tagged w/ Disclosure
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(If the video doesn't load, click on the link above)
Josh Israel: System needs tougher ethics laws and open disclosure.
Illinois State Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges on Tuesday. Accused of scheming to enrich himself by selling President-elect Barack Obama's open senate seat for cash or a lucrative job for himself. The incoming administration remains confident that no member of its team was involved with the deal. According to court papers, the governor tried to make it known through emissaries, including union officials and fundraisers, that the seat could be had for the right price. Ignoring calls for his resignation, Blagojevich was charged with two counts: Conspiracy to commit fraud, and solicitation to commit bribery. The governor has denied all wrongdoing. Josh Israel from The Center for Public Integrity believes that what the system needs "are tougher ethics laws and open disclosure."
Josh Israel is the Project Coordinator for the Broken Government Project for the Center for Public Integrity. He is based in Washington DC.(If the video doesn't load, click on the link above)
Josh Israel: System needs... more
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WASHINGTON - In a few weeks, American shoppers will be able to look at a cut of meat or a pound of hamburger and see something they've never seen before-a label that says where the meat came from.
Starting Sept. 30, food manufacturers and grocery stores have to comply with a new federal law that requires "Country of Origin Labeling," or COOL, on beef, pork, chicken and lamb.
The new labels will tell consumers whether their food came from animals raised in the U.S. or another country. The law also covers perishable items, such as fruits and vegetables and a variety of nuts. Some say this will enable consumers to avoid food that, for example, comes from countries that they have heard have food safety problems. It also will allow consumers to stick to American-grown food, if that is their preference.
Because of the complexities of the livestock industry, some product labels may list multiple countries. That's especially true of ground beef, because some meat processors combine cuts from a number of countries to make ground meat and hamburger patties.
Food safety groups have hailed COOL as a necessary step toward broader consumer education and buying choices. But now they complain that the Department of Agriculture has defined it as narrowly as possible.
For example, they say, the agency has defined a host of foods as "processed," such as mixed frozen vegetables, which exempts them from the new law.
"When they finalized this rule, they bent over backward to make as few things be covered as possible," said Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist with Consumers Union. "There are giant, giant loopholes in the law."
Many in the meat industry, these advocates say, have fought the new labeling law because they don't want consumers to know that they're buying imported hamburger and beef cuts. The USDA also stood against COOL, according to Lloyd Day, head of the agency's Agricultural Marketing Service, because of its projected impact on consumers and its estimated cost to the food industry: $2.5 billion in the first year.
But Congress has decreed that COOL will take effect on Sept. 30, so the debate over its merits is largely over. Now the industry is bracing for COOL's impact.
"We don't know exactly how it's all going to work," said Colin Woodall, the executive director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "And we won't know until it's fully up and running."
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I'm sure there are loopholes to this especially where $$$ are concerned, but at least there is a law calling for country of origin labels on meat. I personally don't eat meat any longer, but for those who do, look for it on your labels starting Sept. 30th. Now we have to keep fighting to get the source of the food noted on labels as in genetically modified versus conventional. Then we will be making progress in full disclosure to consumers.WASHINGTON - In a few weeks, American shoppers will be able to look at a cut of meat... more
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"Consumer awareness is considered undesirable by the FDA; an agency that also works hard to censor truthful statements about nutritional supplements and functional foods. Accordingly, the FDA pursues a policy of enforced ignorance of consumers regarding irradiated foods, nutritional supplements, medicinal herbs and all sorts of natural substances. It is currently illegal in the United States to state that cherries help ease arthritis inflammation if you are selling cherries. (http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html)
On the food irradiation issue, the FDA is now proposing two things that are nothing short of astonishing in their degree of deceit:
FDA proposal #1: Irradiated foods shouldn't be labeled as irradiated unless consumers can visibly tell they're irradiated.
This ridiculous proposal by the FDA suggests that foods shouldn't be labeled as irradiated unless there is some obvious material damage to the foods (like their leaves are wilting). Thus, foods that don't appear to be irradiated should not have to be labeled as irradiated.
Imagine if this same ridiculous logic were used to regulate heavy metals content in foods: If consumers can't SEE the heavy metals, then they should be declared free of heavy metals!
FDA proposal #2: Irradiated foods should be labeled as "pasteurized," not "irradiated."
This FDA proposal is so bizarre that it makes you wonder whether the people working at the FDA are smoking crystal meth. They literally want irradiated foods to be labeled as "pasteurized."
And why? Because the word "pasteurized" sounds a lot more palatable to consumers, of course. Never mind the fact that it's a lie. Irradiated foods are not pasteurized, and pasteurized foods are not irradiated. These two words mean two different things, which is precisely why they each have their own entries in the dictionary. When you look up "irradiated," it does not say, "See pasteurized."
But the FDA is now playing the game of thought police by manipulating the public with screwy word replacement games that bear a strange resemblance to the kind of language used in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. And it is, indeed, an Orwellian kind of mind game that the FDA wants to play with the food supply: After unleashing Weapons of Mass Destruction (radiation) onto the foods, the FDA wants to label them all as simply being "pasteurized," keeping consumers ignorant and uninformed.
How do I know the FDA wants to do this? The agency said so itself in an April 4, 2007 document filed in the Federal Register (Volume 72, Number 64). As published in the document (2):
FDA is also proposing to allow a firm to petition FDA for use of an alternate term to "irradiation'' (other than "pasteurized''). In addition, FDA is proposing to permit a firm to use the term "pasteurized'' in lieu of "irradiated,'' provided it notifies the agency that the irradiation process being used meets the criteria specified for use of the term "pasteurized'' in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the act) and the agency does not object to the notification."
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This deception is simply so immoral and so absolutely out of the realm of all humanity that I find it hard to wrap my head around it. The FDA, an organization of the US federal government that is supposedly here for our safety, only sees us as guinea pigs. They did it with GM foods, Rbgh, and the countless drugs on the market killing people, and they now do it with radioactive food without our consent. I don't even know what to say anymore. And this is so important because people otherwise will not know of this unless it gets out to the masses, and yet the media will not tell people about this. How many will have to get sick or die before it is considered news?
"Consumer awareness is considered undesirable by the FDA; an agency that also... more
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Those consumers already worried about genetically engineered or cloned food reaching their tables may soon find something else in their trolleys to furrow their brows over - nano-foods.
Consumer advocates taking part in a food safety conference in Orlando, Florida, this week said food produced by using nanotechnology is quietly coming onto the market, and they want US authorities to force manufacturers to identify them.
Nanotechnology involves the design and manipulation of materials on molecular scales, smaller than the width of a human hair and invisible to the naked eye.
Companies using nanotechnology say it can enhance the flavor or nutritional effectiveness of food.
US health officials generally prefer not to place warning labels on products unless there are clear reasons for caution or concern. But consumer advocates say uncertainty over health consequences alone is sufficient cause to justify identifying nano-foods.
"I think nanotechnology is the new genetic engineering. People just don't know what's going on, and it's moving so fast," Jane Kolodinsky, a consumer economist at the University of Vermont, said at the conference.
American consumers are generally more complacent about genetically modified or cloned foods than their counterparts in Europe.
But Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with the Consumers Union, said polls show that 69 percent of Americans are concerned about eating cloned meat.
He said that in focus groups run by the US Food and Drug Administration, no parents were willing to feed their children meat from cloned animals or their offspring.
In a recent CBS/New York Times poll, 53 per cent of Americans said they wouldn't buy genetically modified foods.
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Hansen, whose organisation publishes the non-profit product-testing magazine Consumer Reports, said there is no requirement that nano-products be identified as such.
He called for stronger federal regulations to require safety testing and labelling.
"Just because something is safe at the macro level, doesn't mean it's safe at the nano size," Mr Hansen said. "All scientists agree that size matters."
Mr Hansen said recent studies have shown that nano-sized particles in some cases can invade cells and breach the blood-brain barrier, and that some forms of nano-sized carbon could be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled in quantity.
"This represents science at the cutting edge. These technologies raise basic scientific issues," Mr Hansen said.
Those consumers already worried about genetically engineered or cloned food reaching... more
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New York Times writer Joe Nocera speculated on the health of Apple's CEO after Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)—got a call from Steve Jobs himself. It wasn't pretty from the very beginning:
“This is Steve Jobs. You think I’m an arrogant [expletive] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.”
Top Apple flack Katie Cotton, who has long put Jobs's interests above those of Apple shareholders', flat-out lied when she attributed Jobs's gaunt appearance to "a common bug."
Apple's secretive ways have paid off for it in turning every product release into a marketing event. But by applying that same Kremlin-like opaqueness to its corporate affairs, Apple has gone astray. "By claiming Mr. Jobs had a bug, Apple wasn’t just going dark on its shareholders," Nocera writes. "It was deceiving them."
"The New York Times is saying that Steve Jobs doesn't have cancer, but that he needs to disclose all the information about his medical condition so investors can decide. Gizmodo's strong rebuttal says that everyone has the right to keep medical records confidential. They argue that, if prominent US presidents legally kept their grave illnesses secret — even while the security of the country was at stake — a simple CEO should be able to do the same: 'Steve Jobs has the right to keep his medical records private for as long as he wants. Like FDR. Like JFK. Like any single person in this country and the world. It's our right, as humans, to do so.'"
New York Times writer Joe Nocera speculated on the health of Apple's CEO after... more
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Health scientists have accused CSIRO Plant Industry Deputy TJ Higgins of making innacurate claims, following a CSIRO campaign urging Australian chefs not to boycott genetically modified (GM) food products.
As reported in last week’s Crikey, Higgins wrote on CSIRO letterhead to more than 50 chefs who had signed Greenpeace's GM-free Chef's Charter. But his letter campaign has "backfired spectacularly", according to Greenpeace spokesperson Louise Sales, who says health scientists and chefs are angered over public resources being used for pro-GM lobbying.
Sydney restaurateur and cookbook author Holly Davis told Crikey some chefs are "very concerned. I thought that CSIRO was an impartial research organisation."
Dr Higgins, whose promotion of GM foods is strongly supported by Australia’s Chief Scientist Jim Peacock and Victoria’s Chief Scientist Gus Nossal, is CSIRO’s co-inventor of the GM Field Pea, abandoned because toxicologists found it caused immune problems and lung damage in mice.
Does this finding contradict Dr Higgins' assurances to chefs that "independently reviewed tests have not found any connection between health problems and GM"?
No, according to Dr Higgins. In a letter to Crikey, he wrote:
My GM pea research emphasises the effectiveness of case-by-case evaluation of GM plants and the important role science can play in decision-making around the introduction of GM crops. The research does not imply that all GM plants are inherently bad. Food Standards Australia New Zealand undertakes comprehensive evaluation of GM foods to ensure they are safe for human consumption.
But these claims are "simply wrong" says nutritional biochemist and epidemiologist Dr Judy Carman, whom the West Australian government commissioned to undertake independent studies into the safety of GM foods.
Carman told Crikey: "TJ Higgins' GM pea provides a clear example of the failings of our current GM food regulatory regime. The pea failed miserably on all the [independent health] tests conducted.” And despite Higgins' claims, “these tests are not required by our food regulator".
Her assertions are backed by health advocate Dr Kate Clinch-Jones, a director of the Institute for Health and Environment Research, who is concerned that preliminary independent studies, which suggest allergic responses, organ damage and precancerous growth in mice fed GM foods, have not been followed up.
Dr Higgins is also accused of making innacurate claims on two other fronts.
First, his claim to chefs that:
It is untrue to say that GM food has not been tested for human safety. It has, and very widely. These independently reviewed tests have not found any connection between health problems and GM.
This is disputed by toxicologist Dr Aprad Pusztai, who co-authored a study on Higgins' GM Pea.
"There is only one partial clinical study with one GM crop (RR soybean) done in Newcastle and published in 2004," says Pusztai.
This study apparently produced worrying evidence that GM material might survive in the human gut -- a finding which, says Pusztai, is "hardly a resounding confirmation of Dr Higgins' claim. No other human study has been published."
Higgins, as a plant industry scientist, is not qualified to make the claims in his letter campaign to chefs, says Dr Pusztai.
"He has no background or track record in nutritional research and thus he should refrain from making comments on the safety or otherwise of any GM product."
Health scientists have accused CSIRO Plant Industry Deputy TJ Higgins of making... more
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The growth in genetically modified foods has not yet seen large-scale public debate in Russia but a number of people do feel strongly about the issue. Thus, a group of youth activists in the northern city of Murmansk is demanding a ban on GM products.
Consumers have the right to know what they are putting in their bodies and feeding to their children.The growth in genetically modified foods has not yet seen large-scale public debate in... more
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Should a public company have to tell its shareholders that its CEO has been diagnosed with a potentially life-threatening illness? In the case of Steve Jobs, a CEO who is arguably Apple's single most valuable asset, the answer was no.
Allegedly, Jobs and Apple's board knew about Jobs' cancer for 9 months before they disclosed it to Apple's shareholders.
Jobs decided to employ alternative methods to treat his pancreatic cancer, hoping to avoid the operation through a special diet - a course of action that hasn't been disclosed until now.Should a public company have to tell its shareholders that its CEO has been diagnosed... more
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