Food Safety
Do you know what's in your food?
With all of the problems in our food system, it can be hard to find the information we need to make smart choices about the food we eat. Use this page to keep up to date on food safety issues, including pesticides, aspartame, flouridation, irraditation, toxic sludge, mad cow disease, and more.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- He works in a world of long knives and huge saws, blood and bone, arctic chill and sweltering heat. For Martin Cortez, this is life on the line as a meatpacker.
It's no place for the squeamish. Some workers can't stomach the gore - chopping up the meat and bones of hundreds of cattle, day after day. Cortez has been at it more than 30 years. It also can be very dangerous. Some workers have been slashed, burned or scarred. He has not.
Even so, Martin Cortez, a soft-spoken man with sad eyes, doesn't recommend the work. The thrashing animals, the heavy
Read moreAPRIL 26, 2006
CONTACT: Environmental Working Group
Lauren Sucher, EWG (202) 667-6982
$1.5 Billion Bonus Subsidy In Emergency Spending Bill Is Unfair, Wasteful Response To Agriculture's Increased Energy Costs
WASHINGTON - April 26 - A new Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis identifies and posts online prospective recipients of a pending $1.5 billion crop subsidy bonus that is contained in an emergency spending bill the Senate will act on this week. The analysis finds that the bonus subsidy, while well intentioned as a means of Read more
By Mike Adams
April 27 2006
Bird flu poll reveals U.S. economic collapse likely in the event of a human
pandemic
There's a new poll about bird flu in the United States that gives us a
somewhat alarming look at what might happen to the U.S. economy if the bird
flu becomes infectious to humans. The Harvard School of Public Health
conducted a telephone survey of 1,043 adults with a series of "what if"
questions. The results of this poll show that 60 percent of the citizens in
the United States Read more
"But if you've followed the 2007 farm bill debate thus far, you know what I mean. Green is a recurring theme, if not the official color. Many of those in the know think the 2007 bill will redirect farm payments away from commodity programs, which aim to support farmers' incomes, and toward conservation programs, which pay farmers to protect the environment," Mr. Lehner said.
"Indeed, some conservation payments would be Read more
TOKYO (AP) - Japan on Monday reshuffled an expert panel on mad cow disease that advised the government on the safety of U.S. beef, amid reports that half the panel resigned over the debate on reopening the domestic market to American imports.
Half the 12-member panel resigned and were replaced in the new panel, according to Kyodo News agency. Those who resigned are thought to have favoured a more cautious approach to resuming imports, Kyodo said.
Suguru Watanabe, an official at the Cabinet Office's Food Safety Commission, denied that any of the experts had resigned, and
Read moreMONDAY, March 27 (HealthDay News) -- People may be at risk for contracting the human version of mad cow disease, even if they haven't eaten parts from an infected animal, a new study contends.
Instead, new experiments with mice suggest that human-to-human transmission via blood transfusions, unsterilized surgical instruments or other means could be a relatively easy mode of infection with the deadly disease. British researchers say variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human version of the disease, was more easily transmitted in mice producing a human Read more
WASHINGTON (Reuters) < Meatpacker John Stewart has sued the U.S. government to provide it with cattle testing kits so his Kansas company can prove to customers, especially in mad cow-leery Japan, that its beef is safe. Stewart's firm, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all its slaughter cattle for mad cow disease. Its suit, filed this week in U.S.
district court in Washington, would force the Agriculture Department to give it access to test kits for the brain-wasting disease.
The suit was applauded by consumer groups. But USDA, which persuaded Japan Read more
Web Note: The USDA obviously doesn't want the private sector to start testing for Mad Cow Disease in the USA, because they know the disease is here, and it is spreading. Japan and Europe require testing for all cows at slaughter (all cows 24 months and older in Japan, all cows 30 months and older in EU). (END NOTE)
(AP) A Kansas meatpacker has sparked an industry fight by proposing testing all the company's cattle for mad cow disease.
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to look for the disease in every animal it processes. The
Read moreA panel of the National Academy of Sciences concluded yesterday that the maximum amount of fluoride currently allowed in the nation's drinking water can cause health problems and "should be lowered."
The report concluded that children exposed to four milligrams of fluoride per liter, the highest allowable level, risk developing severe dental fluorosis, in which teeth become mottled, pitted and scarred. Because fluoride can weaken bones, people who consume water containing that much fluoride over a lifetime are likely to be at increased risk for bone fractures.
Only 200,000
Read morePRESS RELEASE
MARCH 23, 2006
8:43 AM
CONTACT: Commercial Alert
Gary Ruskin (503) 235-8012
WASHINGTON - March 23 - In response to recent findings by scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and elsewhere that certain soft drinks may contain amounts of the carcinogen benzene above the U.S. legal limit for drinking water, Commercial Alert and public health advocates sent letters today to all U.S. chief state school officers, asking them to stop the sale and marketing of these soft drinks in public schools, until they can be proven safe and free
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