The High Human Cost of Unsafe Food

Published on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by The Huffington Post by Marion Nestle I think we need a whole lot more public outrage about unsafe food. Maybe the recent front-page articles in the Washington Post and New York Times will do the trick. Both tell tragic stories of women who developed hemolytic uremia syndrome in response to eating a food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. Both reveal the appalling physical and monetary cost of these illnesses. Recall: we also do not have an effective and affordable health care system. To me, the most chilling part of the Times investigation had to do with the lack of testing for dangerous pathogens. No meat packing company wants to test. Why not? They know the animals coming into the plant are contaminated. They know that tests would come up positive. They know that if they find pathogens, they have to recall the meat.

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New Website Helps Shoppers Avoid GMO Foods

Published on Sunday, December 6, 2009 by the Independent/UK by the Independent/UK Shopping for products that aren't genetically modified (GM) can be challenging, particularly in the United States where there are as yet no laws governing the labeling of products with GM ingredients. To make it a little easier on concerned shoppers, the US advocacy group Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT) this week launched a new website for consumers who want to avoid buying products containing genetically modified organisms (GMO) and gene-spliced food products.

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Whole Foods CEO's Dumb, Hypocritical Conservative Talking Points

By Mark Harris, CounterPunch Posted on September 7, 2009, Printed on September 7, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/142365/ If the CEO of a grocery giant such as Kroger or Safeway had written a Wall Street Journal op-ed opposing the “public option” in health care reform, it’s unlikely there would have been much of a backlash. Indeed, with right-wing America’s noisy revolt over health care reform in high gear, one more business journal op-ed on the topic probably would have not stirred much attention.

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Beta Carotene

By Gary Null Ph.D. Editor's comment: Following critical reports of the lack of benefit of beta-carotene in preventing lung cancer in smokers, it is appropriate to review this nutrient's scientific literature. While some past studies may have indicated an association between synthetic beta-carotene supplements and lung cancer risk in smokers, an extensive international study in the January 2004 issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention concludes that, when consumed as part of whole foods, beta-carotene poses no such risk. In the past decade, beta-carotene has gained tremendous stature in the nutritional world. This carotenoid, which gives many fruits and vegetables their yellow pigmentation, has always played an important role in health because it becomes vitamin A in the body. But in recent years, researchers have discovered that beta-carotene not only functions as a precursor to vitamin A but also works on its own to maintain health. Unlike vitamin A, which as limited antioxidant properties, beta-carotene is among the most powerful of antioxidant nutrients. As such, it can help to guard against the development of cancer.

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Children Who Get Flu Vaccine Have Three Times Risk Of Hospitalization For Flu, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2009) — The inactivated flu vaccine does not appear to be effective in preventing influenza-related hospitalizations in children, especially the ones with asthma. In fact, children who get the flu vaccine are more at risk for hospitalization than their peers who do not get the vaccine, according to new research that will be presented on May 19, at the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego.

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People Are Finally Talking About Food, and You Can Thank Wendell Berry for That

By Michael Pollan, The Nation Posted on September 10, 2009, Printed on September 10, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/142502/ This article is adapted from Michael Pollan's introduction to Bringing It to the Table, a collection of Wendell Berry's writings out this fall from Counterpoint. A few days after Michelle Obama broke ground on an organic vegetable garden on the South Lawn of the White House in March, the business section of the Sunday New York Times published a cover story bearing the headline Is a Food Revolution Now in Season? The article, written by the paper's agriculture reporter, said that "after being largely ignored for years by Washington, advocates of organic and locally grown food have found a receptive ear in the White House."

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Big Food vs. Big Insurance

Published on Thursday, September 10, 2009 by The New York Times by Michael Pollan To listen to President Obama's speech on Wednesday night, or to just about anyone else in the health care debate, you would think that the biggest problem with health care in America is the system itself - perverse incentives, inefficiencies, unnecessary tests and procedures, lack of competition, and greed. No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.

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Monsanto: Public Enemy No. 1

September 11, 2009 By Siv O'Neall The War of the Empire has many faces The ‘war on terror' has become nameless since our administration changed. But it is the same war, it has the same goals and it is as unwinnable as it always was. But certainly there are other ways of conquering the planet, says Washington. And so they impose their huge industries with their humungous profits on the entire world, corporations like Monsanto, Cargill, Dow, Bunge and others, giants that impose their own laws on world-wide agriculture and their goal is to make us eat only what they profit from.

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Food Is Power and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090906_food_is_power_and_the_powerful_are_poisoning_us/ Posted on Sep 6, 2009 By Chris Hedges Our most potent political weapon is food. If we take back our agriculture, if we buy and raise produce locally, we can begin to break the grip of corporations that control a food system as fragile, unsafe and destined for collapse as our financial system. If we continue to allow corporations to determine what we eat, as well as how food is harvested and distributed, then we will become captive to rising prices and shortages and increasingly dependent on cheap, mass-produced food filled with sugar and fat. Food, along with energy, will be the most pressing issue of our age. And if we do not build alternative food networks soon, the social and political ramifications of shortages and hunger will be devastating.

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European Parliament to Investigate WHO and “Pandemic” Scandal

By F. William Engdahl The Council of Europe member states will launch an inquiry in January 2010 on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharma‘s industry’s influence on WHO. The Health Committee of the EU Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry. The step is a long-overdue move to public transparency of a “Golden Triangle” of drug corruption between WHO, the pharma industry and academic scientists that has permanently damaged the lives of millions and even caused death.

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