Bird Flu BS

Are you tired of hearing about this yet? I am. Avian Flu has been around for many years, although it only became a media circus event within the past year. To date, about 100 people have died worldwide, which is less than the number of people who die each year in this country alone from “normal” influenza. Yet the media hype, backed by hundreds (if not thousands) of doctors telling us all to get bird flu shots (which will net Big Pharma billions in profits) makes this supposed pandemic front page news. I’ll tell you what, folks, I will get a vaccination as soon as they invent one that will guarantee me protection against doctors-hospitals-pharmaceuticals, who are responsible for a couple hundred thousand deaths every year in this country alone. Stack that up against the 100 bird flu deaths (most of which were never given autopsies, so avian flu has not been proven to be the actual cause) and tell me which one should really be on the front page.

Laugh of the Week

The Journal of the American Medical Association has recently suggested that doctors be prohibited from taking bribes from drug companies. Ha! The latest figures suggest that the major pharmaceutical companies spend nearly $19 billion a year bribing and influencing physicians. I have no doubt this is offered up as a consumer-placating attempt because JAMA’s suggestion has about as much chance of succeeding as trying to tell Congress-critters not to accept payoffs from lobbyists, who clearly finance their campaigns and dictate their votes. The only way you, the consumer, will ever be free of the Power Brokers’ influence would be to move to Gilligan’s Island (assuming you could still find such a location on planet Earth). Might as well reside in MGM’s back lot as to believe this fantasy will ever come true. Da plen boss, da plen…

Teflon Debate Rages On

If this is an area of interest to you, check out these two URLs (the news stories are copyrighted and I can’t reprint them here). USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-02-15-epa-teflon-carcinogen_x.htm and Los Angeles Times http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-teflon14feb14,0,4106899.story are both bantering the pros and cons. In reading these, it seems to me that the big issue for Teflon use is wrapped in corporate profits, not honest scientific debate.. So what else is new? SNAFU… as usual, follow the money trail.

And from the Tampa Tribune (http://news.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBQOZP9MJE.html) TBO.com has this story to blow your mind.

Girl’s Science Project May Make You Rethink That Drink Order

by Michelle Sager, Published: Feb 13, 2006

TAMPA - Those ice-cold drinks from favorite fast food restaurants may not seem as refreshing after a seventh-grader’s science project reveals what may lurk inside the cup.

Benito Middle School student Jasmine Roberts examined the amount of bacteria in ice served at fast food restaurants.

Her project won the science fair at the New Tampa school, and she hopes to win a top prize at the Hillsborough County Regional Science and Engineering Fair, which starts Tuesday.

The 12-year-old compared the ice used in the drinks with the water from toilet bowls in the same restaurants. Jasmine said she found the results startling.

“I thought there might be a little bacteria in the ice, but I never expected it to be this much,” she said. “And I never thought the toilet water would be cleaner.”

Her discovery: Seventy percent of the time, the ice had more bacteria than the toilet water.

Geoff Luebkemann, director of the division for hotels and restaurants at the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, said people shouldn’t swear off fast food ice just yet. His state agency regulates Florida businesses, including coordinating health inspections.

“Ice machines are part of the health inspections,” Luebkemann said. “There are a lot of factors that have to be considered, like how accurately did she gather and test her specimens. Plus, comparing the ice to toilet water can be misleading because there are acceptable levels of bacteria for water.”

Jasmine said she has always been interested in water quality and its link to health issues. Last year, she compared hotel ice to toilet water. She decided to branch out to restaurants this year.

She is a previous county winner, and her brother won a top prize last year for his project.

For this project, Jasmine visited five fast food restaurants near the University of South Florida. She collected ice samples from self-service dispensers inside the restaurants, as well as ice from drinks served through drive-through windows. She also collected samples of toilet water from those restaurants.

She placed the samples into sterile containers and tested them at a lab at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, where she volunteers with a USF professor.

Jasmine found that in four of the five restaurants, the ice that came from the self-serve machines had more bacteria than the toilet water. Three of the five cups of ice from the drive-through windows had more bacteria than the toilet water.

Of the bacteria found in the ice, three out of the five restaurants tested positive for fecal coliform or E. coli, organisms that come from the feces of warm-blooded animals.

Health symptoms related to the presence of coliform include cramps and diarrhea. E. coli can cause intestinal illness and, in rare cases, hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious kidney condition.

Jasmine offers several theories for the contamination.

“The machine may not be cleaned properly, or it comes from someone touching the ice with their hands,” she said.

Galina Tuninskaya, vice president of Applied Consumer Services, a private lab that tests drinking water, said the standard for drinking water is usually 100 colony-forming units of bacteria per milliliter. The highest amount Jasmine found was 54 units in ice from a self-serve machine.

Tuninskaya said the acceptable level varies for each type of bacteria.

“No levels of fecal coliform or E. coli are acceptable,” she said. “If you find that, you’ve got a problem.”

Jasmine won’t reveal the locations she tested, for legal reasons, but she did present her findings to the restaurants and various government agencies.

“I think this is important because these bacteria can seriously affect people with weak immune systems,” she said.

She said the restaurant managers or owners she spoke with were surprised by the results because, they said, they clean the machines regularly.

Several managers said they plan to use the information to change procedures, Jasmine said. One manager even asked her to come back and test the temperature of the food.

As for Jasmine, she has changed her ordering habits.

“No way,” she said. “After this, I definitely don’t get ice.”

Even though bacteria in the ice seems to be Jasmine’s focus here, I would tend to focus more on the idea that those soft drinks are causing a great deal of obesity and diabetes in Americans. Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., Center for Science in the Public Interest, has written a 46-page document (in pdf format) on what soda pop is doing to us, which you can read (or save) at: http://www.cspinet.org/new/pdf/liquid_candy_final_w_new_supplement.pdf Just learn to like water.

Expiration Dates on Food: What Does that Mean to You? (more label stuff)

Most foods are safe to eat, and are usually acceptable in terms of taste, aroma, and appearance well beyond the expiration date printed on the label. By following these guidelines, you should be able to determine how long foods are safe to eat.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), food-borne diseases cause an estimated 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. (This is unacceptable! We should ban all food immediately! In the public interest, of course... or how about a vaccine? J). Unfortunately, food-borne illness (AKA food poisoning) often starts with flu-like symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, and is often dismissed as such. So, while it’s true that almost any food can become contaminated if handled improperly, foods that are purchased or used after their expiration dates might be more likely to contain spoilage bacteria or other pathogens (gee, maybe like mold?) that can cause a food-borne illness.

The expiration dates stamped on food packages suggest when to use a product at its best quality. While you probably won’t get sick from eating expired food, its freshness and nutrient value is likely to be diminished. The trick is to know how long a product is safe to eat after its expiration date.

Typically, non-perishable pantry foods display “best if used by/before” dates. These indicate the expected shelf life of the product – they tell you when a product is no longer at peak flavor, texture, and appearance. You can safely eat most of these types of foods past their listed date if they’ve been stored properly, but they might not taste their best or be as nutritious. There are two major categories of pantry foods: unprocessed and processed:

Unprocessed: These include pastas, cereal, baking mixes, dry beans, grains, and nuts. If they have been stored unopened, these shelf stable foods should be good to eat indefinitely unless the packaging has been damaged. After opening, store these products in airtight containers to keep out insects, humidity, and airborne molds, yeasts, bacteria, and to keep in the flavor. (Note: I include cereal and grains here because they fit the definition, but you should stay away from these if at all possible due to mycotoxin contamination or the content of synthetic chemicals and sugar.)

Processed: These are considered shelf stable because they have either been heat-treated (canned foods), are a dry formulation (cake mixes), or have reduced water content (dried foods, crackers). The quality of these products should also be acceptable until the container is opened. But watch out for cans that develop cracks at the seams, a bulge, or spurt liquid when opened. These changes might indicate the presence of a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum, the toxin that causes botulism, and those cans should be discarded. Read the labels because certain processed pantry foods must be refrigerated once you’ve opened them. (Note: In general, we no longer believe in eating things that come from a can or box, but I also know that many of you still do and don’t plan to stop, which is why I offer this data.)

To keep these foods at their best quality, store them in clean, dry, cool (<85° F or 29° C) cabinets away from the stove or the refrigerator’s exhaust.

“Sell-By” dates (AKA pull date) on refrigerated foods, such as milk or chicken, tell stores how long to display the product for sale. It is best for you to buy a product before that date and take into account additional storage time at home before you will consume it.

“Use-By” dates indicate the last day recommended for use of a perishable product while at peak quality. Try to avoid buying foods that are already past this date, even though most are generally still safe to eat. Simply check the item first for a bad odor or strange appearance. Taste, if you dare, and if you find an unpleasant flavor, it is best to throw it out. (Note to pet owners: most dogs will eat anything, even obviously rotten meat, so before you decide Fido should eat it, consider this: if you decided it was unfit for you, why are you willing to poison your dog?)

Storing Perishable Foods

Meat: Store red meat, fish, and poultry in the coldest part of the refrigerator (generally in the “meat keeper” drawer or toward the back of the bottom shelf), wrapped in butcher paper, leak-proof plastic bags, or airtight containers.[1] Fresh poultry, seafood, and ground or chopped meat can be refrigerated for one to two days before cooking. Fresh red meat, cooked poultry, and meat leftovers can be refrigerated for three to five days, and processed meat products (lunch meats) for three to seven days. Freeze any meat if you won’t be using it within these time frames.

Note 1: Many people use aluminum foil in the fridge and freezer, but I think this is asking for trouble. Regardless of the denials of the manufacturers, empirical evidence shows that the foils will darken due to the acidity of the meat. If the foil is changing color, there obviously has been a deteriorating chemical reaction and this implies the meat is now contaminated by the metal foil (aluminum is nearly as bad as mercury at being a neurotoxin). Although paper products might also leach their manufacturing-process chemicals into the food, I am guessing that it is less likely to be as potentially harmful. I have this investigation noted for further study and when/if I find significant evidence, it will be presented to you.

Eggs: If you’ve purchased a carton of eggs before the date expires, you should be able to use them safely for three to five weeks after expiration. Eggs should be stored in their original carton on a shelf, not in the door (where it’s not as cold – so why the refrigerator manufacturer put that silly egg shelf on the door is beyond me. Lannie claims they don’t make them like that anymore, but those of you who have an older fridge, don’t put your eggs there.)

Dairy: Milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter tend to spoil quickly once their dates have passed. Like eggs, these products should be stored on a shelf, not in the door (where the built-in butter shelf is always located). I do put one pound of butter at a time in the butter door, but it doesn’t stay there long enough to spoil. Before it’s put there, it’s kept down on the bottom shelf, in the back, where it’s coldest. We have to buy in bulk, so we usually get 12 to 16 pounds of butter at a time, and I’ll freeze all but a few pounds. Thawed out in the refrigerator, it’s as good as new when we’re ready to use it.

Fruits/Veggies: Raw fruits and vegetables may last anywhere from a couple days to a few weeks before spoiling. For best quality, store ripe fruit in the refrigerator or you can prepare it and freeze it. Some dense raw vegetables, such as potatoes, onions, and tomatoes can be stored in cabinets at cool room temperatures. Other types of raw vegetables should be refrigerated. After cooking, all vegetables must be refrigerated or frozen within two hours.

Always keep your refrigerator at or just below 40° F (4° C). Don’t overload the fridge because this prevents air from circulating freely and cooling foods evenly.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), frozen foods are safe indefinitely (should we believe them?), so their expiration dates apply only to quality and nutritional value. That is, the longer it is frozen, the less likely it will still contain viable nutrients or that it will retain a decent taste. Make sure the items are frozen solid without signs of thawing. For processed frozen foods (frozen breaded meat things), I don’t think there are nutrients to begin with. For fresh meats that are frozen, if they’re wrapped first in plastic wrap, then in butcher paper, they should keep for a year or more. Just wrapped in plastic, they’ll only keep for a few months without getting “freezer burned.”

If you plan to freeze your food, don’t wait to do so. As soon as you get home from the store, repackage the foods into serving-sized portions (if you buy in bulk). Freezing it right away will help keep the product at its peak quality. Freeze food in either its original packaging or packed in freezer bags or butcher paper [1] for maximum freshness. For meats packaged in styrofoam bases with plastic wrap, you should re-package them, or at least give them a second wrap. That thin plastic is not sufficient to prevent freezer burn in a short period of time. “Freezer-burned” (that means where the moisture has evaporated and the meat has dried out considerably) foods are generally still safe to eat. Cut freezer-burned portions away either before or after cooking the food because that portion won’t taste very good. Note that you should never bring home 10 pounds of meat (e.g., hamburger), throw it in the freezer in the original package, then expect to thaw it and cut it up later. Once thawed, the expiration date now applies to the refrigerated time of one or two days and if you can’t eat it all in that time period, you’ve just wasted your money.

All bakery items (which should have a “sell-by” date) that contain custards, meat, vegetables, or frostings made of cream cheese, whipped cream, or eggs should be kept refrigerated. Any bread product not containing these ingredients, or those that contain eggs but have been baked (like muffins), can safely be kept at room temperature. These foods should be good for about a week. However, if you begin to see signs of mold, they should be thrown out. And the more moisture in them, the quicker they will spoil. Those giant muffins at Costco and Sam’s Club will only last a few days at room temperature. A dry loaf of bread will last a week or longer.

Contaminated foods can cause illness in humans within a few minutes or up to a few days after consumption. Look for symptoms such as fever, headache, chills, vomiting, nausea, irregular heartbeat, or difficulty breathing. While most food-borne illnesses are short lived and require no medical treatment, others can be serious or even life threatening. If you suspect food poisoning, you should talk to a doctor immediately. This is especially important for pregnant women, young children, the elderly, and immuno-compromised people, who are more likely than others to experience severe illness or complications. In addition, any incidence of suspected food poisoning should be reported to your local health department immediately, especially if that food was consumed at a restaurant or fast-food place (i.e., their fault instead of yours).

Regardless of the date on any product, always be on the lookout for spoilage. If a food smells funny to you or has something growing on it that you think shouldn’t be there, throw it out immediately. More information is available at the following web sites:

Partnership for Food Safety Education
http://www.fightbac.org/

FoodSafety.gov
http://www.foodsafety.gov/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Health Topic: Food-borne Illnesses
http://www.cdc.gov/health/foodill.htm

Buyer Beware

In your search for health products, if you run across companies using the names Infinity², VitaQuest International, or Optimal Health Systems, or the names Don Lapre or Doug Grant, do not spend a penny on their products or books/kits. If you watch an infomercial that claimed that “The Greatest Vitamin in the World” contains “all you need for optimal health,” it is a giant con job (it’s no different than what you’d get as Brand X at the local drug store). They are frauds and their products do not work as claimed. Their claimed education, degrees, etc., are all BS from non-accredited correspondence schools (Lapre never even graduated from high school). These people screw everyone they touch. More info on these guys at: http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/lapre.html

A general note about the Quack Watch web site: these folks intend to destroy everyone’s belief in anything that does not fit into the realm of modern allopathic medicine, so be wary of believing everything they say. If you are logical enough to sort facts from allegations or guilt-by-association, then go ahead and read them, but if you are at all susceptible to intimidation or suggestions that are not proven by pure scientific methods, then steer clear of these guys.

More FDA Stuff

The following is extracted from an interview Dr. Mercola did.

Dr. David Graham (who has been with the FDA for 20 years and is currently the Associate Director for Science and Medicine in the Office of Drug Safety) said: Since November, when I appeared before the Senate Finance Committee and announced to the world that the FDA was incapable of protecting America from unsafe drugs or from another Vioxx, very little has changed on the surface and substantively nothing has changed.

The structural problems that exist within the FDA, where the people who approve the drugs are also the ones who oversee the post marketing regulation of the drug, remain unchanged. The people who approve a drug when they see that there is a safety problem with it are very reluctant to do anything about it because it will reflect badly on them. They continue to let the damage occur. America is just as at risk now as it was in November, as it was two years ago, and as it was five years ago.

If you’d really like to know how your government works and why it doesn’t give a damn about your health and safety, read this entire interview at:

http://www.mercola.com/2005/aug/13/secrets_of_the_fda_revealed_by_top_insider_doctor.htm

More Metals

I found the following two paragraphs on two different scientific research sites. Note the similarity and that fact that they apparently do know of a danger that is not being told to Joe Average:

1. Chemical compounds ubiquitous in our food, air and water are now found in every person. The bioaccumulation of these compounds in some individuals can lead to a variety of metabolic and systemic dysfunctions and in some cases, outright disease states. The primary classes of the most common toxic offenders are solvents, pesticides and heavy metals. Of heavy metals, mercury is the one most individuals are burdened by. The systems most affected by these xenobiotic compounds include the immune, neurological and endocrine systems.

2. The role of heavy metal toxicity doesn’t receive the attention it should as an underlying cause of children’s behavioral disorders, as well as age-related illnesses. Some of the harmful contaminants that can silently accumulate in the body include heavy metals (such as lead, mercury, and aluminum), toxic chemicals (Dioxin, MTBE, etc.), vaccination residues, plaque, pesticides, herbicides, plasticides, and many other environmental substances. These toxic compounds have a high affinity for the brain and nervous systems.

So, I have to ask: Are these neurotoxins an accident of industry, or is this a deliberate attempt to dumb-down America? Just thought we should have a conspiracy theory of the week… J

Sugary Breakfast Cereals

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, seems to be on our side when it comes to the sugar problem. In one of his recent articles (http://www.newstarget.com/018061.html) he says:

General Mills has launched a new promotional campaign that appears to be making outrageous health claims for Honey Nut Cheerios (a sugary breakfast cereal). Some of the ads say Honey Nut Cheerios will “help lower your cholesterol,” and the front of the cereal box screams, “New Pyramid Recommends More WHOLE GRAIN!”

Manufacturers of aged garlic nutritional supplements, which actually do lower cholesterol (garlic is antifungal) more powerfully than prescription drugs, cannot claim any health benefits whatsoever without being raided by the FDA and having their inventory confiscated. But a sugary breakfast cereal, somehow, can make health claims that seem to ignore the fact that the product is made with at least three different forms of sugar. As listed on the ingredients label: sugar, honey and brown sugar syrup. It’s four if you count the modified corn starch.

The commercial health messages plastered on almost all grocery products are almost universally lies (misdirected truths are lies), while the really healthy and nutritionally superior foods that actually demonstrate solid health improvements are outlawed from explaining their health benefits to the consumer. Sigh. Just follow the money trail in all things.