Frankenfood

ICHC

If you've ever worried about corporations putting weird stuff in your food, and who hasn't — or about how the media disinforms and misinforms consumers in our endless battle to ensure that we're not being used as guinea pigs to help corporations like Monsanto make megabucks off our bodies and our lives, look no further than this site for information on one of the leading offenders.

Yeah, you say, sure. Well, I don't watch Faux Noise. But I'll bet you have friends, relatives, neighbours who do, and when you're out there trying to convince your fellow citizens that they should get informed about this issue and stop feeding their children, or themselves, shit that will kill them, well. See, the link up there (like the video below) tells you how Fox News basically won a ruling from an appellate court that says they're free to lie or distort the truth, fire journalists who try to tell the truth, sue them for trying to tell the truth, and win.

Here are the journalists, in their own words.



Srsly, folks. This is beyond disgusting. We already know corporations have no problem killing us all to make a few dollars more of profit. Just look at what BP has done to the Gulf Coast. The tourist industry, the fishing industry, the beautiful beaches, the living things all along that coast are dying or dead. And BP says oil could continue to gush from that undersea volcano till December this year.

So do your friends, relatives, and neighbours a favour, and tell them to watch the video clip and read a few of these articles. They need to know what is in their food supply and we all need to work together to make sure it's clean. I really don't want trout genes in my tomatoes, thanks. And I don't want Monsanto charging poor farmers for seed.

oldamericancentury.org

Fuck you, Monsanto, can't you leave our goddamn food alone, you bastards? You already own everything and everyone else, body and soul, motherfucking asshole dipshits.

To do something about these outrageous developments, click here. The link takes you to the Center for Food Safety site, which is publicizing a letter being circulated in the Senate and the House by Senator Pat Leahy and Rep. DeFazio, asking the USDA to maintain the ban on genetically engineered alfalfa. Everytime you or your kid get a sandwich outside the house, chances are there will be alfalfa sprouts on it. Well, we don't need singing sprouts for fuck's sake. No new laws need be passed, the Center (and these two worthy Congresscritters) just want the USDA to maintain the existing policies.

More action to take: Let's stop the Enviropig while we're about it. Do you really want to eat swine that have been engineered to include mouse genes? Probably not. Go here to keep teh Enviropig off the market.

Christ, what the fuck next?

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Consumer Alert: FDA and Humour

Yaknow, while the FDA drops the ball on contaminated heparin, and the USDA fails to hire enough inspectors to keep our food supply clean, apparently the FDA has the time, staff, and funding to get their panties in a big waddy bunch over a supercaffeinated product marketed as Blow.

You got that right. The same FDA that was busy approving the sale of meat and milk from cloned animals, despite widespread consumer resistance. The same FDA that approves the food items that cause 85 per cent of the food-poisoning cases reported. The same FDA that is closing down half of its food safety labs, despite multiple incidents of food contamination at home and abroad.

Instead of making sure we don't get poisoned food, drink, or medication, FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach and his politically appointed crew of thugs and idiots are busy trying to crack down on a powdered caffeine "energy drink" that is marketed to adults as "Blow," complete with packaging that makes it look like cocaine. Whoop-de-doo, you fucking eejits. Couldja go back to checking the fucking food, drink, and legal drugs we ingest?

Andrew von Eschenbach looks like another one of Gee Dumbya's Good-Ole-Boy Texas buddies who got their jobs because they either knew the worthless motherfucker or were born, raised, or domiciled in Texas. For the record, we don't doubt that Dr. von Eschenbach is a highly qualified urologist. But skill in diagnosing penile problems is not necessarily helpful when running the FDA. A genuine concern for the public health is.

Raw Story has the details of the story on Blow, including a video clip. Dr. von Eschenbach, quit playing the giant nanny, leave our adult pleasures alone, and do your goddamned job.

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Consumer Alert: Contaminated Chicken

Image from ICHC

If you've switched to poultry because of the nasty video evidence of what the food processing companies are doing that contribute to the recall of over 143 million pounds of ground beef, you ought to know that there's a recall currently under way of chicken contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

Warning: Do not click the video link unless you plan to swear off eating beef, or possibly meat, for life. Especially, do not click if you are (a) sensitive; (b) an animal lover; (c) eating, or about to eat.

Some 7.5 tonnes of chicken product — specifically, Discover Cuisine Red Curry Chicken & Jasmine Rice, with a best by date of Dec. 18, including 1.7 tonnes from Inovata Foods of Edmonton — have been recalled.

The product is distributed in 12-oz packages, each bearing the Canadian establishment number Est. 302 inside the Canadian Food Inspection Agency mark of inspection.

The frozen chicken entrees were produced on Oct. 18, 2007, and were exported to the United States. Some 10,368 pounds have been recalled from Costco Wholesale of Issaquah, Wash., and 2,184 pounds from Meijer Distribution Center of Grand Rapids, Mich. Meijer apparently distributed these products in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. If you shopped at these locations in any of the states mentioned, inspect your purchases carefully for the distinguishing marks described.

Meijer representatives said only 21 packages of the potentially contaminated product have been sold, including one each at stores in Holland and Big Rapids, Michigan. If you purchased this product at Meijer, contact them at 800-543-3704.

Do not consume this product. Call Bob McColl of Inovata Foods at 780-454-8665 for instructions on disposal and refunds.

Additionally, The Guardian is reporting that Gourmet Boutique of Jamaica, N.Y., has recalled 6,970 pounds of meat and poultry products bearing the production code GBD 08058 on the package. These products are mostly chicken but also include meatloaf and turkey and were sent to stores in Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin, as well as distribution centers in New York. For more information, call 718-977-1200.

Image from MicrobeLibrary

Listeria monocytogenes can be life-threatening to young children, elderly people, and those with weakened immune systems. So far, the media has been publicizing the food processors' and distributors' line in implying that Listeriosis, which results from infection by Listeria monocytogenes, has few consequences in healthy adults.

They neglect to mention, for example, that listeriosis is dangerous to pregnant women, whose immune systems are suppressed as an effect of pregnancy. And anything that affects the health of a pregnant woman affects the health of the fetus. (Perhaps this will convince those "right-to-a-miserable-life" troglodytes in the hardly-ever-right wing that food safety is important.)

However, a little research reveals how patently untrue that is. From ScienceDirect:

The repeated oral administration of a sublethal dose (5×109colony-forming units) of Listeria monocytogenes for 7 or 10 consecutive days led to the development of severe central nervous system (CNS) lesions in 25% of experimental mice. Histopathological examination of the brain revealed rhombencephalitis and ventriculitis as two distinct inflammatory patterns, resembling those seen in human listeriosis.

Michael Barza, M.D., of Tufts University School of Medicine explores in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) some interesting observations on Listeriosis and milk:

The excretion of L. monocytogenes in cow's milk is well recognized. Cows with listeric mastitis may produce normal-appearing milk containing large numbers of bacteria. Some of the organisms may survive pasteurization and may then grow better than competing species at refrigerator temperatures — a phenomenon called "cold enrichment." Milk may be a particularly effective vehicle because it protects the bacteria from gastric acid.

If you consume milk regularly, you might want to consult this post. Dr. Barza goes on to tell us about the effects of Listeriosis:

as many as 20 per cent of patients with listeriosis may have a cerebritis. The lesions range from macroscopic abscesses to a diffuse encephalitis. A fascinating variant, the "rhombencephalitis syndrome," which involves the pons and medulla, is the human counterpart of circling disease in sheep.

About 25 per cent of patients with listeriosis have a "primary bacteremic form" without evident foci of origin or metastasis. This form, too, occurs mainly in immunosuppressed patients but may also strike pregnant women. Other patients have localized infections such as endocarditis, endophthalmitis, hepatitis, and oculoglandular or cutaneous infection.

Tasty!

In other barfacious news, Heinz Foods is recalling some 40,000 cases of Boston Market brand lasagna with meat sauce, after having discovered that the meat therein is derived from the recent recall of 143 million pounds of beef from a California meatpacker of dubious ethics and inarguable inhumanity. Call Boston Market Frozen Food Consumer Helpline at 1 (800) 488-0050 if you have a question.

Congress has subpoenaed executives of the meat-packing company, Reuters tells us:

Steve Mendell, president of Hallmark/Westland, was invited by the subcommittee to testify at a hearing on February 26 on the role companies play in recalls and food safety, but he did not appear. The subpoena orders Mendell to testify on March 12.

What, is this another personal friend of George W. Bush? He thinks he can do like Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten and just not show up? Mr. Mendell, you have your nerve. If you wanted to evade Congressional oversight, you should have arranged to kill 4,000 U.S. troops and 1 million Iraqis!

Rep. Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, chairs the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations. Members are:

• Diana DeGette, D-CO
  
• Ed Whitfield, R-KY
• Charlie Melancon, D-LA, Vice Chair
• Greg Walden, R-OR
• Henry A. Waxman, D-CA
• Tim Murphy, R-PA
• Gene Green, D-TX
• Michael C. Burgess, R-TX
• Mike Doyle, D-PA
• Marsha Blackburn, R-TN
• Jan Schakowsky, D-IL
• Joe Barton, R-TX (Ex Officio)
• Jay Inslee, D-WA
• John D. Dingell (Ex Officio)

You might want to consider contacting your Rep if s/he is on that list. Doing the people's business requires input from the people. If you want safe, clean food for your family, you can go vegan or vegetarian or produce (and butcher) your own, in your copious free time. If you want safe, clean food for the entire nation, including your family, you need to supervise the people who are monitoring your food supply.

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Consumer Alert: Organic Food

Cookie Jill over at Skippy's alerts us to the deceptive labeling of meat, and other food, and tells us what we can do about it.

So? Whattaya waiting for? Get it done tomorrow! (That's the last day you get to comment on whether they're gonna feed you cloned meat and meat from animals too sick to stand and crap that's been shot full of antibiotics, irradiated, sprayed with pesticides, or otherwise poisoned.)

Thanks, Cookie Jill!

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Economy: It's About Bloody Well Time

Harry Reid apparently found these somewhere in Washington:


Because, according to Raw Story, he has decided

[...] to defy a threatened White House veto and try to win passage of a bill to curb rising home foreclosures by changing bankruptcy law.

"I have no expectation of reaching any agreement with the White House," said Reid a day after the administration warned the bill would need changes to get President George W. Bush's signature.

"I have tried for seven years" to reach agreements with Bush on a variety of issues, but have repeatedly failed, said Reid, a Nevada Democrat, at a news conference.

"So we are going to do what we think is best for the country," Reid said. "If we get 67 votes (in the 100-member Senate to override a possible Bush veto), that's great."

Now don't get your hopes up too high, peoples. We here at La Casa de Los Gatos are still saying, "Be still, my beating heart."

Is he really gonna do it? Are we gonna see sixty-seven of the idiots in the Senate stand behind him?

Now's the time to start pressuring your Senateschmuck to get the fuck in line and vote with Harry. Now, a caveat here: we're not saying the bill as it exists is just peachy-keen and we totally buy into it. We have not yet read the bill, and we don't know what's going on. We plan to get our eyeballs on a copy but we're no financial genius, so we can't promise to update this post with the latest and greatest.

We do refer you to Bonddad's blog, which has a fine analysis of the housing crisis. La Casa de Los Gatos is fiscally conservative. We don't believe in throwing money (assets, resources, whatever) away. That means we don't believe Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have lost billions over the past quarter should be angling to lose even more by raising the cap on their investment portfolios.

We believe the "subprime mortgage crisis" was created by greedy lenders and greedy consumers working hand in glove with an inattentive and duplicitous government that relied on hocus-pocus as the mainstay of its economic policy. If financial idiots like ourselves who have to read Managing Your Money For Dummies can figure out that something's wrong with the mortgage industry, there is no way that the Misadministration's economists can pretend they didn't notice.

Thus, we say, let's all scrutinize this foreclosure bill. We think people who bought houses for investment, and speculators, lazy mortgage brokers and lenders who failed to do even the most rudimentary financial checks or even duplicitously tried to push on consumers loans they should have known said consumers could not afford, don't deserve a bailout, and certainly not at the expense of those of us who have carefully budgeted and saved and been responsible consumers and taxpayers. On the other hand, there are many people who were bamboozled into buying and failed &mdash or did not know enough &mdash to read the fine print.

Some people deserve rescue. But rescue doesn't have to equal bailout. A good rescue would be for the very banks who are found to have engaged in duplicitous practices to be forced to freeze homeowners' mortgages at a rate that allows such homeowners to pay off their loans. This would serve the dual purpose of punishing the greedy and duplicitous lenders and simultaneously temporarily staving off the impending collapse. However, we doubt that such a course of action will commend itself to the rich and powerful who rule the nation. Still, we can try to remove the most egregiously unfair provisions and add language that achieves the goal (staving off impending fiscal collapse) without overly burdening the taxpayer or letting lenders go scot-free.

The Dim Son will undoubtedly stamp his little feet and throw a hissy fit. That's fine. Mr. 19 Per Cent is not exactly a force to be reckoned with any more. And we well know that his desired "changes" to the language of any bill will serve only his wealthy and powerful friends, or as he has referred to them, his "base." While simultaneously screwing common working people.

Image from WhoHijackedOurCountry

We gotcher base right here, Chimpy. Vanculo, you worthless little putz.

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Politics: If It's Legal, They Don't Need Immunity

Image from DailyKos

Chimpy McTardibus, L33b3r Ov T3H |=R33 WUR7d, assures the American People today that the telcos' spying on the American People was legal:

[...] Bush said. "What we asked them to do was legal, and now they're getting sued for billions of dollars."

Telephone and Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and SBC are facing about 40 lawsuits from customers who say their privacy was violated as part of Bush's "Terrorist Surveillance Program" he says began after 9/11. Only if they are found to have violated privacy laws would these companies face the "billions of dollars" in penalties Bush warned against.

Well, if it's legal, they have nothing to worry about, Mr. Bush. So sign the existing FISA law.

No retroactive immunity for telcos! They have way more money than John and Jane Q. Public, and can well afford a day in court. Besides, they'll win anyway. Because spying on every man, woman, and child in America is LEGAL, dammit, legal, legal, legal.

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Economy: Whodunit of Predatory Lending

Eliot Spitzer &mdash a man for whom La Casa de Los Gatos has a deep and abiding respect based on his efforts to fight corruption and stand up for the average citizen &mdash pens a piece in today's WaPoo that should make anybody's blood boil.

If yours doesn't, please repair to the nearest emergency room. You may be dead and just not know it yet.

The gist of the article is that the Bush administration actively intervened to prevent states from protecting their consumers from predatory lending practices. It's bad enough that they just ignored all the warning signs. But to actively worsen the situation? WHAT?

Back when La Casa de Los Gatos had an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage), we were already suspicious of the whole banking/mortgage hype. Lenders and realtors kept telling us our Casa was worth so much more than we thought it was, and offering us all kinds of fancy instruments and inducements; even offering to overvalue La Casa so that we could get a loan for a larger amount and have a "wraparound" home equity line of credit.

ThePoliticalCat wanted a house for only three reasons, really.

1. Landlords are reluctant to rent to tenants who have pets, especially pets in the plural;
2. We were getting really tired of the whole "pack and move" scenario;
3. We just wanted a place to call our own, where we could hang our art on the walls and let the gatos come in and out as they pleased without worrying about traffic, nasty hoomans, landlords, pet deposits, et cetera ad infinitum ad nauseam.

ARMs, at the time, offered the lowest rates. We refused the interest-only, balloon-payment thingumajigs and opted for something we felt we could afford. It was iffy for a while, but we scrimped and saved and managed despite the rough spots. Thanks to all our dear friends who helped us through them.

Shortly after Chimperor McFuckface got "elected" &mdash no, wait, the asshole was appointed by his daddy's friends, wasn't he? &mdash we got very very nervous. Especially after we noticed that every time the pigball opened his mouth, the Dow dropped a few points. So we set about converting our ARM into a fixed-rate instrument. We agreed to the line of credit the bank offered, but it made us so nervous, we paid it back as soon as we could (we needed it to replace the roof and fix a floor).

Now that we see the pickle half the country is in, we're really really relieved that we did what we did. At the time, everyone thought we were idiots (and told us so regularly) for refusing all that "free money." But ThePoliticaCat knows quite well that nothing in life is free. Any time someone tells you they're about to give you a freebie, check your mouth for a hook and their hand for the line, because they're about to reel you in like the sucker they think you are.

And then to find out that not only did our government ignore the dangerous, foolish, and "oughta-be-illegal" practices of the banking industry, it actually crippled those who would protect the average consumer from being tricked and cheated. Gads, what bastards.

If you bought a house and are facing any kind of woes as a result of predatory lending, for mercy's sake, call your legislators, write them, fax them, and insist that they investigate this further. Here's how to find the worthless Federal Senate whores. Project VoteSmart helps you find the worthless Federal Congress whores. Juan Cabanela helps out Spanish-speaking (and reading) voters. Contact your State legiswhores here:

• Alabama;
• Alaska;
• Arizona;
• Arkansas;
• California;
• Colorado;
• Connecticut;
• Delaware;
• Florida;
• Georgia;
• Hawaii;
• Idaho;
• Illinois;
• Indiana;
• Iowa;
• Kansas;
• Kentucky;
• Louisiana;
• Maine;
• Maryland;
• Massachusetts;
• Michigan;
• Minnesota;
• Missouri;
• Montana;
• Nebraska;
• Nevada;
• New Hampshire;
• New Jersey;
• New Mexico;
• New York;
• North Carolina;
• North Dakota;
• Ohio;
• Oklahoma;
• Oregon;
• Pennsylvania;
• Rhode Island;
• South Carolina;
• South Dakota;
• Tennessee;
• Texas;
• Utah;
• Vermont;
• Washington (State);
• West Virginia;
• Wisconsin

That's all we could find. If anyone knows how to contact legislators from those states not included in the preceding list, please feel free to leave the information and we will update this post accordingly.

Please call your state legislators and ask them about this story. If it's true, then it's really really big and we can't help wondering why it wasn't brought to the public consciousness before this.

Another thing: You might want to contact Rep. Henry Waxman and ask if his committee plans to investigate this ... this ... unbelievable breach of the public trust.


moar humorous pics

And for the love of all that's holy DO NOT vote for Senator John McInsane, as he is bound to continue this fraudulent policy. At least Hickabee, no matter how much I despise his loutishness, is a populist at heart, and would never support such an egregiously bad act.

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Health: Things To Look Out For

In case yesterday's post on infants and phthalates left you insufficiently nervous, here's more. Regrettably, it appears to be mostly geared towards women, as in "women are so dumb they use all this stuff to make them more beautiful and then oops, they die!"

We all know that the issue is really "Consumers don't have a fucking clue what's in all the crap that advertising tells them they must buy because their government wants them to spend money to keep the economy afloat, but not be protected from any possible adverse effects that might cut into manufacturers' profits, so they use it on themselves and their families and oops, they die!"

You think we're kidding? No, my friends, we're not kidding. Here, we give you an example in young, athletic Arielle Newman who died because she used an OTC pain-relieving gel on her sore muscles. Either she was peculiarly susceptible to absorbing the gel, or she used very large amounts. Or, like many athletes who might suffer from stiffness and soreness, she used both the gel and aspirin as pain relief. The moral of this story is, that shit will kill ya.

What about the non-athletes? What are they using that might kill them, and for what? Well, apparently, lots of young women opt for laser hair-removal treatments to make their legs and pits look hairless and "pretty." Jeez, people, talk about neonatophilia. Real adult humans have hair all over their bodies and especially in their armpits and crotches. And if you want to get rid of it, try a razor instead of something that could kill you. Is it worth dying just to get laid?

At any rate, ABC tells us that many laser treatment providers give clients a gel that contains both lidocaine and tetracaine, and numbs the areas to be worked on.

Unfortunately, lidocaine and tetracaine, alone or in combination, can cause death in some susceptible people. Because people have different absorption rates, and the product they're using is not reviewed by any agency, because human error exists, and there have not been long-term safety studies done on many of these compounds, users who fail to educate themselves on the issues might just kack from using this stuff.

One of the women in this report, Shiri Berg, put a 10-10 solution (ten per cent hydrocaine, ten per cent lidocaine) on her legs, then wrapped them in cellophane to speed the absorption. Who told her to do this? You read something like this and just go WTF? She puts the stuff on without knowing anything about it, wraps her legs to speed the absorption process, then gets in a car and drives to the spa, and surprise! She dies!

Her family's attorney is now complaining that she received no education on the product. We bet he votes Republican and would be simply scandalized at the thought of losing his tax breaks so the FDA and other regulatory agencies can be beefed up to exercise proper oversight. This is where the "cut the taxes of the very rich and slash all public programs to the bone" policies of the Republican Party and the Bush junta have left us.

Nobody's paying attention to what's in our food, our water, our medicines, our soil, our air, and our bodies. There are a few dedicated nonprofit groups out there, but they are hamstrung by tiny budgets and overworked. We pay taxes in order to create and protect our entire community - in this case the community called a "nation."

Not to give the obscenely wealthy even more wealth. Not to pay for spoiled fratboys to kill men, women, and children. Not so that manufacturers can make huge profits by poisoning and killing people.

Other things that can happen to people who do not insist on better and greater scrutiny of commercial products, or fail to educate themselves thoroughly (which, let's face it, ain't much of a substitute if you don't know a lot about chemistry, biology, medicine, law, and deity knows what else):

• Chemical face peels can leave you burned and disfigured.
  
  
• Aspirin can interact with any pain-relieving externally applied OTC medication that contains salicylic acid.
  
  
• Blood-thinning medications such as Coumadin or Plavix can interact with these medications and natural healants.
  
  
• Ginger has blood-thinning properties.
  
  If you're taking other blood-thinning medications or being evaluated for heart health, let your doctor know if your diet is high in ginger. As an example, ThePoliticalCat consumes ginger tea daily. This is important for the doctor to know.
  
  
• Do not use OTC analgesics on children without a doctor's prescription and supervision.
  
  If they're in pain from athletic injuries, they need to rest and heal, not be medicated and keep going so they can do greater damage to their bodies.
  
  
• If you're using any OTC topical analgesic to deal with vaginal itching, and the itching persists, do not apply more analgesic.
  
  Instead, go to a doctor and find out why you have the problem.
  
  
• When using topical analgesics, always use the smallest possible amount that does the job.
  
  Never use more than recommended. Never try to increase the effect by using bandages or other coverings over the affected area. Apply to the smallest possible area.
  
  
• Do not use hydrocortisone or other corticosteroids except as prescribed by a doctor and under medical supervision.
  
  We are reliably informed that some very stupid people use hemorrhoid cream to remove the bags under their eyes. Listen people, medication that is formulated for your arsehole is not necessarily suitable for your eyes. If you don't want bags under your eyes, quit hitting the bottle, put down the fucking cigarettes, cut out the salt, and ice your eye tissue till it shrinks. Here's a list of the possible side effects of corticosteroids.
  
  
• Do not use creams containing estrogen or progesterone without first having your hormone levels tested.
  
  If you think you need them to counter menopausal side-effects and your doctor's being a jerk about it, find a different doctor, talk to experts in women's health issues (they do exist) and research the subject thoroughly before slathering on the stuff.
  
  
• Lightening "age spots" with hydroquinone is not for everybody.
  
  Especially, it appears, for darker-skinned women, who can end up with darker skin instead, or, worse yet, with cancer.
  
  
• Retin-A or glycolic acid, which removes the top layer of your skin, might reduce your wrinkles but it's also going to leave your skin more vulnerable to injury.
  
  So don't do anything that stresses your skin (like using another exfoliant, or a chemical peel, or waxing your eyebrows, or even lying around on the beach in the sun) shortly after you've used these substances. Put on extra SPF sunscreen, wear a hat, and fer chrisake, stay away from cigarettes.
  
  
• If you're using henna, whether for temporary tattoos or to colour your hair or make nice patterns on your skin, always test it first.
  
  If you're one of the X number of people who are allergic to the stuff, you're going to look utterly gorgeous with your eyes swelled shut and your whole face, scalp, or other skin red, cracked, shiny, itchy and oozing.
  
  
• If your kid has a cold or cough, do not give them medications, OTC or prescription.
  
  Such medications send thousands of little children to the ER every year. The unlucky ones die. If they're under 6 years of age, the FDA recommends that you not give them any OTC meds. If they're between 6 and 11 years old, be very careful. Yeah, symptoms suck, but death sucks worse. Antibiotics don't work either. Just put the kid to bed, administer lots of fluids (chicken soup, orange juice, water - not soda), keep the kid wrapped up and warm, and get your tubes tied ASAP so you don't have to do it with a second or third kid.
  
  
• Don't use antibacterial soaps.
  
  Most of the liquid or gel soaps on the market and about a third of bar soaps are supposedly antibacterial. How does that help us resist illness? It doesn't. Most of the bugs that will knock you and your family out are viral. Antibacterial soaps don't do squat for those. Moreover, a common chemical in antibacterial personal care products, triclosan, is now implicated, ScienceDaily tells us, as an endocrine disruptor, causing a variety of problems, including cancer, reproductive failure and developmental anomalies, according to animal studies.

Finally, consider this enlightening quote:

A study has shown that some women use more than 20 different beauty products a day [...].

This reliance of this ‘cocktail’ of cosmetics to enhance beauty means that 4lb 6oz of potentially dangerous chemicals is absorbed into the body through the skin.

The Environmental Working Group provides a Cosmetic Safety Database that you can use to find out whether what you're putting on your skin is safe.

Remember, sometimes less is more. Many thanks to Sister GTG, Regular Reader and Terrorist Nun, for the info on triclosan.

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Health: Keeping The Food Supply Clean

Lauren Neergard, a science writer for AP, reports that a single bout of food-borne illness, such as caused by E. coli, Yersinia enterocolitica, Salmonella enteritidis, the Shigella group of bacteria, or Campylobacter jejuni, can cause a multitude of ailments decades later.

In interviews with The Associated Press, [scientists] attribute high blood pressure [and] kidney damage [and possible] failure striking 10 to 20 years later in people who survived severe E. coli infection as children, arthritis after a bout of salmonella or shigella, and a mysterious paralysis that can attack people who just had mild symptoms of campylobacter.

"Folks often assume once you're over the acute illness, that's it, you're back to normal and that's the end of it," said Dr. Robert Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The long-term consequences are "an important but relatively poorly documented, poorly studied area of foodborne illness."

Some 76 million food poisonings occur each year in the United States. However, because no one tracks the occurrence of ailments that might result from food-borne illnesses, it is not possible to speculate how many people suffer these illnesses or symptoms in later years.

This should give us all pause for thought. More than 30 million pounds of ground beef were recalled last year for contamination.

Donna Rosenbaum, of the consumer advocacy group STOP (Safe Tables Our Priority) says that her group hears regularly from people with health complaints that they suspect or have been told are related to food poisoning years earlier. She cites a woman who survived severe E. coli at 8 and had her colon removed in her 20s. Some develop diabetes after food poisoning inflames the pancreas.

In response to this widespread yet poorly tracked problem, STOP is creating a national registry of food-poisoning survivors with long-term health problems. Hopefully, their medical histories will provide scientists with useful information and spur much-needed research.

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), foodborne illnesses cause 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths a year. However, the CDC does not track health issues of survivors of food-borne illnesses.

The University of Utah, which has tracked children with E. coli for years, has found that some 10 percent of E. coli sufferers develop a life-threatening complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, where their kidneys and other organs fail.

Dr. Andrew Pavia, the university's pediatric infectious diseases chief, states that one or two decades after a bout of E. coli, between 30 and 50 percent of HUS survivors will have kidney-related problem, including high blood pressure.

Although he stressed that not everyone who has had a bout of food-borne illness will have complications, and one-third to one-half of roughly ten per cent is really not that many, we'll bet that those words will not console the unlucky.

Essentially, he's saying if E. coli didn't damage your kidneys the first time around, you're not going to have kidney-related problems later. Great. We didn't even know that E. coli could damage the kidneys.

What about the other food-borne illnesses? After all, although the ground beef recalls were enormous and apparently all caused by discovery of E. coli bacteria, there are people who avoid eating red meat, or ground beef. What are their odds?

If you cook or eat poultry, you could be exposed to campylobacter. The CDC tells us that Campylobacter jejuni is

"the most commonly reported bacterial cause of foodborne infection in the United States."

One-tenth of one per cent of others JUST LIKE YOU will get Guillain-Barré syndrome about a month afterwards. In Guillain-Barré, your immune system attacks your nervous system, and the resulting paralysis will put you on a ventilator for assistance with the simple human task of breathing. Oh, yeah, and that could happen even if it was a relatively mild food-poisoning. You could also end up getting reactive arthritis. Reactive arthritis, unlike your regular flavour, includes conjunctivitis and possibly simultaneous inflammation in other organs such as the mouth, skin, kidneys, heart, and lungs, as well as your joints. It can lead to chronic arthritis.

In a cheery aside, the CDC goes on to inform us that

" ... an increasing proportion of human infections caused by C. jejuni are resistant to antimicrobial therapy. Mishandling of raw poultry and consumption of undercooked poultry are the major risk factors for human campylobacteriosis."

Reactive arthritis may also affect you six months or more after you experience a bout of salmonella, shigellosis, or yersiniosis. Fortunately for you (and the inhabitants of Casa de Los Gatos), yersiniosis is far more common abroad than in the U.S. No figures were given on how many of us can expect a more intimate relationship with these various bacteria; however, the same advice was given for all - wash your hands thoroughly. So this is Montezuma's revenge?

Severe E. coli can cause blood clots all over the body, which could damage other organs, says Dr. Pavia. HUS apparently can also cause pancreatitis, which might increase your risk of diabetes.

Well, that was exciting morning reading. Now we know why we have to work really hard to tighten controls on the nation's food supply. It's that, or a ghastly disease or diseases requiring hideously expensive medical care. So what if no one gets out alive? We want, at least, to enjoy the goddamned ride.

Incidentally, this entire article seemed like one long admonition for home-cooking and against restaurants. Oh, yeah, and against "rare" poultry. Cook the damn thing till all the fat leaks out of it and the skin caramelizes, dammit. Sheesh.

Caveat: Yersiniosis is spread by undercooked or contaminated pork, especially pork chitlins. Thorough handwashing, as always, and thorough cooking. Sheesh again.

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Health: Food Safety

Regular reader Sister GTG alerts us to the existence of The Center For Food Safety, a network that actually lets you tell the schmucks in charge to quit messing around with the nation's food supply.

No doubt, you've heard by now that a Minnesota meatpacker recently issued a recall for 188,000 lb of ground beef it distributed, after five people in Wisconsin and one in California fell ill when they consumed the beef, according to the Florida Herald Tribune.

• Good News: The meat was not sold in retail establishments.
• Bad News: The USDA issued the warning after people had already consumed the meat, which was distributed to restaurants and food service providers.
• What this teaches us: Don't eat ground beef in restaurants. Buy it from a reliable source, if you must. Better yet, grind it yourself, if you can. Or order the steak or fish, or better yet, the tofu or vegetables. Buy organic, if you can afford it.
• The contaminant: E. coli.

What, we don't have enough stuff in our food supply to worry about?

Meanwhile, the government is working on making our heads spin by:

• having the FDA approve the sale of meat and milk from cloned animals
• without labeling requirements
• despite Congress passing legislation requiring further studies and considering legislation reflecting the will of the American people that such foodstuffs be clearly labeled
• while simultaneously the USDA is recommending that food from cloned animals be kept off the market.

Sounds like another case of "the right hand knoweth not whose butt the left hand is patting."

Meanwhile, AFP assures us that American consumers are apparently indifferent to the possible problems of GM food, despite the 150,000 comments on cloned food, most of which are against it.

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland) points out a very important issue:

“Just because something was created in a lab, doesn’t mean we should have to eat it. If we discover a problem with cloned food after it is in our food supply and it’s not labeled, the FDA won’t be able to recall it like they did Vioxx [...].

No shit, peoples.

Mind you, even as these jerks try to bullshit us about how they're keeping cloned animals out of the food supply, their fellow jerks have this to say:

Executives from the nation's major cattle cloning companies conceded yesterday that they have not been able to keep track of how many offspring of clones have entered the food supply, despite a years-old request by the FDA to keep them off the market pending completion of the agency's safety report.

At least one Kansas cattle producer also disclosed yesterday that he has openly sold semen from prize-winning clones to many U.S. meat producers in the past few years, and that he is certain he is not alone.

"This is a fairy tale that this technology is not being used and is not already in the food chain," said Donald Coover, a Galesburg cattleman and veterinarian who has a specialty cattle semen business. "Anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about, or they're not being honest."

Nice to know your government is lying to you. Time to quit eating animal products altogether, or buy only organically produced and certified. Sheesh.

The Center for Food Safety tells us:

A 2004 New England Journal of Medicine report stated that "[G]iven the available evidence, it may be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to generate healthy cloned animals." In 2003, FDA's draft assessment on cloned food safety relied on just a single study on cloned milk, and no studies on meat from cloned animals. A 2004 National Academy of Sciences report said that the safety of cloned food could not be asserted because "the paucity of evidence in the literature on this topic makes it impossible to provide scientific evidence to support this position."

A grateful twitch of the PoliticalCat ears to Sister GTG for getting us all fired up on this issue. Go sign the petition today, folks, and pass it on.

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Politics: The Lawless Preznitwit

Maru at WTF ably points out how the Deciderer-in-Chief is blatantly breaking laws passed by Congress to ban the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals, to permit Mexican trucks on American roadways (last I heard, it's American taxpayers who pay the cost of maintaining those roadways; are we charging Mexican trucks for some portion of the upkeep?), and to reinstate the mining safety hack who has presided over the mine disasters of the past year.

How much longer do we have to put up with incompetent assholes raiding the Treasury, robbing the taxpayer blind, stealing our investments and homes and jobs and lives?

Meanwhile the Plunderer 'n Thief tells us the economy is solid and strong. Is he insane? The Dow is down by ~257 points, Nasdaq is down by ~100 points, and the S&P is down by ~36 points. Banks and other financial institutions have announced that they will cease paying dividends as a result of the rising loan defaults, which are expected to peak in 2009, with losses totalling up to $150 BILLION.

Job growth is anemic at 18,000 for the month, and unemployment has hit a high of 5%. For a look at the number of jobs we need to create per month, go here.

Oil is at $100 a barrel. And the idiot in charge thinks the economy is strong. Worse yet, he wants to CUT TAXES.

Fucking impeach the motherfucker already before he can destroy what's left of this country, OK? Please. I'm begging heah.

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Racism: What It Means For You

Hey! WHOA, there, pardner. When someone starts messing with our meds, we get ... concerned is putting it mildly.

Raw Story is telling us that minorities who go to the ER are less likely to get strong painkillers. WTF is that about?

Is pain less painful if you have a little pigmentation with it? Or what?

We remember gratefully the ER doctor who gave us a shot of demerol for a nasty abscessed tooth. When we showed up a day or two before, some flunky gave us antibiotics and told us to take ibuprofen. We can tell you exactly where to put that ibuprofen, ER junior assistant dishwasher. It ain't in our face, either.

After three days of excruciating pain which no amount of painkillers did squat about - and we don't like painkillers and don't like to take them, but were taking them about every two hours thanks to the agonizing pain - that shot of demerol was like instant heaven. The pain just disappeared.

Now why would anyone want to deny a suffering person relief? Eh?

Study co-author Mark Fletcher of UCSF had this to say:

... 23 percent of blacks, 24 percent of Hispanics, [and 28 percent of Asians and other groups] received [...] narcotic pain medications [...] for moderate to severe pain, compared with 31 percent of whites.

Pain management in the ER is "particularly important," said Fletcher. "Patients ... often have an acute issue with severe or new pain which really requires attention."

[...] The use of [strong pain meds] increased overall between 1993 and 2005, but the disparity between the treatment of whites vs. that of blacks and other minorities has remained stagnant.

ER physicians are often vigilant when administering opioids like morphine and codeine because of patients who are addicted to prescribed painkillers. [...]

"I'm sure this is part of the reason that patients don't always get the pain control they need," said Fletcher. "The ironic fact, however, is whites are actually more likely to abuse prescription medications than other patients are."

Dr. Fletcher says minority patients who don't get the pain relief they need should ask for it and keep asking till they get it. Great advice, doc, but let us know how that works for you when you're in the ER. We were lucky to have someone else with us at the time (the oft-mentioned spousal unit). We were too busy groaning and rolling about in pain to ask for any damn thing.

Details here.

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Health: Nataline Sarkisyan Update

Molly Hennessy-Fiske writes in the L.A. Times that Nataline Sarkisyan had a successful bone marrow transplant on Nov. 21, and subsequently developed complications that required hospitalization in the ICU.

On Dec. 6, Nataline's doctors put her on the liver transplant list and a liver became available four days later, according to Nataline's family. That would be December 10th. CIGNA proclaimed the liver transplant was an "experimental" treatment and refused to approve and pay for the procedure (according to Nataline's family). As a result, Nataline apparently was taken off the waiting list for a liver transplant.

According to emedicine, the liver is the second most commonly transplanted organ in the human body. The site states, in part:

the Pediatric End-Stage Liver Disease (PELD) scoring system [is used when a recipient is] younger than 18 years.

* Status 1 (acute severe disease) is defined as a patient with only recent development of liver disease who is in the intensive care unit of the hospital with a life expectancy without a liver transplant of fewer than 7 days.

That would pretty much define Nataline Sarkisyan. Without a liver transplant she was certain to die. CIGNA knew that when they made the decision to refuse to pay for the transplant. Also, the second most commonly transplanted organ in the human body is hardly "experimental." Of course, the insurance companies apparently reserve the right to define experimental, a definition that they do not share with the public or with treating physicians and other medical professionals.

On December 11th, Nataline's own doctors told the family and Cigna that patients in Nataline's situation have a 65% chance of living at least six months with a liver transplant. They urged CIGNA to reconsider its decision.

On December 14th, another donor match was found for Nataline. CIGNA refused to approve payment, and Nataline's family could not come up with the $75,000 downpayment required for the surgery. Meanwhile, the California Nurses' Association joined with the Sarkisyan family and Armenian-Americans to protest CIGNA's heartless denial of coverage.

The L.A. Times article states:

The family's benefit plan does not cover experimental treatments. But this week, after receiving an appeal from the family and UCLA doctors, the company reconsidered.

Supposedly, a medical decision is based on fact, not emotion or pressure. Either the patient's benefit outweighs the cost of treatment, or not.

For example, had Nataline been 80 years or older, and on the transplant list with a less than 50 per cent likelihood of survival, her family might weep and wail till the cows came home, but the public would most likely not sympathize with them and the "experts" who evaluated her case would be supported by CIGNA and the public at large in refusing her a liver transplant.

But Nataline was only seventeen, and her doctors felt she had a better than 65 per cent chance of survival. So CIGNA knew what they were doing when they refused coverage. They were condemning her to death.

Arlys Stadum, a Cigna spokeswoman, said the insurer submits all transplant requests to physicians with transplant expertise for review. Every request that is refused has been seen by at least one expert physician, she said.

Having been seen by "expert physicians" working for insurance companies, we here at this fine establishment can testify that most of them appeared to be some decades past active practice. Their sole source of income appeared to be the insurance companies, and we're willing to bet that they were not being paid to render decisions that would cost the insurance companies money.

These people, some past the age of retirement, many having little knowledge of the newest information in their field, were being allowed to pass judgment on working medical practitioners who perform medical diagnostics and procedures in their field on a daily basis.

It's like asking your mother the retired librarian her opinion of the latest developments in information management when she hasn't worked in the field since you were born three decades ago. She might well know the theory, but you couldn't rely on her to implement an information management system without training and hands-on time. And nobody dies from mismanaged information.

Six days later at approximately 4:40 p.m. on December 20th, just as the family had decided to remove Nataline from life support, Cigna sent a letter to the family's attorney approving the transplant.

The letter, faxed to attorney Mark Geragos, is stamped 4:44 p.m. Geragos said his staff tried unsuccessfully to reach the Sarkisyans at the hospital. The family said they didn't see the letter until after they removed Nataline from life support at 5:20 p.m.

"They took my daughter away from me," Krikor Sarkisyan, 51, an automotive technician, said at the news conference outside Geragos' downtown L.A. office.

In the letter, Deborah Garnsey, a registered nurse who reviews cases for Cigna, said she had reviewed the family's appeal on Thursday and decided that day "to make an exception in this rare and unusual case."

She noted that the family's appeal was reviewed by an oncologist and liver specialist.

"We are making this decision on a one-time basis, based on the unusual circumstances of this matter, although the treatment, if provided, would be outside the scope of the plan's coverage and despite lack of medical evidence regarding the effectiveness of such treatment," Garnsey wrote.

Shouldn't the treating physicians, and UCLA's top-notch transplant team be the best judges of the medical evidence available, and what weight to accord to such evidence, Nurse Garnsey? How does it happen that a nurse - no matter how intelligent, able, and well-qualified - is empowered to overrule the medical decisions of two "specialists" in the field, two doctors, in "reconsidering" a decision? Also, what "unusual circumstances" are these? The fact that people protested? Does this mean that insurance companies have a policy of denying treatment unless people protest?

The article goes on to quote Dr. John Roberts, chief of the transplant service at UC San Francisco:

"The problem that they got into is, here's a situation where she didn't have very long to live," he said. "Probably in this situation, they're probably better off to say, 'The transplant center really feels like this is the right thing to do, let them go ahead.' "

Dr. Goran Klintmalm, chief of the Baylor Regional Transplant Institute in Dallas, said the operation that UCLA wanted to perform was a "very high-risk transplant" and "generally speaking, it is on the margins."

But Klintmalm said he would consider performing the same operation on a 17-year-old and believes the UCLA doctors are among the best in the world.

"The UCLA team is not a cowboy team," he said. "It's a team where they have some of the soundest minds in the industry who deliver judgment on appropriateness virtually every day."

Of course, when quoting insurance company spokespeople, the reporter fails to question their underlying bias.

Karen Ignagni, chief executive of America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade group, said that the case shows how few employers, and even individuals, want to pay for experimental care coverage when they buy insurance, but that when people find themselves in dire health, everyone wants it.

Ms. Ignagni, that's disingenuous, to be very charitable. It's clear that the second commonest organ transplant performed can't be judged to be "experimental." The article in emedicine states that 5,300 such transplants were performed in 2002. As the population ages, more and more people will find themselves needing organ transplants. It's the coming crisis in the healthcare system - a system that pays insurers to stand between sick people and their doctors is inherently unjust.

People realize this, which is why there is such a tremendous outpouring of anger over the very preventable death of Nataline Sarkisyan. Because Nataline is you and me and everyone else who needs health care and pays for health care and finds, at the end of the day, that to save a penny here and a dollar there, the insurance companies which have taken our money for twenty years are quite willing to let us die.

Caveat: The cited articles have been extensively snipped due to space limitations. To view the articles in their entirety, please click the links.

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Health: Nataline Sarkisyan

If you've been following the story of teenaged Nataline Sarkisyan, then you know that CIGNA, her health insurance company, refused to pay for her liver transplant (after promising to do so and finding a match), and finally, after a great deal of pressure, reversed its decision.

Too late. The teenager passed away last evening.

Nataline's family say that CIGNA had agreed to a liver transplant some time ago and had found a match for Nataline. Thereafter, Nataline, who was battling leukemia, received a bone marrow transplant from her brother. Shortly afterwards, she developed a lung infection, at which point CIGNA apparently decided a liver transplant was too risky. Nataline's doctors then wrote CIGNA stating that the liver transplant was essential. CIGNA dragged its feet until yesterday, when they finally reversed their decision about the transplant, after demonstrations by nurses and teenagers sympathetic to the Sarkisyans' plight. Nataline had spent the past week in a medically-induced coma to stabilize her while waiting for the liver transplant.

If you haven't been following the story, ABC has the details.

To put this into perspective, CIGNA CEO H. Edward Hanway made $13+ million a year in 2004. (Here's a fine article on HMO costs and CEO pay.) Last year, his pay was more than double that figure.

In fact, he could probably well afford to pay Nataline Sarkisyan's medical costs out of his own wages. By the way, wages ain't everything Mr. Hanway gets. He also gets tons of stock options, bonuses, freebies, and other compensation - totaling $78.31 million over the five-year period from 2001 to 2006.

Health "care" in this country is an obscenity.

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Politics: Senate Reconsidering Telecoms Immunity

The Senate Judiciary Committee is reviewing the FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity to the telecoms companies that allowed the Misadministration to spy on Americans without a warrant, Raw Story reports. However, the Committee has not yet clearly stated that they will strike down the retroactive immunity provisions, so we can relax and assume that they're weaseling as usual and will give the Chimperor everything he wants, including the right to physically rip our guts out before our loving families' eyes, if he requests it.

The Judiciary Committee meets today to consider the bill.

Senators on the panel will only consider one-third of the bill today, delaying consideration of the retroactive immunity provision for at least a week, a Judiciary Committee spokeswoman said.

[...]

National Journal's CongressDaily, a subscription-only newsletter, reports that a key Democrat on the committee may now be wavering in her support for immunity.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who sits on the Judiciary and Intelligence committees, said she is re-evaluating her support for retroactive legal immunity. She voted to approve it as part of the Intelligence Committee bill. "I did support [immunity] in the intel bill and I'm giving it further thought," she said. (Republican Sen. Arlen)Specter said he does not know if there will be enough votes on the Judiciary Committee to strip the immunity provision.

Keep the pressure up on Di-Fi, folks. Her behaviour in confirming racist judge Leslie Southwick and professional frog-impersonater Mukasey, and her stance on this bill have been utterly disgraceful. She needs to hear from her constituents.

As for Specter:

On Wednesday, he proposed a compromise in which the government would become the defendant in lawsuits aimed at the telecoms.

“I think it’s very important that the courthouse not be closed so there can be a judicial determination to see if there have been any violations of privacy rights,” Specter told The Hill. “I think the telephone companies were good citizens, and should not suffer from what they did. And my idea is to have the government substituted as the party.”

All he's really saying is, let the taxpayer who has been illegally spied on now pay any damages resulting from lawsuits against the telecoms who participated in the illegal spying.

Talk about sticking it to the people! Arlen, you're a schmuck. Step down. Isn't there a decent progressive somewhere in Pennsylvania, someone who will respect the rights of the people and the Constitution, who will run for this putz's seat?

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Consumer Alert: Mattel Recalls Mexico-Made Toys

The EU has required Mattel, Inc., the world's largest toymaker, to recall some 155,000 toys made in Mexico because small pieces can detach from the toys and cause children to choke, Reuters reports.

According to a Mattel official,

"The products concerned are Laugh & Learn and Learning Kitchen Toys, which are part of the Fisher-Price range,...".

EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva is traveling to the U.S. to discuss the issue with the U.S. official in charge of CPSC - Nancy Nord, whose resistance to expanding her agency, better staffing or funding, or protection of the consumer at all, should prove an interesting counterpoint to her EU counterpart.

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Consumer Alert: Food Contamination

Update: The Cargill's ground beef recall has been expanded to total more than 1 million pounds. The 10 states affected by the recall are:

• Connecticut
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• New Jersey
• New York
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia

Details here and here.

Cargill recalled ground beef approximately a month ago, after customers developed E. coli from consuming their ground beef.

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Consumer Alert - Food Contamination

Cargill Meat Solutions - what the hell is a meat solution, anyway? - is recalling "ground beef products" for possible E. coli contamination. Affected "products"

include ground beef, beef patties, beef sirloin patties, coarse ground beef for chili and meat loaf mix including beef, pork and veal, distributed under the names Century Farm, Giants, Wegmans, Weis Premium Meats and Price Rite.

Use-by dates range from mid-October through today. If you have any of these products in your fridge or freezer, return them to the place of purchase for a refund. Call Cargill’s hotline at 877-455-1034 for more information.

These people - the meat packers and slaughterhouses and other providers of fine dead animals - really need to clean up their act. Not to mention finding some better creative consultants/copywriters/marketing schlubs.

What is causing this epidemic of contaminated food? We know that the contaminated toys are flooding our markets because Bush appointee Nancy Nord over at the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has been spending her time resisting expansion of her agency, additional funds for investigation, and new hires to enforce rules, preferring instead to go on $60,000 worth of industry-paid junkets and cozy up to manufacturers. Hard to enforce the law on people that are paying for your nice vacations, huh, Nance?

Impressive that Dick Cheney who got his big ol' tighty-whities in such a humongous wad over Joe Wilson's travel-expenses-only trip to Niger has made nary a peep over Nancy's fun holidays all-expenses paid.

What say, Crazy Uncle Dick? Aren't Nancy's trips "junkets," as you eloquently describe it?

That aside, we need to increase food safety inspections, and the way we handle food. The USDA is responsible for inspecting and certifying the safety of meat and poultry in our food chain. The FDA is responsible for inspecting and certifying the safety of all other food products in the chain. According to this NYT article, 85 per cent of food poisoning cases are attributable to FDA-inspected items. The FDA is underfunded and understaffed and incapable of managing its workload.

To protect yourself from the dangers of contaminated food, try to buy locally. Your local butcher can grind meat for you, if you need it ground, rather than paying more to buy meat that has been ground, packaged, and then traveled long distances under who-knows-what conditions. Or you can grind it yourself. Invest in a sturdy meat grinder. It comes with various attachments that let you grind any kind of meat (some will even do bones) in various textures, for different dishes.

Wash meat and poultry in cool running water before using. Wash produce in a mild bleach solution, rinsing thoroughly before using. Follow basic food preparation precautions - use separate cutting boards for vegetables and poultry/meat, preferably made of something that you can scrub down with bleach. Scrub food preparation surfaces with a bleach solution (including ovens, countertops, stove tops, pots, pans, knives, and other utensils). Some cooks recommend drying wooden cutting boards in sunlight, which kills germs. That's fine, as long as you scrub them down thoroughly after using them, preferably with bleach.

Buy local, from producers you know or at least who are known in the community. Agribusiness conglomerates need to be cut off at the knees. They create "meat solutions" and "meat products," not food. You needn't cook your food to death, but you should cook it to a sufficient degree to kill any pathogens. If you're cooking meat and vegetables, prep the vegetables first after washing them thoroughly, and wash all prep utensils before prepping the meat/poultry.

Above all, as far as possible avoid packaged "food products." You don't know what's in them, but it's a fairly safe bet that whatever you cook for yourself is going to be much healthier and safer, because you care about what goes into your face. The company that makes the "food product" cares only about what comes out of your pocket and into theirs.

Geesh, I'm just so outraged about this. Does it show?

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Consumer Alert - Halloween Toys

Keep your kids away from these. The U.S. just recalled another 440,000 toys for dangerous lead contamination, says AFP.

And the halfwitted CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) head, Nancy Nord, wants her agency to be reduced in size.

Toys included in the recall:

Galaxy Warriors figures
plastic disguise teeth
military-style Elite Operations action figures distributed by the global Toys R Us chain
Ribbit board games.

[...]

Lead can cause damage to the brain and nervous system of children, behavior and learning problems, slowed growth, hearing problems and headaches, and is particularly dangerous if ingested.

According to the AFP article, the fake teeth contain about 100 times more lead than deemed to be safe. And of course kids put those in their mouths - and they'll ingest the lead.

The CPSC has one full-time toy tester. That might explain why we keep getting poisoned toys on the market.

Dr. Jeffrey Weidenhamer of Ashland University, Ohio, tested approximately 54 items in the weeks leading up to Halloween, and says that some of the items had dangerous levels of lead. He informed the CSPC about this in a report. However, several dangerous items were still on the shelves of stores shortly before Halloween.

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Consumer Alert: Have Your Say On Nancy Nord

Nancy A. Nord is the current head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Readers of this blog know what an excellent job Ms. Nord is doing. This past month alone, there have been between 50 and 100 product recalls issued, and the Commission often resists issuing a recall until after consumers cause an outcry, having found out the dangers firsthand.

Now, ABC tells us that Nord, a Bush appointee, is opposing plans to expand the agency that she heads. Her reason?

Nord ... disagrees with increasing fines to as much as $100 million for companies that don't quickly report a product that may be defective, ... insist[ing] this provision would result in worried companies reporting every little safety concern, and inundating the agency.

I'm touched that Ms. Nord is so concerned about the worry that commercial producers of consumer goods suffer. However, more surprising is her lack of concern about the worry that consumers of such goods suffer. Haven't we had enough of children's toys contaminated with lead? It's at the point where you can't buy a child a toy any more without worrying that you're poisoning the poor thing.

At any rate, the consumer rights people don't take Nancy's worries too much to heart.

"We wonder who they are protecting. Are they protecting manufactures, or are they protecting consumers?" Donald Mays of Consumer Reports asked.

And some Democrats are asking the same question.

"This is the agency that deals with regulation. She is charged with doing that. If she doesn't believe we ought to be doing it, I think it's time for her to resign," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said at a press conference.

Today, her namesake in the House suggested exactly that - resign forthwith, Nord.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said:

A commission chair who says "we don't need any more authority or any more resources to do our job does not understand the gravity of the situation," said Pelosi (D-Calif.). "I call on the president of the United States to ask for the resignation."

Democrats in Congress allege that the administration has slowly dismantled the regulatory framework that helped ensure a higher degree of safety for products, both domestic and imported.

Consumer groups, however, have called for more aggressive measures. They complain that the administration has sided with industry, and has waited until product safety issues emerge—either through deaths or injuries or illnesses—before taking action by initiating recalls. By then, they argue, it's too late to prevent harm.

"Recalls are an ineffective method for separating consumers from harm's way," said Donald Mays of Consumers Union. "Last month's recall of one million Simplicity cribs had a consumer response rate of a mere 4.5 percent, leaving 950,000 hazardous cribs still in the homes of unsuspecting parents. "We need proactive measures to prevent unsafe products from reaching the market in the first place, rather than relying on an ineffective recall system." Mays said.

That's right, Nord. Mattel alone has recalled 9 million toys this year. If you can't do your job, step down and let the persons responsible appoint someone who can!

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