Sharing the type of news you are unlikely to come across in the mainstream media.
Showing posts with label food safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food safety. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 October 2025
Sunday, 5 October 2025
What Big Ag doesn’t want you to know about GMOs and glyphosate
For anyone even mildly tuned in to the food movement, Monsanto (now Bayer) and other ag companies have shaped the global industrial food system with GMOs and glyphosate (Roundup). Now they’re using “gene editing” to further shape nature.
Behind the marketing slogans of “precision” and rising to the challenge of “feeding the world,” a different story emerges — one of regulatory capture, hidden side effects, and a food supply increasingly engineered in ways most people never see, can’t really taste, but feel distinctly in their health.
• The incalculable risk of releasing engineered organisms into nature with no recall button
In this interview, Jeffrey Smith, founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology, explains:
• Why gene-edited foods don’t need to be labeled or safety-tested before hitting the grocery shelves (and that we’re probably eating them now!)
• How gene editing like CRISPR can unleash “surprise side effects”
• Why glyphosate became one of the most widely used and controversial chemicals on earth
• The lawsuits, cover-ups, and regulatory failures surrounding Monsanto, now Bayer, products
This conversation pulls back the curtain on the experimentation on our food supply, and what you can do right now to protect your family’s health and avoid stealth GMOs.
Disclaimer:
*This interview is for educational and documentary purposes. It presents opinions and ongoing scientific debates. It is not medical advice. For health decisions, consult a qualified clinician.*
Institute for Responsible Technology: https://responsibletechnology.org
Secret Ingredients film: https://secretingredientsfilm.com
Support our work: https://buymeacoffee.com/collapselife
Friday, 26 June 2015
Why are we being fed by a poison expert?
Why does this matter? Watch this humorous, entertaining, and chillingly accurate 5-minute video to find out. Then tell everyone you know.
Want to take action? Share this video! And if you want to go further, you can join the Food Revolution Network’s Campaign, calling on Coca-Cola to stop fighting GMO labeling.
Coke says it supports transparency and consumer empowerment. But last year, the company spent more than $2 million fighting against labeling of genetically engineered foods in Oregon and Colorado.
Source:
http://foodrevolution.org/blog/monsanto-gmos-video/
Saturday, 22 November 2014
Poison on the Platter
By The Institue for Responsible Technology
Bollywood filmmaker superstar Mahesh Bhatt launches a scathing attack on biotech multinational companies and compliant government regulators, showing how their dangerous genetically engineered foods and crops comprise one of the greatest dangers on earth. Released in February 2008, the hard-hitting Poison on the Platter is generating unprecedented fervor against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) throughout India. It is probably the most talked about film in the country.
Mahesh Bhatt says, “in their mad rush to capture the multi-billion dollar Indian agricultural and food industry, the biotech multinational companies are bulldozing warnings by scientists about the adverse impact of GM foods on health and environment, and hurtling the mankind toward a disaster, which will be far more destructive than anything the world has seen so far, simply because it will affect every single person living on this planet”.
Bhatt’s film makes a mockery of Government of India’s claim of not allowing import of any GM foods in the country as it conclusively demonstrates that supermarkets in India are flooded with harmful food stuff and biotech MNCs are cashing on the ignorance of unsuspecting consumers in India.
Trials of GM foods on lab animals across the world have repeatedly shown that they cause bleeding stomachs, and adversely affect brain, lungs, liver, kidney, pancreas and intestine. They have been even linked to higher offspring mortality and causing infertility.
“Are we ready to eat a food that has the potential to stunt our growth, impair our immune system and adversely affect all our vital organs,” asks Ajay Kanchan, director of the documentary, adding that “It’s shocking that instead of protecting the interests of farmers and consumers, regulatory bodies in India are pandering to the greed of biotech MNCs like Monsanto, whose track record is littered with lies, deceptions and notorious ability to corrupt the regulatory bodies all over the world”.
“I can say with absolute confidence that there is irrefutable and overwhelming evidence that genetically engineered foods are harmful and that they are not being evaluated properly by the governments of India, United States, the European Union, or anywhere in the world,” says Jeffrey M. Smith, Founder Director, Institute of Responsible Technology and author of two widely respected books on health impact of GM foods – Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette. He added, “this is one of the most dangerous technologies ever introduced on earth, and it’s being deployed in our food supply. It’s madness, what we need is a political willingness to say no more.”
Saturday, 13 September 2014
German Supermarket Giants Demand Return to GMO-Free Fed Poultry
Written By: Henry Rowlands
Germany's top supermarkets, the powerhouses of Europe when it comes to retail, have delivered a blow to the biotech industry by forcing the German poultry industry to return to the use of non-GMO feed.
It was announced last Thursday that the German supermarkets, with a broad consensus, recently demanded from the German Poultry Association (ZDG) to stop using GMO feed for both egg and poultry meat production, starting from January 1st 2015. That is the date when the retailers want to receive GMO-free fed products again, meaning poultry suppliers will have to rush to get their feed supply chains free from GMO feed once more.
German language source: www.db.zs-intern.de
In February this year, the ZDG unilaterally declared that it was stopping using GM-free animal feed, following similar moves by other associations in England and Denmark. The reasons provided for the step after over a decade of GMO-free feeding were an alleged shortage of GMO-free soya, the risk of contamination, and the associated legal uncertainty.
However, following close consultation with Brazilian authorities, the German supermarkets have realized that the reasons given by ZDG do not stand up: There is clearly enough Brazilian GMO-free feed in the system to supply Europe's needs.
Global GMO Free Coalition Coordinator, Henry Rowlands, stated:
"The wool has been pulled over the eyes of retailers across Europe by the GMO industry over the past year. We welcome the news that they have started to fight back in the interest of their customers, who do not want to buy GM-fed eggs and meat."
Claire Robinson of Earth Open Source, a Global GMO Free Coalition partner organisation, said, "Retailers must ensure that their GMO-free feed requirements are communicated all the way along the supply chain to the Brazilian soymeal exporters."
Vandana Shiva of Navdanya (India), added: "This is an important step towards food democracy, the right to choose what you eat, and the right to know how it was produced."
"By taking a stand against the biotech and poultry industries, German supermarkets have proven that it's possible to respond to consumer demand for poultry that is fed non-GMO feed and in doing so, force significant changes to the supply chain despite pressure from Monsanto and industry trade associations," said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate, Via Organica.
"The use of glyphosate-contaminated GMO feed in poultry adds significant toxicological risks to the food chain both through bioaccumulation of agrochemicals and the shift in microbial communities within poultry towards higher pathogenicity. This promising decision by Germany's leading supermarkets should be applauded and used as an example of where the rest of the world should head for both a safer and more sustainable business model."
ZDG has reacted to the pressure from the supermarkets and consumers by proposing to the retailers to set up a working group to discuss options, but the truth is they do not look as if they have many. The argument of insufficient availability of non-GMO soya has been formally retracted by the ZDG.
The German retailers also indicated that they will demand a completely GMO-free feed supply chain in all animal feed sectors, including dairy, pork and beef as a next step that is to follow relatively soon.
In 2013 12 supermarkets from across Europe signed the Brussels Soy Declaration, stating that they want EU consumers and farmers to have a choice to eat and use non-GMO soy. This development came soon after the announcement by some UK supermarkets that they would abandon requirements that their poultry suppliers use non-GMO feed.
Original article can be read at:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/german-supermarket-giants-demand-return-gmo-free-fed-poultry
Sunday, 31 August 2014
GMO whistleblower Dr. Thierry Vrain unveils insider information on engineered food
Thierry Vrain retired 10 years ago after a long career as a soil biologist and ended head of a department of molecular biology running his own research program to engineer nematode resistance genes in crops. In his retirement career as a gardener he learned five or six years ago how the soil ecosystem really functions and have been preaching ever since. He find himself with a good knowledge of genetic engineering technologies surrounded by people in fear of being hurt by the food they eat. He found that he cannot ignore them anymore and has joined the campaign to educate consumers about the potential health problems reported in the recent scientific literature.
Monday, 17 June 2013
CFS Launches Class Action Lawsuit against Monsanto
By the Center For Food Safety
Last week, CFS and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers launched a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for the escape of Monsanto’s illegal GE wheat in Oregon. Support our work to hold Monsanto accountable!
You probably read the news that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced that unapproved, genetically engineered (GE) wheat was found contaminating an Oregon farmer’s field. The GE wheat, known as Roundup Ready, was developed by the Monsanto Company to withstand direct application of Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide, and was never approved for sale.
The discovery of unapproved Roundup Ready wheat in a farmer's field in Oregon, years after Monsanto terminated field testing, is just the latest example of Monsanto's inability to keep their engineered genes under control. Until Monsanto and USDA begin to take gene flow from field tests more seriously, we can expect GE contamination to continue to cause havoc.
CFS is not standing idly by hoping Monsanto and USDA do the right thing. We are taking action. Last week, Center for Food Safety and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto. Center for Food Safety and Pacific Northwest wheat farmers are representing the broad class of farmers affected by this contamination, seeking monetary compensation for farmers who have lost export markets, and forcing Monsanto to take measures to clean up the contamination and ensure it never happens again.
As we’ve warned for over a decade, GE crops simply can’t be controlled once they’re released into the environment. Past transgenic contamination episodes involving GE corn and GE rice triggered over $1 billion in losses and economic hardship to farmers, and recalls of food products containing illegal GE corn. CFS has been there every time, fighting in the courts, in the halls of Congress, and in communities to protect our food, our farms, and our environment from these risky GE crops.
With your support, we’ve been working to hold biotech companies like Monsanto accountable and tighten regulations over their experimental GE crop field trials for over a decade. And we’ve had a lot of successes -- like our past litigation over similar field trials in Oregon and Hawaii for other GE crops in which we won substantial victories over USDA and industry for their field trial abuses and failures. Because of this litigation, we now have the legal ability to challenge the legality of field trials, and USDA can no longer ignore their environmental and socioeconomic impacts. We’ve even forced USDA to publicly admit new field trial contamination incidents, like this one, that they otherwise tried to keep secret.
Center for Food Safety
660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #302
Washington DC 20003
phone (202) 547-9359 | fax (202) 547-9429
Sunday, 20 May 2012
GMO film project
By the Globonsomeday
I decided to share the video trailer to an upcoming film, GMO Film Project, which shows a father's discovery of GMOs via the symbolic act of Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto's "gift" of 430 t of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds after the devastating earthquake of January 2010.
The film description notes that after a journey to Haiti to find out why hungry farmers would burn seeds, the real awakening of what has happened to food in the United States and what is at stake at the global food supply.
The dangers of unknown health and environmental risks, takeover of seeds, toxins, and food monopoly meets with a growing resistance of organic farmers, concerned citizens, and a movement to take back what has been lost.
Multinational agrochemical companies such as Monsanto (known for Agent Orange, rBGH, PCBs and Roundup) and Dow (known for Napalm) are contributing towards producing genetically modified food that have never been fully labelled or fully tested. Indeed Monsanto has resisted attempts at requiring labelling.
The small handful of corporations are attempting to control everything we eat worldwide - through buying, genetically modifying, and patenting seeds.
Furthermore, there were 148 600 000 ha of GM crops worldwide in 2010 (of which 66 800 000 ha were grown in the United States alone). One can find the full statistics, as well as which GM crops are grown country-by-country, here.
However, there is still time to save our planet and protect our food supply. As mentioned in previous articles in this blog, we can also take action ourselves. In addition to demanding full labelling of food, boycott anything from big agribusiness, stick to local, organic, natural and ideally fresh produce. Avoid anything with GMO, anything resulting from factory farming or intensive farming as well as also harmful chemicals (including pesticides and herbicides).
Further information
I decided to share the video trailer to an upcoming film, GMO Film Project, which shows a father's discovery of GMOs via the symbolic act of Haitian farmers burning seeds in defiance of Monsanto's "gift" of 430 t of hybrid corn and vegetable seeds after the devastating earthquake of January 2010.
The film description notes that after a journey to Haiti to find out why hungry farmers would burn seeds, the real awakening of what has happened to food in the United States and what is at stake at the global food supply.
The dangers of unknown health and environmental risks, takeover of seeds, toxins, and food monopoly meets with a growing resistance of organic farmers, concerned citizens, and a movement to take back what has been lost.
Multinational agrochemical companies such as Monsanto (known for Agent Orange, rBGH, PCBs and Roundup) and Dow (known for Napalm) are contributing towards producing genetically modified food that have never been fully labelled or fully tested. Indeed Monsanto has resisted attempts at requiring labelling.
The small handful of corporations are attempting to control everything we eat worldwide - through buying, genetically modifying, and patenting seeds.
Furthermore, there were 148 600 000 ha of GM crops worldwide in 2010 (of which 66 800 000 ha were grown in the United States alone). One can find the full statistics, as well as which GM crops are grown country-by-country, here.
However, there is still time to save our planet and protect our food supply. As mentioned in previous articles in this blog, we can also take action ourselves. In addition to demanding full labelling of food, boycott anything from big agribusiness, stick to local, organic, natural and ideally fresh produce. Avoid anything with GMO, anything resulting from factory farming or intensive farming as well as also harmful chemicals (including pesticides and herbicides).
Further information
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
The ugly truth behind ground beef
I hope you’re not having hamburger tonight…because this story might change your dinner plans.
One of the key suppliers of hamburger “meat” is coming under fire…as tests show a disturbing number of E. coli and salmonella pathogens, according to a disturbing report in the New York Times.
Want to know why I put “meat” in quotes?
Are you sure?
In an ideal world, a butcher runs a piece of steak through a grinder, and you get hamburger. That’s how I get mine, and if that’s how you get yours then you’ve got nothing to fear.
But fast food, supermarket and even school lunch burgers are made differently. They use “meat” from different sources, like trimmings.
Trimmings are scraps of fatty pieces left over in the slaughterhouse after all the good cuts of meat have been taken. Believe me, I love beef — the fattier, the better. But this is awful garbage that I wouldn’t touch.
Once upon a time, this stuff was destined for pet food. Today, it’s added to burgers from coast to coast, thanks largely to a company called Beef Products Inc.
The company developed a technique that liquefies the trimmings, runs them through a centrifuge to separate the fat from the protein, then injects it with ammonia in an attempt to kill pathogens.
Then it’s turned into blocks and chips that are used to beef up hamburgers. The company sells 7 million pounds of it every week, and school lunch burgers are now 15 percent trimmings.
Did I mention that it’s really, really cheap? It better be — after all, it was practically worthless when they found it on the slaughterhouse floor.
The Times found one message from a USDA microbiologist who called this junk “pink slime” and wrote, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”
Naturally, he was ignored. So were the other microbiologists who were disgusted by this process.
Instead, the USDA approved this technique and then decided it was so foolproof that they could leave the company in charge of its own testing.
You can see where this is going now, right?
The Times investigation found a disturbing pattern of E. coli and salmonella contamination…one that could force changes on the system — someday.
But as of now, “pink slime” is still in your burgers — and it’s probably here to stay.
The lesson here is to avoid all factory meat. Buy only meat from grass-fed cows from a quality butcher or small farm — and only eat hamburger when you can see a fresh cut of beef go into the grinder yourself.
By Dr Douglass
'Pink slime' back on the menu
"Pink slime" is one of the meat industry's most disgusting creations ever -- and the more people learn about it, the more companies turn away from it.
Even McDonald's has said it won't use this stuff in its burgers anymore.
But thanks to the meat industry's friends in high places there's one place where pink slime is still on the menu every single day: school cafeterias.
Call it one more reason to make sure your kids and grandkids bring their own food to school every day.
If you haven't heard of pink slime yet, prepare to lose your appetite.
As I told you a couple of years ago, this stuff is allegedly beef -- but it's not any cut of meat you'd actually recognize.
It's factory floor meat scraps that would have been tossed into the garbage not long ago.
Because it's so nasty, it has to be heated and treated with ammonia to kill the bacteria crawling all over it. By the time it's done being processed, it looks like... well... the name says it all.
Lately, it's been getting a lot of attention and companies like McDonald's are tripping over themselves to make sure people know they've stopped using it.
In any other circumstance, it would be the end of pink slime. People don't want it... companies won't use it... so the natural laws of supply and demand should kick in.
But these aren't natural circumstances, because the meat industry has a special friend to rescue it in times like this: The United States Department of Agriculture.
While everyone else flees from pink slime, the USDA -- the same group that thinks it has the right to tell you what to eat, by the way -- is ordering 7 MILLION POUNDS of this stuff to use in school lunches.
But the agency says don't worry -- no single school burger will be more than 15 percent slime.
How reassuring.
Seeing red over pink,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
FDA Denies Citizen Petitions on Animal Antibiotics
Agency Claims Withdrawing Drugs Is Too Hard; Will Rely on Drug Companies to Self-Regulate
CHICAGO, Nov. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Monday, in a disappointing move, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied two citizen petitions that asked the Agency to ban certain uses of antibiotics in food animals. The petitions, filed in 1999 and 2005, urge the FDA to withdraw the approvals for antibiotics given to animals in feed or water for purposes other than disease treatment if the antibiotics are also used in human medicine. The petitions were filed by Environmental Defense, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Animal Concerns Trust, and the Union of Concerned Scientists along with other groups because of evidence showing that using antibiotics in this way in food animals can lead to the spread of difficult to treat resistant infections in humans.
The response to these long-standing citizen petitions came after several of the petitioners filed suit in May against the FDA for not responding. In addition to demanding the FDA respond to the citizen petitions, the lawsuit asks that the FDA take action on the Agency's own safety findings from 1977 and withdraw approval for most uses of penicillin and tetracyclines in animal feed.
In denying the petitions, the FDA did not challenge the need to reduce antibiotic use, but instead argued that the withdrawal process itself was too expensive and resource intensive. Rather than implementing its formal process for taking drugs off the market, the Agency stated that it plans "to work with sponsors who approach FDA and are interested in working cooperatively with the Agency to phase out production uses of medically important antimicrobials." FDA has released a draft version of a document that describes its plan to reduce use through the voluntary withdrawal by pharmaceutical companies of currently marketed uses of antibiotics in feed.
"Instead of adhering to its mission to protect consumers, the FDA is waiting for the drug companies to voluntarily do what the Agency is legally mandated to do. There is absolutely no reason to believe that drug companies will voluntarily reduce sales of antibiotics and act against their own financial self-interest. Without reductions in antibiotics used it is impossible for there to be any public health benefit," said Steven Roach, FACT's Public Health Program Director. "For this reason we do not see the FDA's plan as an answer to the petitions or the problem of antibiotic resistance."
In addition to bringing suit against the FDA, FACT also supports the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. This federal legislation, if passed, would require the FDA to address non-therapeutic antibiotic use and make it easier for the Agency to withdraw animal antibiotics that are found to be unsafe from an antibiotic resistance standpoint.
"Reducing antibiotic overuse is essential for making sure antibiotics will keep working for years to come – to treat our sick children, families and animals. It is outrageous that the FDA considers voluntary self-regulation by drug companies to be enough. It is clearly not," said FACT's Executive Director Richard Wood.
Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT) is a Chicago based non-profit that promotes humane and healthy farms through science-based advocacy, consumer education, and support for humane farmers. For more information visit www.foodanimalconcerns.org.
Contact: Jacki Rossi, (773) 525-4952 w, (219) 218-3824
SOURCE Food Animal Concerns Trust
RELATED LINKS
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Dr. Shiv Chopra on rBGH
Internationally renowned natural health physician and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Shiv Chopra talk about Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Cereal Crimes
"Natural" claims in the cereal and granola aisle mislead consumers. A new research study from The Cornucopia Institute indicates the "natural" claim is mostly meaningless marketing hype, in contrast to the USDA certified organic label which signifies the food was produced without genetically modified organisms (GMOs), toxic pesticides and other potentially dangerous synthetic inputs. Cornucopia and USDA research finds GMOs, and toxic pesticide residues, in "natural" cereal ingredients... and many "natural" brands are often priced higher than equivalent organic products.
For more information: http://www.cornucopia.org/2011/10/natural-vs-organic-cereal/
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Food Inc.
Know where your food is coming from and vote for change through your food choices and with your wallet!
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
270 000 organic farmers sue Monsanto
By Danielle Magnuson
Grow Switch Organic Blog
More than 270,000 organic farmers are taking on corporate agriculture giant Monsanto in a lawsuit filed March 30. Led by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, the family farmers are fighting for the right to keep a portion of the world food supply organic—and preemptively protecting themselves from accusations of stealing genetically modified seeds that drift on to their pristine crop fields.
Consumers are powerful. For more than a decade, a cultural shift has seen shoppers renounce the faster-fatter-bigger-cheaper mindset of factory farms, exposéd in the 2008 documentary Food, Inc. From heirloom tomatoes to heritage chickens, we want our food slow, sustainable, and local—healthy for the earth, healthy for animals, and healthy for our bodies.
But with patented seeds infiltrating the environment so fully, organic itself is at risk. Monsanto’s widely used Genuity® Roundup Ready® canola seed has already turned heirloom canola oil into an extinct species. The suing farmers are seeking to prevent similar contamination of organic corn, soybeans, and a host of other crops. What’s more, they’re seeking to prevent Monsanto from accusing them of unlawfully using the very seeds they’re trying to avoid.
“It seems quite perverse that an organic farmer contaminated by transgenic seed could be accused of patent infringement,” says Public Patent Foundation director Dan Ravicher in a Cornucopia Institute article about the farmers’ lawsuit (May 30, 2011), “but Monsanto has made such accusations before and is notorious for having sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement.”
Even as the megacorporation enjoys soaring stock, the U.S. justice department continues to look into allegations of its fraudulent antitrust practices (The Street, June 29, 2011):
Monsanto, which has acquired more than 20 of the nation’s biggest seed producers and sellers over the last decade, has long pursued a strict policy with its customers, obligating them to buy its bioengineered seeds every year rather than use them in multiple planting seasons. Farmers who disobey are blacklisted forever.
It’s a wide net Monsanto has cast over the agricultural landscape. As Ravicher points out, “it’s actually in Monsanto’s financial interest to eliminate organic seed so that they can have a total monopoly over our food supply.”
Imagine a world devoid of naturally vigorous traditional crops and controlled by a single business with a appetite for intellectual property. Did anyone else feel a cold wind pass through them? Now imagine a world where thousands of family farmers fight the good fight to continue giving consumers a choice in their food—and win.
Thanks to Charles Councill for this story.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
‘Sad day’ for whistleblowers, union warns as board rules on fired scientists
Mike Blanchfield
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA—Two of three scientists fired by Health Canada in a long-running whistleblowing saga have lost a bid to get their jobs back.
And one of the country’s largest public service unions is calling it a “sad day” for bureaucrats who want to raise concerns about public safety.
In a decision released without fanfare last week, the Public Service Labour Relations Board dismissed the grievances of Shiv Chopra and Margaret Haydon, who were fired for insubordination in 2004.
It did, however, rule that Gerard Lambert was wrongly dismissed.
The three scientists — probably the country’s best-known whistleblowers — have sparked headlines since the 1990s in a series of high-profile disputes over food safety. They have said publicly they were pressured by their bosses to approve drugs despite human safety concerns.
In the late 1990s, they publicly opposed rBST, a bovine growth hormone, which enhances milk production in cows. Their criticism led to a Senate inquiry and a decision not to approve the drug.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service says it will likely appeal the 208-page decision, which followed 150 days of hearings over nearly five years.
“Today is a sad day,” PIPS President Gary Corbett said Monday. “The government of Canada offers little protection to whistleblowers.”
“Their only defiance is that they resisted commercial pressure and provided evidence to official parliamentary committees. Cases of dismissal like these do nothing good to help public-service whistleblowers to come forward and denounce wrongdoing within their departments.”
Chopra, perhaps the most outspoken of the group and the author of a book that is scathingly critical of Health Canada, echoed the sentiment.
“The issue here is not just some employees losing their jobs or whistleblowing,” said Chopra. “We’re not talking about our rights ... the public’s right to know from the people they pay to protect their health and safety — that is the issue.
“All you Canadians — everybody is involved here.”
Lambert greeted the ruling with mixed feelings. The ruling reinstated his job, and an adjudicator will have 90 days to determine how much compensation he is eligible to receive.
Speaking in a soft, halting voice, Lambert estimated that he is owed “$250,000 at least,” but that the ordeal has left him stressed and unhealthy. Neither he nor his two fellow colleagues found other work over the last seven years.
“I was sorry for them and my wife asked me why you are not smiling about the decision because you will be reinstated,” Lambert said.
Still, he said he would like to return to work, “as soon as possible.”
Prior to their firings in June 2004, the scientists raised numerous concerns.
They warned that carbadox, a drug used to promote growth in pigs, could produce carcinogenic residues. They said that Baytril, used to promote growth in cows and chickens, could produce antibiotic resistance in humans.
Chopra criticized then-health minister Allan Rock’s response to the anthrax scare that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The scientist questioned the expenditure of millions to stockpile antibiotics, saying the fear of bioterrorism was overblown.
Chopra and Haydon warned in 2003, before Canada’s first case of mad cow disease, that measures to prevent the disease were inadequate. They called for a total ban on the use of animals parts in the feed of other animals.
Chopra criticized the board for not directly addressing the broader issue of public safety in its ruling last week.
“Meanwhile the damage to public health continues, and companies keep on selling the same stuff,” he said.
Chopra cited last week’s recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey by American meat company Cargill as evidence of a continuing problem.
“This is a global problem, right now, of food safety.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1036200--sad-day-for-whistleblowers-union-warns-as-board-rules-on-fired-scientists
OTTAWA—Two of three scientists fired by Health Canada in a long-running whistleblowing saga have lost a bid to get their jobs back.
And one of the country’s largest public service unions is calling it a “sad day” for bureaucrats who want to raise concerns about public safety.
In a decision released without fanfare last week, the Public Service Labour Relations Board dismissed the grievances of Shiv Chopra and Margaret Haydon, who were fired for insubordination in 2004.
It did, however, rule that Gerard Lambert was wrongly dismissed.
The three scientists — probably the country’s best-known whistleblowers — have sparked headlines since the 1990s in a series of high-profile disputes over food safety. They have said publicly they were pressured by their bosses to approve drugs despite human safety concerns.
In the late 1990s, they publicly opposed rBST, a bovine growth hormone, which enhances milk production in cows. Their criticism led to a Senate inquiry and a decision not to approve the drug.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service says it will likely appeal the 208-page decision, which followed 150 days of hearings over nearly five years.
“Today is a sad day,” PIPS President Gary Corbett said Monday. “The government of Canada offers little protection to whistleblowers.”
“Their only defiance is that they resisted commercial pressure and provided evidence to official parliamentary committees. Cases of dismissal like these do nothing good to help public-service whistleblowers to come forward and denounce wrongdoing within their departments.”
Chopra, perhaps the most outspoken of the group and the author of a book that is scathingly critical of Health Canada, echoed the sentiment.
“The issue here is not just some employees losing their jobs or whistleblowing,” said Chopra. “We’re not talking about our rights ... the public’s right to know from the people they pay to protect their health and safety — that is the issue.
“All you Canadians — everybody is involved here.”
Lambert greeted the ruling with mixed feelings. The ruling reinstated his job, and an adjudicator will have 90 days to determine how much compensation he is eligible to receive.
Speaking in a soft, halting voice, Lambert estimated that he is owed “$250,000 at least,” but that the ordeal has left him stressed and unhealthy. Neither he nor his two fellow colleagues found other work over the last seven years.
“I was sorry for them and my wife asked me why you are not smiling about the decision because you will be reinstated,” Lambert said.
Still, he said he would like to return to work, “as soon as possible.”
Prior to their firings in June 2004, the scientists raised numerous concerns.
They warned that carbadox, a drug used to promote growth in pigs, could produce carcinogenic residues. They said that Baytril, used to promote growth in cows and chickens, could produce antibiotic resistance in humans.
Chopra criticized then-health minister Allan Rock’s response to the anthrax scare that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The scientist questioned the expenditure of millions to stockpile antibiotics, saying the fear of bioterrorism was overblown.
Chopra and Haydon warned in 2003, before Canada’s first case of mad cow disease, that measures to prevent the disease were inadequate. They called for a total ban on the use of animals parts in the feed of other animals.
Chopra criticized the board for not directly addressing the broader issue of public safety in its ruling last week.
“Meanwhile the damage to public health continues, and companies keep on selling the same stuff,” he said.
Chopra cited last week’s recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey by American meat company Cargill as evidence of a continuing problem.
“This is a global problem, right now, of food safety.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1036200--sad-day-for-whistleblowers-union-warns-as-board-rules-on-fired-scientists
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Bugs for dinner
By DR Douglass
Supermarket meat crawling with bacteria
Sell a little healthy raw milk to a willing consumer, and you can expect cops to burst through the door with their guns drawn — but you can pass off tainted meat on unsuspecting customers all day long, and the feds won’t do a thing about it.
Case in point: The latest study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, which showed that up to HALF of all supermarket meat is contaminated with bacteria — and half of those are resistant to multiple antibiotics.
Researchers bought 136 packages of beef, chicken, pork, and turkey from 26 supermarkets in five cities — and what they found would even make someone with an iron stomach a bit queasy.
Tests revealed that 47 percent of the meat was contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus. Nearly all of the samples were resistant to one antibiotic, and 52 percent were resistant to at least three different drugs.
And believe it or not, that’s not even the worst news — because S. aureus doesn’t even make the Top 10 list of the U.S.’s leading pathogens.
Americans are routinely infected by campylobacter from poultry, toxoplasma from pork, and E. coli from beef, just to name a few. All told, the top 14 pathogens are responsible for nearly 9 million illnesses a year, including 55,678 hospitalizations and 1,322 deaths.
But wait — because that’s STILL not the worst news.
Overall, food poisoning sickens up to a quarter of all Americans every year –- leading to some 325,000 hospitalizations and up to 5,000 deaths that we know of.
Who knows how big the real numbers are.
You may call it “contaminated meat,” but I call it “biological warfare.”
This is a bigger national crisis than airline safety, terrorism, or natural disasters — and the FDA and USDA won’t do a thing about it.
But you can.
Many of these diseases and infections begin at factory farms — festering stinkholes where animals live in filth, eat filth, and die in filth.
Along the way, they’re pumped so full of so many drugs that you get a dose with every bite.
If you can’t get your meats direct from a small farm, find a good butcher who does. Going organic is often a waste of money with many products — but in this case, it’s worth every last cent.
US beef packed with drugs, metals and poisons
By DR Douglass
Want some antibiotics? Don’t waste time with your doctor — just head to the supermarket.
You’ll find a wide selection of drugs… but they won’t be in the pharmacy section.
They’ll be in the meats department.
The USDA’s own Office of the Inspector General released a report showing that American beef is routinely contaminated with drug residue, toxic heavy metals, and actual poison.
If you’re looking for a recall, don’t hold your breath. Even when the government knows they’re contaminated, the meat is often shipped off and sold before the test results come back!
The report lists four specific instances in 2007 and 2008 when tests revealed enough veterinary drugs in meat to cause stomach, nerve, or skin problems in the humans who might eat it… but there wasn’t a single attempt to recall it.
But when it comes right down to it, the drugs in the meat are the least of your worries. Toxic heavy metals are routinely found in the meat sold to you and your family. Don’t expect that to change any time soon, either. Because as it turns out, no guidelines exist that ban things like copper and arsenic from your meat.
“In 2008, a producer self-reported that arsenic had been mistakenly ingested by his cattle, and voluntarily withheld contaminated animals from the food supply after they were slaughtered and tested positive for arsenic poisoning,” the report reads.
“If the producer had not acted voluntarily, FSIS would not have had a basis to stop distribution of this meat once it was in commerce.”
The FSIS is the Food Safety and Inspection Service, the deliberately crippled arm of the FDA that can only watch as arsenic, copper, and other toxins enter the food chain.
Think this is going to get better? Think again: The feds are CUTTING $10 million from the USDA’s meat and poultry inspection budget.
Happy eating.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Radiation detected in milk, air and water - Is America safe?
By Mike Ludwig
Radioactive material from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has fallen in rain on major cities across the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency has also detected radioactive materials in milk, air and drinking water. The EPA and other government agencies continue to insist that they expected to see some level of radiation on US soil after the Daiichi disaster, and the current radiation levels are not a cause of public health concern. Truthout has identified gaps in the government's data, however, and nuclear watchdogs are concerned that public officials are not telling Americans the whole story.
Consider Boise, Idaho, where the amount of radioactive iodine-131 in rainwater jumped from 242 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) on March 22 to 390 pCi/L on March 27, according to the EPA. Iodine-131 levels found in rainwater sampled from about a dozen other cities range from 8 to 125 pCi/L.
The Boise figures seem high when compared to the Maximum Containment Level (MCL) for drinking water, which the Safe Drinking Water Act sets at 3 pCi/L for iodine-131 in water consumed by people over many years. Fortunately for Boise, iodine-131 decays in about eight days, and the most recent tests on drinking water in Boise found iodine-131 levels at 0.2 pCi/L. But some questions remain unanswered.
"The rainwater appears to be contaminated, and that rainwater falls on rangelands and agricultural fields, but we're not getting any data on agricultural crops and little data on milk," said Dan Hirsch of the nuclear watchdog group Committee to Bridge the Gap.
Hirsch told Truthout that he is not sure if radiation is posing a threat to public health because the government is not doing enough testing, and agencies are putting "spin" on the data they do release.
Radiation tests on milk have come up positive in several US cities, but Boise is not on the list of cities where milk is tested. Milk in Little Rock, Arkansas, had 8.9 pCi/L of iodine-131 on March 30. Milk in Phoenix, Arizona contained, in at 3.2 pCi/L that same week, and milk in Los Angeles, California, had a similar reading of 2.9 pCi/L. These results were posted about a week after the samples were taken.
The most startling numbers come from Hilo, Hawaii, which is much closer to Japan than mainland states. Milk sampled from Hilo on April 4 was contaminated with 18 pCi/L of iodine-131, 24 pCi/L of cesium-134 and 19 pCi/L of cesium-137.
These figures appear gloomy when compared with the drinking water MCL of 3 pCi/L for iodine-131, but the government agencies claim that the contamination is far below levels of public health concern. That's because there is no MCL for milk, according to Hirsch. Instead, government agencies rely on Derived Intervention Levels (DIL) set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The DIL for iodine-131 in food products like milk is set at 170 becquerels per kilogram, an amount that is 1,500 times higher than the drinking water MCL.
DILs provide agencies like the FDA with guidelines - not mandates - as to when the government should take action to keep food contaminated by radioactive material out of the hands of consumers. A DIL "does not define a safe or unsafe level of exposure, but instead a level at which protective measures would be recommended to ensure that no one receives a significant dose," according to the FDA web site.
"[DILs are] a guidance as to when an emergency action should taken to intervene, but these are in no way to be considered safe levels," Hirsch said.
Hirsch said that DILs are "very inflated" and meant for emergency situations like the detonation of a dirty bomb or a nuclear meltdown. DILs help officials with "triage" during an emergency.
Hirsch and other nuclear critics agree that there is no safe level of exposure to radiation, and even small doses can cause cancer, a position that is backed up by at 2005 report by the National Academy of Sciences.
Patty Lovera, the assistant director of watchdog group Food and Water Watch, said that government agencies need to do more testing for radiation in domestic products and food imported from Japan before making blanket statements dismissing the possibility of a threat to public health. She said there is a "very concerted effort to reassure people," and criticized public officials for making analogies between radiation found in food and water and radiation from x-rays and cat scans.
"It's like comparing apples to oranges," Lovera said.
Under normal circumstances, the FDA only inspects 2 percent of imported seafood and tests about 1 percent, said Lovera, who is calling on the FDA to be more specific about how it is ramping up efforts to inspect food imports from Japan. The FDA has already barred milk and vegetables from the region where the Daiichi plant is located, but Lovera said the FDA should follow in other country's footsteps and temporarily bar seafood imports from Japan as well.
Like Hirsch, Lovera wants government agencies to be more upfront about the possible risks of radiation, even at the levels reported by the EPA, so individuals of different ages and health statuses can make the right dietary choices.
"That sophisticated of a conversation isn't happening," Lovera said. "Instead, it's 'don't worry, don't worry we'll tell you when there's an emergency' ... but with an increased understanding of low-level exposure, there should be more information out there so individuals can make choices."
While Lovera is concerned that agencies like the FDA don't have the resources to provide enough information, Hirsch sees a potential conflict of interest. He is concerned that the US government may be downplaying the dangers of radiation from the Daiichi plant to avoid undermining support for new nuclear projects in the US. He pointed out that the Obama administration has affirmed its commitment to building more nuclear reactors in the US and has urged Congress to approve $54 billion in subsidized loans for new reactors.
"This is kind of a run-through for what would happen if a similar disaster occurred in the US," said Hirsch, who lectures on nuclear policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It seems to me that the agencies are getting an F."
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