Warning: Eating Meat May Cause Sickness, Paralysis and Death

By Tom Laskawy, Grist.org Posted on October 12, 2009, Printed on October 12, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/143136/ It's hard to draw any other conclusion from Michael Moss's New York Times blockbuster investigative piece on E. coli in industrial beef, which is centered on the plight of Stephanie Smith, a young dance instructor left comatose, near death and now paralyzed from eating asingle Cargill hamburger. Of course, a "single hamburger" can include meat from hundreds, some would say thousands, of animals.

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Why Is the USDA Continuing Loans for New Factory Farms?

Published on Saturday, October 31, 2009 by the Star Tribune (Minnesota) by Lenny Russo I am a card carrying member of the Land Stewardship Project. For those of you who are unfamiliar with LSP, it is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1982 whose stated purpose is to promote sustainable agriculture, develop sustainable communities and foster an ethic of farmland stewardship.

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Historic Data Shows Vaccines Not Key in Declines in Death from Disease

Written by Roman Bystrianyk measlesdeclineMany of us have a picture of the 1800s that has been colored by a myriad of filters that have led us to a nostalgic and romantic view of that era. We picture a time where gentleman callers came to call upon a well-dressed lady in a finely furnished parlor. We imagine a time where people leisurely drifted down a river on a paddle wheel riverboat while sipping mint juleps and a time of more elegant travel aboard a steam train traveling through the countryside. We picture an elegant woman dressed in a long flowing gown leaving a sleek horse drawn carriage with the aid of a well-dressed man in a top hat. We think of those times where life was simple, ordered, in a near utopian world free of the many woes that plague modern society.

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The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic Information War: "The Citizens Have Won"

Global Research, January 11, 2010 French doctor and author of a book on the swine flu scam, Marc Girard, has declared victory in the information battle in Europe surrounding the swine flu vaccine following the decision by the French government to cancel 50 million doses and abandon the vaccine centers under intense political pressure.

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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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