Are clotheslines making a comeback?

By Donna Vickory
Chicago Sun-Times
July 10, 2010

All that's old is new.

The recession has reintroduced us to a lot of things: home cooking, gardening, the notion of saving money.

There are signs it may also be breathing new life into another once ubiquitous habit: hanging clothes out to dry.

For many generations, the clothesline was a colorful and necessary part of the American landscape. Then came the invention of the forced air dryer and, seemingly overnight, Americans opted for the faster, easier - albeit more expensive and less energy efficient - method of drying clothes.

No longer a necessity, clotheslines were deemed unsightly and even unwelcome in many parts. Some communities outlawed their presence. Some still do.

But in increasing numbers, the clothesline is reappearing. Clothesline holdouts and newcomers are taking pride in their efforts to save money, save energy or simply savor the great outdoors.

Judy Dunk, of Hometown, uses her clothesline all the time.

"My kids don't like the smell, though, so I usually throw their T-shirts in the dryer for about five minutes after I take them down. It's definitely nice to save on that gas bill once in awhile."

One of the first things Dunk's sister, Sue Foley Polgar, also of Hometown, did when she bought her house in 2001 was put a pole up with five lines.

"I hang out all of the clothes except towels, my husband's jeans and underwear. Sheets and pillowcases feel so fresh afterwards. Why pay Nicor when you can use Mother Nature?"

Soon after Claudia Krohn moved into her Orland Park ranch five years ago, she put up a clothesline.

"I've always loved the outdoors," she said. "I like to be able to be outside as much as I can."

During the ' 80s and ' 90s, the quest for convenience nearly rendered the clothesline extinct. An environmental crisis, followed quickly by the economic crisis, compelled many adults to rethink the price of convenience.

Everything's different now. Now we reuse grocery bags, we recycle paper and plastic and we make a conscious effort to buy food that is grown or raised close to home.

Now, simplicity and frugality are back in style. And, slowly, the clothesline is making a comeback.

Laura Lake Olewinski, of Tinley Park, is also a fan of making the most of Mother Nature's drying mechanisms.

"I always used a clothesline when we were first married (my mom always had one, so I thought it was commonplace)," Olewinski said.

"When we moved to Tinley Park, I didn't put one up right away, because none of my neighbors had one, and still don't.

"About three or four years ago, my kids convinced me to put up another clothesline because of all they had been hearing about global warming and the environment. I love hanging out clothes to dry - they smell wonderful, I feel like I'm helping the earth, and it helps me save money on my gas bill every summer."

Jennifer Hirsch, urban anthropology director at the Field Museum in Chicago, said there are lots of parallels between budget and environmentally-friendly actions. Erecting a clothesline, much like installing energy-efficient windows, doors and lightbulbs, is among such measures.

The museum addresses ways to reduce carbon footprints in a recently opened exhibit. Climate Change explores the science, history and impact of climate changes on oceans, atmosphere, land and societies and efforts to reduce global warming. The exhibit also provides tips for individuals who want to do their part.

Though estimates vary, some believe using a clothesline can save a homeowner $1,500 over the expected lifetime of a dryer, which is 18 years. The group Project Laundry goes so far as to project that if every American used a clothesline or drying rack, the energy savings would be enough to close several power plants.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a clothes dryer is second only to a refrigerator in the energy-consuming appliances in your home.

Certainly, the actions of one or even a few will not make a significant impact on climate change. Hirsch said her work lies in getting whole communities to get on board.

Easier said than done. Some cultures don't want to return to the old days, either because of the lack of convenience or because of a lingering stigma.

Getting people to cooperate means getting people to incorporate new ways of thinking. One way to do that, Hirsch said, is to get community role models or influential organizations to adopt your cause.

Discussing the idea in the mainstream media can also sway public opinion. A recent issue of Time magazine listed "51 Things We Can Do To Save the Planet." Among them, hanging laundry out to dry.

Will community leaders once again embrace the clothesline? It's not a ridiculous notion by any stretch. Actress Daryl Hannah uses one. So does artist Marian Dioguardi. Phyllis Morris, mayor of Aurora, Ontario, is a huge advocate of clotheslines.

Bob Sullivan, community development director in Orland Park, said he has not noticed an increase in the number of backyard clotheslines in his village, "But my next door neighbor has one."

NOT EVERYBODY LIKES THE IDEA

Many upscale subdivisions and homeowners associations have rules forbidding clotheslines.

"Our declarations (documents governing areas of common interest) currently prohibit such use," said Rosemary Schrank, of Schrank and Associates, managing agent for the Crystal Tree and Southmoor subdivisions in Orland Park.

The only way to change such documents is with a super majority vote of the homeowners in the subdivision or condo complex, she said.

It's doubtful boards would incur the necessary attorney and recording costs for something like a clothesline, Schrank said.

"Honestly, I've never received one call asking if someone could install a clothesline," she said.

Joanne Litman, executive director of the Illinois Chapter Community Associations Institute, said, "People move into community associations so there is control over how their neighbors take care of their property."

While she says she understands that people today want to save energy, some also want common areas to be managed with consistency.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU REALLY SAVE?

The group the Laundry Project lets you calculate how much money and energy you use by washing and drying your clothes with machines.

Call up the cost calculator and punch in your specifics - number of loads per week, kind of washer and dryer.

For a family of four laundering 10 loads a week - two in hot water and two in warm, the other six in cold - and using a gas dryer, the energy cost is $110.53 per year. Sixty-five percent of that cost is attributed to the dryer.

In terms of carbon dioxide and emissions, that amount of usage would eat up the equivalent of .11 of a forested acre.

To calculate your own costs, visit laundrylist.org

Another reason not to put your jeans in the dryer

Levi Strauss & Co. is asking consumers to air their good green laundry ideas.

Green pioneers and inventors can submit original air-drying solutions as part of the company's "Care to Air" contest, with the chance to win $10,000 in prizes. The company is looking for the next generation of air drying design ideas that will improve or replace the typical clothesline.

Design ideas will be accepted until July 31, and winners will be announced August 16. For full details visit levi.com/care.

Source:
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/lifestyles/2482328,Clothesline-homes-recession-SCN071010.article
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2010-05-30T17:17:00.000-04:00

Does Exercise Help You Sleep Better?

by Gretchen Reynolds
nytimes.com

Most of us think that exercise improves sleep. But it may be that thinking that exercise improves sleep improves sleep. That, at any rate, is the provocative finding of a new study completed recently in Switzerland and published last month in the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

For the study, 862 Swiss college students were asked to record how much they exercised, how fit they believed themselves to be (on a scale from 1 to 10) and how well they slept (on a scale from 1 to 8). The correlations between how much some of the students exercised and how fit they believed themselves to be was not very precise. More than 16 percent of the students who rated themselves low on the fitness scale actually exercised the most. In other words, they worked out more than many of the other students but felt they weren’t doing enough.

Those students who perceived that they weren’t exercising enough also tended to report sleeping less well, even though they were exercising more than some of the other students. In the end, the researchers found almost no correlation between how much students exercised and how well they slept. What mattered was whether they believed that they were being active enough. Those students who perceived that they were fit slept well. Those who didn’t, did not.

As Markus Gerber, a researcher at the Institute of Exercise and Health Sciences at the University of Basel and lead author of the study told me in an e-mail message that the findings suggest that, when it comes to the role of exercise and sleep, “what people think is more important than what they do.”

That conclusion is not, in fact, anomalous. It actually fits neatly into a large if little-known body of science intimating that exercise may not ease you to sleep after all. The relationship between exercise and sleep “is certainly complicated,” said Shawn Youngstedt, an associate professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina and author of some of the science in question.

In a representative study that he led several years ago, for instance, college students — some athletic, some sedentary — kept detailed sleep and exercise diaries for months. At the end of that time, the researchers cross-referenced the diaries and found no notable correlation between exercising more and sleeping better or vice versa. Meanwhile, in a second part of the same study, a group of adults wore monitors that recorded their movements and sleep patterns. The participants also filled out activity diaries. Using the objective data from the monitors, together with the diary reports, the researchers found only marginal impacts on sleep from exercise. The most active volunteers tended to fall asleep about a minute and a half faster than those who were the least active. Otherwise, their sleep was virtually identical.

But most of us continue to believe that working out is helpful to snoozing, as shown in a number of large-scale, international surveys completed in the past decade, during which respondents have consistently reported that they slept better on days when they exercised. Parse the results closely, though, and the link grows more tenuous. Respondents often report, for instance, that they sleep well on the weekends, when they have enough time to exercise, but also when they’re free of bosses, deadlines, rushed lunch breaks and other stressors that can disrupt sleep. Similarly, as Mr. Youngstedt points out, the surveys rarely are able to take into account such confounding issues as smoking, weight, anxiety or exposure to sunlight, all of which have been found in studies to affect sleep.

Perhaps the most surprising finding of the current science about exercise and sleep, however, is that wearing yourself out physically is not the same as being sleepy. “The two are easily mistaken,” Mr. Youngstedt said, but they seem to affect various bodily systems at the same time in different ways. Hard, long workouts or severe overtraining may be just as likely, in fact, to lead to wakefulness and sleep problems, Mr. Youngstedt said, than to better sleep. On the other hand, a related truism about exercise and sleep appears to be a myth. There is “absolutely no scientific evidence” that working out in the late evening keeps you from sleeping, Mr. Youngstedt said.

In the end, the current state of the science about sleep and exercise is somewhat cloudy. But more clarity may come, Mr. Youngstedt said. He, for one, is not convinced that there is no link between exercise and sleep. But most laboratory studies to date, including his, have involved volunteers without underlying sleep problems.

“There’s no room for exercise to improve sleep, if people are sleeping fine,” he said.

To sidestep that issue, he and his colleagues have a number of studies under way that use volunteers with sleep pathologies, like sleep apnea, to discern whether exercise helps in those cases. Results, so far, Mr. Youngstedt said, “are promising.”

Still, the most practical advice that science can offer at the moment about exercise and sleep is not to fret too much about whether you’re getting enough of either. Worrying, as the Swiss study showed, is what will keep you awake long into the night.

“I would give the following recommendation,” Mr. Gerber, the Swiss scientist, wrote. “It does not matter how much exercise” you actually complete “as long as it make you feel good and feel fit.”

Source:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/phys-ed-does-exercise-help-you-sleep-better/
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2010-05-19T17:40:00.000-04:00

PBA Pervasive on our pantry Shelves

by Andrew Schneider
aolnews.com
The health hazards of bisphenol A are well documented, but now scientists report that the chemical used in the coating of cans to protect food from corrosion and bacteria is pervasive in the canned goods on our kitchen shelves.

Researchers collected 50 cans of food from pantries in 19 states and Ontario and analyzed them at a top food safety lab in San Francisco. BPA was found in 92 percent of the samples, according to a 24-page study called "No Silver Lining," which was released today by the National Workgroup for Safe Markets.

The top level of BPA was 1,140 parts per billion -- believed to be the highest level ever found in the U.S. It was detected in Del Monte French Style Green Beans from a pantry in Wisconsin, the report said.

Other high scorers included Walmart's Great Value Green Peas from a store in Kentucky, and Healthy Choice Old Fashioned Chicken Noodle Soup from a pantry in Montana, according to researchers from the coalition of more than 17 public and environmental health organizations.

"Our study details potential exposure to BPA from not just one can, but from meals prepared with canned food and drink that an ordinary person might consume over the course of a day," Mike Schade, a co-author of the study, told AOL News.

The investigator for the Center for Health, Environment & Justice added that the study showed that "real-life meals involving one or more cans of food can cause an individual to ingest levels of BPA that have been shown to cause health effects in laboratory animal studies."

The unopened cans of fruits, vegetables, beans, soups, tomato products, sodas and milk were sent to Anresco Laboratories to determine the concentrations of BPA in the food within the can. Only the food and not the packaging was tested.

The selection of canned food and drink represents a menu that an ordinary North American person might consume over the course of a day.

"It takes as little as one serving of canned foods to expose a person to levels of BPA that have been shown to cause harm in laboratory animals. This is especially troublesome if the person eating the canned foods is pregnant, because fetuses are especially vulnerable to BPA's effects," report co-author Bobbi Chase Wilding, organizing director of Clean New York, told AOL News.

Hundreds of studies -- by both government and academic researchers -- have shown that exposure of animals to low doses of BPA has been linked to cancer, abnormal behavior, diabetes and heart disease, infertility, developmental and reproductive harm, obesity and early puberty, a known risk factor for breast cancer. Also, BPA exposure is particularly of concern for pregnant women, babies and children.

The researchers warned that in addition to the risk of BPA in canned food, people are also exposed to the chemical composite in common products like polycarbonate water and baby bottles, 5-gallon water coolers, and printer inks, toners and thermal receipt paper (used by most gas stations and supermarkets) where BPA can rub off paper onto our hands and into our mouths.

What you pay for the food and where you buy it appears to have no impact on the presence of the contaminant. This study also shows that BPA levels in canned food cannot be predicted by the price of the product, the quality or relative nutrition value of the product, or where it was purchased.

In related action, Sen. Dianne Feinstein today repeated her demand for a ban on BPA in food and beverage containers. The California Democrat wants the ban included in the Food Safety Modernization Act, a bill moving through the Senate that looks at important external food contaminants like E. coli and salmonella, but not at packaging additives like BPA.

Source:
http://www.aolnews.com/science/article/bpa-pervasive-in-our-canned-food-national-workgroup-for-safe-markets-says/19482419
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2010-05-10T18:09:00.000-04:00

Research finds Mouthwash to be harmful

By Thomas Connelly
huffingtonpost.com

Let's talk today about something that has been bothering me for awhile. And that's the fact that it's very likely that alcohol-based mouthwash (which is almost all of them) is, in all likelihood, something that will increase your risk of getting Oral Cancer.

The first thing I want to get out of the way is the "stats" or the "absoluteness" of that statement. If you do any research on the subject, you'll be pointed to the Dental Journal of Australia and the findings of one Professor Michael McCullough. In his report, he cites several international studies done that do provide a link between alcohol-based mouthwash and oral cancer. In one such study, which included 3,210 people, concluded that "mouthwash use was a 'significant risk factor' for head and neck cancer."

Now, one "rebuttal" is "well, people who smoke and drink, which are known oral cancer causes, are more likely to use mouthwash." That's fair -- Professor McCullough's research showed people who smoked and used mouthwash were 10 times more likely to get oral cancer than someone who used neither. And yes, alcohol drinkers were more than five times more likely. So yes, that rebuttal holds true to a point. But here's the kicker -- his research also showed that mouthwash users who neither smoked nor drank were still four to five times more likely to develop oral cancer than non-mouthwash users. That's pretty telling.

I'll be honest -- sometimes I don't like to rely 100 percent on statistics (I've said this before). That's because "stats" can be skewed either way, depending on how you word the question or the findings. You know what I prefer to use along with my stats? Good old logic and common sense. And here's what good old logic and common sense tell me:

Fact: Alcohol is a well known and established Oral Cancer risk factor. In fact, it's the number two risk factor (behind tobacco). There is no doubt about this. I'm not saying a few beers will give you oral cancer, but it's been established that heavy alcohol users are far more likely to get oral cancer. And, as we'll see in a second, in terms of your mouth, using mouthwash can put you into that "heavy alcohol user" category (whether you drink or not).

Fact: Almost all mouthwashes contain not just alcohol, but a significant amount of alcohol. Typically 25 percent (that's 50 proof, folks). That's about four to five times as much as beer, about twice as much as wine, and as much as some hard liquor. Your mouthwash is pretty potent stuff.

Fact: Most folks rinse with mouthwash for 20-30 seconds or so (which is far longer than alcohol stays in your mouth when you drink wine or beer.) So not only does mouthwash contain more alcohol than wine or beer, but you keep it in your mouth far longer.

It is this last aspect, coupled with daily use, that can bring a mouthwash user into the high-risk "heavy alcohol user" percentile when it comes to oral cancer risk factors. In fact, even if a person doesn't drink alcohol at all, daily use of alcohol-based mouthwash can make them a far higher oral cancer risk than someone who drinks moderately, but doesn't use mouthwash.

So, why haven't you heard anything yet ...

I'm pretty sure you are thinking "wait ... why haven't I heard anything about this yet? After all, things that are bad for me are always brought to light, right?" (You can stop chuckling now.)

Well, let's take a look at that. It's my theory that we haven't heard much about this because of the HUGE can of worms it will open. You see what happened with the tobacco industry, right? Lawsuits galore. And that was for a product that, let's face it, we all knew was bad.

Conversely, mouthwash is actually marketed as a health product. Can you imagine the outrage and lawsuits that will arise if and when this is admitted? It could bankrupt some huge companies. Believe me, they are not going to let that happen (which is why you have to follow my lead and rely on common sense and logic in this case.)

These companies put alcohol in their mouthwash as a flavor carrier, to provide some "burn and bite," and to give a short-term antibacterial shot to your mouth (and it is short-term ... trust me; mouthwash is not necessary, or even very effective, in combating bad breath or the like.) In other words, alcohol makes the mouthwash "seem" effective. It's marketing, plain and simple.

So, what can you do? Well, it's simple: don't use mouthwash, for starters. It's just not necessary for good oral hygiene. If you must use something, use a natural mouthwash (available in most health stores) that doesn't have alcohol.

I hope this makes sense to you. Think about it, and draw your own conclusions (and please don't wait for the FDA to tell you something is bad ... You might be waiting a looong time.)

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thomas-p-connelly-dds/dental-hygiene-mouth-heal_b_562317.html
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2010-05-06T20:40:00.000-04:00

American Meat is Even Grosser Than You Think

By Ari LeVaux
alternet.org

In 2008, Mexican authorities rejected a shipment of U.S. beef because the meat exceeded Mexico's regulatory tolerance for copper. The rejected meat was returned to the United States, where it was sold and consumed, because the U.S. has no regulatory threshold for copper in meat.

Incidents like this are why the food safety arm of USDA, known as the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), is under USDA scrutiny. While the public has gotten used to microbes like E. coli and salmonella threatening the nation's meat supply, and while food safety agencies make food-borne illness a high-profile priority, contamination of meat by heavy metals, veterinary drugs and pesticides has been slipping through the bureaucratic cracks.

Microbial contaminants can be killed by cooking, but chemical residues aren't destroyed by heat. In fact, some of these residues break down into more dangerous substances when heated, according to the FSIS National Residue Program for Cattle, a recent report by the USDA's Office of the Inspector General.

The report is full of bad news about the ineffectual attempts that are being made to keep chemical residues out of the food supply, but optimists might point to the report's tone as a sliver of good news. The report is sharply critical of the efforts to keep our meat free of chemical residues, and shows determination to shore up this gaping hole in food safety.

"... The national residue program is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for harmful residues," the report says, noting that thresholds for many dangerous substances, like copper and dioxin, have yet to be established. "We also found that FSIS does not recall meat adulterated with harmful residues, even when it is aware that the meat has failed its laboratory tests."

The routes by which veterinary drugs make it into human food trace a disturbing portrait of how large dairy farms operate. Sick dairy cows are given medications to help them recover, but if it appears an animal will die, it's often sold to a slaughterhouse as quickly as possible, in time to kill it before it dies. That way, "[the dairy farmer] can recoup some of his investment in the animal," according to the report.

In such cases, medications may be consumed along with the meat. Such drugs include Ivermectin (which can act as a neurotoxin in humans), Flunixin (which can damage kidneys), and penicillin (which can cause life-threatening allergic reactions in some people).

The meat from sick dairy cattle is low-grade, and is usually turned into burger and sold to the sorts of buyers who stretch their dollars furthest, like fast food chains and school lunch programs. But veterinary drugs are also finding their way into an upper echelon of meat: veal.

The milk produced by medicated dairy cows is barred from sale to human consumers -- a sensible rule, given the dangers suggested above. Unfortunately, no law prevents this "waste milk" from being fed to veal calves, the meat of which sometimes tests positive for these drugs. As with sick dairy cow meat that tests positive for antibiotics, no measures are taken to recall such veal or penalize the slaughterhouses that produce it. One slaughterhouse, according to the report, amassed 211 violations in 2008 and was still considered by FSIS as a place where contamination "is not reasonably likely to occur."

Such failings can be traced to a 1984 memorandum of understanding between FDA, FSIS and EPA. These three agencies agreed to appoint senior executives to oversee a group called the Surveillance Advisory Team (SAT). The SAT was supposed to manage interagency collaboration aimed at preventing the entry of chemical residues into the food supply. But according to the recent report, "...high-level officials from the agencies involved do not attend [the annual SAT] meetings, and there is no mechanism for elevating issues, making recommendations, and ensuring that appropriate actions are taken to solve identified problems. Without such a mechanism, many problems requiring interagency coordination have not been dealt with despite the agencies' awareness of the problems."

In addition to veterinary drugs and heavy metals, agricultural pesticides also find their way into the meat supply, often through contaminated food and water. While the SAT agencies jointly determine which pesticides should be tested for, it's the FSIS that actually conducts the tests. In recent years the FSIS has tested for only one of the 23 pesticide classes it is charged with testing for: chlorinated hydrocarbons/chlorinated organophosphates. FSIS blames its limited budget and a lack of guidance as to minimum levels the agency is supposed to enforce. The Office of the Inspector General report dismisses the excuses and calls the oversight unacceptable, saying "the SAT needs to seek executive-level involvement from all three agencies to resolve differences, and, if necessary, to determine the best method for obtaining the needed testing resources to ensure that the highest priority substances are tested."

Several other chinks in the food supply's armor are noted as well, including faulty testing methodologies, bureaucratic smothering of innovative testing techniques, and failure of FSIS to share testing results. After raking the muck, the report makes recommendations on how the interagency collaborations behind the SAT could be improved. The report also mentions that the FSIS has agreed to many of its recommendations, such as increasing testing at plants that slaughter veal calves and dairy cows--where 90 percent of the residue violations have been detected.

While the Office of the Inspector General appears to be making a sincere effort to improve the framework that's supposed to protect our food, it could also be argued that these efforts amount to enabling an industry that remains rotten at its core. Rushing sick cattle to slaughter before they die, or feeding tainted "waste milk" to veal calves, are practices that would be better eliminated than improved, but in fairness that isn't within the mandate of the OIG to decide. So while improvements appear to be in the works for the production practices behind mystery meat and mystery milk, the system shows little sign of becoming inherently less disgusting. As long as customers keep demanding cheap meat, cheap meat will probably continue to be produced.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/story/146684/
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2010-04-27T23:42:00.000-04:00

Squeezed: The Secrets of the Orange Juice Industry

by Amanda Benson
smithsonainmag.com

There are some food truths we hold to be self-evident, and one of them is that orange juice is inherently good. It’s packed with vitamin C; it’s what your mom tells you to drink when you feel a cold coming on; it looks like sunshine in a glass. Plus, it’s delicious.

Those things are true, but Alissa Hamilton’s book “Squeezed: What You Don’t Know About Orange Juice“—released today in paperback—reveals some other truths.

Things weren’t always this way. The ubiquitous presence of pasteurized orange juice in chilled cartons, all tasting basically the same, dates back only to the 1960s. That’s when the FDA began regulating and standardizing orange juice, and decided what consumers did and didn’t need to know about it.

As a result, despite what advertisers claim, most orange juice is neither fresh nor natural (not in the way most of us would define those terms). Think about it; how could it be truly fresh year-round, when oranges are a seasonal product? Sure, it may be “not from concentrate,” but raw juice is often heated, stripped of its volatile compounds and flavor-rich oils, and stored for as long as a year before it reaches the consumer. Something called “the flavor pack” is used to return most of the “natural” aroma and taste to the product, Hamilton explains:

The flavor is sourced from all parts of oranges everywhere…Typically, the orange oils and essences that juice concentrators collect during evaporation are sold to flavor manufacturers, who then reconfigure these by-products…into ‘flavor packs’ for reintroduction into orange juice.

Often, those by-products come from other countries and may contain unknown pesticide residues, but the producers don’t have to disclose that.

And as one citrus flavor researcher told Hamilton, replicating nature’s complexity is extremely difficult: “Right now the formula for fresh [orange] flavors is just about as elusive as the formula for Coke.”

In other words, that’s why it tastes so much better when you actually take a bunch of fresh oranges and squeeze them yourself.

Hamilton is careful to explain that she’s not against orange juice, she’s against deceptive marketing and believes consumers have a right to know what they’re buying:

The history of processed orange juice and its marketing highlights the fact that as a society we tend not to care too much about deceptive advertising unless the product being pushed is measurably harmful…As the gap in both geographic and mental miles between consumer and store bought food has widened, the role of product promotion as a source of product information has grown.

The bigger problem isn’t juice, but rather “food ignorance.” Deceptive, misleading or overly simplistic messages from both government and industry in recent decades have contributed to “the average consumer’s obliviousness to where and how that individual’s food is produced,” Hamilton concludes, which could have serious consequences for their own health, the environment and the economy.

Do you want more information about what’s in your carton of orange juice, or is this not a big deal to you?

Source:
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2010/04/27/
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2010-04-23T19:56:00.000-04:00

The People - and the Shame - Behind Our Food
by Gavin Newsome
huffingtonpost.com

Our current culture has an unprecedented awareness of food and its source. Organic, locavore, sustainable, free-range, farm-raised: these have all become household terms. We pay more attention than ever before to what goes into our shopping carts and into our stomachs. Food has even become a major source of entertainment: we watch chefs compete on TV for the best culinary creation and those struggling with obesity to lose the most weight.

We may carefully inspect the food we buy for certain ingredients or where it comes from, but we're still not getting the full story.

Mainstream America was awakened to the plight of millions of farm workers when legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow broadcast his documentary, "The Harvest of Shame" in 1960. Cesar Chavez called on Americans to "Boycott Grapes" in the 1960s and won the first union contract protections for farm workers in America's history.

Now, it is our turn.

Let's ask ourselves why we are so aware of what we eat, yet so unaware of the abuse that California's 500,000 farm workers endure. They live in squalor among us, suffering from sexual harassment, inadequate drinking water and housing, lack of shade, and sky-high disease rates. More farm workers have died from heat in the last few years than at any time in decades. That these conditions persist into the 21st century is appalling, and we ought to be ashamed.

When farm workers organize, they are threatened with deportation. When they complain to the government, they are so often ignored. When they try to defend themselves, they are fired.

Today's leaders of the United Farm Workers are a remarkable group of young men and women. I've marched with them and seen first hand their struggle for fairness and equality.

I have worked for Californians' civil rights before, and I will continue to do so by standing with the workers who help us get our state's produce to the table and keep our agricultural economy running. Farmworkers in California harvest and produce a majority of fresh food for the U.S., which helps preserve our food security and maintains a sustainable, local source of food. Without farmworkers, our national security, economy, and environment would suffer.

This year, the United Farm Workers has decided to do something new, and it's an opportunity for us all to participate in improving the living and working conditions of those who need and deserve it.

They are organizing "Fair Harvest Meals" on college campuses across California. Farm workers will share both the fruits and vegetables they pick and their stories with students. They hope to inspire a new generation of young people to do more than take a day off work or school to honor the legacy of Cesar Chavez. They hope that young people will take what they learn to pressure the food stores we patronize to require humane working conditions from growers.'

To learn more, visit www.ufw.org.

One of my political heroes, Robert F. Kennedy, supported striking UFW workers under Cesar Chavez's leadership in the 1960s. I want to honor both of these civil rights activists by doing all that I can for those who give so much to feed us. I want to see "Fair Harvest Foods" as much a part of our consciousness and consumption as "Free Trade Coffee."

Our state's farm workers deserve every opportunity to participate in the California dream. We have the ability to stop the indignities, to end the suffering, to ease the fears -- and it is our moral imperative to do so.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gavin-newsom/the-people----and-the-sha_b_549979.html
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2010-04-14T20:44:00.000-04:00

Econundrum: Which Gardening Moves Burn Most Calories?

By Kiera Butler
motherjones.com

Last weekend, when I finally ventured into my backyard garden after a long El Niño winter of rain, I knew it wasn't going to be a pretty sight. But I was not prepared for just how bad things had gotten. A few years back, Alan Weisman wrote a great book called The World Without Us, about what might happen to the planet if humanity suddenly vanished. He could have used my backyard as a visual. "Messy" would be a major understatement: Rosemary forest. Compost pile taken over by spindly weeds. Waist-high grasses, grown so thick I couldn't even see the edges of the vegetable bed. Cat poop everywhere.

So I have my work cut out for me. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, considering the long winter has meant I've done a lot of sitting around, and all that weeding will be a good workout. Just ask gardening exercise guru Jeffrey Restuccio, who has written two books on the fitness advantages of yardwork. "To me the greatest benefit of eating organic food is not the food itself," says Restuccio. "It's the exercise that you get growing that food." He's also developed a series of moves that maximize the fitness benefits of gardening. (The lunge-and-weed looks especially awesome.)

With the help of the University of South Carolina School of Public Health's Compendium of Physical Activities, Restuccio estimated the amount of calories burned during half an hour of common gardening activities. Unsurprisingly, turns out that in general, activities that require less power from the grid are also a much better workout. For example:

Mowing:
Ride-on mower: 101 calories
Push mower with motor: 182 calories
Push mower: 243 calories

Trimming:
Power shears: 142 calories
Manual shears: 182 calories

Weeding is also pretty good exercise, at 182 calories burned in a half hour. Restuccio doesn't calculate how many calories you'd burn applying a chemical weed killer, but I'm guessing it's pretty similar to watering, which burns only 61 calories. (One exception to the greener gardening=better exercise rule: "gardening with heavy power tools," which burns a whopping 243 calories, presumably because the tools are, well, heavy.)

Full list of 18 gardening activities and calories burned:
Watering lawn: 61
Mowing lawn (ride-on): 101
Trimming shrubs (power): 142
Raking: 162
Bagging leaves: 162
Planting seedlings: 182
Mowing (push with motor): 182
Planting trees: 182
Snow thrower (walking): 182
Trimming shrubs (manual): 182
Weeding: 182
Clearing land: 202
Digging, spading, tilling: 202
Laying sod: 202
Chopping wood: 202
Gardening with heavy power tools: 243
Mowing lawn (push manual): 243
Double digging: 344

Source:
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/econundrum-gardening-exercise-calories
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2010-04-05T19:57:00.000-04:00

FDA Suppressed CT Scan Imaging Safety Concerns

The Associated Press
April 5, 2010

A former Food and Drug Administration scientist said Tuesday his job was eliminated after he raised concerns about the risks of radiation exposure from high-grade medical scanning.

Dr. Julian Nicholas said at a public hearing that he and other FDA staffers "were pressured to change their scientific opinion," after they opposed the approval of a CT scanner for routine colon cancer screening. Nicholas said that he objected to exposing otherwise healthy patients to the cancer risks of radiation.

After FDA officials pushed ahead with plans to clear the device, Nicholas, now a physician at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, said he and eight other staffers raised their concerns with the division's top director Dr. Jeffrey Shuren last September. The device apparently is still under review.

"Scientific and regulatory review process for medical devices was being distorted by managers who were not following the laws," Nicholas said. A month later Nicholas' position was terminated, he said.

Nicholas does not think there was undue influence by the manufacturer in his ouster, but that his more cautious stance was in opposition to that of FDA higher-ups.

The allegations about suppression of scientific dissent come at an inopportune time for the agency.

The FDA announced an effort to improve scanning safety in February after three California hospitals reported hundreds of acute radiation overdoses last year, with many patients reporting lost hair and skin redness.

Tuesday's meeting was designed to kick off that campaign. The agency is seeking input from physicians and manufacturers on additional safety controls and training to improve CT scanners and other medical imaging devices.

Hundreds of studies have linked certain types of radiation, including the type used in medical imaging, to cancer that can surface decades later.

FDA medical reviewer Dr. Robert Smith, a colleague of Nicholas who also presented at Tuesday's public meeting, said he hoped the FDA would learn a lesson from Nicholas' testimony.

"Science must not be ignored, suppressed or distorted as that endangers the public," Smith told the audience.

Smith, who still works for the agency, supported Nicholas' conclusion that CT scanning for colon cancer should be rejected on safety grounds.

Agency spokesman Dick Thompson said in a statement the FDA's inspector general looked into allegations of retaliation against agency scientists and did not pursue further action or investigation. The agency's policies do not allow staffers to be penalized for expressing scientific views, he added.

"It is not uncommon for scientists, both internal and external to the agency, to disagree on the safety and effectiveness of products under review or on the steps needed to achieve public health goals," said the FDA statement.

Nicholas said, however, he has never been contacted and is still waiting to hear from the FDA's inspector. He stresses that the inspector's jurisdiction is criminal investigations, not allegations of improper conduct.

As a reviewer of medical device applications, Nicholas repeatedly rejected a manufacturers' request to market a CT scanner specifically for colon cancer screening. According to Nicholas, between 1.5 and 2 percent of cancers are caused by CT scanning, and he did not want to see scanning used when a conventional colonoscopy could be used instead.

CT scans provide detailed, three-dimensional images of the body, but at a cost: one CT chest scan carries as much radiation as nearly 400 chest X-rays, according to the FDA.

Nicholas said FDA rules legally barred from naming the manufacturer or discussing the details of its application.

In a June 2009 letter to senior managers, Nicholas stressed that patients should be warned of the radiation risks of CT scanning.

"I hope you understand that the failure to include a warning on the label will mean that patients will undoubtedly develop abdominal cancer and leukemia," Nicholas wrote "It may not happen tomorrow, but yes, sadly it will happen."

Nicholas said he was ridiculed by agency managers for "raising the bugaboo of radiation."

Medical experts are somewhat divided over the usefulness of the so-called virtual colonoscopy, which was designed as a less-invasive alternative to colonoscopy.

The American Cancer Society and the American College of Radiology endorse the procedure for its potential to boost screening for colon cancer, the country's second leading cancer killer.

But some insurers and the government's own Medicare program refuse to pay for the procedure, questioning its effectiveness and the rationale of exposing healthy patients to radiation.

Supporters of the procedure say that virtual colonoscopies use low levels of radiation that don't threaten older patients who get colonoscopies. Radiation exposure that causes cancer accumulates over a lifetime, making younger people the most at-risk population for screening.

"When we look at virtual colonoscopy, the benefits of detecting polyps far outweigh the theoretical risk the low amounts of radiation would have on people of that age," said Dr. Michael Macari of New York University's Langone Medical Center.

CT scans became popular because they offer a quick, relatively cheap way to get an almost surgical view of the body. Doctors are free to use them as they choose, but FDA approval for specific indications allows companies to tout those uses in marketing materials.

The average American's radiation exposure has nearly doubled in the last three decades, largely due to CT tests, according to the FDA.

Source:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/apr/05/scientist-fda-suppressed-imaging-safety-concerns/
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2010-03-31T20:34:00.000-04:00

The Nutritional Superiority of Pasture Raised Animals

by David Kirby

You are what you eat - and the same goes for the animals whose meat, milk and eggs you put in your mouth. We should not only be concerned about what we eat, but what our food eats as well.

Generally speaking, our food animals are not eating what they were naturally meant to eat. As more animals are raised by the thousands and packed into concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), their natural diets of roots and grasses, grubs and bugs has been replaced by a standard factory farm fare of grains, soybeans, King Corn and a sundry array of advanced pharmaceutical products.

But sound science has emerged to demonstrate that eating meat, milk and eggs from grass-fed and pastured animals will provide your body with more health-enhancing, disease fighting materials than industrial-grade CAFO-raised protein.

A new scientific review, a compendium of grass-fed beef benefits just published in Nutrition Journal, concludes that, "Research spanning three decades suggests that grass-only diets can significantly alter the fatty acid composition and improve the overall antioxidant content of beef."

This altered fatty acid composition replaces more of the "bad fats" of grain-fed beef with the "good fats" found in grass-fed protein.

In fact, more and more research is showing that cattle, pigs and poultry raised on their natural pasture and grass-based diets yield meat that is lower in total fat and calories, and food that is higher in good fats like Omega 3's, more concentrated with antioxidants such as vitamins E, C and beta-carotene, and with increased levels of other disease-fighting substances.

A good place to keep up with all the pasture-fed research is at the Eat Wild website run by Jo Robinson, an investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling writer.

"If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to lean grass-fed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year," Robinson writes (though how I would go about affording the price difference, I do not know). "If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year," she adds, so maybe the price is worth it.

Though it has less total fat, grass-fed meat has 2-4 times more of the health-promoting omega-3 fatty acids than CAFO-raised meat.

Pasture-raised animals also produce 3-5 times greater amounts of another good fat called "conjugated lineolic acid (CLA), which Robinsons writes, "may be one of our most potent defenses against cancer:

In laboratory animals, a very small percentage of CLA--a mere 0.1 percent of total calories--greatly reduced tumor growth. There is new evidence that CLA may also reduce cancer risk in humans. In a Finnish study, women who had the highest levels of CLA in their diet, had a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with the lowest levels. Switching from grain-fed to grass-fed meat and dairy products places women in this lowest risk category.

Researcher Tilak Dhiman from Utah State University estimates that you may be able to lower your risk of cancer simply by eating the following grassfed products each day: one glass of whole milk, one ounce of cheese, and one serving of meat. You would have to eat five times that amount of grain-fed meat and dairy products to get the same level of protection.

Proponents of modern feedlot meats will argue that grain fed meat can provide equal levels of omega-3s, as long as consumers eat fattier cuts of their products. But that means you have to eat more of the bad fats to get more of the good fats, not exactly a win-win situation.

Of course, there are other reasons why you might opt for, say, grass-fed dairy over CAFO-raised milk. I find pastured milk to taste sweeter and more flavorful, but that is not why I buy it. I buy it to support a form of traditional agriculture which, in my view, still respects the animals, the land and the people who live near the dairy.

When writing my recent book, Animal Factory, I was unaware of the nutritional advantages of grass-fed protein until after I finished writing it. But I knew that mega-dairies were replacing small, traditional pasture operations in places like the Yakima Valley of Washington State. And that was enough for me to switch.

As I wrote:

Over time, many more of these "milk factories" began appearing in the dry, wide-open Valley. There was no mistaking these newcomers. The old-fashioned dairies had pastured their cows on emerald fields of green, periodically moving the animals through well-timed rotations of meadows brimming with wild clover, alfalfa, downy ryegrass and other ingredients of a natural bovine buffet. Helen Reddout was not exactly enamored of cows, but she had always delighted at watching mothers and their calves gamboling about the green pastures of their valley home. She figured they were doing whatever it is that cows do, at peace in their world. The pastured animals seemed healthy and robust, walking erect with straight spines and heads held high. To Helen, they seemed happy.

But the new milk factories were nothing like that. Instead, they jammed thousands of manure-smeared animals onto strictly confined tracts of land. Whatever grass that had sprouted in these "feeding pens" was quickly shredded under constant hoof-pounding, leaving behind open stretches of dirt, urine and feces. During the arid summers, dry lots bake and crumble under the blazing sun. Cows and heifers kick up clouds of dust laden with ground feces and pathogens. Sometimes on windy days, the disgusting brown fog grew so thick that drivers flipped on their headlights at noon. The winter was even worse. Rain and melting snow mixed with the crap-filled soil and left a thick coating of muck caked onto the cows' legs, bellies and udders. Helen watched these creatures, penned in by the thousands, and felt they were the very picture of animal misery.

Without access to a single blade of grass, these "new" dairy cows depended entirely on trucks that delivered a mixture of milled grains, ground soybean and fermented cornstalk called "silage." Helen knew enough from her family's dairy days that grain was no substitute for grass, which ruminants can digest and transform into protein.

I learned a vital lesson: It's important to know where your food comes from and how it's produced.

Now I have learned another lesson: It's important to know what your food eats, too.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/the-nutritional-superiori_b_517707.html
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2010-03-28T12:01:00.000-04:00

Pharma and New York Times are “Puzzled” by Bone Drug Fractures–But Patients Aren’t

by martha rosenberg
“I broke the left femur (shattered it 2 times in 2006 and 2007),” while on Fosamax writes a 72-year-old patient this week on askapatient.com. “I now walk with a walker and the Dr. says it can never be repaired.”

“I twisted my left leg while shopping & broke left femur in two places, requiring surgery, pins and a rod,” wrote a 61-year-old patient on the site after taking Fosamax for 13 years. “Then in 2/08 I jarred same side foot coming off a step & developed a stress fracture that won’t heal. I now have a stress fracture on the right side femur after walking on the beach.”

“After six years of taking Fosamax, I slipped in ice in my driveway and broke my femur (thigh bone). Two years later, still taking Fosamax, I fell in the snow and my other femur snapped before I hit the ground,” wrote another woman.

“I did nothing really physical except water therapy, yet I have a break” in the 3rd lumbar vertebrae posts a 67-year-old patient who had been taking Fosamax for 14 months.

In 874 patient ratings since 2001, women as young as 32 recount being advised by doctors to take Merck’s Fosamax, approved in 1995, and other bone drugs called bisphosphonates. Many were scared into using the drugs by readings from bone density machines now known to have been planted by drug companies and by encroaching “osteopenia,” the risk of osteoporosis–a term made up by pharma.

On a rating scale of 1 to 5 with 1 defined as “Dissatisfied. I would not recommend taking this medication,” Fosamax receives an average score of 1.5 on askapatient.

Procter & Gamble’s bisphosphonate Actonel also rates a 1.5 and Roche and GSK’s Boniva earns a 1.3, the lowest of any drug reviewed on askapatient. (Are you listening Sally Field?)

Bisphosphonates preserve and remineralize bone by turning off bone remodeling– creation of new bone–that would normally occur. But as early as 2004, Gordon Strewler, MD in the New England Journal of Medicine and Susan M. Ott, MD in the Annals of Internal Medicine warned the remineralized bones could become brittle and fracture-prone and that the drug may actually cause what it is supposed to prevent.

A 2005 article in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism called “Severely Suppressed Bone Turnover: A Potential Complication Of Alendronate Therapy” warned of patients on Fosamax having “increased susceptibility to, and delayed healing of, nonspinal fractures.”

And articles citing “atypical skeletal fragility,” “subtrochanteric stress fractures” and “low-energy femoral shaft fractures” on bisphosphonates have appeared in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Journal of Orthopedic Trauma and the journal Injury.

This month, ABC News’ Richard Besser, MD, former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reports on women’s bones breaking from little or no impact on Fosamax and interviews the newly appointed FDA deputy commissioner Joshua Sharfstein, MD.

Like Vioxx, Merck’s other block buster whose side effects emerged after it was used/tested on the public, Fosamax was launched a month early thanks to its collegial relationship with the FDA. In fact the FDA waved Fosamax through so quickly–six months after its new drug application–Merck had to send a Dear Physician letter months later warning of esophageal side effects “of greater severity than we observed in our controlled clinical trials.” Oops.

And that’s not all the “controlled clinical trials”–two 3-year studies–missed.

Soon reports of osteonecrosis of the jaw surfaced–actual death of the jaw bone–and articles in the Archives of Internal Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine reported that atrial fibrillation, a chronically irregular heartbeat, was twice as common in women taking bisphosphonates.

In 2008 the FDA issued a warning that women on bisphosphonates developed “incapacitating bone, joint, and muscle (musculoskeletal) pain,” from which some did not recover.

And later that year FDA reports of Fosamax-linked esophageal cancer appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Bisphosphonates enjoyed a boost when hormone therapy (HT), whose one “strong” point was preventing osteoporosis, was discredited in 2002. Like HT, bisphosphonates are promoted as one-size-fits-all medication for middle aged and elderly women–and like hormone therapy, they apparently cause the conditions they are supposed to prevent. (HT causes, instead of prevents, cardio and cognitive problems.)

“The data showed that patients taking bisphosphonates and those not taking bisphosphonates had similar numbers of atypical subtrochanteric femur fractures relative to classical osteoporotic hip fractures,” says an FDA alert posted last week about two, large observational studies of the drugs. Oops.

“Postmarketing surveillance and the determination of the real-world safety profile of prescription drugs is arguably flawed,” says an article in the June 22, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine in an understatement, adding that “Patient-oriented Web sites may provide an opportunity to identify potential adverse effects early in a drug’s postmarket history.”

Say that. Patients on askapatient shared their intractable pain, atrial fibrillation, fractures, osteonecrosis and even esophageal cancer on Fosamax years before medical journals, the FDA and ABC news “discovered” the side effects.

“My mother was taking Fosamax from 1995 until 2005 for osteoporosis. I believe she was part of a clinical trial,” wrote a woman on askapatient in 2006. “She had severe esophageal ulcerations, nausea, jaw bone loss and vertigo from the inner ear. She was told to continue the drug. October 2005, she began to have trouble swallowing, she was initially told it was anxiety, but was then diagnosed with Esophogeal cancer and died nine months later in July 2006, she was 80 years old.”

While critics of askapatient’s anecdotal reports might call the ratings biased, assuming people would rather pan than praise, plenty of drugs and drug categories receive high and mid-range scores. In fact, the average score across the board for all 100,000 ratings appearing on askapatient, which takes no drug advertising from pharmaceutical companies, is 3.0, “somewhat satisfied.”

And how objective are medical journal?

An article which established Fosamax’s safety after the public used/tested the rushed through drug in unwitting “clinical trials”–”Ten Years’ Experience with Alendronate [Fosamax] for Osteoporosis in Postmenopausal Women” in the March 18, 2004 New England Journal of Medicine–was funded by Merck, as were 9 of its 11 authors.

In fact one author, Arthur C. Santora, MD, reported “holding equity in Merck,” according to the journal, and received “several US and international patents as inventor related to the use of bisphosphonates that are assigned to Merck.”

Source:
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/03/26/pharma-and-new-york-times-are-puzzled-by-bone-drug-fractures-but-patients-arent/
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2010-03-22T20:46:00.000-04:00

The Water Bottle Lie and Your Health

by Edison de Mello, MD, PhD

March 22nd is World Water Day. On this day all eyes will be turned overseas to the 1.1 billion people that lack access to clean drinking water. What few Americans realize is that the world water crisis has hit America with little fanfare and if we do not act soon, the devastating effects will be irreversible. But luckily this year something significant is being done about it. Beginning on world water day, an amazing new award-winning documentary, called Tapped, will embark on a 30-day cross-country trip across America in an effort to raise awareness of the water crisis in America and wean the public off their reliance on bottled water.

And yet, this is just a "drop" of what needs to be done.

While 90 percent of the US has access to clean drinking water, the remaining 10 percent live in conditions that resemble a third-world country. In a bonus clip for Tapped offered on their website, Tapped takes us to a town just three hours from Los Angeles where the water has been so polluted by the local farming community that residents must make daily trips to buy bottled water to cook, clean, and bathe in. They spend their paychecks buying bottled water thinking they will limit their exposure to the toxins in their tap water, not realizing that only a few of us really know what's in our bottled water because less than one full-time staff person at the FDA is responsible for making sure that bottled water is safe for us.

Take for example the water coolers that so many of us have in our homes and offices. Those five-gallon water jugs are made from a chemical called Bisphenol A (BPA), which was originally developed as a synthetic estrogen. Exposure to BPA has been linked to breast and prostate cancer, reproductive failures, heart disease, cognitive and behavioral problems, diabetes, obesity and asthma. A study commissioned by the Centers for Disease Control in 2007 showed that 93 percent of Americans have BPA in their urine. More recent studies are even scarier suggesting that BPA stays in the body longer than previously believed and that babies and young children may be particularly vulnerable because they may metabolize BPA more slowly than adults. Furthermore, in a study commissioned by the Environmental Working Group this past December, scientists found the chemical in nine of 10 randomly selected samples of umbilical cord blood.

The BPA compound is so harmful that several states have taken the matter on their own and are now banning it:

• Minnesota and Connecticut have lead the way and already have laws on their books banning BPA.
• Just this March, Wisconsin signed a law limiting BPA use.

• Governor Gregoire of Washington State has a bill on her desk limiting the use of BPA awaiting her signature.

• Both Houses in Maryland have approved a bill banning BPA. Governor O'Malley is expected to sigh it into law

• Massachusetts has gone further and is considering banning BPA, including its use in baby bottles and sippy cups

Yet a powerful lobbying compounded by an aggressive advertising campaign by the bottled water industry have persuaded Americans that bottled water is safer, more pure and healthier than their tap water. And so bottled sales continue to rise astronomically even as scientific evidence proving the devastating effects of the industry is stronger than ever. Hello FDA, anybody home?

But what about the single-serve plastic water bottles that so many of us tote to the gym or keep in the trunks of our cars? Those are made with a different type of plastic called PET or polyethylene terephthalate, which is also not free of its harmful effect. Scientists at Goeth University in Frankfurt found in a laboratory experiment in 2009 that estrogenic compounds leach from the plastic into the water. The lead researcher of the study, Martin Wagener, and a colleague used genetically engineered yeast, which changes color in the presence of estrogen-like compounds to analyze 20 samples of mineral water. Nine samples came out of glass bottles, nine were bottled in PET plastic and two were in cardboard, juice-like boxes.

The experiment revealed estrogenic activity in seven of the nine plastic bottles and in both cardboard samples, compared with just three of the nine glass ones: "What we found was really surprising to us. If you drink water from plastic bottles, you have a high probability of drinking estrogenic compounds," Wagner reported.

Epidemiologist Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York summarizes the issue very effectively: "This is coming at a good time because the use of bottles for consuming water is getting very bad press now because of its carbon footprint," she says. "It's just another nail in the coffin of bottled water, the way I see it."

What she was referring to was the fact that It takes 1.5 million barrels a year of oil just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use. Add to that the energy needed to extract the water, refrigerate the bottles, transport them around the country (and the world), and you are looking at 50 million barrels of oil a year, according to the Pacific Institute. To add yet another nail to the coffin, a study by the environmental working group found that their samples of bottled water contained disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and, not surprising, pain medication. Where do we think all the medication we take -- or worse yet, dispose of in our toilets -- ends up? Back in our water system. And most public water sanitation systems do not filter out medication or drug metabolites.

In a telephone interview with Tapped director Stephanie Soechtig, she was passionate about many of the facts uncovered in her documentary including the shocking reality that Americans in general fail to realize that 40 percent of their bottled water is drawn from municipal supplies and suffers the same problems as their tap water or worse. When water is packaged in plastic containers, it faces the potential of an array of other chemicals leaching into it. "The truth is we don't really know what is in our bottled water because it goes virtually unregulated by the FDA," Soechtig said.

According to the UN, by the year 2020, two-thirds of the world will lack access to clean drinking water. Due to economic disparities, women and Children will likely continue to be exposed to thousands of chemicals in water that are virtually unregulated by governments across the globe, including ours. And even in the US, the world's largest economy, the water and sewer pipes are so old and in such need of repair that Nestle has recently stated that America's failing infrastructure would boost bottled water sales. Yet with 40 percent of bottled water being drawn from municipal supplies, as stated previously, there is no guarantee that bottled water is any safer for us.

In addition, as previously indicated, plasticizers in our water and sewer stream are creating devastating effects to local ecosystems. The documentary uncovered that In Colorado, for instance, scientists discovered transgender fish that possessed both male and female reproductive systems because they had been exposed to the estrogen-mimicking effects of plastic. What can we do as citizens to promote change? Get educated, demand more specific water regulation and medication safety disposal from representatives in our local, state and federal governments and watch educational documentaries such as Tapped. At Akasha we found Multipure -- an affordable bottle-less water cooler than connects to the tap and runs the water through a filtration process that dispenses water more pure than bottled water. We are relentlessly educating our patients on their options and their power as consumers. We urge all of you to take a stand and not only demand more strict regulation by the FDA but also find safer and environmentally conscious alternatives to bottled water.

Dr. Edison de Mello is the founder, executive Director and co-director of the Men's Clinic of the Akasha Center for integrative Medicine in Santa Monica California. For further information visit www.akashacenter.com.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/edison-de-mello-md-phd/the-water-bottle-lie-and_b_506523.html
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2010-03-22T07:16:00.000-04:00

Zocor (simvastatin): increased risk of muscle injury with high doses

Simvastatin is sold as a single-ingredient generic medication and as the brand-name, Zocor. It is also sold in combination with ezetimibe as Vytorin; and niacin as Simcor.

Audience: Primary care providers, patients
[Posted 03/19/2010]

FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients that, based on review of data from a large clinical trial and other sources, there is an increased risk of muscle injury in patients taking the highest approved dose of the cholesterol-lowering medication, Zocor (simvastatin) 80 mg, compared to patients taking lower doses of simvastatin and possibly other drugs in the "statin" class. FDA is also reviewing data from other clinical trials, observational studies, adverse event reports, and data on prescription use of simvastatin to better understand the relationship between high-dose simvastatin use and muscle injury.

Recommendations for healthcare professionals, recommendations for patients and a data summary of information used in this ongoing review are provided in the Drug Safety Communication.

[03/19/2010 - Drug Safety Communication - FDA]
[03/2010 - Prescribing Information: Zocor - Merck]

Source:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/SafetyInformation/SafetyAlertsforHumanMedicalProducts/ucm205404.htm
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2010-02-18T22:21:00.000-05:00

Changing Our Disease Care System To A Health Care System

Dr. Frank Lipman

Now that health care reform has been put on the back burner, maybe it is time to discuss what health care reform should really look like. Although we talk about a "health care" system and health care reform, what we're actually talking about is a "disease care" system and disease care reform. Doctors of modern western medicine are trained to treat disease with drugs and surgery. They are not trained to keep people healthy.

At medical school, we doctors are taught how to treat the symptoms of disease, rather than how to prevent disease in the first place. For example, throughout our training we receive very few lectures on nutrition, despite the fact that diet is fundamental to good health. Nor are we trained in other lifestyle modalities that help keep people well, such as exercise and relaxation therapies. We are taught nothing about the wisdoms of alternative medical systems that have been helping other cultures for centuries.

I will be the first to acknowledge that modern western medicine and science have made phenomenal advances. These improvements alleviate pain and suffering and save lives every day. Better treatment of trauma and burns for example, or the management of acute medical and surgical emergencies, are among the miracles of modern life. We have drugs today that, when used appropriately, work wonders. We are indeed blessed to have modern western medicine in our arsenal, and for disasters like the Haiti earthquake, this kind of medicine is life saving.

The problem is that although most of us are not permanently in a health "crisis", this crisis care model is being used to treat our every health problem or symptom - as if it is the only health care model we have. Most of us are not sick enough to be in hospital, and by far the majority of people who visit their doctor, do so for ongoing chronic problems like diabetes, heart disease and obesity - or less-defined ailments like joint pains, back pains, fatigue and headaches. Western medicine's solutions to these problems are drugs and surgery.

But apart from antibiotics, which can kill the bug causing the problem, most drugs treat symptoms and not causes. Similarly, surgery usually addresses the symptoms and not the causes. For instance, bypass surgery, although often life saving, does not address the underlying reasons for why one's arteries are getting blocked in the first place. And in the case of both drugs and surgery there are often significant side effects, which are then addressed with even more drugs, resulting in many patients being on multiple drugs at the same time. But these drugs are powerful agents interacting with very complex systems. Often the first one or two drugs have been prescribed to treat the original problem and the other five to 10 are treating the side effects caused by the first two drugs or the interactions of the other drugs. Clearly this understanding of how to actually cure disease is incomplete.

The tragedy is that most of the chronic problems that most people endure can so often be cured with diet, lifestyle and behavior changes and supplements. Drugs - along with their potentially-unpleasant or even lethal side effects - are often not necessary. Unfortunately it does not suit the drug industry to give patients a drug that cures or eliminates the problem. It is much more lucrative to use drugs to simply manage a patient's symptoms, ensuring that he or she stays on them for life, instead of eliminating the disease. Examples of this would be statins and anti-hypertensives.

What we should now really strive for is a health care system that shows patients how to stay well with a properly preventive approach. In fact what we call "preventive medicine" in the modern western model - pap smears, breast exams and certain blood tests - are really "early detection" measures. I am not saying these tests are unnecessary, but they are not teaching patients how to stay healthy or prevent the diseases they are being screened for. We need a complete rethink and overhaul of what early detection really means and implies.

A true health care system would incorporate the "disease care" model as part of the system. I most certainly would not encourage a patient with a medical emergency to see a nutritionist or acupuncturist. But by the same token, these modalities need to be seen as an important part of a much more comprehensive health care system.

My 30 years of experience as a doctor have shown me that in the areas where western medicine is weak - such as chronic disease and disease prevention - a combination of other modalities and systems actually excel; and where western medicine is particularly helpful, these other modalities are not as effective. It's about taking the best of both and going beyond the limitations of each and melding them into a new combination that works.

This means that western medicine should be used for crisis care, but for chronic disease we should find the root cause of the problem and uproot it - instead of merely suppressing the symptoms. We should look for the underlying metabolic processes that have gone awry or the underlying dysfunctions present. We then need to try to correct these safely, effectively and without side effects.

We must use the objective information we get from blood tests, X rays, MRIs and so on. But we need to consider the actual patient or person as well, by taking into account subjective information too: feelings, intuition, attitudes, belief systems and relationships.

In a true health care system, we must use modern western medicine for what it is good at - crisis care, acute medical and surgical emergencies - and natural, non-toxic and non-invasive therapies whenever possible. The most effective ways of preventing and treating most chronic diseases are diet, supplements, exercise, stress management and other benign modalities. And herein lies the rub. Although guidance may be helpful, lifestyle changes can't be imposed from above - they have to come from you. There is no greater reward than being the master of your own health.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-frank-lipman/changing-our-disease-care_b_453743.html
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2010-02-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

Is Genetically Modified Corn Toxic?
by Michael Reilly

In the United States, we grow and eat corn whose genes have been tweaked to make the plants more resistant to pests and pesticides. Most European countries don't, largely because the citizenry fears it isn't safe. But try as scientists might, they haven't been able to find any good reason why we shouldn't eat genetically modified (GM) food.

Until now. Maybe. A new analysis of data released by Monsanto pried from Monsanto's lawyers' cold dead hands by a tag-team of legal experts at Greenpeace and other groups suggests there may be something to the idea that we shouldn't be eating maize that's had its DNA messed with.

The study found that three strains of modded crops -- MON 810 and MON 863, which are resistant to pests, and NK 603, which is foritified to withstand weed killer -- significantly disrupted the blood chemistry of rats who ate them. According to an article in New Scientist:

With each of the three strains of maize, researchers say they found unusual concentrations of hormones and other compounds in the blood and urine of the tested rats, suggesting each strain impaired kidney and liver function. By the end of the trials, the female rats that were fed MON 863 had elevated blood-sugar levels and raised concentrations of fatty substances called triglycerides. Both are potential precursors of diabetes, according to [lead author Gilles-Eric Séralini of the University of Caen in France].

"What we've shown is clearly not proof of toxicity, but signs of toxicity," says Seralini. "I'm sure there's no acute toxicity, but who's to say there are no chronic effects?"

The researchers are suggesting that if the GM corn has the same affect in humans that is does in rats, we're unknowingly taxing our kidneys and livers, and probably raising the risk of damaging those organs.

But as is often the case in these type of reports, the conclusions aren't terribly convincing. For one, the effects are barely statistically significant, and the article goes on to say that independent toxicologists who saw the paper said Seralini was reading too much into the results.

So we're left with ambiguity. Terrific.

There's just one thing I want to know: why do activist groups have to team up to force Monsanto to release tests showing whether or not GM food is toxic? Shouldn't food have to be demonstrably NON-poisonous before anyone is allow to start feeding it to people?

Source:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/is-genetically-modified-corn-toxic.html
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2010-02-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

FDA Allows Drug Marked 'Not Safe for Use in Humans' to Be Fed to Livestock Right Before Slaughter

There's a good chance you may be eating a livestock drug banned in 160 nations.

While researchers and scientists investigate the cause of our diabetes, obesity, asthma and ADHD epidemics, they should ask why the FDA approved a livestock drug banned in 160 nations and responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown and 10 percent mortality in pigs, according to angry farmers who phoned the manufacturer.

The beta agonist ractopamine, a repartitioning agent that increases protein synthesis, was recruited for livestock use when researchers found the drug, used in asthma, made mice more muscular says Beef magazine.

But unlike the growth promoting antibiotics and hormones used in livestock which are withdrawn as the animal nears slaughter, ractopamine is started as the animal nears slaughter.

As much as twenty percent of Paylean, given to pigs for their last 28 days, Optaflexx, given to cattle their last 28 to 42 days and Tomax, given to turkeys their last 7 to 14 days, remains in consumer meat says author and well known veterinarian Michael W. Fox.

Though banned in Europe, Taiwan and China--more than 1,700 people were "poisoned" from eating Paylean-fed pigs since 1998 says the Sichuan Pork Trade Chamber of Commerce-- ractopamine is used in 45 percent of US pigs and 30 percent of ration-fed cattle says Elanco Animal Health which manufactures all three products.

How does a drug marked, "Not for use in humans. Individuals with cardiovascular disease should exercise special caution to avoid exposure. Use protective clothing, impervious gloves, protective eye wear, and a NIOSH-approved dust mask" become "safe" in human food? With no washout period?

The same way Elanco's other two blockbusters, Stilbosol (diethylstilbestrol or DES), now withdrawn, and Posilac or bovine growth hormone (rBST), bought from Monsanto in 2008, became part of the nation's food supply: shameless corporate lobbying. A third of meetings on the Food Safety and Inspection Service's public calendar in January 2009 were with Elanco, a division of Eli Lilly--or about ractopamine.

In fact, in 2002, three years after Paylean's approval, the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine's Office of Surveillance and Compliance accused Elanco of withholding information about "safety and effectiveness" and "adverse animal drug experiences" upon which ractopamine was approved, in a 14-page warning letter.

"Our representatives requested a complete and accurate list of all your GLP [Good Laboratory Practices] studies involving Paylean® (Ractopamine hydrochloride), including their current status as well as the names of the respective study monitors. In response, your firm supplied to our representatives multiple lists which differed in the names of the studies and their status. In addition, your firm could not locate or identify documents pertaining to some of the studies. This situation was somewhat confusing and created unneeded delays for our representatives," wrote Gloria J. Dunnavan, Director Division of Compliance.

Where was mention of the farmer phone calls to Elanco reporting, "hyperactivity," "dying animals," "downer pigs" and "tying up" and "stress" syndromes, asks the FDA letter. Where was the log of phone calls that included farmers saying, "animals are down and shaking," and "pig vomiting after eating feed with Paylean"?

But, not to worry. Despite ractopamine's dangers and the falsified approval documents, the FDA approved ractopamine the following year for cattle--and last year for turkeys.

According to Temple Grandin, Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, the "indiscriminant use of Paylean (ractopamine) has contributed to an increase in downer non-ambulatory pigs," and pigs that "are extremely difficult to move and drive." In Holsteins, ractopamine is known for causing hoof problems, says Grandin and feedlot managers report the "outer shell of the hoof fell off" on a related beta agonist drug, zilpateral.

A article in the 2003 Journal of Animal Science confirms that "ractopamine does affect the behavior, heart rate and catecholamine profile of finishing pigs and making them more difficult to handle and potentially more susceptible to handling and transport stress."

Nor can we overlook the effects of "adding these drugs to waterways or well water supplies--via contaminated animal feed and manure runoff-- when this class of drugs is so important in treating children with asthma," says David Wallinga, MD of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

The FDA's approval of a drug for food that requires impervious gloves and a mask just to handle is reminiscent of the bovine growth hormone debacle.

Like rBST, ractopamine increases profits despite greater livestock death and disability because a treated animal does the work of two in a macabre version of economies of scale.

Like rBST, food consumers are metabolic, neurological and carcinogen guinea pigs so that agribusiness can make a profit.

And like rBST, "Mothers Of Growing Children" was not marked as a visiting group on the Food Safety and Inspection Service's public calendar next to the ag lobbyists.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/food/145503/why_has_the_fda_allowed_a_drug_marked_%27not_safe_for_use_in_humans%27_to_be_fed_to_livestock_right_before_slaughter

2010-01-25T21:43:00.002-05:00

Shrimp's Dirty Secrets:
Why America's Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare

By Jill Richardson
Alternet.org

Americans love their shrimp. It's the most popular seafood in the country, but unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world's productive ecosystems. Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of "sustainable shrimp" are so far nonexistent.

In his book, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood, Taras Grescoe paints a repulsive picture of how shrimp are farmed in one region of India. The shrimp pond preparation begins with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, then progresses to the use of pesticides (fish-killing chemicals like chlorine and rotenone), pesticides and antibiotics (including some that are banned in the U.S.), and ends by treating the shrimp with sodium tripolyphosphate (a suspected neurotoxicant), Borax, and occasionally caustic soda.

Upon arrival in the U.S., few if any, are inspected by the FDA, and when researchers have examined imported ready-to-eat shrimp, they found 162 separate species of bacteria with resistance to 10 different antibiotics. And yet, as of 2008, Americans are eating 4.1 pounds of shrimp apiece each year -- significantly more than the 2.8 pounds per year we each ate of the second most popular seafood, canned tuna. But what are we actually eating without knowing it? And is it worth the price -- both to our health and the environment?

Understanding the shrimp that supplies our nation's voracious appetite is quite complex. Overall, the shrimp industry represents a dismantling of the marine ecosystem, piece by piece. Farming methods range from those described above to some that are more benign. Problems with irresponsible methods of farming don't end at the "yuck," factor as shrimp farming is credited with destroying 38 percent of the world's mangroves, some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on earth. Mangroves sequester vast amounts of carbon and serve as valuable buffers against hurricanes and tsunamis. Some compare shrimp farming methods that demolish mangroves to slash-and-burn agriculture. A shrimp farmer will clear a section of mangroves and close it off to ensure that the shrimp cannot escape. Then the farmer relies on the tides to refresh the water, carrying shrimp excrement and disease out to sea. In this scenario, the entire mangrove ecosystem is destroyed and turned into a small dead zone for short-term gain. Even after the shrimp farm leaves, the mangroves do not come back.

A more responsible farming system involves closed, inland ponds that use their wastewater for agricultural irrigation instead of allowing it to pollute oceans or other waterways. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program, when a farm has good disease management protocols, it does not need to use so many antibiotics or other chemicals.

One more consideration, even in these cleaner systems, is the wild fish used to feed farmed shrimp. An estimated average of 1.4 pounds of wild fish are used to produce every pound of farmed shrimp. Sometimes the wild fish used is bycatch -- fish that would be dumped into the ocean to rot if they weren't fed to shrimp -- but other times farmed shrimp dine on species like anchovies, herring, sardines and menhaden. These fish are important foods for seabirds, big commercial fish and whales, so removing them from the ecosystem to feed farmed shrimp is problematic.

Additionally, some shrimp are wild-caught, and while they aren't raised in a chemical cocktail, the vast majority is caught using trawling, a highly destructive fishing method. Football field-sized nets are dragged along the ocean floor, scooping up and killing several pounds of marine life for every pound of shrimp they catch and demolishing the ocean floor ecosystem as they go. Where they don't clear-cut coral reefs or other rich ocean floor habitats, they drag their nets through the mud, leaving plumes of sediment so large they are visible from outer space.

After trawling destroys an ocean floor, the ecosystem often cannot recover for decades, if not centuries or millennia. This is particularly significant because 98 percent of ocean life lives on or around the seabed. Depending on the fishery, the amount of bycatch (the term used for unwanted species scooped up and killed by trawlers) ranges from five to 20 pounds per pound of shrimp. These include sharks, rays, starfish, juvenile red snapper, sea turtles and more. While shrimp trawl fisheries only represent 2 percent of the global fish catch, they are responsible for over one-third of the world's bycatch. Trawling is comparable to bulldozing an entire section of rainforest in order to catch one species of bird.

Given this disturbing picture, how can an American know how to find responsibly farmed or fished shrimp? Currently, it's near impossible. Only 15 percent of our total shrimp consumption comes from the U.S. (both farmed and wild sources). The U.S. has good regulations on shrimp farming, so purchasing shrimp farmed in the U.S. is not a bad way to go. Wild shrimp, with a few exceptions, is typically obtained via trawling and should be avoided. The notable exceptions are spot prawns from British Columbia, caught in traps similar to those used for catching lobster, and the small salad shrimp like the Northern shrimp from the East Coast or pink shrimp from Oregon, both of which are certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. However, neither are true substitutes for the large white and tiger shrimp American consumers are used to.

The remaining 85 percent came from other countries and about two-thirds of our imports are farmed with the balance caught in the wild, mostly via trawling. China is the world's top shrimp producer -- both farmed and wild -- but only 2 percent of China's shrimp are imported to the U.S. The world's number two producer, Thailand, is our top foreign source of shrimp. Fully one third of the shrimp the U.S. imports comes from Thailand, and over 80 percent of those shrimp are farmed.

The next biggest sources of U.S. shrimp are Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico, Vietnam, Malaysia and India. Together, those countries provide nearly 90 percent of America's imported shrimp. Interestingly, Ecuador's shrimp industry exists almost entirely to supply U.S. demand, with over 93 percent of its shrimp coming up north to the U.S. The vast majority of those shrimp (almost 90 percent) are farmed. Sadly, shrimp production is responsible for the destruction of 70 percent of Ecuador's mangroves. Farming practices in other countries range from decent to awful, but there's currently no real way for a consumer to tell whether shrimp from any particular country was farmed sustainably or not.

Geoff Shester, senior science manager of Monterey Bay's Seafood Watch, says that ethical shrimp consumption is a chicken and egg problem. On one hand, the solution is for consumers to show demand for responsibly farmed and wild shrimp by eating it but on the other hand, ethical shrimp choices are not yet widely available. Seafood Watch is working with some of the largest seafood buyers in the U.S. to help them buy better shrimp, but it's currently a major challenge.

The first challenge is that labeling and certification programs do not yet exist to identify which farmed shrimp meet sustainable production standards. The second challenge is that even when such programs are in place, the U.S. demand will likely greatly exceed their supply.

Shester's advice to consumers right now is "only buy shrimp that you know comes from a sustainable source. If you can't tell for sure, try something else from the Seafood Watch yellow or green lists." Knowing that many will be unwilling to give up America's favorite seafood, he advocates simply eating less of it and keeping an eye on future updates to the Seafood Watch guide to eating sustainable seafood.

Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.

Source:
http://www.alternet.org/story/145369/
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