tagged w/ Food contamination
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ABC News Wins Genesis Award for Egg Farm Investigation
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PHOTO: Ross investigative unit producer Cindy Galli (at microphone) accepts a Genesis Award March 24, 2012, for a "20/20" report on alleged cruelty at egg farms.
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Investigation: Inside Egg 'Factory Farm'
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WATCH the "20/20" report on alleged cruelty at egg farms - click on link
PHOTO: Ross investigative unit producer Cindy Galli (at microphone) accepts a Genesis Award March 24, 2012, for a "20/20" report on alleged cruelty at egg farms.
Courtesy HSUS
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By RANDY KREIDER
March 26, 2012
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Ross unit producer Cindy Galli accepted a Genesis Award Saturday night for an undercover expose of alleged animal abuse at the egg farms that once supplied half the nation's McDonald's restaurants -- an investigation that might now be impossible to replicate because of a batch of new state laws that "gag" undercover reporters.
"We can give these stories an audience on ABC News," said Galli, accepting the award from the Humane Society of the United States for a "20/20" report on Iowa-based Sparboe Farms. "That's easy compared to what groups like the Humane Society and Mercy for Animals do. They do the tough work of exposing inhumane treatment of animals every day."
The "20/20" report used hidden-camera footage gathered by a Mercy for Animals activist working undercover at Sparboe Farms facilities in several states, including Iowa. The footage, shot during the summer of 2011, appears to show unsanitary conditions and repeated acts of animal cruelty. After being shown the video, as well as learning of an FDA warning letter sent to Sparboe regarding unsanitary conditions, McDonald's and Target ended their relationship with Sparboe. Sparboe had supplied eggs to all McDonald's restaurants west of the Mississippi River.
Legislators in a number of agricultural states, however, have responded to animal abuse exposes by proposing new laws that would make it difficult for an undercover reporter to get a job at a farm. The bills do not ban hidden camera footage, but they do make it a crime for a job applicant to lie on an employment application when asked if he or she is a member of a specific group. The governor of Iowa -- where much of the Sparboe footage was shot -- signed the country's first so-called "ag gag" bill into law earlier this month. On Friday Utah became the second state to adopt an ag gag law. Indiana, Missouri, New York, Nebraska, Illinois and Tennessee are also considering legislation.
"If Mercy for Animals had tried to go undercover today," said Galli after the Genesis ceremony, "they most likely would not have been successful. We would not have been given the video, and McDonald's would not have been made aware and pulled their contract."
Mercy for Animals, which has shot undercover footage at chicken, turkey, pig and dairy farms around the country, has joined with 26 other groups, including the ASPCA and the Humane Society of the U.S., to oppose the ag gag laws. A statement from the coalition called the bills "a wholesale assault on many fundamental values" and a threat to health, safety and freedom of the press.
"This flawed and misdirected legislation," said Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy for Animals, "could set a dangerous precedent nationwide by throwing shut the doors to industrial factory farms and allowing animal abuse, environmental violations, and food contamination issues to flourish undetected, unchallenged, and unaddressed."
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2012 Genesis Award Winners
The Genesis Awards have been bestowed annually for the past 26 years by the Humane Society of the United States. Other winners of 2012 Genesis Awards, presented at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on Saturday night, include "The Colbert Report," the film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," "Hawaii Five-0," "NBC Nightly News" and "Today." Carrie Inaba, a judge on the ABC show "Dancing with the Stars," hosted the ceremony. The awards show will air on the Animal Planet network in May.
"We paid tribute to an amazing array of works that address animal protection concerns, but the real winners of The HSUS's 26th Genesis Awards are the animals themselves, who rely on these invaluable voices to speak for them," says Beverly Kaskey, senior director of The HSUS's Hollywood Outreach program and executive producer of the annual Genesis Awards.
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Critic Calls 'Battery Cages' Cruel Watch Video
McDonald's Drops Large McMuffin Egg Supplier Watch Video - Click on above link to view videos
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As human activity sends ever more carbon dioxide into the air, plants may grow faster and pull more nutrients from the soil. Now a study in food crops finds that as levels of CO2 increase, rice and wheat also take up more of the toxic metal cadmium (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es2001584).
In a 29-month study, researchers led by Hongyan Guo, from Nanjing University, and Jianguo Zhu, of the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Soil Science in Nanjing, increased CO2 levels by 200 ppm in air over rice and wheat, to model the crops under atmospheric concentrations some scientists have predicted for the year 2050. The team spiked the soils with varying levels of cadmium, a toxic metal that is prevalent in China's soils, both from natural sources and industrial contamination.
After two growing seasons, wheat from the most contaminated soils, with 2 mg of cadmium per kilogram of soil, ended up with a cadmium concentration of 1.2 mg/kg, surpassing the 0.1 mg/kg wheat flour limit set by the European Food Safety Authority. Such high concentrations in food could lead to kidney problems in people who eat it, the researchers say. By contrast, wheat grown in the same soil but without added CO2 had a concentration of about 1 mg/kg, which the authors say is still elevated but significantly lower.
The study suggests that crop contamination under changing climate conditions "might be a much bigger issue than people realize in certain parts of the world," comments Ben Duval of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In a similar experimental setup in Florida, he and colleagues recently found that trees also take up greater amounts of some metals as carbon dioxide builds (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es102250u).As human activity sends ever more carbon dioxide into the air, plants may grow faster... more
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"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in a sorry a state as the souls who live under tyrrany."
By Thomas Jefferson ( Founding Father and third President of the United States).
Excerpts:
"Unsuspecting consumers by the tens of millions are being allowed to purchase and consume unlabeled genetically engineered foods, despite findings by FDA scientists that these foods could pose serious risks. New genetically engineered crops are being approved by federal agencies despite admissions that they will contaminate native and conventional plants and pose other significant new environmental threats. In short, there has been a complete abdication of any responsible legislative or regulatory oversight of genetically engineered foods. Clearly, now is a critical time to challenge the government’s lack of regulatory oversight on this technology, and demand labeling of all GE foods so that consumers have a choice in the marketplace.
At the site you'll briefly read what Prince Charles and a few others had to say about Genetically engineered food.
Here is what Pope John Paul II said to 50,000 farmers:
" 'resist the temptation of high productivity and profit that work to the detriment of the respect of nature.' The pontiff added that "when (farmers) forget this basic principle and become tyrants of the earth rather than its custodians ... sooner or later the earth rebels."
"if modern farming techniques don't reconcile themselves with the simple language of nature in a healthy balance, the life of man will run ever greater risks, of which already we are seeing worrying signs."
Sign the petition at the site and stand up for the right to be informed, fight gmo and corporate greed that is destroying our NATURE.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they... more
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If the food you purchase from your local grocery store has spouted horns and started to spin 360 degrees while spewing flesh burning chemicals and demonically chanting, "Red Rum, RED RUMMMM!" at you...then you should definitely beat it over the head with a blunt object and step over into the angelic organic light.If the food you purchase from your local grocery store has spouted horns and started... more
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EDIT: IGNORE THAT VIDEO UP THERE -- I HAVE NO IDEA HOW OR WHY IT GOT THERE ?! THE LINK WILL TAKE YOU TO THE ARTICLE.
Six indictments against bottled water The Daily Green
By Dan Shapley
Posted Thu Jul 9, 2009 9:36am PDT
For years, advocacy groups have been raising concerns about bottled water: Not only do bottles end up littering the landscape, and not only are those plastic bottles derived from fossil fuels, but they also may leach chemicals into water and the quality of the water is not stringently monitored.
But many Americans have a healthy distrust of advocacy groups. If you're one of them, then consider this. The Government Accountability Office, the well-respected and nonpartisan research organization that serves Congress, has concluded a yearlong investigation, and come up with basically the same conclusions.
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I was glad to come into this information. Maybe you will be two ;^)EDIT: IGNORE THAT VIDEO UP THERE -- I HAVE NO IDEA HOW OR WHY IT GOT THERE ?! THE... more
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The U.S. Customs Service (Customs) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced that they have discovered bulk imports of Chinese honey that were contaminated with low levels of chloramphenicol (CAP), a potentially harmful antibiotic and unapproved food additive.
As always, when people seek out a healthier alternative the criminals end up finding a way to profit. The mysterious collapse of bee colonies around the United States has increased the demand for foreign honey. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a investigative series on how the international honey trade has been targeted by smugglers trying to take advantage of high demand for imported honey. Here's an excerpt of the story by P-I reporter Andrew Schneider: The five-month investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reveals that Chinese firms are increasingly exploiting that demand by smuggling in diluted and sometimes contaminated honey. The FDA is cracking down on honey launderers amid fears that dangerously contaminated honey could harm consumers, but the article concludes that oversight is still shockingly rare and a serious incident is inevitable. "There's more crooks than ever, and it has become a real nasty business out there," said the spokeswoman for an international group formed to fight Chinese honey laundering. "They gamble and very, very few—almost none—get caught. So they keep corrupting the system."
A far cry from the innocent image of Winnie the Pooh with a paw stuck in the honey pot, the international honey trade has become increasingly rife with crime and intrigue.
In the U.S., where bee colonies are dying off and demand for imported honey is soaring, traders of the thick amber liquid are resorting to elaborate schemes to dodge tariffs and health safeguards in order to dump cheap honey on the market, a five-month Seattle P-I investigation has found.
The business is plagued by foreign hucksters and shady importers who rip off conscientious U.S. packers with honey diluted with sugar water or corn syrup -- or worse, tainted with pesticides or antibiotics.The U.S. Customs Service (Customs) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today... more
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Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay Monsanto to have their fields contaminated by genetically modified organisms.
Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1265
The petition can also be found half way down the subject page above organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm after the following story.
Multi-Billion $$ Monsanto Sues More Small Family Farmers
Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose Canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto's genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen from a nearby farm. Monsanto says it doesn't matter how the contamination took place, and is therefore demanding Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto's genetically engineered products). According to Schmeiser, "I never had anything to do with Monsanto, outside of buying chemicals. I never signed a contract.
If I would go to St. Louis (Monsanto Headquarters) and contaminate their plots - destroy what they have worked on for 40 years - I think I would be put in jail and the key thrown away."
Rodney Nelson's family farm is being forced into a similar lawsuit by Monsanto.
Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay Monsanto to have their fields contaminated by genetically modified organisms.
Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings.Monsanto Takes Ownership of Public Water Resources
Over the past century, global water supplies have been contaminated with the full gamut of Monsanto's chemicals, including PCBs, dioxin and glyophosate (Roundup). So now the company, seeing a profitable market niche, is taking control of the public water resources they polluted, filtering it, and selling it back to the people. In short, Monsanto is making a double profit by polluting the world's scarce freshwater resources, privately taking ownership of that water, filtering it, and selling it back to those who can afford to pay for it.
Sign OCA's "Millions Against Monsanto" petition. These petitions will be physically delivered to Monsanto and related court hearings
Support Schmeiser, Nelson and hundreds of other farmers who are being forced to pay... more
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