Originally from The New York Times:
Our Pigs, Our Food, Our Health
CAMDEN, Indiana
The late Tom Anderson, the family doctor in this little farm town in northwestern Indiana, at first was puzzled, then frightened.
He began seeing strange rashes on his patients, starting more than a year ago. They began as innocuous bumps — “pimples from hell,” he called them — and quickly became lesions as big as saucers, fiery red and agonizing to touch.
They could be anywhere, but were most common on the face, armpits, knees and buttocks. Dr. Anderson took cultures and sent them off to a lab, which reported that they were MRSA, or staph infections that are resistant to antibiotics.
MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) sometimes arouses terrifying headlines as a “superbug” or “flesh-eating bacteria.” The best-known strain is found in hospitals, where it has been seen regularly since the 1990s, but more recently different strains also have been passed among high school and college athletes. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that by 2005, MRSA was killing more than 18,000 Americans a year, more than AIDS.
Dr. Anderson at first couldn’t figure out why he was seeing patient after patient with MRSA in a small Indiana town. And then he began to wonder about all the hog farms outside of town. Could the pigs be incubating and spreading the disease?
“Tom was very concerned with what he was seeing,” recalls his widow, Cindi Anderson. “Tom said he felt the MRSA was at phenomenal levels.”
By last fall, Dr. Anderson was ready to be a whistle-blower, and he agreed to welcome me on a reporting visit and go on the record with his suspicions. That was a bold move, for any insinuation that the hog industry harms public health was sure to outrage many neighbours.
So I made plans to come here and visit Dr. Anderson in his practice. And then, very abruptly, Dr. Anderson died at the age of 54.
There was no autopsy, but a blood test suggested a heart attack or aneurysm. Dr. Anderson had himself suffered at least three bouts of MRSA, and
a Dutch journal has linked swine-carried MRSA to dangerous human heart inflammation.The larger question is whether we as a nation have moved to a model of agriculture that produces cheap bacon but risks the health of all of us. And the evidence, while far from conclusive, is growing that the answer is ‘yes‘.
A few caveats: The uncertainties are huge, partly because our surveillance system is wretched (the cases here in Camden were never reported to the health authorities). The vast majority of pork is safe, and there is no proven case of transmission of MRSA from eating pork. I’ll still offer my kids B.L.T.’s — but I’ll scrub my hands carefully after handling raw pork.
Let me also be very clear that I’m not against hog farmers. I grew up on a farm outside Yamhill, Ore., and was a state officer of the Future Farmers of America; we raised pigs for a time, including a sow named Brunhilda with such a strong personality that I remember her better than some of my high school dates.
One of the first clues that pigs could infect people with MRSA came in the Netherlands in 2004, when a young woman tested positive for a new strain of MRSA, called ST398. The family lived on a farm, so public health authorities swept in — and found that three family members, three co-workers and 8 of 10 pigs tested all carried MRSA.Since then, that strain of MRSA has spread rapidly through the Netherlands — especially in swine-producing areas.
A small Dutch study found pig farmers there were 760 times more likely than the general population to carry MRSA (without necessarily showing symptoms), and Scientific American reports that this strain of MRSA has turned up in 12 percent of Dutch retail pork samples.Now this same strain of MRSA has also been found in the United States….”
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Food Cloning
Press Releases
FDA Opens "Pandora's Box" by Approving Food from Clones for Sale
Contact: Joseph Mendelson, Center for Food Safety (202) 547-9359 or (703) 244-1724; Jaydee Hanson, Center for Food Safety (202) 547-9359 or (703) 231-5956; John Bianchi, Goodman Media International: (212) 576-2700, x228
(January 15, 2008) Washington, DC - Today, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) condemned the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) irresponsible determination that milk and meat from cloned animals are safe for sale to the public. In addition, the FDA is requiring no tracking system for clones or labeling of products produced from clones or their offspring. This action comes at a time when the U.S. Senate has voted twice to delay FDA's decision on cloned animals until additional safety and economic studies can be completed by the National Academy of Sciences and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
"The FDA's bullheaded action today disregards the will of the public and the Senate - and opens a literal Pandora's Box," said Andrew Kimbrell, CFS Executive Director. "FDA based their decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force cloning technology on American consumers. FDA's action has placed the interests of a handful of biotech firms above those of the public they are charged with protecting."
With FDA's release of their controversial risk assessment today, CFS joins dozens of other food industry, consumer, and animal welfare groups, as well as federal lawmakers in calling for swift action on the part of Congress to pass the 2007 Farm Bill containing provisions delaying FDA's release of clones into the food supply. The Farm Bill currently contains an amendment, advanced by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD.) and co-sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), requiring a rigorous and careful review of the human health and economic impacts of allowing cloned food into America's food supply. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill by a vote of 79 to 14.
"The passage of this bill with the Mikulski-Specter amendment sends a strong message that the FDA has failed the public again by taking an inadequate and half-baked look at the safety of food products from cloned animals and their offspring," said Joseph Mendelson, CFS Legal Director. "The FDA's cavalier approach to cloned food and its potential impacts calls for the remedy of a truly rigorous scientific assessment, and Congress has now repeatedly called for such action."
The Farm Bill amendment addresses the gaps and inadequacies of the FDAs current risk assessment, and would go into effect before any food products from clones are marketed. The Farm Bill also directs the USDA to examine consumer acceptance of cloned foods and the likely impacts they could have on domestic and international markets.
Additionally, the FDA is today issuing a guidance document for food producers; It fails to require any special procedures for tracking or handling food products from clones. It also fails to require labeling of any kind on food products from clones or their offspring, which deprives consumers of their right to know about the origins of their food.
Recently, two cloning companies - Viagen and Trans Ova, proposed the creation of a voluntary cloning registry program. While they advanced claims that the registry would provide consumer protection and transparency without regulation, clones and their progeny will still be dispersed through the food system without any tracking or labeling.
"The cloning industry's proposal is simply another attempt to force cloned milk and meat on consumers and the dairy industry by giving the public phony assurances," said Mendelson. "The proposal neither provides new studies on the safety of clones nor protects the consumers' right to know whether their food or dairy contains products from clones. Once clones are released into America's food supply without any traceability requirements, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to recall them."
Recent opinion polls show the majority of Americans do not want milk or meat from cloned animals in their food. A December 2006 poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers were uncomfortable with animal cloning. A national survey conducted this year by Consumers Union found that 89 percent of Americans want to see cloned foods labeled, while 69 percent said that they have concerns about cloned meat and dairy products in the food supply. A recent Gallup Poll reported that more than 60 percent of Americans believe that it is immoral to clone animals, while the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that a similar percentage say that, despite FDA approval, they won't buy milk from cloned animals.
In its risk assessment of cloned food, the FDA claims to have evaluated extensive peer reviewed safety studies to support its conclusion, yet a recent report issued by CFS, Not Ready for Prime Time, shows the assessment only references three peer-reviewed food safety studies, all of which focus on the narrow issue of milk from cloned cows. What is even more disturbing is that these studies were partially funded by the same biotech firms that produce clones for profit.
Read the executive summary of the Center for Food Safety's report Not Ready for Prime Time
Read the full CFS report.
View FDA's documents released January 15th
Privacy Statement • Site Map • Contact Us
The Center for Food Safety660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #302 Washington DC 20003P: (202)547-9359, F: (202)547-9429 office@centerforfoodsafety.org
FDA Opens "Pandora's Box" by Approving Food from Clones for Sale
Contact: Joseph Mendelson, Center for Food Safety (202) 547-9359 or (703) 244-1724; Jaydee Hanson, Center for Food Safety (202) 547-9359 or (703) 231-5956; John Bianchi, Goodman Media International: (212) 576-2700, x228
(January 15, 2008) Washington, DC - Today, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) condemned the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) irresponsible determination that milk and meat from cloned animals are safe for sale to the public. In addition, the FDA is requiring no tracking system for clones or labeling of products produced from clones or their offspring. This action comes at a time when the U.S. Senate has voted twice to delay FDA's decision on cloned animals until additional safety and economic studies can be completed by the National Academy of Sciences and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
"The FDA's bullheaded action today disregards the will of the public and the Senate - and opens a literal Pandora's Box," said Andrew Kimbrell, CFS Executive Director. "FDA based their decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force cloning technology on American consumers. FDA's action has placed the interests of a handful of biotech firms above those of the public they are charged with protecting."
With FDA's release of their controversial risk assessment today, CFS joins dozens of other food industry, consumer, and animal welfare groups, as well as federal lawmakers in calling for swift action on the part of Congress to pass the 2007 Farm Bill containing provisions delaying FDA's release of clones into the food supply. The Farm Bill currently contains an amendment, advanced by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD.) and co-sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), requiring a rigorous and careful review of the human health and economic impacts of allowing cloned food into America's food supply. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill by a vote of 79 to 14.
"The passage of this bill with the Mikulski-Specter amendment sends a strong message that the FDA has failed the public again by taking an inadequate and half-baked look at the safety of food products from cloned animals and their offspring," said Joseph Mendelson, CFS Legal Director. "The FDA's cavalier approach to cloned food and its potential impacts calls for the remedy of a truly rigorous scientific assessment, and Congress has now repeatedly called for such action."
The Farm Bill amendment addresses the gaps and inadequacies of the FDAs current risk assessment, and would go into effect before any food products from clones are marketed. The Farm Bill also directs the USDA to examine consumer acceptance of cloned foods and the likely impacts they could have on domestic and international markets.
Additionally, the FDA is today issuing a guidance document for food producers; It fails to require any special procedures for tracking or handling food products from clones. It also fails to require labeling of any kind on food products from clones or their offspring, which deprives consumers of their right to know about the origins of their food.
Recently, two cloning companies - Viagen and Trans Ova, proposed the creation of a voluntary cloning registry program. While they advanced claims that the registry would provide consumer protection and transparency without regulation, clones and their progeny will still be dispersed through the food system without any tracking or labeling.
"The cloning industry's proposal is simply another attempt to force cloned milk and meat on consumers and the dairy industry by giving the public phony assurances," said Mendelson. "The proposal neither provides new studies on the safety of clones nor protects the consumers' right to know whether their food or dairy contains products from clones. Once clones are released into America's food supply without any traceability requirements, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to recall them."
Recent opinion polls show the majority of Americans do not want milk or meat from cloned animals in their food. A December 2006 poll by the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers were uncomfortable with animal cloning. A national survey conducted this year by Consumers Union found that 89 percent of Americans want to see cloned foods labeled, while 69 percent said that they have concerns about cloned meat and dairy products in the food supply. A recent Gallup Poll reported that more than 60 percent of Americans believe that it is immoral to clone animals, while the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology found that a similar percentage say that, despite FDA approval, they won't buy milk from cloned animals.
In its risk assessment of cloned food, the FDA claims to have evaluated extensive peer reviewed safety studies to support its conclusion, yet a recent report issued by CFS, Not Ready for Prime Time, shows the assessment only references three peer-reviewed food safety studies, all of which focus on the narrow issue of milk from cloned cows. What is even more disturbing is that these studies were partially funded by the same biotech firms that produce clones for profit.
Read the executive summary of the Center for Food Safety's report Not Ready for Prime Time
Read the full CFS report.
View FDA's documents released January 15th
Privacy Statement • Site Map • Contact Us
The Center for Food Safety660 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, #302 Washington DC 20003P: (202)547-9359, F: (202)547-9429 office@centerforfoodsafety.org
A Short History of Alabama Agriculture, 1820-1945
by Dr. Dwayne Cox, University Archivist
From statehood (1819) until the end of World War II, nothing influenced Alabama's economic, social, and political life more than agriculture. Before the Civil War, climate, soil, and market demand fostered cotton cultivation, which brought with it slavery and a paternalistic social order. After the war, white and black tenant farmers replaced slave labor, the price of cotton dropped, and grass-roots agrarian unrest followed. Government and business interests combined to gain control of agricultural policy during the early twentieth century, which they retained through the end of World War II. By that time, mechanization, rural to urban migration, and crop diversification had altered Alabama agriculture, but farm and forest products remained central to the state's economy and those who had an economic interest in them still had a political voice as strong as any.
Extensive white settlement of Alabama followed the War of 1812 and the defeat of the Creek Nation. Most of the settlers came from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, pushed by land exhausted through the over-cultivation of cotton and drawn by the rich soil of the Tennessee Valley and the Black Belt. They brought with them slave labor and the plantation system, which were readily transplanted in Alabama. Steady demand for cotton made this product the nation's leading export during the first half of the nineteenth century and solidified the planter elite's sense of self-importance. On the eve of the Civil War, however, Alabama was only one generation removed from the frontier and most of the state's farmers owned few, if any, slaves.
After the war, tenant farming replaced slavery as the state's primary source of agricultural labor. This system suited itself to the state and the region's lack of capital. It provided work for landless laborers who knew farming but had no other skills, no means to acquire them, and no money to invest in land and equipment. It required the landlord to provide the tenant with a share of the crop rather than wages. It allowed the landlord to assume the role of furnishing merchant, which further reduced the tenant's share of the crop and required that even less money change hands. Simultaneously, the opening of the Suez Canal lowered the demand for southern cotton and a deflationary federal money policy worked to the disadvantage of tenants and other debtors.
These problems made Alabama ripe for the grass-roots agrarian reform movements that appeared in the United States during the later nineteenth century. These included the National Grange, primarily a social and educational organization, and the Agricultural Wheel, which advocated political action. The Farmers' Alliance was most significant of all, both in the state and the nation. Its platform called for nationalization of railroads and direct federal intervention in the commodity market. In Alabama both blacks and whites joined the Alliance, though local chapters generally remained racially separate. During the 1890s, the Farmers' Alliance developed into the People's or Populist Party which won some significant but short-lived victories at the national and state levels.
In 1914 the Smith-Lever Act created a network of county farm agents based in the nation's land-grant colleges. The Alabama Polytechnic Institute (later Auburn University) administered the state's extension service, with a separate black branch based at Tuskegee Institute that reported to the white state director in Auburn. Later, county home demonstration agents were added to the extension service corps. Agricultural demands created by World Word I strengthened the extension service. So did the appearance in 1920 of a state branch of the American Farm Bureau Federation, a private organization devoted to cooperative purchasing, cooperative marketing, and promoting the political interests of agriculture. Extension agents assisted in the organization and administration of the Farm Bureau at the county level. In this endeavor, the line between government and private enterprise was blurred as the Farm Bureau and the Extension Service became powerful political allies. Critics consistently charged that the Extension Service and the Farm Bureau showed little interest in tenants, devoted their primary attention to larger landowners, and discouraged other farm organizations, particularly the more militant Farmers' Union.
Diversification, mechanization, and migration became increasingly important factors in Alabama agriculture beginning in the early twentieth century. The Extension Service vigorously promoted crop diversification. The beef, forest, and poultry products they stressed eventually surpassed cotton in market value. Diversification was aided by the boll weevil, which made total reliance upon cotton even more precarious than it had been. Furthermore, large-scale and more mechanically efficient cotton production in western states reduced the South's share of the market. Migration of blacks out of the rural South represented a major demographic shift and eventually helped push the region from labor-intensive to capital-intensive agriculture. By 1920 Alabama had approximately the same number of black and white tenant farmers, with the number of blacks dropping and the number of whites increasing.
Following a World War I high, agricultural prices began to drop during the early 1920s. Farm prices had long been depressed when the stock market crashed in 1929. The New Deal provided landowners with federal support to reduce commodities. Consequently, they lowered the acreage under cultivation by evicting tenants. At the same time, they used federal funds to mechanize, fertilize, and produce more on fewer acres. During World War II, demand for farm products encouraged diversification and provided capital for mechanization. Urban employment opportunities also lured labor from the farm to the city, making mechanization imperative to meet wartime demands for farm products. From 1925 until 1945, Alabama agriculture underwent more change than it had in the previous one hundred years.
Various contemporary publications have documented the history of agriculture in Alabama. During the 1850s, the American Cotton Planter, published in Montgomery, advocated the reform of southern agriculture. The Grange, the Agricultural Wheel, and the Farmer's Alliance all issued Alabama-based publications. During the twentieth century, the Extension Service, the Farm Bureau, and various commodity groups have relied upon pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines to carry their message to Alabama farmers, voters, and politicians. These publications consistently reflect the state's major economic interests, as well as agricultural trends in the region and the nation.
DC 1-15-95
From statehood (1819) until the end of World War II, nothing influenced Alabama's economic, social, and political life more than agriculture. Before the Civil War, climate, soil, and market demand fostered cotton cultivation, which brought with it slavery and a paternalistic social order. After the war, white and black tenant farmers replaced slave labor, the price of cotton dropped, and grass-roots agrarian unrest followed. Government and business interests combined to gain control of agricultural policy during the early twentieth century, which they retained through the end of World War II. By that time, mechanization, rural to urban migration, and crop diversification had altered Alabama agriculture, but farm and forest products remained central to the state's economy and those who had an economic interest in them still had a political voice as strong as any.
Extensive white settlement of Alabama followed the War of 1812 and the defeat of the Creek Nation. Most of the settlers came from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, pushed by land exhausted through the over-cultivation of cotton and drawn by the rich soil of the Tennessee Valley and the Black Belt. They brought with them slave labor and the plantation system, which were readily transplanted in Alabama. Steady demand for cotton made this product the nation's leading export during the first half of the nineteenth century and solidified the planter elite's sense of self-importance. On the eve of the Civil War, however, Alabama was only one generation removed from the frontier and most of the state's farmers owned few, if any, slaves.
After the war, tenant farming replaced slavery as the state's primary source of agricultural labor. This system suited itself to the state and the region's lack of capital. It provided work for landless laborers who knew farming but had no other skills, no means to acquire them, and no money to invest in land and equipment. It required the landlord to provide the tenant with a share of the crop rather than wages. It allowed the landlord to assume the role of furnishing merchant, which further reduced the tenant's share of the crop and required that even less money change hands. Simultaneously, the opening of the Suez Canal lowered the demand for southern cotton and a deflationary federal money policy worked to the disadvantage of tenants and other debtors.
These problems made Alabama ripe for the grass-roots agrarian reform movements that appeared in the United States during the later nineteenth century. These included the National Grange, primarily a social and educational organization, and the Agricultural Wheel, which advocated political action. The Farmers' Alliance was most significant of all, both in the state and the nation. Its platform called for nationalization of railroads and direct federal intervention in the commodity market. In Alabama both blacks and whites joined the Alliance, though local chapters generally remained racially separate. During the 1890s, the Farmers' Alliance developed into the People's or Populist Party which won some significant but short-lived victories at the national and state levels.
In 1914 the Smith-Lever Act created a network of county farm agents based in the nation's land-grant colleges. The Alabama Polytechnic Institute (later Auburn University) administered the state's extension service, with a separate black branch based at Tuskegee Institute that reported to the white state director in Auburn. Later, county home demonstration agents were added to the extension service corps. Agricultural demands created by World Word I strengthened the extension service. So did the appearance in 1920 of a state branch of the American Farm Bureau Federation, a private organization devoted to cooperative purchasing, cooperative marketing, and promoting the political interests of agriculture. Extension agents assisted in the organization and administration of the Farm Bureau at the county level. In this endeavor, the line between government and private enterprise was blurred as the Farm Bureau and the Extension Service became powerful political allies. Critics consistently charged that the Extension Service and the Farm Bureau showed little interest in tenants, devoted their primary attention to larger landowners, and discouraged other farm organizations, particularly the more militant Farmers' Union.
Diversification, mechanization, and migration became increasingly important factors in Alabama agriculture beginning in the early twentieth century. The Extension Service vigorously promoted crop diversification. The beef, forest, and poultry products they stressed eventually surpassed cotton in market value. Diversification was aided by the boll weevil, which made total reliance upon cotton even more precarious than it had been. Furthermore, large-scale and more mechanically efficient cotton production in western states reduced the South's share of the market. Migration of blacks out of the rural South represented a major demographic shift and eventually helped push the region from labor-intensive to capital-intensive agriculture. By 1920 Alabama had approximately the same number of black and white tenant farmers, with the number of blacks dropping and the number of whites increasing.
Following a World War I high, agricultural prices began to drop during the early 1920s. Farm prices had long been depressed when the stock market crashed in 1929. The New Deal provided landowners with federal support to reduce commodities. Consequently, they lowered the acreage under cultivation by evicting tenants. At the same time, they used federal funds to mechanize, fertilize, and produce more on fewer acres. During World War II, demand for farm products encouraged diversification and provided capital for mechanization. Urban employment opportunities also lured labor from the farm to the city, making mechanization imperative to meet wartime demands for farm products. From 1925 until 1945, Alabama agriculture underwent more change than it had in the previous one hundred years.
Various contemporary publications have documented the history of agriculture in Alabama. During the 1850s, the American Cotton Planter, published in Montgomery, advocated the reform of southern agriculture. The Grange, the Agricultural Wheel, and the Farmer's Alliance all issued Alabama-based publications. During the twentieth century, the Extension Service, the Farm Bureau, and various commodity groups have relied upon pamphlets, newspapers, and magazines to carry their message to Alabama farmers, voters, and politicians. These publications consistently reflect the state's major economic interests, as well as agricultural trends in the region and the nation.
DC 1-15-95
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)