Kian Schulman, an advocate against using anticoagulant rodenticides (rat poisons), checks the label on a rat trap by a business in Malibu. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)
Maker agrees to stop producing harmful rat poison for consumer market
Powerful rat poison to be replaced has accidentally harmed children and animals
'This is a significant victory for environmental protection,' attorney says of rat poison halt
LA Times - Cross Posted at JOMP: After years of battling federal environmental officials, the maker of d-CON has agreed to stop producing for the consumer market certain rat poisons that have accidentally harmed children, wildlife and pets.
The company's rodent-control products will be replaced next year with a new line of baits the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved for use in every state.
Environmental activists hailed the agreement announced Friday.
"This is a significant victory for environmental protection and corporate responsibility," said Jonathan Evans of the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. "While the fight isn't over until all of these hazardous products are off the market, this decision keeps the worst of the worst products from residential consumers."
The poisons will still be available for use in agriculture and by licensed pest-control operators.
The rat poisons that Reckitt Benckiser Group has agreed to discontinue contain "second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides." These are more toxic and persistent than the previous generation of products. The poisons are designed to kill rodents by thinning the blood and preventing clotting.
Scientists say the products have for years wreaked havoc by working their way up the food chain.
The state of California took sweeping action in March, when the Department of Pesticide Regulation signaled plans to halt retail sales of second-generation rat poisons to consumers after July 1. Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of d-CON, lost its bid to stop the ban.
Kian Schulman, secretary of the Malibu Agricultural Society, points out that dumpsters where the lid is not closed attracts rodents. The maker of a powerful, and harmful, rodent pesticide has agreed to stop consumer production. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)
The department said the national agreement would not affect the state's action, and it urged stores to continue the process of removing the products from shelves.
Some activists credited California's action with inducing the company to give in.
"California is a huge market," said Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, a public interest environmental law firm in San Francisco. With the July 1 deadline looming, he added, "I suspect [Reckitt Benckiser] took a look around and saw the writing on the wall."
Reckitt Benckiser is one of 17 manufacturers of rodent poisons, but it is the only one that had not altered its packaging and ingredients to comply with federal safety standards.
During nearly two decades of research in and around the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, National Park Service scientists have documented widespread exposure in carnivores to common household poisons. Of 140 bobcats, coyotes and mountain lions evaluated, 88% tested positive for one or more anticoagulant compounds. Scores of animals are known to have died from internal bleeding, researchers said.
The poisons also affect protected or endangered species, including golden eagles, northern spotted owls and San Joaquin kit foxes.
Among heavy users of the poisons are growers of illegal marijuana throughout California. Scientists have linked rat poisons to the deaths of Pacific fishers, which are small carnivores, that had eaten rodents poisoned by illegal pot growers.
Under the agreement, Reckitt Benckiser will begin to phase out production of 12 d-CON rat and mouse poison products next month and will stop production by year-end. The company will cease distribution of existing stocks by March 31, 2015. Retailers will be allowed to keep the products on shelves until stocks are depleted.
*These types of poisons have also harmed and killed family pets and children.
‘Integrity of food supply poised for another blow'
WND: Milk industry heavyweights have asked the federal government for permission to include an artificial sweetener in milk products for schools, without telling parents and children.
A health and nutrition organization is criticizing the plan.
“The integrity of our food supply is poised for another blow,” said Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
She said that asking the FDA to alter the definition of “milk” to include chemical sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose without full disclosure will only lead to further distrust among consumers.
“This is a bad idea for consumers and not a smart idea for the industry either,” she said.
The proposal is aimed “principally at replacing sugar in flavored milks served to school children,” her organization explained.
But the FDA also asks for the right to put hidden artificial sweeteners in a host of dairy products, including nonfat dried milk (always added to reduced-fat milks), yogurt, cream, half-and-half, sour cream, eggnog and whipping cream.
The request comes from the International Dairy Foods Association and the national Milk Producers Federal, which have pending a petition before the Food and Drug Administration to be “amend the standard of identity for milk and 17 other dairy products to provide for the use of any safe and suitable sweetener as an optional ingredient.”
The doctor said if the change is approved by the Obama administration, “that would mean anytime you see the world ‘milk’ on the label, it could include aspartame, sucralose or any other dangerous artificial sweetener, but you could never be quite sure, since there will be no mention of it – not by listing the artificial sweetener used, nor with a no- or low-calorie type label, which is a tip-off that the product might contain a non-nutritive sweetener.”
Mercola’s online analysis blasted the idea.
“The IDFA and NMPF claim the proposed amendments would ‘promote more healthful eating practices and reduce childhood obesity by providing for lower-calorie flavored milk products’ since many children are more inclined to drink flavored milk products than unflavored milk,” he wrote.
“According to the Federal Register: ‘The proposed amendments would assist in meeting several initiatives aimed at improving the nutrition and health profile of food served in the nation’s schools. Those initiatives include state-level programs designed to limit the quantity of sugar served to children during the school day.’
“As if that’s not nonsensical enough, the IDFA and NMPF argue that the proposed amendments would ‘promote honesty and fair dealing in the marketplace.’ How could altering the definition of ‘milk’ to include unidentified artificial sweeteners possibly promote honesty or fair dealing in the marketplace, you might ask?”
He said the explanation is that the advocates of artificial sweeteners claim consumers find it easier to evaluate the nutritional value of milk with non-nutritive sweeteners if the labels do not include such information.
“In order to understand this twisted logic, you need to know that the FDA already allows the dairy industry to use the unmodified ‘milk’ label for products that contain added sugar or high fructose corn syrup.”
The logic then, is that allowing other sweeteners without having them listed would “promote honesty.”
The doctor explained the goal appears to be “fooling your kids into drinking otherwise unpopular fat free or low fat milk and allowing the national school breakfast and lunch programs to ‘look good’ by successfully reducing overall calories of the meals while simultaneously helping the dairy industry protect profits.”
The foundation said thousands of adverse reactions to aspartame have been reported to the FDA, mostly concerned with abnormal brain function, brain tumors, epilepsy and Parkinson’s.
“Children’s brains are four times more susceptible to damage from excitotoxins like aspartame than those of adults and react with ADD ADHD type symptoms, impaired learning, depression and nausea,” the foundation report said. “People who are sensitive to aspartame can have life-threatening reactions to it.”
It reported: “In May, 2010, The International Journal of Genomics published a study In Vivo Cytogenetic Studies on Aspartame where scientists observed significant chromosomal aberrations in the bone marrow cells of mice following exposure to aspartame. Because of the genotoxicity they found, scientists advised caution when using aspartame in food and beverages as a sweetener.”
BigHealthReport/Fox News: If the Food and Drug Administration gets its way, your trip to the grocery store could get a tad pricier.
Supermarket owners argue a pending federal food-labeling rule that stems from the new health care law would overburden thousands of grocers and convenience store owners — to the tune of $1 billion in the first year alone.
Store owner Tom Heinen said the industry’s profit margins already are razor thin. “When you incur a significant cost, there is no way that that doesn’t get passed on to the customer in some form,” he said.
The rule stems from an ObamaCare mandate that restaurants provide nutrition information on menus. Most in the restaurant industry were supportive of the idea, but when the FDA decided to extend the provision to also affect thousands of supermarkets and convenience stores, the backlash was swift.
The proposed regulation would require store owners to label prepared, unpackaged foods found in salad bars and food bars, soups and bakery items. Erik Lieberman, regulatory counsel at the Food Marketing Institute, said testing foods for nutritional data will require either expensive software or even more costly off-site laboratory assessments.
Lieberman said failure to get it right comes with stiff penalties: "If you get it wrong, it's a federal crime, and you could face jail time and thousands of dollars worth of fines."
The FDA says much of ObamaCare is aimed at helping Americans live healthier lives, and these proposed labeling requirements would help them do just that. In the text of the proposed regulation, the FDA states: "[The information] should help consumers limit excess calorie intake and understand how the foods that they purchase at these establishments fit within their daily caloric and other nutritional needs."
An Executive Order issued by President Obama in 2011 says agencies are supposed to calculate a cost-benefit analysis for each new regulation and attempt to use the least burdensome regulatory methods possible. Critics of the FDA's food labeling proposal say the agency didn't comply.
"They are required to do it, and they didn't," Lieberman said. "They simply said, 'We can't quantify a benefit from this rule,' and that's because they really can't."
The FDA said Wednesday it has received hundreds of public comments on the proposal and will take them into consideration when finalizing the regulation. It is likely to be released later this spring, and the agency says it will "include a final economic analysis."
And why should this matter to you, if you are not a pet owner??
The Nestle Group, that was one of the two companies that gets their chicken and poultry products for pet chicken sticks, just pulled from the shelves, from China owns Gerber Baby food… And Del Monte is one of America’s major food distribution companies.
Story at-a-glance
First, the good news. Nestle Purina PetCare and Del Monte have voluntarily recalled their chicken jerky pet treats imported from China. The brands removed from store shelves are Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats, along with Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats.
Now for the not-so-good news. The reason for the recall is a potential issue of unapproved antibiotic contamination supposedly unrelated to the problem with these very same treats that has resulted in thousands of sick, and hundreds of dead pets.
Interestingly, it was the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) that found the antibiotic residue in the treats. They used a new, highly sensitive test to analyze the products in response to growing consumer concerns.
So for now, the chicken jerky treats that may have been sickening or killing pets since 2007 are no longer on store shelves. Let's hope if they do reappear, they will be safe for your pets.
In a truly spectacular coincidence, the very same brands of chicken jerky treats suspected of causing sickness and death in hundreds of dogs since 2007 have now been identified as being possibly contaminated with “unapproved” antibiotics. (Apparently the antibiotics are approved for use in China, where the treats are made, and in other countries, but not in the U.S.)
According to NBC News, right after the first of the year, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYSDAM) informed the FDA it had found trace amounts of residual poultry antibiotics in several lots of Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats, as well as Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats.
Treats Have Been Voluntarily Recalled
Fortunately for U.S. pet owners and potential future pet victims, it seems the suggestion of antibiotic contamination was enough to prompt Nestle Purina PetCare (makers of Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch jerky treats) and the Del Monte Corp. (makers of Milo’s Kitchen products) to voluntarily pull their chicken jerky products from store shelves across the country.
The New York agriculture agency discovered very low levels of four drugs not approved for use in U.S. poultry, and one antibiotic that is approved for use, but for which quantities are strictly limited. The antibiotics found were sulfaclozine, tilmicosin, trimethoprim, enrofloxacin and sulfaquinoxaline.
The agency used new, highly sensitive technology to detect the presence of the antibiotics. The tests on the jerky treats were conducted in response to “growing consumer concerns.”
Whatever the reason, I’m extremely thankful NYSDAM took it upon themselves to run the tests. And while discovering antibiotic residue in food products is never “good news,” I’m grateful, in this case, something was found in those treats that caused them to be pulled off the market.
Treat Manufacturers and FDA Make Predictable Public Response
Needless to say, a spokesman for Nestle Purina says the issue with the antibiotics is in no way related to the issue with these very same chicken jerky treats that have allegedly sickened over 2,200 pets and killed well over 300.
The FDA also weighed in. From the agency’s January 9 CVM update:
Based on the FDA’s review of the NYSDAM results, there is no evidence that raises health concerns, and these results are highly unlikely to be related to the reports of illnesses FDA has received related to jerky pet treats. FDA commends Del Monte and Nestle-Purina for withdrawing these products from the market in response to this product quality issue. FDA also welcomes additional information about NYSDAM’s testing methodology, which is different and reportedly more sensitive than currently validated and approved regulatory methods.
As those of you who have been following this fiasco are aware, the FDA has conducted its own “extensive” testing and has to date been unable to find anything in the chicken jerky treats that would cause pet illness or death. Consequently, the agency maintains it is unable to take action to get the treats recalled, or even to effectively warn consumers of the potential for harm to their pets.
At Least for Now, Suspect Treats Are Off Store Shelves
It’s a small victory, but one that brings a sigh of relief. Tragically, for those pet owners who lost beloved companions, the recall does not help.
According to NBC news, a woman from New York whose 2 year-old pug died suddenly in 2011 after eating Waggin’ Train chicken jerky treats, said in a statement:
"How many lives could have been saved if, six years ago, when there was first doubt that the safety of our companions was compromised, the FDA and all manufacturers of imported chicken jerky had issued a precautionary recall until the toxin was found? How much pain and suffering could have been avoided if only they had met their moral obligation six years ago and did the job the taxpayers pay them to do?"
Beef Verses Bison for Dogs – Variety is critical for your pet to receive the full spectrum of amino acids, essential fatty acids, trace minerals, vitamins and antioxidants necessary to thrive.
Beef Verses Bison for Dogs – Variety is critical for your pet to receive the full spectrum of amino acids, essential fatty acids, trace minerals, vitamins and antioxidants necessary to thrive.
WHAT HUMAN FOODS ARE UNSAFE FOR PETS? (the 12 worst)–> chocolate, sugarless gum & artificial sweeteners, alcohol, yeast dough, grapes & raisins, Macadamia nuts, onions (bad for dogs and cats… but poison for cats), garlic (for cats), caffeine, fat trimmings and bones (bad for cats and limited fat and the right bones for dogs), raw eggs (for cats, but must be careful for dogs and humans), and milk.
Some of the best human foods for dogs: peanut butter (although peanuts and peanut butter can contain mold so could be bad for humans and dogs), cheese including cottage cheese (some some dogs can be prone to be lactose intolerant like people), yogurt, watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe, blueberries, salmon, green beans, sweet potatoes, fresh raw carrots, pumpkin, and lean meat… cooked or raw.
Most Americans are eating significant amounts of feces on a regular basis without even realizing it. You might not mind this, but most people out there would not willingly eat feces if they could avoid it. Not only is it disgusting, but feces is also a breeding ground for all kinds of dangerous diseases. Unfortunately, as a result of the never ending quest to cut prices even lower more of our food is being imported from overseas than ever before. Many of those countries do not have the same health standards that we do in the United States. In fact, many farmers in those countries actually feed feces to their fish and to their animals since it is so inexpensive. If you are eating seafood that was imported from Asia, there is a very good chance that it was raised on pig feces. Not only that, the truth is that a lot of the poultry that comes from Southeast Asia is also raised on pig feces. The FDA has rejected thousands of food shipments from Asia in recent years due to fecal contamination, but the FDA inspects less than 3 percent of all imported food. So what are we to conclude about the other 97 percent of all food imports that the FDA did not inspect?
A lot of people were grossed out by that article, but there have been no calls for a congressional investigation. There have been no calls to cut off food imports from Asia. Most people will forget about all of this in a few weeks and will continue to consume large amounts of imported crap.
The Bloomberg article also talked about the fact that less than 3 percent of all imported food is inspected by the FDA...
About 27 percent of the seafood Americans eat comes from China -- and the shipments that the FDA checks are frequently contaminated, the FDA has found. The agency inspects only about 2.7 percent of imported food. Of that, FDA inspectors have rejected 1,380 loads of seafood from Vietnam since 2007 for filth and salmonella, including 81 from Ngoc Sinh, agency records show. The FDA has rejected 820 Chinese seafood shipments since 2007, including 187 that contained tilapia.
If the FDA has found such widespread contamination in seafood coming from Asia in recent years, shouldn't something be done about it?
If nothing is done, Asian seafood companies will continue to send us boatloads of seafood contaminated with feces knowing that there is more than a 97 percent chance that a particular shipment will not be inspected.
According to Michael Doyle, a microbiologist from the University of Georgia, using feces to feed fish and shrimp is quite common in Asia. Many fish and shrimp that we eat spend their entire lives swimming around in a disgusting pool of animal feces...
It said most of the cases of contamination involving imported food in the U.S. are related to exposure to fecal matter. The group cited how, in Thailand, chicken coops with as many as 20,000 birds are often suspended in rows above ponds used for farming shrimp and fish. The sea life feeds on the chicken waste that falls in the water.
In an interview, Doyle said food producers in China regularly use untreated human and animal waste for feeding farmed fish meant for eating and for fertilizing land to grow produce.
"(Feces) is the primary nutrient for growing the tilapia (in China)," he said.
Pig manure is important in the pig-vegetable-fish-duck chain that is common in Southeast Asia. The integrated system has long profitably used by Chinese farmers (ref. 306).
Swine manure contains over 20% crude protein. Because of this high content of crude protein, dried fresh swine manure has been used in experimental work as poultry feed with no adverse effects on either meat or eggs. The same product has been used to advantage in pig finishing rations at the 15% level. It has also been included in sheep rations at the level of 40% (in pellets) with good results.
They say that you are what you eat.
Do you really want to eat something that has been constantly feeding on pig poop?
But feces is not just a problem in imported food.
According to the FDA, food producers in the United States are allowed to have an average of 9 mg or less of "rodent excreta pellets" in the wheat they produce per kilogram. So, for example, 8 mg of "rodent excreta" per kilogram is perfectly fine.
And there are many other ways that our food becomes contaminated with feces. The following is from an article that describes other ways that feces may be getting into the meat that we eat...
Slaughterhouse workers or more often machines take the hides off cattle. If workers cut the hides off by hand, they can spread feces to the meat if their knives touch the hides or tails and aren’t sanitized before touching the exposed meat again. Hide—removing machines may fling feces off the hides and onto exposed meat.
If workers accidentally break an animal’s gastrointestinal tract while removing it, feces or vomit may contaminate the meat. In beef and pork, each end of the tract needs to be sealed off with plastic to keep the contents from leaking out. Workers or tools can accidentally contaminate meat during this process.
After chickens are slaughtered, the birds are often chilled in cold water rather than in refrigerators. Feces and the pathogens in them can spread from bird to bird through the water.
Are you getting hungry yet?
But not all farmers feed poop to their animals. Others feed them candy, sugar snacks and expired food. The following is from a recent article by Ethan A. Huff....
The Vancouver Sun reports via Reuters that a whole new “alternative” feed market is emerging out of the ongoing crop crunch, as farmers all across the U.S. are running out of common feed options for their herds. Because corn-based feeds are now too expensive or simply unavailable, feedlot operators in Indiana, North Dakota, and elsewhere are buying leftover candy scraps, pastries, extruded cereals, gummy snacks, and even food waste to feed to their cows, which end up directly fueling the production of conventional meat and dairy products sold nationwide to American consumers.
No wonder so many Americans are deciding that it is worth it to pay more for organic food these days.
Even if you avoid all meat completely that does not mean that you are safe from fecal contamination either. For example, according to CNN one study found that nearly half of all soda fountain machines in one area of Virginia were contaminated by fecal material...
It fizzes. It quenches. And it could also contain fecal bacteria.
Nearly half of the 90 beverages from soda fountain machines in one area in Virginia tested positive for coliform bacteria -- which could indicate possible fecal contamination, according to a study published in the January issue of International Journal of Food Microbiology.
Researchers also detected antibiotic-resistant microbes and E.coli in the soda samples.
So will the day eventually come when they will try to directly feed us feces?
Unfortunately, that day may be closer than you may think. In Japan, they are already working on a method to create "meat" out of human feces.
Yes, I know that this is hard to believe. The following comes from an article posted on DailyTech.com...
The Tokyo Sewage service in Japan serves over 13 million people over approximately a 2,200 square kilometer area. It approached Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from the Okayama Laboratory, with an unusual problem -- it had too much "sewer mud" (also known as human excrement).
It turns out human excrement is a breeding ground for scores of bacteria. So Mr. Ikeda cooked up an unusual solution -- make food [video] out of the feces.
The first step is to cook the bacteria, killing them, and to extract their proteins via separation techniques according to Yahoo News. Soy protein is added to enhance the flavor. The meat mixture travels to a "reaction enhancer" (likely a chemical reactor of some sort) where it turns into a textured "meat" and is then extrude through an "exploder".
The delicious "steak" is even finished with red food color to give it a comforting hue. Mr. Ikeda claims that in initial testing people found the feces steak to taste somewhat like beef.
So would you mind eating a feces "steak"?
Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below...
Some 68% of all Americans are overweight, and obesity has almost doubled in the last couple of decades worldwide. As International Business Tribune reports:
Studies conducted jointly by researchers at Imperial College London and Harvard University, published in the medical journal The Lancet, show that obesity worldwide almost doubled in the decades between 1980 and 2008.
***
68 per cent of Americans were found to be overweight while close to 34 percent were obese.
Sure, people are eating too much and exercising too little (this post is not meant as an excuse for lack of discipline and poor choices). The processed foods and refined flours and sugars don’t help. And additives like high fructose corn syrup – which are added to many processed foods – are stuffing us with empty calories.
But given that there is an epidemic of obesity even in 6 month old infants (see below), there is clearly something else going on as well.
Several recent animal studies suggest that environmental exposure to widely used chemicals may also help make people fat.
The evidence is preliminary, but a number of researchers are pursuing indications that the chemicals, which have been shown to cause abnormal changes in animals’ sexual development, can also trigger fat-cell activity — a process scientists call adipogenesis.
The chemicals under scrutiny are used in products from marine paints and pesticides to food and beverage containers. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found one chemical, bisphenol A, in 95 percent of the people tested, at levels at or above those that affected development in animals.
These findings were presented at last month’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A spokesman for the chemical industry later dismissed the concerns, but Jerry Heindel, a top official of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), who chaired the AAAS session, said the suspected link between obesity and exposure to “endocrine disrupters,” as the chemicals are called because of their hormone-like effects, is “plausible and possible.”
Bruce Blumberg, a developmental and cell biologist at the University of California at Irvine, one of those presenting research at the meeting, called them “obesogens” — chemicals that promote obesity.
“Once these genetic changes happen in utero, they are irreversible and with the individual for life,” Newbold said.
***
“Exposure to bisphenol A is continuous,” said Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Bisphenol A is an ingredient in polycarbonate plastics used in many products, including refillable water containers and baby bottles, and in epoxy resins that line the inside of food cans and are used as dental sealants. [It is also added to store receipts.] In 2003, U.S. industry consumed about 2 billion pounds of bisphenol A.
Researchers have studied bisphenol A’s effects on estrogen function for more than a decade. Vom Saal’s research indicates that developmental exposure to low doses of bisphenol A activates genetic mechanisms that promote fat-cell activity. “These in-utero effects are lifetime effects, and they occur at phenomenally small levels” of exposure, vom Saal said.
***
Research into the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on obesity has been done only in laboratory animals, but the genetic receptors that control fat cell activity are functionally identical across species. “They work virtually the same way in fish as they do in rodents and humans,” Blumberg said. “Fat cells are an endocrine organ.”
Ongoing studies are monitoring human levels of bisphenol A, but none have been done of tributyltin, which has been used since the 1960s and is persistent in the marine food web. “Tributyltin is the only endocrine disrupting chemical that has been shown without substantial argument to have an effect at levels at which it’s found in the environment,” Blumberg said.
Concern over tributyltin’s reproductive effects on marine animals has resulted in an international agreement discontinuing its use in anti-fouling paints used on ships. The EPA has said it plans next year to assess its other applications, including as an antimicrobial agent in livestock operations, fish hatcheries and hospitals.
Bisphenol A is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in consumer products, and the agency says the amount of bisphenol A or tributyltin that might leach from products is too low to be of concern. But the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, is reviewing bisphenol A, and concerns about its estrogenic effects prompted California legislators to propose banning it from certain products sold in-state, a move industry has fought vigorously.
[Bad habits] cannot explain the ballooning of one particular segment of the population, a segment that doesn’t go to movies, can’t chew, and was never that much into exercise: babies. In 2006 scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that the prevalence of obesity in infants under 6 months had risen 73 percent since 1980. “This epidemic of obese 6-month-olds,” as endocrinologist Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, calls it, poses a problem for conventional explanations of the fattening of America. “Since they’re eating only formula or breast milk, and never exactly got a lot of exercise, the obvious explanations for obesity don’t work for babies,” he points out. “You have to look beyond the obvious.”
The search for the non-obvious has led to a familiar villain: early-life exposure to traces of chemicals in the environment. Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, have two previously unsuspected effects. They act on genes in the developing fetus and newborn to turn more precursor cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them, like a physiological Scrooge. “The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,” says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.” They are not the cause of extra pounds in every person who is overweight—for older adults, who were less likely to be exposed to so many of the compounds before birth, the standard explanations of genetics and lifestyle probably suffice—but environmental chemicals may well account for a good part of the current epidemic, especially in those under 50. And at the individual level, exposure to the compounds during a critical period of development may explain one of the most frustrating aspects of weight gain: you eat no more than your slim friends, and exercise no less, yet are still unable to shed pounds.
***
Newbold gave low doses (equivalent to what people are exposed to in the environment) of hormone-mimicking compounds to newborn mice. In six months, the mice were 20 percent heavier and had 36 percent more body fat than unexposed mice. Strangely, these results seemed to contradict the first law of thermodynamics, which implies that weight gain equals calories consumed minus calories burned. “What was so odd was that the overweight mice were not eating more or moving less than the normal mice,” Newbold says. “We measured that very carefully, and there was no statistical difference.”
***
`Programming the fetus to make more fat cells leaves an enduring physiological legacy. “The more [fat cells], the fatter you are,” says UCSF’s Lustig. But [fat cells] are more than passive storage sites. They also fine-tune appetite, producing hormones that act on the brain to make us feel hungry or sated. With more [fat cells], an animal is doubly cursed: it is hungrier more often, and the extra food it eats has more places to go—and remain.
***
In 2005 scientists in Spain reported that the more pesticides children were exposed to as fetuses, the greater their risk of being overweight as toddlers. And last January scientists in Belgium found that children exposed to higher levels of PCBs and DDE (the breakdown product of the pesticide DDT) before birth were fatter than those exposed to lower levels. Neither study proves causation, but they “support the findings in experimental animals,” says Newbold. They “show a link between exposure to environmental chemicals … and the development of obesity.” [See this for more information on the potential link between pesticides and obesity.]
***
This fall, scientists from NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and academia will discuss obesogens at the largest-ever government-sponsored meeting on the topic. “The main message is that obesogens are a factor that we hadn’t thought about at all before this,” says Blumberg. But they’re one that could clear up at least some of the mystery of why so many of us put on pounds that refuse to come off.
Arsenic may also be linked with obesity, via it’s effect on the thyroid gland. Arsenic is often fed to chickens and pigs to fatten them up, and we end up ingesting it on our dinner plate. It’s ending up in other foods as well.
A lot of endocrine-disrupting pharmaceuticals and medications are also ending up in tap water.
Moreover, the National Research Council has found:
The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined further, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States.
Some hypothesize that too much fluoride affects the thyroid gland, which may in turn lead to weight gain.
Antibiotics also used to be handed out like candy by doctors. However, ingesting too many antibiotics has also been linked to obesity, as it kills helpful intestinal bacteria. See this and this.
Some allege that Roundup kills healthy gut bacteria, and that genetically modified crops cause other health problems.
And Cornell University’s newspaper – the Cornell Sun – reports that our intestinal bacteria also substantially affect our ability to eliminate toxins instead of letting them make us fat:
Cornell scientists researching the effects of environmental toxins to the onset of obesity and Type II Diabetes, discovered that—unlike other factors such as eating too many unhealthy foods—the extent of damage caused by pollutants depends not on what a person puts into her mouth, but on what is already living within her gut.
Prof. Suzanne Snedeker, food science, and Prof. Anthony Hay, microbiology, researched the contribution that microorganisms in the gut and environmental toxins known as “obesogens” have on ever rising obesity levels. Their work, which was published last October in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, reported a link between composition of gut microbiota, exposure to environmental chemicals and the development of obesity and diabetes. The review, “Do Interactions Between Gut Ecology and Environmental Chemicals Contribute to Obesity and Diabetes?” combined three main ideas: predisposed gut microbe composition can increase an individual’s risk of obesity and Type II Diabetes, gut microbe activity can determine an individual’s metabolic reaction to persistent pollutants such as DDT and PCB and certain pharmaceuticals can also be metabolized differently depending on the community of microbes in the gut.
The microbe community influences many metabolic pathways within the gut, Snedeker said. Our bodies metabolize chemicals, but how they are metabolized, and how much fat is stored, depends on gut ecology. Microbes are responsible not only for collecting usable energy from digested food, but also for monitoring insulin levels, storage of fat and appetite. Gut microbes also play an integral role in dealing with any chemicals that enter the body. According to Snedeker, differences in gut microbiota can cause drugs like acetaminophen to act as a toxin in some people while providing no problems for others. While pharmaceutical and microbe interactions are well understood, there is little information in the area of microbe response to environmental toxins.
She said, there are more than three dozen chemicals called obesogenic compounds, that can cause weight gain by altering the body’s normal metabolic responses and lipid production.
“It seems probable that gut microbes are affecting how our bodies handle these environmental chemicals,” Snedeker said. According to Snedeker, enzymes that are influenced by interactions of gut microbes break down approximately two-thirds of the known environmental toxins. Therefore, differences in the gut microbe community strongly affect our bodies’ ability to get rid of environmental pollutants. Obesogens can alter normal metabolic behavior by changing the levels of fat that our bodies store. Snedeker and Hay suggested that the microbes in the gut of humans determine the way in which these chemicals are metabolized and thus could contribute to obesity.
Snedeker and Hay concluded that although high levels of obesogenic chemicals are bound to cause some kind of disruption in the gut microbe community responsible for breaking these chemicals down, the degree of the disturbance is dependent upon gut microbial composition. In other words, the amount of weight an individual is likely to gain when exposed to environmental toxins, or her risk of acquiring Type II Diabetes, could depend on the microorganism community in their gut.
No, Everything Won‘t Kill You
In response to information about toxic chemicals in our food, water and air, many people change the subject by saying “well, everything will kill you”. In other words, they try to change the topic by assuming that we would have to go back to the stone age to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals.
But this is missing the point entirely. In fact, companies add nasty chemicals to their products and use fattening food-producing strategies to cut corners and make more money.
In fattening their bottom line, the fat cats are creating an epidemic of obesity for the little guy.
What Can We Do To Fight Back?
Eating grass-fed meat instead of industrially-produced corn fed beef will reduce your exposure to obesity-causing chemicals.
Use glass instead of plastic whenever you can, to reduce exposure to pthalates and other hormone-altering plastics.
Try to avoid canned food, or at least look for cans that are free of bisphenol A. (For example, the Eden company sells food in bpa-free cans.) Buy and store food in glass jars whenever possible. And wash your hands after handling store receipts (they still contain bpa).
Eat yogurt or other food containing good bacteria to help restore your healthy intestinal flora. If you don’t like yogurt, you can take “probiotic” (i.e. good bacteria) supplements from your local health food store.
And don’t forget to tell your grocery store that you demand real food that doesn’t contain bpa, pthalates, hormones, antibiotics or other junk. If we vote with our pocketbooks, the big food companies will get the message.
Save the bees -- we need them for our on survival… If the bees die, so do all our fruits, flowers, veggies and so will we with no food.
Yesterday a legal petition was filed--along with over a million public comments--calling on EPA to suspend registration of Bayer’s controversial bee-toxic pesticide, clothianidin.
As the public debate over causes behind Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) – a syndrome in which bees seemingly abandon their hives – carries on in the media, more and more new science has shown that neonicotinoid pesticides like clothianidin are indeed a critical piece of the puzzle.
Bees are still sick, and EPA is still stuck. While we may not know the exact cause of CCD, EPA knows enough to act, and has the authority and responsibility to suspend Bayer’s bee-toxic pesticide, clothianidin – yet for over a year the Agency has failed to do so.
Congress has the authority to exercise oversight over federal agencies like the EPA. I just signed a petition from the Center for Food safety asking Congress to step up and help protect bees. Can you sign it too?
It only takes a few seconds and you can sign here:
The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people. -- Ron Paul
It’s the Lies About Beef that are the Slime… Course In the End, Isn’t the Lies About Almost Everything (from the Government and the media) that is the Problem? And Why It Is So Hard to Decide…
I am subject to various enthusiasms and, in 2008, I wrote a series about beef and the vast network of phony consumer advocates, vegetarian types, animal rights groups and headline chasing media folks who love a good scare campaign, all trying to convince Americans that beef was bad for them.
Today, it is a smear campaign about a type of meat promoted in the media as “pink slime.” Typically, it is a pack of lies and it’s going to cost some folks their jobs and drive up the cost of beef if allowed to go unchallenged.
What is being demonized in this 21st century reincarnation of the 1989 Alar apple scare is finely textured, 95% lean beef. It is composed of small parts of beef that are still available for use after the cuts with which we are more accustomed, like sirloin, brisket, top round, flank, porterhouse, and some forty other selections, are taken.
This lean beef is routinely added to lower quality hamburger to increase its protein content and its production has long been approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It actually improves the nutritional quality of a lot of cheaper hamburger.
While the media may not approve of this beef, plenty of others do. A March 29 article in The Wall Street Journal reported that after being hammered in the media for weeks, the lean beef, “is getting support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the governors of five states, who argue it has been unfairly labeled and is actually a safe, low-cost way to make ground beef leaner.”
Other supporters include food safety activists like Nancy Donley, who lost her son, Alex, to e.coli and now advocates for tougher food safety laws to prevent similar deaths. The founder of Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP), Donley wrote in the March 17 edition of Food Safety News about her experience learning more about the modern American meat industry and her tour of a Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) plant which produces the lean beef now under attack.
“I got to know the owners, Eldon and Regina Roth,” wrote Donley, “and was impressed by their complete commitment to the safety and wholesomeness of the meat products they produced. I was also impressed by the food safety culture they instilled throughout their company.”
The company and its owners were also the subject of a June 12, 2008 Washington Post article titled “Engineering a Safer Burger.” In profiling Eldon Roth, the Post noted that Roth, “discovered his process for separating meat from fat had the unintended effect of making the lean beef more alkaline and therefore less conducive to bacteria.
The Post further reported that Roth and his staff, “began working with ammonium hydroxide, a food additive already approved by federal regulators for use in processing cheese, chocolate and soda. It also exists naturally in beef. By increasing the level of it in beef, Roth hoped to reduce its acidity and create less hospitable conditions for bacteria.”
It worked! Exposing the meat to a tiny amount of ammonium hydroxide gas during processing elevates its pH and increases food safety. There are no reports of illness related to the consumption of the company’s finely textured lean beef.
However, if there is one thing reporters love to use to scare people it is the name of any chemical. Thus, media coverage against this beef hypes ammonium hydroxide, ignoring the fact it that exists naturally in beef. It exists in many of the fruits and vegetables one might harvest from an organic garden. Furthermore, our bodies safely produce ammonia.
That hasn’t stopped media outlets like ABC News and others from reporting scary stories about the product and smearing BPI. In a March 23 opinion posted on the Fox News Forum, Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture for the Media Research Center, summed up the latest scare campaign, writing “TV news loves a health scare. Think deadly Tylenol. Killer tomatoes. Mad Cow disease. Alar in apples, and lots more.”
Like the Alar apple scare this is a totally invented media scare. It’s the way, as Gainor wrote “Slimy journalists” use these stories as “a path to winning journalistic awards—facts be damned.” It’s also why this card-carrying member of the Society of Professional Journalists since the 1970s keeps exposing this shoddy journalism and the groups that generate it for their own selfish agendas.
Have a hamburger. Have a steak. Eat beef. Don’t run scared every time some so-called journalist exploits your lack of knowledge of where beef comes from, how it is processed, and why millions of pounds of it are eaten with pleasure and the knowledge that it is the safest found anywhere in the world.
Pink slime factories shuttered after massive public backlash
by: Jonathan Benson
(NaturalNews) For several decades now, the conventional beef industry has secretly been lacing ground beef products with an industrial, ammonia-laced byproduct known as “pink slime,” a disturbing fact that recently came to the forefront of national attention after Food Network chef Jamie Oliver first drew attention to its existence. And consumer backlash has been so strong ever since that a number of supermarket chains, restaurants, and even schools have decided to stop supplying it, which has caused its primary producer, Beef Products Inc. (BPI), to close three of its four manufacturing plants.
USA Today and others are reporting that Dakota Dunes, South Dakota-based BPI is temporarily closing its Waterloo, Iowa; Garden City, Kansas; and Amarillo, Texas plants for an indefinite period of time as a result of widespread consumer rejection of pink slime products. Workers at these plants will continue to receive pay and benefits for the next 60 days, but it is unclear what will happen after these next two months expire, should the plants continue to remain closed.
Meanwhile, BPI is launching an aggressive public relations campaign to fight back against its critics, which includes claiming that pink slime is “100 percent beef,” and that it is a highly-nutritious and safe product. And many in the media are jumping onboard this propaganda bandwagon by spinning the situation back against consumers, who are technically victims that have been been duped all these years into buying ground beef products that were secretly adulterated with pink slime.
In case you missed the original story, pink slime, which is officially known as “lean finely textured beef,” is basically a low-cost ground beef filler composed of beef scraps that are mashed, processed with a chemical ammonia solution, and turned into an unappetizing pink paste, the pictures of which have circulated the internet in recent months
This pink slime has been added to roughly 70 percent of all ground beef products since the 1990s, but few were aware of it. Pink slime is obviously not labeled on ground beef packages, and the only way consumers can know for sure that they are not consuming it is to buy local or organic ground beef, or to watch the beef being ground fresh before buying it.
BPI, mainstream media launch attack on consumers for rejecting pink slime
It is abundantly clear that the vast majority of American consumers are not interested in feeding their children a highly-processed additive that has been treated with toxic ammonia, which is why the product is being pulled from grocery store shelves, restaurant menus, and schools all across the country. But BPI is not going down without a fight, as it is launching a campaign that basically insults the intelligence of Americans by claiming that pink slime is no different from real beef.
But according to former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist Gerald Zirnstein, pink slime is not actually meat, nor is it as nutritious as meat, a sentiment to which his former colleague Carl Custer also agrees. And Kit Foshee, a former executive at BPI, appears to hold the same view, having told ABC News that pink slime is processed from fat and cuts that would otherwise not ever be used as food.
“Microbiologically safe and nutritionally complete are two different issues,” said Custer to ABC News, referring to BPI’s claim that pink slime contains little fat and is pathogen-free. “It may be pink [but], nutritionally, it is not equivalent to whole-muscle tissue” (http://abcnews.go.com).
Turkey & Cheese? No. Pink slime? Yes!
The lunch police have made headlines recently, particularly when one school official actually confiscated a packed lunch they deemed unhealthy. But at the same time, the FDA has approved wide usage of a food substance called ‘pink slime’ that, as the name suggests, is allegedly not healthy. Glenn, Pat & Stu talk processed foods: as bad as people say? WATCH
Between the hormones given the cattle and the pink slime, most countries will not import or eat American beef… Why are we???
My final vote is still out on the pink slime…partly because I respect Alan Caruba, although all in all it doesn’t sound like a good thing, but the hormones are definitely something to be concerned about… as well as GMO foods of all kinds. I’ll keep doing some research on the so-called slime… but in the meantime, you be the judge…
(However in the meantime, as much as possible I will be buying locally raised and butchered meats (from the butcher) and organic cuts from known sources as much as possible. We had friends whose family are butchers and they are very negative about the meat glue and meat slime) M~
We were told our food was unfit for consumption and demanded that we call off the event...
Quail Farm
The evening was everything I had dreamed and hoped it would be. The weather was perfect, the farm was filled with friends and guests roaming around talking about organic, sustainable farming practices. Our guests were excited to spend an evening together. The food was prepared exquisitely. The long dinner table, under the direction of dear friends, was absolutely stunningly beautiful. The music was superb. The stars were bright and life was really good. And then, …for a few moments, it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath us and my wonderful world came crashing down. As guests were mingling, finishing tours of the farm, and while the first course of the meal was being prepared and ready to be sent out, a Southern Nevada Health District employee came for an inspection.
Community Dinner at Quail Farm
Because this was a gathering of people invited to our farm for dinner, I had no idea that the Health Department would become involved. I received a phone call from them two days before the event informing me that because this was a “public event” (I would like to know what is the definition of “public” and “private”) we would be required to apply for a “special use permit.” If we did not do so immediately, we would be charged a ridiculous fine. Stunned, we immediately complied.
We were in the middle of our harvest day for our CSA shares, a very busy time for us, but Monte immediately left to comply with the demand and filled out the required paper work and paid for the fee. (Did I mention that we live in Overton, nowhere near a Health Department office?) Paper work now in order, he was informed that we would not actually be given the permit until an inspector came to check it all out. She came literally while our guests were arriving! In order to overcome any trouble with the Health Department of cooking on the premises, most of the food was prepared in a certified kitchen in Las Vegas; and to further remove any doubt, we rented a certified kitchen trailer to be here on the farm for the preparation of the meals.
The inspector, Mary Oaks, clearly not the one in charge of the inspection as she was constantly on the phone with her superior Susan somebody who was calling all the shots from who knows where.
We were told our food was unfit for consumption and demanded that we call off the event because:
EH Specialist II Mary Oakes
Some of the prepared food packages did not have labels on them. (The code actually allows for this if it is to be consumed within 72 hours.)
Some of the meat was not USDA certified. (Did I mention that this was a farm to fork meal?)
Some of the food that was prepared in advance was not up to temperature at the time of inspection. (It was being prepared to be brought to proper temperature for serving when the inspection occurred.)
Even the vegetables prepared in advance had to be thrown out because they were cut and were then considered a “bio-hazard”.
We did not have receipts for our food. (Reminder! This food came from farms not from the supermarket! I have talked with several chefs who have said that in all their years cooking they have never been asked for receipts.)
At this time Monte, trying to reason with Susan to find a possible solution for the problem, suggested turning this event from a “public” event to a “private” event by allowing the guests to become part of our farm club, thus eliminating any jurisdiction or responsibility on their part. This idea infuriated Susan and threatened that if we did not comply the police would be called and personally escort our guests off the property. This is not the vision of the evening we had in mind! So regretfully, again we complied.
The only way to keep our guests on the property was to destroy the food
Bleach is poured on organic food
I can’t tell you how sick to my stomach I was watching that first dish of Mint Lamb Meatballs hit the bottom of the unsanitized trash can. Here we were with guests who had paid in advance and had come from long distances away anticipating a wonderful dining experience, waiting for dinner while we were behind the kitchen curtain throwing it away! I know of the hours and labor that went into the preparation of that food. We asked the inspector if we could save the food for a private family event that we were having the next day. (A personal family choice to use our own food.) We were denied and she was insulted that we would even consider endangering our families health. I assured her that I had complete faith and trust in Giovanni our chef and the food that was prepared, (obviously, or I wouldn’t be wanting to serve it to our guests).
Farm food is destroyed
I then asked if we couldn’t feed the food to our “public guests” or even to our private family, then at least let us feed it to our pigs. (I think it should be a criminal action to waste any resource of the land. Being dedicated to our organic farm, we are forever looking for good inputs into our compost and soil and good food that can be fed to our animals. The animals and compost pile always get our left over garden surplus and food. We truly are trying to be as sustainable as possible.) Again, a call to Susan and another negative response. Okay, so let me get this right. So the food that was raised here on our farm and selected and gathered from familiar local sources, cooked and prepared with skill and love was even unfit to feed to my pigs!?! Who gave them the right to tell me what I feed my animals? Not only were we denied the use of the food for any purpose, to ensure that it truly was unfit for feed of any kind we were again threatened with police action if we did not only throw the food in the trash, but then to add insult to injury, we were ordered to pour bleach on it.
Food Lined up to Be Destroyed by Health Department
Now the food is also unfit for compost as I would be negligent to allow any little critters to nibble on it while it was composting and ingest that bleach resulting in a horrible death. Literally hundreds of pounds of food was good for nothing but adding to our ever increasing land fill! At some point in all of this turmoil Monte reminded me that I had the emergency phone number for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) on our refrigerator. I put it there never really believing that I would ever have to use it. We became members of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund several years ago as a protection for us, but mostly to add support to other farmers battling against the oppressive legal actions taken against the small farmers trying to produce good wholesome food without government intrusion. The local, sustainable food battle is being waged all across America! May I mention that not one battle has been brought on because of any illness to the patrons of these farms! The battles are started by government officials swooping down on farms and farmers like SWAT teams confiscating not only the wholesome food items produced but even their farm equipment! Some of them actually wearing HAZMAT suits as if they were walking into a nuclear meltdown! I have personally listened to some of their heart wrenching stories and have continued to follow them through the FTCLDF’s updates.
Earlier tonight (03.15.12) on GBTV: Do you recognize your country? Glenn shreds Obama’s farming regulation & dares media to print his comments on the Afghanistan War. Find out his take and see if the press takes Glenn up on the challenge. Don’t miss it tonight at 5pm (or on demand) only on GBTV!
WND
Nestle Purina PetCare and Del Monte have voluntarily recalled their chicken jerky pet treats imported from China. The brands removed from store shelves are Waggin’ Train and Canyon Creek Ranch brand dog treats, along with Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Jerky and Chicken Grillers home-style dog treats. ![screen-shot-2012-09-19-at-11.49.12-am[1]](http://justonemorepet.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/screen-shot-2012-09-19-at-11-49-12-am1.png "screen-shot-2012-09-19-at-11.49.12-am[1]")
