Tell the FDA to Save Antibiotics

Tell the FDA: Protect Human and Animal Health by Saving Antibiotics

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering a rule that could weaken already-lenient controls on the use of antibiotics in food animal production.

The new rule affects the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), a program allowing veterinarians to prescribe antibiotics mixed into animal feed in new ways. Currently, the VFD ensures that for those new antibiotic uses a diagnosis is made before animals are given antibiotics in their feed.

Many industrial farms routinely feed antibiotics to poultry or livestock to compensate for overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, while promoting growth. Proposed changes to the VFD could weaken oversight that prevents unnecessary drug use - increasing the rate of antibiotic resistance in humans.

Up to 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to healthy food animals. Weakening the VFD could breed dangerous new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that can spread to humans thus making these important drugs we depend on useless.

Send your comment now. Tell the FDA to protect human and animal health by rejecting this rule and saving antibiotics.

Blog sprinkles

When you really really want to have a digger toy that works.

Economic downturns force people to make cheaper cuts of beef taste delicious.

Oh, SHUT UP. Who the fuck cares what you feeling right now, Georgie? We're still digging out from the wreckage you caused during your eight horribly long years in office.

Bibles burned in Afghanistan ... by our military. Where are the frothing writhing religious wingnuts on this?:

The US army in Afghanistan has burned Bibles printed in local languages, a US colonel in Afghanistan has said, amid concerns they could have been used to try to convert Afghans.

"My understanding is that the [military] leadership confiscated these Bibles so that they could not be distributed around Afghanistan," Colonel Greg Julian told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

"It was their best judgement at the time, that the best way to deal with it, was to destroy them and I understand that they were burnt."

Al Jazeera broadcast footage earlier this month showing troops apparently discussing how best to convert Afghans to their faith.

How very odd: Gasoline prices swing higher before holiday. Who could have predicted this?!

Obama and Cheney at 40 paces:



Keith Olbermann's special comment:



The party that loves America so much that they'd never do anything to hurt it for partisan reasons?

The NRSC has just plowed another $750,000 into Coleman’s recount effort, raising questions about whether GOP donors are funding an effort they know is doomed merely to keep the seat empty as long as possible.

Asked about this, Van Dongen said the goal was to put Coleman in the seat, but added: “Is it better empty than in Franken’s hands? Hell, yeah.”

The horrors of a 'preventive-detention law'. President Obama, are you actually considering this?

Meat free one day a week

A city in Belgium shows how to save the planet by cutting back on meat consumption. Cows and chickens the world over applaud.

Something to beef about

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday.

[snip]

Larger meat packers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear they too will have to conduct the expensive tests.

The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease. Mad cow disease has been linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Great Britain. Only three cases have been reported in the U.S., all involving cows, not humans.

Really? Google Mad Cow and Alzheimer's.

Here's an interesting post:

There are also striking similarities between Alzheimer's, Creutzfeldt-Jacob-Disease (CJD), and mad cow disease. Mad cow has been linked to livestock feed and fertilizer.

So, what do radiation, livestock feed, fluoride, and fertilizer have in common which may have led to the emergence of the Alzheimer’s epidemic? The phosphate fertilizer industry.

"Fertilizer use was not a common practice in the United States until after 1870, when phosphate and lime were applied to crops like cotton and tobacco. By the end of World War II, an era of intensive agriculture began…," says Cargill Fertilizer. "Of the phosphate produced in Florida, about 95% is used in agriculture (90% goes into fertilizer and 5% into livestock feed supplements)." The remaining 5% is used in a variety of foods and beverages, plus personal care, consumer and industrial products.

George Glasser writes in the Earth Island Journal, "Radium wastes from filtration systems at phosphate fertilizer facilities are among the most radioactive types of naturally occurring radioactive material wastes...Uranium and all of its decay-rate products are found in phosphate rock, fluorosilicic acid (fluoride) and phosphate fertilizer."

The Florida Institute of Phosphate Research says, "Removal of uranium as a product is no longer profitable and all of the extraction facilities have been dismantled. The uranium that remains in the phosphoric acid and fertilizer products is at a low enough level that it is safe for use." That's not reassuring. Chronic exposure to low levels of contamination can be as dangerous, or more so, than chronic high levels of exposure or acute occurrences.

Of particular interest is calcium silicate, another byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry. One of its uses is as an anti-caking agent in iodized table salt. Is calcium silicate also radioactive? Would that have a significant impact on the thyroid? Given the relationship between Alzheimer's and thyroid disease, Alzheimer's may be destined to increase exponentially.

The phosphate fertilizer industry seems to be the common thread in Alzheimer's - and maybe also in thyroid and mad cow type diseases. Aluminum by itself may not cause Alzheimer's, but in combination with the radioactive products of the phosphate fertilizer industry, it could be wreaking havoc on our health.

South Korea doesn't want our beef...

I wonder why that is?:

SEOUL, South Korea - Tens of thousands of South Koreans rallied Saturday night against a government decision to import U.S. beef in the largest demonstration in a month of almost daily protests.

A crowd estimated by police at 38,000 people filled a plaza in front of city hall. Protesters lit candles, waved placards and chanted slogans criticizing President Lee Myung-bak.

South Korea agreed in April to reopen what was formerly the third-largest overseas market for U.S. beef. It had been shut for most of the past 4 1/2 years following the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state in 2003.

That deal, coupled with some sensational media reports, sparked fears of mad cow disease and triggered protests calling for scrapping or renegotiating the agreement.

Oh, c'mon! Our beef is totally safe! Totally! Tot.. ah ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Friday urged a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, but a skeptical judge questioned whether the government has that authority.

Ah... hmm: (my bold)

TUESDAY May 13, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- The Bush administration on Friday asked a federal appeals court to stop meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease, USA Today reports.

A low court ruled early that Kansas-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef can conduct mad cow disease testing in all animals. The company pursues the testing to meet the demand from foreign markets like Japan, which requires the testing for every domestic cow.

But the United States Department of Agriculture strongly opposed such a testing saying meatpackers have no right to such a testing. And it also said such a testing would undermine consumers’ confidence in domestic beef safety.

Creekstone Farms sued the government and won the first round in a low court.

In May 2007, Consumer Unions wrote to the USDA asking the agency not to appeal the March 29, 2007 low court ruling. Regardless, the government appealed to a federal appeals court to block the low court’s ruling that allows the meatpacker to conduct the test.

In the United States, less than 1 % of slaughtered cows are tested for mad cow disease under the USDA guidelines, according to USA Today. USDA argued that widespread testing does not guarantee food safety and could cause false positive results that scare consumers.

HhhhooooOOokaaayyy... my confidence is a bit shaken but maybe there's not that many mad cows out there. There shouldn't be any other concerns, right?: (my bold)

Milk and meat from cloned cows could hit grocery shelves in a few years if the FDA approves the process soon, as is expected.

But would the products be safe? Scientists and consumer advocates disagree on the answer.

The Food and Drug Administration has been wrestling for more than five years with the question of whether or not to allow the use of milk or meat from cloned cows, swine and sheep, with a voluntary ban on such products in place for now. Cloning companies and many scientists say the products are safe to eat, while consumer advocacy groups argue there are unaddressed concerns.

Several researchers told LiveScience that the FDA approval is inevitable. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that it could come as soon as this week.

But milk and meat from cloned animals is unlikely to hit grocery store shelves for a few years. Clones must grow up before products from them can be used. And since creating them is expensive, they will likely be used for breeding, not for direct consumption, experts say.

Cloning concerns

Reports of abnormalities, higher disease susceptibility and early deaths of clones have prompted many of the concerns about using their milk and meat. (Dolly, the sheep that was the first animal cloned by this process, was euthanized at the early age of six, though scientists at the institute that created her stated the disease she was suffering from was unrelated to her being a clone.)

Riot, South Koreans!! Go! Go!



crossposted at American Street

Mad cow for elementary school lunches!

A non-ambulatory animal can be an indication of mad cow disease:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday ordered the recall of 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a California slaughterhouse, the subject of an animal-abuse investigation, that provided meat to school lunch programs.

Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. No illnesses have been linked to the newly recalled meat, and officials said the health threat was likely small.

The recall will affect beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., the federal agency said.

Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer said his department has evidence that Westland did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection, violating health regulations.

[snip]

Federal officials suspended operations at Westland/Hallmark after an undercover video from the Humane Society of the United States surfaced showing crippled and sick animals being shoved with forklifts.

Two former employees were charged Friday. Five felony counts of animal cruelty and three misdemeanors were filed against a pen manager. Three misdemeanor counts - illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal - were filed against an employee who worked under that manager. Both were fired.

It's simple. Time to start eating other meats than beef, or not eating meat at all.

Update 2/22: The horrific peek into the slaughter house:

Try them, try them and you may, I say

Green cloned eggs and ham....

Meat and milk from cloned animals is generally safe to eat, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared.

[snip]

The FDA does not expect to see a lot of products from cloned animals being sold, because of cost. It says clones would be used mainly for breeding.
The agency released almost identical draft conclusions in December 2006. Since then, new scientific information has strengthened its central view.

"After reviewing additional data and the public comments in the intervening year since the release of our draft documents on cloning, we conclude that meat and milk from cattle, swine, and goat clones are as safe as the food we eat every day," said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

The finding also confirms the conclusions of an investigation released in 2002 by the US National Academy of Sciences. The FDA will not require food from cloned animals to be labelled as such.

Less variety, less ability to withstand mutant viruses, more danger of losing large herds, more danger of losing our sources of meat. And if there is a problem found with cloning, how will it be reined in and controlled?

One response is to eat less meat, consume more vegetables. But even that may have problems....

Scientists in the US say they have created a genetically-engineered carrot that provides extra calcium.

They hope that adding the vegetable to a normal diet could help ward off conditions such as brittle bone disease and osteoporosis.

Someone eating the new carrot absorbs 41% more calcium than if they ate the old, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study suggests.

The calcium-charged vegetable still needs to go through many safety trials.

"These carrots were grown in carefully monitored and controlled environments," said Professor Kendal Hirschi, part of the team at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

Just wait until the Terminator Gene gets released into the wild...

Update: Uh... about those calcium carrots:

Auckland, New Zealand (AHN) - A study revealed that prescribed calcium supplements taken by older women actually increase the possibility of the patients suffering from heart problems and stroke.

Researchers from New Zealand's University of Auckland observed medical data of 1,500 women, with the focus being their bone density. The volunteers were divided into two groups, one group being given a daily dose of calcium supplement, and the other, placebo pills. The scientists then monitored the health of the women twice a year, for a span of five years.

The experiment yielded results that showed 60 individuals from the group given the calcium supplements to have experienced heart attacks, strokes, or even sudden death, reported the AFP. The total number of events for the group was 76.

Of the group given the placebo pill, 50 women experienced the said conditions, with the number of instances adding up to 54.

I swear... we'll just end up eating dirt and leaves. It'll be safer.

Update 1/17: Carl of Simply Left Behind:

Let's take a current example from the food processing industry as an example: growth hormones.

First off, Congress, if growth hormones are bad for ballplayers, why are they OK for cows, chickens and pigs? After all, I don't eat Barry Bonds...stuff like this has a half life. It's not necessarily metabolized completely in the animal itself.

Second, for years, hormones like rBGH have been pumped into milk-producing cows to raise their estrogen levels, thus producing more milk. Well, guess what? That wasn't particularly safe!
And a whole new industry cropped up that claims their milk is "rBGH free". I can imagine that within ten years, a whole new market will have cropped up about "born natural" animals.

See, here's the thing: I'm not against cloning. I'm not even against cloning for meat or milk. What I am against is ignorance and deliberate deceptions, which is what the FDA seems to be mapping out here: first, introduce a potentially dangerous and deadly process and product to the market, let it run its retail course and then assess the results, like LSD given to hundreds of government employees, because you don't want to scare people off before the results are in.

You guys are supposed to be protecting us.

Exactly. And they're not.

Of course they waited 18 days!

How else could they get sell the last of the contaminated beef without the customers knowing?

WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department will speed up warnings about contaminated meat in the future, officials said Thursday, as they sought to quell criticism of an 18-day delay in seeking the recall of millions of pounds of tainted ground beef.

Briefing reporters, department officials acknowledged that they knew as early as Sept. 7 that frozen hamburger patties could be contaminated after preliminary tests indicated the E. coli bacteria strain O157:H7.

They said it was impossible to seek a recall without conducting a more sophisticated test to confirm the original results, but said they would reevaluate what USDA can do better to warn the public sooner.

"Let me be clear from the beginning, at this point we weren't able to take action based on the initial test," said David Goldman, assistant administrator of the USDA's Office of Public Health Science.

Still, "this agency is not completely satisfied with the time elapsed and the issuance of the recall," he said. "We will be reviewing data related to this recall as well as our own protocol to determine how we might improve."

Richard Raymond, the department's under secretary for food safety, then added: "It's a policy we will be changing here."

The department's response comes after news reports disclosed an Agriculture Department e-mail showing the department knew on Sept. 7 about possible contamination but waited 18 days before concluding Topps Meat Co. should issue a recall.

Is the guy running this a loyal Bushie? The amazing incompetence made me wonder....

Who should we blame for global warming?

Cows.

A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

This is among the conclusions of a study by Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and colleagues, which has assessed the effects of beef production on global warming, water acidification and eutrophication, and energy consumption. The team looked at calf production, focusing on animal management and the effects of producing and transporting feed. By combining this information with data from their earlier studies on the impact of beef fattening systems, the researchers were able to calculate the total environmental load of a portion of beef.

Their analysis showed that producing a kilogram of beef leads to the emission of greenhouse gases with a warming potential equivalent to 36.4 kilograms of carbon dioxide. It also releases fertilising compounds equivalent to 340 grams of sulphur dioxide and 59 grams of phosphate, and consumes 169 megajoules of energy [snip].

In other words, a kilogram of beef is responsible for the equivalent of the amount of CO₂ emitted by the average European car every 250 kilometres, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

The calculations, which are based on standard industrial methods of meat production in Japan, did not include the impact of managing farm infrastructure and transporting the meat, so the total environmental load is higher than the study suggests.

They didn't include driving to the In'n'Out Hamburgers and sitting in the drive thru with your motor running for 15 minutes either...

Beef recall widens

Shop in any one of these?

The recalled products were shipped to stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. They were sold under the brand names Moran's All Natural, Miller Meat Company, Stater Bros., Trader Joe's Butcher Shop, Inter-American Products Inc. and Basha's.

The affected grocery stores included Albertson's, Basha's, Grocery Outlet, Fry's, "R" Ranch Markets, Save-A-Lot, Save-Mart, Scolari's Wholesale Markets, Smart and Final, Smith's, Stater Bros. and Superior Warehouse.

[snip]

A meat supplier has greatly expanded a ground beef recall, which now includes about 5.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen meat that may be contaminated with E. coli.

David Goldman, acting administrator of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, announced on Saturday that the recall would be expanded to include products with sell-by dates from April 6-April 20. The beef, sold in 11 Western states, was distributed by California-based United Food Group LLC.

Goldman said that none of the latest batch of suspect beef is in stores now because the product would be well past its expiration date, but consumers may still have some of the meat at home.

"It is important for consumers to look in their freezers," Goldman said.

The Bush administration wants you to eat mad cows

Because if they let one meatpacker test for mad cow, they'd have to let all meatpackers test for mad cow and that would be really expensive and would make the corporations unhappy and anyway you don't show the effects of mad cow until you get Alzheimer's and that's years away so why should you care?

Not many seemed to notice when Bush served the Japanese Prime Minister beef for the Camp David visit, but it was a snide dig at Japan's food safety demands.

At the meeting Friday at the US presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, the two leaders are set to dine on an all-American lunch of controversial US beef -- in the form of cheeseburgers.

Japanese curbs on US beef are one of the stickier trade issues the leaders were expected to discuss.

Japan this week agreed to ease its strict inspection regime on imports of US beef, which it had imposed over concerns about mad-cow disease.

Japan insists that beef be inspected for mad cow, the U.S. says Japan should buy our beef without inspection:

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - A White House visit by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next week may not bring an expansion of U.S. beef sales to Japan, said Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns on Thursday.

"I'd be very surprised if there was a breakthrough," Johanns told reporters. He said he had no meetings scheduled with Japanese officials during Abe's visit, set for April 26-27.

Johanns said he and Japan's agriculture minister, Toshikatsu Matsuoka, discussed beef trade by telephone earlier on Thursday. "We did not reach an agreement," said Johanns.

At present, Japan allows import of U.S. beef from cattle aged 20 months or younger provided that slaughterhouses remove organs posing the highest risk of carrying mad cow disease.

Chet at Vanity Press has the facts.

Reaction? EAT LESS BEEF.

Cows are causing global warming anyway.

The USDA is ignoring testing for Mad Cow

Nobody is surprised by this, I hope....

Mad Cow Disease has now been discovered in the United States. Given the fact that the USDA only tests one cow out of every 2,000, no one really knows how many of these infected animals may have already entered the human food supply.

Sign the Petition

Join tens of thousands of citizens and sign the Mad Cow USA-Stop the Madness petition, demanding that the US Government adopt and enforce the same strict standards required by the European Union and Japan:

Mandatory testing for all cattle brought to slaughter, before they enter the food chain.

Ban the feeding of blood, manure, and slaughterhouse waste to animals.

Stop harassing farmers and food processors who are interested in independently testing their own beef.

Moo.

More beef excitement:

A Merced beef processor has recalled about 100,000 pounds of frozen beef because three Napa children fell ill with E. coli after eating hamburgers at two Little League concession stands, officials said Saturday.

The frozen hamburger patties were produced between April and May 2006 by Richwood Meat Co. and distributed in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Arizona.

One more reason not to eat beef

FDA is going to allow beef to be treated with an antibiotic that is one of the last defenses against serious infections. Misuse of antibiotics is the reason they have had to develop cefquinome:

The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous - for people.

The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defense against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has ever been approved in the United States for use in animals.

The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotic, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people.

Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by InterVet Inc. of Millsboro, Del., to market the drug for cattle.

Yet by all indications, the FDA will approve cefquinome this spring. That outcome is all but required, officials said, by a recently implemented "guidance document" that codifies how to weigh threats to human health posed by proposed new animal drugs.

Cloned animals make excellent meat!

And anyone who says different is lying!

I didn't know dioxin was a seasonal flavoring for beef....

(Via Americablog), Dioxin found in beef sent to South Korea. So what are they making us eat?

"South Korea has asked the United States to explain why a shipment of American beef rejected for having banned bone fragments also contained unacceptable levels of the toxic chemical dioxin, an official said Friday.

The discovery was the latest bad news for the U.S. cattle industry in South Korea, already dealing with the rejection of three recent shipments of beef for including banned bone fragments, which South Korea fears could potentially harbor mad cow disease."

You notice what the Department of Agriculture does? They criticize South Korea for rejecting the beef and ask to see their testing methodology. How dare they say no to mad cow flavored with dioxin!

Sounds like Bush is running the department, doesn't it?