Dirty, contaminated beef fed to children through school lunch programs

(NaturalNews) The USDA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently issued a shocking report (http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/246...) about the condition of the nation's industrial meat supply. It turns out that a lot of the U.S. meat supply is tainted with veterinary drugs, pesticides and heavy metals.

According to the report, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, or FSIS, continues to fail at properly monitoring the safety of the nation's meat supply. So tainted meat is regularly being approved for sale, much of which ends up in school lunch rooms where it is fed to -- guess who? -- our children!

What's truly disturbing about this is that the USDA knows why meat it getting tainted but it's doing nothing about it. In fact, the agency regularly allows toxic meat to make its way to store shelves without even trying to stop it.

We're not talking about microbial pathogens here; we're talking about chemical contaminants that cattle are eating and then passing on to consumers. These contaminants are not cooked off like pathogens are, and they can actually intensify when cooked and become more harmful.

Pathogens vs. Chemical Contaminants

It is important to make this distinction between pathogens like E. coli versus chemical residues like pharmaceutical drugs and heavy metals. The public usually thinks about food contamination in terms of pathogens but often doesn't consider the chemical contamination.

The types of contaminants that are ending up in meat are things like veterinary drugs and antibiotics that industrial agriculture uses to keep animals from dying before slaughter. You see, industrial farming is so filthy and unnatural that animals raised there wouldn't stand a chance without a steady stream of drugs to keep them alive.

The irony about the excess use of drugs and antibiotics is that these things actually end up causing the diseases they are meant to treat and prevent. But the conditions in which these animals live are typically so horrendous that they probably wouldn't make it to the slaughter without these toxic chemical interventions.

Why aren't the regulatory agencies doing their job?

This is the same question being asked by OIG in its audit report. The FSIS is tasked with heading up the national residue program with the help of the FDA and EPA, but none of these agencies are actually doing their jobs.

These agencies are supposed to work together to establish tolerance levels for various pesticides, drugs and toxins in an effort to minimize their presence in the food. But according to the report, the agencies have not even established thresholds for many of the dangerous substances being found in meat, let alone test for them.

The agencies did jointly establish a Surveillance Advisory Team (SAT) and an Interagency Residue Control Group (IRCG) to help them accomplish program goals, but since none of them have actually committed to realistically achieving these goals, the whole program has basically gone nowhere.

If it's broken, blame someone else

So which agency is actually at fault for the meat safety failures? Well, it depends on which agency you ask. They all blame each other.

Every year, the SAT is supposed to bring together the FDA, EPA and FSIS to establish which residues they will test for that year. But each year, no matter what has been agreed upon, the FSIS continues to test for only one type of pesticide.

According to the EPA, the FSIS is refusing its requests to test for more pesticides. The FSIS, however, claims that the EPA has not established tolerances for many of those pesticides, so it can't test for them (while also insisting that it just doesn't have enough resources to do the testing).

For items that do get tested, the FSIS relies on the FDA to approve proper testing methods. However the FDA only wants to use testing methods that are old and outdated. When newer, better methods are recommended, the FDA is often unwilling or unable to use them.

The methods of these various agencies often conflict with one another, which is why the SAT was established in the first place. It was meant to be the coordinator of the three agencies to help them communicate and get the job done. But instead of coordinating, it seems to exist more as a formality while the three blame each other for not getting anything done.

The agencies are generally run so poorly and corruptly that it is surprising they get anything done at all. The only things they seem to have time to do is harass supplement makers and shut down raw milk producers, all while turning a blind eye to the industry players that are really causing most of the problems.

Dirty secrets of the meat industry

According to the report, meat plant violations are not a big deal to the FSIS. The agency routinely allows plants that are in violation to continue operating.

In 2008, one meat plant had over 200 violations, but the FSIS still classified the violations as "not reasonably likely to occur" and allowed the plant to continue operating as usual -- business as usual in the meat industry, eh?

The meat industry gets away with a lot, and the things it gets away with are no small matter. Take, for instance, the practice of cow "recycling". When a cow gets too old or sick to produce milk, she is handed over to a slaughter facility to be turned into meat. (The industry term for these animals is "spent" dairy cows).

Why is this a problem? According to the report, the plants that process spent dairy cows represent over 90 percent of the residue violations discovered in a 2008 investigation.

These same plants also process "bob" veal, or male calves that are born to dairy cows. Dairy cows are given large amounts of antibiotics after they birth calves in order to treat birth-related infections. Since dairy producers are required to wait a certain amount of time after administering the drugs before using their milk for human consumption, they just go ahead and feed the tainted milk to the bob veal calves in order not to "waste" it.

Since the drugs never got a chance to clear out of the system, it eventually ends up in the veal meat at the store. So when you eat veal meat, you're essentially eating bovine antibiotics.

And if the calves' mothers don't recovery quickly enough with the antibiotics, the producer may sell them off to be slaughtered before they die. That way they will at least make some money off those cows. Unfortunately, this results in even more antibiotics going into the beef food chain.

Ethanol waste being used as food

Hold on to your (cowboy) hats... it doesn't stop there. Farmers are now actually feeding livestock the industrial waste that is left over after corn is turned into ethanol fuel. It's not enough that industrial producers are recycling old, sick animals for human consumption, but now they are feeding them toxic bio-sludge as well.

Of course they've given the sludge a politically-correct name, "distillers' grains", but it doesn't change the fact that it is a waste byproduct that is harmful to animals forced to eat it.

The USDA has known since 2008 that animals who eat distillers' grains are more likely to harbor dangerous pathogens like E. coli, but has stated that it would not regulate the use of distillers' grains as cattle feed.

Since the ethanol fermentation process requires a lot of antibiotics to control it, antibiotic residues are plentiful in distillers' grains. And not only that, distillers' grains are loaded with mycotoxins linked to an oxidative imbalance in pigs called Mulberry Heart Disease (MHD) that can cause them to die suddenly.

No wonder pigs are sicker than ever; they're being fed toxic waste as food! But large hog producers don't really care because it saves them money, and the USDA doesn't care because, well, they basically represent the interests of the animal slaughter industry (the pork, beef and chicken industries).

As long as the ethanol producers are happy, the hog producers are happy, and enough organizations continue to sing the praises of distillers' grains, then there's no need to protect the public from the dangers of the tainted end result, it seems. Nobody will notice, right?

These are just a few of the many violations that the FSIS, FDA and EPA seem unconcerned about. And this isn't merely my personal opinion: These things are stated in the report itself as fact.

Nothing to see here, folks, just move along

The casual way in which the USDA report highlights the failures and gives lip service to fixing them would be humorous if it didn't have such disastrous consequences. For example, much of this meat ends up in the public schools.

The tainted meat usually comes from low-grade providers, so schools are quick to snatch it up and feed it to children because it's dirt cheap. And fortunately, it's labeled, "Suitable for human consumption."

Millions of American children, who are still in their developmental stages, are eating cheeseburgers filled with antibiotics, pharmaceutical drugs and toxic chemicals -- all thanks to the greed of powerful industries and the inexcusable depth of corruption within agricultural regulatory agencies.

This tainted meat also makes its way to grocery stores, big-box warehouses and even restaurants. Anywhere you're buying hamburger meat (or just hamburgers), you're likely to be chowing down on meat laced with toxic chemicals, antibiotics and other pharmaceutical drugs.

Yet, amazingly, these issues are never addressed publicly. The general public has no idea that industrial meat contains a cocktail of dangerous toxins. They have no clue that the regulatory agencies that are supposed to be protecting them can't even properly communicate with each other, let alone protect the public. Most people have no idea just how bad things really are.

Whenever there is a recall, nobody talks about why the meat got tainted or how it managed to pass by regulators without being stopped. There is never a discussion about the underlying flaws in the meat system itself that encourage contamination. Instead, regulators unleash a chorus of whining over how underfunded they are and how everything would be fixed if the entire food supply was simply irradiated before hitting store shelves.

Except irradiation doesn't destroy heavy metals and pharmaceuticals. It only makes the meat appear to be safe in the short term because it doesn't make anybody sick the very next day.

Food "safety" laws will only make things worse

The response to food contamination has been to devise food "safety" bills that experts claim will solve the problems of the food system. But a closer look reveals that the bills actually do more to eliminate the good guys than to punish the bad guys.

Just last summer, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2749, the "Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009" and a Senate version of the bill is likely to be voted on this summer.

But these food safety bills don't actually make food any safer.

Basically these bills will give more power to agencies like the FDA (who are already failing at their current tasks) while greatly increasing the regulatory burdens on small growers and ranchers who produce high-quality, safe food. Such bills completely avoid addressing the root causes of food contamination and instead create larger bureaucracies with more unchecked power that will only be unleashed against small operators rather than agro-industry giants.

The idea is utterly insane, but as long as it claims to deal with "food safety", most people will blindly accept it as something good. After all, the politicians and the corporations that sponsor them wouldn't lie to us, would they? (Chuckle...)

So how can food really be made safer?

The entire food system itself will have to be radically reformed in order to truly make food safe. Mass-produced food that's factory-made by corporate conglomerates will never be the kind of thing we truly wish to feed our children. Government subsidies for cash crops must end. Policies that favor Big Agribusiness while destroying smaller growers and ranchers must be reversed.

It's important for us all to oppose any and all food "safety" bills that threaten to eliminate the very operations that produce safe food. Protections for local and family farms must be present in any legislation, otherwise they will be forced out of business. The Cornucopia Institute is doing a lot of great work in this area, so be sure to check their website for regular updates: www.Cornucopia.org

Conscious consumers must also start seeking alternative sources of food that are not produced out of the current corrupt system. Local farms, food cooperatives and community supported agriculture (CSA) are great sources of safe food, and they offer the opportunity to develop a relationship with the people who raise the food.

You can also choose to grow your own food at home. Whether urban or rural, there are workable solutions to raising your own food at home, regardless of your situation. Even those who don't have any yard space can grow sprouts on a kitchen counter. (That's food, too!)

Knowing the source of your food and how it has been raised is crucial to ensuring food safety for yourself and your family. And remember: You vote with your dollars. It's up to you to choose food products from small, local growers rather than the corporate agro-giants that would much prefer to just shove their dirty, contaminated beef down your throat at every meal.

Cheeseburger, anyone?

Pig virus contaminates rotavirus vaccines, but FDA says no problem

(NaturalNews) Rotavirus vaccines are commonly given to children, and this year's batch of vaccines made by GlaxoSmithKline and Merck are contaminated with a pig virus, the FDA recently discovered. So the FDA called a meeting to determine whether injecting a pig virus into the bodies of young children might be some sort of problem requiring a recall of the vaccines.

Can you guess what conclusion the agency reached? As reported by Reuters, the FDA concluded "...it was safe for doctors to resume giving patients Glaxo's Rotarix and continue using Merck's Rotateq. The agency said there was no evidence the contamination caused any harm..."

In other words, as long as they can bury the evidence and deny any link between vaccines and health problems -- which has been the standard excuse of the FDA for decades -- they can continue to claim the vaccines are safe enough to inject into little children.

Never mind the fact that the pig virus found in the vaccines actually causes a wasting disease in baby pigs, giving them intense diarrhea and causing them to rapidly lose weight. DNA from these viruses was detected in the "master cells" used to make the vaccines.

Suppressing the evidence of harm

An FDA advisory panel said the risk to human health from the viral contamination was only "theoretical." But of course it's easy to claim anything is "theoretical" if you suppress the evidence that it's real. By simply ignoring any reports of neurological side effects from the vaccine, the FDA can always claim there is "no evidence" of harm. Well, no evidence they're willing to accept as real, anyway.

And that's how vaccine science works these days: Suppress any evidence of harm, deny any links between vaccines and neurological problems, then okay practically any viral contamination from any animal and declare it's all safe to be injected directly into the bodies of infants and children.

So much for science, huh? The vaccine industry operates more like a cult than a scientific organization, and anyone who questions the beliefs of their cult is immediately branded a heretic and publicly condemned.

By the way, even though these rotavirus vaccines are contaminated with a pig virus, the companies that make them claim there is "no manufacturing or safety issue" with the vaccines. In other words, this is normal!

Think about that for a moment: The discovery that a vaccine being injected into children is contaminated with a virus from a pig doesn't even result in a product recall! It doesn't raise any red flags! It's just business as usual in the vaccine industry, where DNA from any number of diseased animals is often used in the vaccine formulas.

Last year, rotavirus vaccines earned nearly a billion dollars in revenues for Big Pharma. The risk of a child in the United States actually dying from a rotavirus infection is ridiculously small. What these kids need is good nutrition and vitamin D, not an injection of a questionable vaccine made with pig virus DNA.

Sources for this story include:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS...

Bodies of pregnant women polluted with chemicals found in consumer products

(NaturalNews) Every pregnant woman's body is probably contaminated with multiple toxic substances, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Washington Toxics Coalition, the Commonweal Biomonitoring Resource Center and the Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition.

"This study reveals that children spend their first nine months in an environment that exposes them to known toxic chemicals," said study author Erika Schreder. "Pregnant women can't avoid every exposure to these chemicals because they are in so many products. ... We need policies that keep toxic chemicals away from pregnant women and the most vulnerable -- the developing fetus."

Researchers analyzed the blood and urine of nine pregnant women and found that all of them tested positive for mercury, bisphenol-A (BPA), at least four phthalates, and two to four perfluorinated compounds.

All four substances are known to build up in human bodies and the environment. Mercury damages the nervous system, while the others interfere with the hormonal system and can produce a wide array of diseases and defects. Developing infants are especially vulnerable to damage by these toxins.

"The developing fetus is exquisitely vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals," the Washington Toxics Coalition said. "The fetus develops at a breakneck pace in the womb, and that development is easily derailed by toxic chemicals. The fetus also has a very limited ability to detoxify foreign chemicals. With chemicals like bisphenol A and the others in our tests passing easily through the placenta, there is cause for grave concern about their impacts on fetal development."

BPA is used to make hard, clear plastics, dental sealants and composites, and the liners of food containers. Phthalates are used to soften plastic and are found in everything from infant products to medical equipment. Perfluorinated compounds, also called "Teflon chemicals," are used to make nonstick cookware and certain outdoor products.

The researchers recommend that people reduce their exposure to toxic chemicals by looking for products certified BPA and phthalate free, avoiding flame retardant products, and purchasing certified organic body care products.

Of more than 80,000 chemicals used in manufacturing consumer products, only 200 or so have ever undergone safety testing.

Sources for this story include: www.organicconsumers.org; www.watoxics.org.

Nearly 17,000 chemicals remain corporate secrets – even the EPA doesn't know what they are

(NaturalNews) The 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) requires that manufacturers of products containing potentially toxic chemicals disclose their ingredients to the federal government, however a loophole in the requirement allows manufacturers to arbitrarily withhold information that they deem sensitive to their business. As a result, over 17,000 product chemicals remain secret not only from the public but from government officials.

Each year, over 700 new chemicals are introduced by manufacturers, many of which do not get disclosed either to the public or to government agencies. About 95 percent of new chemical notices submitted to the government request some kind of secrecy. Critics allege that manufacturers are exploiting the original intent of TSCA, abusing it to hide sensitive information about ingredients that are likely toxic and may otherwise get banned.

For the first time in many years, Congress is addressing the issue of disclosure abuse with promises of reforming the regulatory provisions. Consumer and environmental groups, in conjunction with many government officials, are demanding that all ingredient information be made public with no exceptions.

Mike Walls, vice president of the American Chemistry Council, argues otherwise, insisting that public disclosure would reveal confidential information that could benefit competitors and hurt business. He believes that even the names and addresses of manufacturers should not have to be made public because competitors may trace the information and somehow figure out secret recipes.

According to EPA records, more than half of the 65 "substantial risk" reports submitted to agency last March involved secret chemicals. Of these, 151 of them are produced in quantities over one million tons a year and ten of them are used primarily in children's products.

Last year, a Colorado chemical spill nearly cost a nurse her life after she treated a man who had been exposed to the spill. Following his recovery, nurse Cathy Behr fell seriously ill herself, her lungs filling up with fluid and her liver on the verge of failing. Concerned doctors traced the contamination back to a product called ZetaFlow, produced by Weatherford International. After requesting information Weatherford provided some material but utilized ZetaFlow's confidential status to withhold the secret ingredients.

To this day, Behr does not know exactly what triggered her near death. She would like to see a list of all the chemicals contained in ZetaFlow. She also believes that the ingredients in all chemical products should be made public information to ensure safety. She continues to suffer from respiratory problems due to the unknown chemicals.

Steve Owens, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, first arrived in his position back in July and within a week ended confidentiality protection for 530 chemicals. In each of these cases, manufacturers had obtained secrecy for ingredients that were otherwise publicly available on the manufacturers' websites and in trade journals.

Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official who now works as a pediatrician and epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, explained that the few EPA officials who are in the know about secret chemicals do not have enough information to properly assess risk by themselves and are legally bound not to share the information with anyone else. Officials who could otherwise help are unable to do so because they are not privy to the secret ingredients. Thus the entire system is unable to operate properly due to secrecy.

When specific chemicals are banned for safety reasons, manufacturers often change them slightly and begin using them again as secret ingredients. Heather Stapleton, a Duke University chemist, saw a case like this while researching flame retardants. She labored for months to identify a chemical found in dust samples taken from homes in Boston but was unable to figure it out. While at a conference, she came to realize from a diagram that the mystery chemical was a slightly varied version of another that had been banned for causing reproductive and other damage.

Richard Wiles, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) believes there are thousands of chemicals currently being used that are potentially toxic and people do not even realize they are there. He questions how a regulatory agency like the EPA can even do its job when a great many of the chemicals it is supposed to be regulating are being withheld from the agency and the public.

Federal officials are working towards establishing regulations that would require manufacturers to provide evidence and reasoning why a chemical must remain secret. Under their proposal, the burden of proof would be on manufacturers to establish proof that disclosure would harm business. The EPA would then have 90 days to appeal the claim and prove otherwise if it believed necessary.

Others are not buying this idea, insisting that if public health is to be regarded then no chemical should remain a secret.

Sources for this story include: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy... http://yubanet.com/enviro/Off-the-B...

Drugs like Tylenol can be contaminated with mold and chemicals

(NaturalNews) According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), prescription drugs kill about 40,000 Americans each year and over the counter drugs (OTC) -- from pain relievers to cough medicines -- cause thousands of additional deaths. Drugs can sicken, and sometimes kill, through side effects, allergic reactions, overdoses and interactions. And now there's another reason to worry about pills you put in your body. A recent recall of the OTC pain reliever TYLENOL Arthritis Pain Caplets has revealed that drugs can be contaminated with mold and chemicals when they are transported and stored on "engineered wood" pallets.

In consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), McNeil Consumer Healthcare (a division of Big Pharma's Johnson & Johnson) recently expanded its voluntary recall to include all lots of TYLENOL Arthritis Pain pills with the distinctive red EZ-open caps. The reason? The FDA received numerous complaints that the pills smelled like mold or mildew. What's more, after taking them, consumers said they suffered from nausea, vomiting, stomach pains and diarrhea.

The drug company press release about the recall discounted these physical complaints reported by people sickened by the musty smelling drugs, saying "to date all of the observed events reported to McNeil were temporary and non-serious". Obviously, however, if someone was already suffering from a serious illness involving their gastrointestinal tract, they might not equate a worsening of symptoms to the Tylenol they took -- or they might not even be well enough to file a report. So the actual number of people sickened by the contaminated pills, and the contribution of the bad meds to a person's illness, may never be fully known.

The drug company identified the source of the musty odor of the drugs, but with reservations. The press release said the smell was due to trace amounts of a chemical called 2,4,6-tribromoanisole "which is believed to be the breakdown of a chemical used to treat wooden pallets that transport and store packaging materials". By saying "believed to be", they implied they don't know for sure. They did acknowledge that "the health effects of this compound have not been well studied" -- which is certainly not much reassurance to the folks who took the pain-relievers and then became ill.

Meanwhile, Bob Moore, Chairman and CEO of Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS), a company that manufactures hard plastic pallets for food and drug transportation, spoke out against the use of wooden pallets. Of course, certain types of plastic (especially the soft kinds) are known to sometimes leach chemicals and are not necessarily safe. But plastic pallet-executive Moore made a compelling case outlining the dangers of currently widely used wooden pallets.

In a statement to the media, he warned the pallets are frequently contaminated with dangerous chemicals and pesticides. Moreover, they have been shown by numerous lab studies to also harbor deadly food poisoning bacteria and pathogens.

Moore pointed out that while pallets made from wood sound natural but they are actually made from "engineered wood" components that contain urea formaldehyde. This well-known carcinogen can come in contact with food and drugs under a variety of scenarios when products are stored and shipped on wooden pallets. Formaldehyde is also released into the air when it off-gases from pallets in storage and transportation compartments, posing additional risks to workers and consumers.

In addition, to kill insects on the wooden pallets, fumigation is often performed with methyl bromide, a highly toxic, ozone-depleting chemical, according to Moore. And random testing of commonly used wooden pallets commissioned by iGPS showed the pallets are frequently loaded with disease causing germs such as Listeria. The pallets were also found to be downright nasty and dirty -- and sometimes contaminated with rodent nests during storage.

"This (wood pallet storing and transportation) is an industry that openly ignores its own safety rules and transports our food supply on deplorably unsanitary platforms," said Moore. "We call on Congress and the FDA to take a comprehensive look at the role wood pallets play in contaminating our food and drug supplies and to take action."

For more information:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/u...
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...