RESTORED
This series of articles deals with the “science” and technology known as Genetic Manipulation. The first video is very informative. It was presented at an Open Mind Conference, on January 10, 1983. It was hosted by a gentleman named Richard Heffner and is comprised of his interview with a gentleman named Lewis Thomas, Chancellor of the Cancer Institute and Dean of the Medical Schools at NYU and Yale University. They are discussing the topic and concerns the public had raised about the safety and ethics of this technology and its ramification for the future. Please click on the Title to view it. Below the video, you will find a recap of the interview, written by me. Due to the fact that the video was already hard to get and may disappear altogether, I felt I needed to document what was presented. The recap also contains some of my feedback and comments. I beg your indulgence. The rest of this article is made up of articles, excerpts, and videos that will hopefully bring you up to snuff on what is happening in this area of technology. Be sure and watch the video. It is very interesting to observe the two gentlemen, their body language and the interaction between them.
Genetic Manipulation – THE OPEN MIND
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TO VIEW THIS MOST IMPORTANT VIDEO CLICK the link below:
https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/science/genetic-manipulation/
Special | 27m 46s Host: Richard D. Heffner
Guest: Thomas, Lewis Chancellor of the Cancer Institute and Dean of the Medical Schools at NYU and Yale University
Aired: 01/10/83 – 35 years ago. You have to click the link on the title “Genetic Manipulation” to view this video, it is owned by the program and cannot be copied. Don’t miss it. It is very important!
The guest speaker begins by pontificating about the dangers of Nuclear Warfare and minimizing the concerns regarding Genetic Manipulation, in comparison. He then tells us about the beginnings of the technology/research and how E-coli is the base they use for their experimentation.
Wait a minute, E-coli is the organism they have been using for Genetic Manipulation? The scientists were concerned that this ubiquitous (present, appearing, or found everywhere) bacteria might if it’s own machinery were altered, escape the lab and acquire disease making capacity that it did not have before and produce some kind of epidemic.? Do you understand that they have been playing around with the Ecoli vaccine for “35 YEARS” experimenting with creating new bacteria for weaponization? Check out this extensive list of links from Steve Quayle, related to Ebola and tell me you don’t think that Science has been working to create methods of destroying us. Now, they are selling do it yourself kits to anyone who wants to ‘experiment’ at home. I think they are doing this to cover their tracks and have someone to blame for what they are releasing on the clueless public) So, lol lol, he claims, the scientists themselves declared a moratorium on the research until it could be carefully reviewed and some guidelines put in place. HA HA HA! Ya, we believe that one. Suddenly scientists developed a conscience and set aside their goals for our sake. ha ha ha. Is that why suddenly we have E-coli on all of our food? It seems to me that this likely had already happened and they had to find another tool to use to throw suspicion off themselves. He states there is a lot of money that can be made from products that can be produced. He, not very convincingly assures us that the scientists were not interested in profits. I contend that they took their work underground until they could find the most profitable way to present it to the public. He also states that this is THE MOST IMPORTANT 
development that has happened in Biological Science in this CENTURY. Possibly the Most important thing that has happened in biology since DARWIN!! I go along with that. They both have the same aim, to remove GOD. Then comes the sales pitch… about how it will only be in the hands of GOOD SCIENTISTS who are NOT INTERESTED in selling products, they only see it as a technique to find out how things work. They want to penetrate more deeply into the MACHINERY of life that has ever been conceivable before.
I find it interesting that his opening remarks included that he felt that the society at large should place all there apprehensions for the future on Nuclear Bombs. Ya, whatever you do, don’t watch the man behind the curtain… pay no attention to him. Keep your focus on the BIG SCARY BOMBS over there. His primary interest, he states is that Biological Science should be fostered and encouraged. He states: ” I don’t want a lot of regulation of
a research technology that has such immense promise for the future.” lololol He says that the overseeing of this technology should be carefully scrutinized by the bodies in government that are responsible for the funding of this kind of science. He is quick to say, only primarily responsible, the funding is and must be supplemented by the public. He says that he does not foresee “cloning of eminent politicians or anyone trying to change human behavior by modifying genes. He states that the majority of the restrictions placed on this work were placed there by the scientists themselves, in the beginning, as a precaution. But, much of their concern they found to be unfounded so a lot of the restrictions have been removed. So, hmm, I 
thought they were concerned enough to place a moratorium until further study could be done and guidelines put in place? Is this not the ultimate double talk? He states very clearly that he believes the changing or altering the apparatus of bacteria would be very dangerous. Yet he then remarks “There really aren’t any questions about nature that can be asked by science, that should not be asked because of dangers to humanity that might come from those questions.”
He says in his WILDEST imagination he cannot picture a way this technology could be weaponized or even do any harm… Apparently, he does not have a very good imagination! He says “In a world that contains as many nuclear bombs as this world contains, at the moment, all ready to go… I just can’t worry about biological science.”
Once again, distract the public with concerns about the Nuclear threat which they have convinced people is imminent. The old magician’s sleight of hand. Keep their attention over here, while the real deception is manifesting over here.
I don’t believe that this man is stupid, ignorant, or naive. I believe he was selected very carefully to speak to the concerns that were rising regarding Genetic Engineering. He was given very specific directives and phraseology to use in his responses. You can tell by his body language that he is being deceptive.
FIVE VERY IMPORTANT FACTS TO REMEMBER FROM THIS VIDEO:
- E-coli is the organism they have been using for Genetic Manipulation?
- I don’t want a lot of regulation of a research technology that has such immense promise for the future.
- He states there is a lot of money that can be made from products that can be produced.
- Possibly the Most important thing that has happened in biology since DARWIN!!
- He states very clearly that he believes the changing or altering the apparatus of bacteria would be very dangerous.
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, F. William Engdahl
To Watch this VERY IMPORTANT VIDEO: CLICK HERE
Just When Did E. Coli Start Showing Up in Flour?
This story begins May 31, 2016, when General Mills recalled flour due to potential contamination with E. coli. The company expanded the recall three times, on July 1, July 11 and July 25. In total, General Mills recalled about 45 million lbs. of the product, representing about 2% of its annual output.
Federal officials have matched E. coli O121 from a sample of General Mills flour recovered from a sick person’s home to the outbreak strain that has sickened at least 38 people since December. The discovery is the smoking gun investigators have been looking for since late April when patient interviews revealed that raw dough made with flour was a common denominator among outbreak victims.
“On June 10, FDA whole genome sequencing on E. coli O121 isolates recovered from an open sample of General Mills flour belonging to one of the consumers who was sickened was found to be closely genetically related to the clinical isolates from human illnesses. The flour came from a lot that General Mills has recalled,” according to an update from the Food and Drug Administration this evening. As of 10:45 p.m. EDT, General Mills had not updated the recall and outbreak information on its website. The most recent information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has not been updated since June 1, showed that 10 of the 38 confirmed victims had such severe symptoms they had to be admitted to hospitals. Outbreak victims were spread across 20 states as of May 3, which was the most recent illness onset date reported by CDC last week. The first confirmed victim became ill Dec. 21, 2015. Prevention Branch said consumers should check packages they have on hand and throw the flour away if the label codes match those of the recalled products.
Ok, so first they said they Federal Officials had found “a MATCH, the smoking gun investigators have been looking for since late April when patient interviews revealed that raw dough made with flour was a common denominator among outbreak victims.” just a few sentences below that, when describing the culprit they say: “flour belonging to one of the consumers who was sickened was found to be closely genetically related to the clinical isolates from human illnesses. Typical double talk. So they have no true evidence.
“Unfortunately flour is one of those things that people usually transfer to their own containers when they get home from the store, Neil told Food Safety News last week. “If that’s the case and you don’t know if your flour is part of the recall, it’s best to follow the food safety rule ‘When in doubt, throw it out.’ “They should also be sure to thoroughly wash the container and their hands, as well as anything that came into contact with the flour,” Neil said even if consumers plan to use the flour in baking or cooking that would provide a kill step, the flour can very easily cross-contaminate utensils, surfaces, and other foods during preparation. She also repeated the CDC’s standing warning about raw dough. “It is very important for people to never eat raw dough or batter,” Neil said, explaining that there is the inherent possibility for raw flour to be contaminated because it is made from wheat, which is grown outdoors, and not subjected to a kill step during production.
Oh really? Thousands of years our food has been grown outdoors. I don’t know where else you could grow it. Never been a problem until recently. Hmmm.. and we never had to have a KILL STEP to treat our food before we eat it before either.
Five dead, nearly 200 sick in E. coli outbreak from lettuce. And investigators are stumped. – excerpts – Posted Jun 3, 2018, at 5:10 PM
Five people have died and nearly 200 people from nearly three dozen states have been sickened by E. coli in a growing outbreak that has so far stumped federal investigators.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the death tally Friday, more than two months after the first illnesses occurred in mid-March. Although investigators have determined that E. coli came from contaminated romaine lettuce that were grown in Arizona’s Yuma region near the border to Southern California, the Food and Drug Administration has not been able to link the outbreak to one farm, processor or distributor, Scott Gottlieb, the agency’s commissioner, and Stephen Ostroff, the deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in an update Thursday.
With the tainted vegetables now off the shelves and the growing season over, the FDA may never crack the case, frustrating consumer advocates who have called on the agency to issue rules that would speed up future investigations of foodborne illnesses, The Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey reported.
The CDC said 197 people have been sickened, nearly half of whom were hospitalized. Some told officials that they did not eat romaine lettuce but became sick after close contact with someone who ate contaminated vegetables, the CDC said. Twenty-six developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure that can be life-threatening to people with weak immune systems, such as young children and the elderly.
A majority of those who have been affected come from California, where one death was reported, and Pennsylvania. The four other deaths were reported in Arkansas, Minnesota and New York, according to the CDC.
Last month, the Canadian government announced that six of its citizens were also sickened with Escherichia coli with “similar genetic fingerprint” with those reported in the United States. Two of the six told officials that traveled across the border before they became sick. Three became infected in Canada. Canadian officials, though, said that the risk to their citizens are low.
Multistate Outbreak of E. coli O157: H7 Infections Linked to Romaine Lettuce (FINAL UPDATE) – excerpts – Posted March 23, 2012
As of March 21, 2012, 58 persons infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 were reported from 9 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state was as follows: Arizona (1), Arkansas (2), Illinois (9), Indiana (2), Kansas (2), Kentucky (1), Minnesota (2), Missouri (38), and Nebraska (1). Two cases were removed from the case count because advanced molecular testing determined that they were not related to this outbreak strain. Among persons for whom information was available, illnesses began from October 9, 2011 to November 7, 2011. Ill persons ranged in age from 1 to 94 years, with a median age of 28 years. Fifty-nine percent were female. Among the 49 ill persons with available information, 33 (67%) were hospitalized, and 3 developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). No deaths were reported
I have to inject something here. This may be the reason why GOD had me drive a semi truck for a few months. I drove a refrigerated Semi cross country and on one occasion I had to go to California and pick up a load of lettuce. I was held over at that pick up point for a long time. When I got anxious and started asking why it was taking so long, a man who worked at that facility told me that we were waiting for them to finish “gassing the lettuce”. I said what? He said they gas all the vegetables to help them to stay fresh longer. Hmmm, how curious. Now, I am wondering if they are contaminating all of our food before it goes to market.
FDA Discloses New E. Coli Romaine Outbreak After It Ends
CR believes the agency waited too long to alert consumers
By Kevin Loria
November 01, 2019 (Except Only – New Addition 11/2/20)
The announcement came more than a month after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began investigating the cluster of cases Sept. 17.
This strain of E. coli produces a toxin that in some cases can lead to serious illness, kidney failure, and death. Eleven of the victims in this latest outbreak were hospitalized as a result of the infection, but there were no deaths reported.
There have been no new illnesses related to this current outbreak since the CDC began its investigation, and the FDA’s announcement states that this latest outbreak appears to be over.
“Not all foodborne illness outbreaks are announced by the FDA or CDC, but after the severity of 2018’s outbreaks, it’s surprising that the FDA waited more than a month to inform consumers after discovering the outbreak,” says Michael Hansen, Ph.D., a senior staff scientist at Consumer Reports.
“Given the continuing problems with romaine, and the seriousness of O157:H7, the FDA should have made an announcement sooner and let consumers decide for themselves if they wanted to continue to eat romaine,” Hansen adds.
CR’s food safety experts, including Hansen and James E. Rogers, Ph.D., director of food safety and research, believe that it’s important for consumers to be aware when foods are contaminated with pathogens such as E. coli because the infections they cause can be deadly, especially for older, younger, or pregnant people, or members of other vulnerable populations.
Ecoli Victim helped push for change in USDA Rules – exceprts – By JoNel Aleccia, Health writer, msnbc.com; updated 9/13/2011 12:26:23 PM ET
The mother of a 10-year-old girl critically sickened by an outbreak of a rare strain of E. coli bacteria welcomed the news this week that the government will soon start screening for that bug and five other new pathogens in the nation’s beef supply.
“By classifying these dangerous pathogens as adulterants, the USDA is adopting a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy toward E. coli in meat that we have long fought for,” said Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives at Consumers Union. “These strains of E. coli have been identified for years as causing serious illness and even death. This higher standard will help to ensure that disease-causing food is kept off store shelves and out of consumers’ homes.”
It’s not clear what kind of food caused the 2008 restaurant outbreak of E. coli O111 that sickened Shiloh Johnson and 340 other people in Oklahoma. Shiloh ate a range of foods including chicken, boiled egg, bread and olives, her mother said. State health officials were never able to identify exactly how the E. coli bacteria entered the facility or the food at the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, Okla.
So, even though they could not find any evidence that meat was even involved, they now have the right to place even stiffer regulations on the meat industry, costing them millions of dollars, and adding more chemicals into our already overloaded with chemicals meat supply. Which they are now radiating to boot?? Unbelievable. Zero tolerance means they can put the meat industry out of business on a whim.
“There was speculation that it came through the well water,” said Belinda Johnson. She and Shiloh’s brother, Gabe, who was 7, became only mildly ill.
Johnson, a divorced mom who works as an office manager, said testing for E. coli O111 in meat would be a first step toward detecting and preventing the organism in one type of food. That may prevent other children from developing E. coli infections like the one that sickened Shiloh, leading her to develop hemolytic uremic syndrome, a severe complication that can cause kidney failure and death.
However, meat industry officials said the move was not based on sound science and that the testing already in place for E. coli O157:H7 was adequate to protect against the other pathogens.
“Imposing this new regulatory program on ground beef will cost tens of millions of federal and industry dollars — costs that likely will be borne by taxpayers and consumers. It is neither likely to yield a significant public health benefit nor is it good public policy,” James H. Hodges, executive vice president of the American Meat Institute, said in a statement.
USDA OKs cattle E. coli vaccine – excerpts –A Willmar start-up’s product could be both a lifesaver and a boon to meat producers.
The bacteria, which live in intestines of cattle, infect humans who inadvertently consume animal feces found in finished products such as ground beef. E. coli O157 causes stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea and vomiting and can lead to kidney damage and death. There are few, if any, direct treatments for patients; antibiotics have proved largely ineffective, the CDC says.
After a decade of declines, E. coli cases have been on the rise since 2005. In 2007, companies recalled more than 30 million pounds of ground beef. At least 65 illnesses, but no deaths, were linked to those recalls. Last year, Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., based in Chino, Calif., pulled 143 million pounds of beef off the market, the largest beef recall in history.
Preventing E. coli from seeping into the human food supply has long vexed the $74 billion beef industry. Until recently, beef producers focused on rigorous monitoring, cleaning and testing of animal parts, as well as consumer education. Some companies have developed more high-tech solutions, including feeding cattle “good” bacteria to neutralize the E. coli pathogens and the use of vaccines to protect humans and cattle.
In 2006, Bioniche Life Sciences in Canada introduced the world’s first vaccine against E. coli 0157 in cattle but has not yet received approval in the United States.
E. COLI BLOG
E. COLI BLOGBioniche E. coli 0157 Vaccine Shows Further Promise in Controlled Challenge Study
Bioniche Life Sciences Inc., a fully-integrated human and animal health biopharmaceutical company, today announced that a controlled challenge study, performed at the Vaccine & Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) at the University of Saskatchewan, has again demonstrated the efficacy of the E. coli 0157 cattle vaccine developed by the Company’s Food Safety division in partnership with VIDO, the University of British Columbia, and the Alberta
Research Council. Two commercial scale vaccines were evaluated in the study: one using the Bioniche manufactured vaccine and the other using a vaccine produced by the Alberta Research Council – Biologics fermentation facility.
Seventy-two (72) animals were vaccinated three times each, at three-week intervals, followed by a single, orally-administered challenge with 1×10(9) or one billion E. coli 0157 bacteria two weeks following the last vaccination. Vaccine efficacy was evaluated by observing the total bacteria shed in manure and the number of animals shedding the bacteria following vaccination. Both vaccines demonstrated significant effectiveness and the most effective commercial-vaccine formulation resulted in a 99.56% or 2.35 log reduction in the amount of bacteria shed, and a 70% reduction in the number of animals shedding.
“These results are very encouraging,” said Dr. Dragan Rogan, Vice-President, Research and Development at Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. “This challenge model uses a far greater number of bacteria than would ever be encountered by cattle in the farm or feedlot situation. For the vaccine to reduce shedding of E. coli in the manure after such a high dose of bacteria is further confirmation of the commercial potential of this technology. These results confirm previous vaccine efficacy feedlot field challenge studies completed by the University of Nebraska over the last two summers.”
Feedlot cattle vaccinated with the E. coli 0157 vaccine in research studies during the summers of 2002 and 2003 showed a significant reduction of the deadly bacteria in their manure. Vaccination of cattle in the University of Nebraska research feedlot reduced E. coli prevalence an average of more than 80% compared with unvaccinated cattle.
Bioniche is the commercialization and marketing partner in a strategic alliance with the University of British Columbia, the Alberta Research Council, and the Vaccine & Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan. “This strategic partnership has developed an E. coli 0157 vaccine candidate that is consistent, efficacious, and commercially viable,” said Martin Warmelink, President of Bioniche Food Safety. “These new data will be submitted to the regulatory agencies in both Canada and the United States as part of our ongoing regulatory and commercial development process.”
E. Coli Outbreaks Fast Facts – Click to view the Article in html – CNN Library, Updated 3:01 PM ET, Mon June 4, 2018
Cattle have traditionally been bred to eat grass, but the major producers have shifted to corn. It is cheaper, requires less land, and the cows get fatter, faster. This has led to the large-scale replacement herds of cattle grazing on grass with CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) where thousands of heads of cattle are penned in to be fattened up for slaughter.
| Livestock production has become increasingly dominated by CAFOs in the United States and other parts of the world.[4] Most poultry was raised in CAFOs starting in the 1950s, and most cattle and pigs by the 1970s and 1980s.[5] By the mid-2000s CAFOs dominated livestock and poultry production in the United States, and the scope of their market share is steadily increasing. In 1966, it took one million farms to house 57 million pigs; by the year 2001, it took only 80,000 farms to house the same number.[6][7] |
TO VIEW THIS SHORT VIDEO: CLICK HERE
Research indicates that feeding corn to cattle results in a high occurrence of acid resistant E. coli in the digestive system of the cattle. A highly toxic form called E. coli O157: H7 evolved from conditions in the CAFOs where cattle are ankle-deep in their own manure day in and day out.
While thousands of slaughterhouses existed in the 1970s, now only thirteen processes the majority of beef in the US. When each one is butchering 400 manure-caked animals each hour, it is virtually impossible to keep the meat clean. Also, with ground meat a single beef patty can have meat from thousands of animals, exponentially increasing the likelihood of a pathogen entering the system.
Food, Inc., recounts the heart-wrenching story of Barbara Kowalcyk, who lost her child Kevin, to a sudden attack of hemorrhagic E. coli from a tainted fast-food burger. He died in 12 days. It wasn’t until 16 days later that a beef recall was implemented, but the Kowalcyks were kept uninformed by the industry that Kevin’s death had any connection to the recall until legal action forced the admission several years later.
In April 2007, Rick Perlstein penned a piece entitled “E. Coli Conservatism.” His bottom line was the “Conservatism has been killing Americans. The recent food safety crisis is only one case study.” Perhaps he is in part right. However, whatever the political reasons for the “food safety crisis,” it has been long in coming and the system needs to be fixed.
E. coli is a powerful and deadly bacterium. You cannot see it, taste it, or smell it. 250,000 E. coli bacteria will fit on the head of a pin. Ten to 50 will kill your child or your grandmother. Most likely due the expertise of Children’s Hospitals, and other top medical centers around the country, deaths at times are avoided, however, often not before Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) nearly kills. HUS, a complication from an E. coli infection, can cause severe damage to kidneys, intestines, liver, and pancreas. Falling into a coma and suffering further from cognitive impairment are all too common.
I have seen the inside of too many of those Intensive Care Units with families who are scared senseless as they watch their child or mother shut down. For 16 years, this has been my world. When I was an undergraduate, I read Upton Sinclair’s, The Jungle. That book took the American public on a tour of the contaminated underbelly of the meat industry and they were sickened. It led to the Pure Food & Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act, versions of which are still in place today.
Until 1993, I thought—because of those laws—that the United States had a safe and secure food supply. But, then came the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli outbreak. It killed four and sickened hundreds, including many who were gravely ill with HUS and related complications. Many of those victims became my clients. Once again, there was a public outcry for safe meat. The Food Safety & Inspection Service responded by creating and aggressively enforcing the Mandatory Risk Management System. Based on the research and practices of the U.S. Space Program, the risk management system established checkpoints at every phase of meat processing.
Although the presence of some E. coli in hamburger was defined as an adulterant under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, I continued to sue “Big Meat” as most of my clients up to 2002 were children who were made sick by eating E. coli contaminated meat. I recovered over $350 million during this period from the meat industry and the restaurants they supplied in verdicts and settlements on behalf of those clients. In 2003 recalls of meat laced with E. coli began to decline. After 24 million pounds of contaminated beef were recalled in 34 separate incidents in 2002, recalls dropped off to just over a million pounds a year for the next three years, and then to just 181,900 pounds in 2006. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention saw E. coli – related illnesses drop 48% between 2002 and 2006.
But then came Spring 2007. E. coli, which begins its life in the hindgut of a cow, mounted a surge on its home court. And, it came back with a vengeance. Forty-four million pounds of beef have been recalled in 25 incidents. All over the country, slaughterhouses, packing and distribution centers, retail outlets, and restaurants were once again testing positive for E. coli and people-mostly children-were getting seriously sick. The American meat supply, which had again been touted as safest in the world, tumbled back into disarray. But, why?
As with any unexplained mystery, theories abound. Could it really just be meat industry complacency? Did everyone respond to the good numbers in 2006 by taking a long nap? Did meat processors slack off—consciously or unconsciously—and relax their testing procedures? Did government regulators take a few years off?
Or could it be better reporting? Doctors are more aware of E. coli now, and perhaps when patients present symptoms of food poisoning; tests are more likely to be ordered. When the presence of E coli is found and reported, a recall is triggered.
There’s always global warming. Seriously though – very smart people have posited that droughts in the southeast and southwest have launched more fecal dust into the air, which then finds its way into beef slaughtering plants. It has also been suggested that the rainfall in other areas created muddy pens—an ideal environment for E. coli.
Why not blame high oil prices? High prices have fueled the growth of ethanol plants. These plants are often built next to feedlots, and a byproduct of the ethanol production process—distiller’s grains—is considered an excellent and cheap alternative to corn for cattle feed. Unfortunately, research associates the use of distiller’s grains as feed with an increase in the incidence of E. coli in the hindguts of cattle.
Another controversial issue may affect the meat supply. The New York Times reported that immigration officials began a crackdown at slaughterhouses across the country in the fall of 2006. Experienced—albeit undocumented—workers have been cleared out and replaced with unskilled, inexperienced labor.
And then there’s Darwin. Another theory holds that interventions have caused the wily E. coli microbes to adapt, selecting pathogens that are more resistant to detection or intervention. E. coli back in our meat cannot be tolerated. Summer has always been kind to the E. coli bug. More than 5.6 million pounds of E. coli contaminated beef has been recalled so far in 2008, most supplied by Nebraska Beef Ltd., via the Kroger Grocery chain. All of which was responsible for a multi-state outbreak of E. coli that again is filling up the ICU’s in Hospitals in the seven states.
What is being done? Honestly, not much. Congress has held some hearings, but the only new reform is that the names of retail stores that received meat and poultry involved in recalls with high health risk will be made public. Good as far as it goes.
However, despite 76,000,000 American’s being sickened, 325,000 hospitalized and 5,000 deaths each year, food safety did not make it as a Presidential campaign issue. Congress, Democrats, and Republicans, have about run out its clock. But E. coli is back in our meat and we better care.
Solutions? Improve surveillance of bacterial and viral diseases. First responders – ER physicians and local doctors – need to be encouraged to test for pathogens and report findings directly to local and state health departments and the CDC promptly. Right now, for every person counted in an outbreak, there are some 20 to 40 times those that are sick but never tested. The more we test, the quicker we know we have an outbreak and the quicker it can be stopped.
These same governmental departments, whether local, state or federal, need to learn to “play well together.” Turf battles need to take a back seat to stopping an outbreak and tracking it to its source. That means resources need to be provided and coordination encouraged so illnesses can be promptly stopped and the offending producer – not an entire industry – are brought to heal.
Require real training and certification of food handlers at restaurants and grocery stores. There also should be incentives for ill employees not to come to work when ill. We should impose fines and penalties on employers who do not cooperate.
Stiffen license requirements for large farm, retail, and wholesale food outlets, so that nobody gets a license until they and their employees have shown they understand the hazards and how to avoid them.
Increase food inspections. While domestic production has continued to be a problem, imports pose an increasing risk, especially if terrorists were to get into the act. Points of export and entry are a logical place to step up monitoring. We need more inspectors – domestically and abroad – and we need to require that they receive the training in how to identify and control hazards.
Reorganize federal, state and local food safety agencies to increase cooperation and reduce wasteful overlap and conflicts. Reform federal, state and local agencies to make them more proactive, and less reactive. This too requires financial resources and accountability. We also need to modernize food safety statutes by replacing the existing collection of often conflicting laws and regulation with one uniform food safety law of the highest standard.
There are too few legal consequences for sickening or killing customers by selling contaminated food. We should impose stiff fines, and even prison sentences for violators, and even stiffer penalties for repeat violators.
We need to use our technology to make food more traceable so that when an outbreak occurs authorities can quickly identify the source and limit the spread of the contamination and stop the disruption to the economy. When I buy a book online I can track it all the way to my mailbox. We must be able to do the same with our food.
Promote university research to develop better technologies to make food safe and for testing foods for contamination. Provide tax breaks for companies that push food safety interventions and employee training. Greatly expand irradiation of raw hamburger and other high-risk products.
Improve consumer understanding of the risks of food-borne illness. Foster a popular campaign similar to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which uses consumer power to promote a no-tolerance policy toward growers and companies that produce tainted food.
The time has come to act and not continue simply to react. Consumers, Farmers, Suppliers, Manufacturers, Retailers, Regulators and Politicians need to work together to make our food supply safe, profitable and sustainable. When a quarter of our population is sickened yearly by contaminated food, when thousands die, we do not have the “safest food supply in the world. We should, must and can do better.
It’s just a matter of time before we are eating clones if we are not eating them now.
When Canadian agricultural leaders asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week after a scandal about unlabeled clone products in Europe if “cloned cows or their offspring have made it into the North American food supply,” he said, “I can’t say today that I can answer your question in an affirmative or negative way. I don’t know.”
And when AlterNet asked the USDA this week if cloned products are already in the food supply, a spokesman said the department was “not aware of an instance where product from an animal clone has entered the food supply” thanks to a “voluntary moratorium”– but that offspring of clones, at the heart of the Europe scandal,” are not clones and are therefore not included” in the voluntary moratorium.
Sounds like Europe is not the only place eating milk and meat from unlabeled clone offspring. In fact, the BBC, UK newspapers and even a US grocer all report that US consumers are digging into clone food, whether or not they know it.
Like bovine growth hormone and Roundup Ready crops, the government says clone products are so safe they don’t need to be labeled. But the 2008 FDA report (PDF), Animal Cloning: A Risk Assessment and a report from the European Food Safety Authority released at the same time, raise questions about the health of cloned animals, the safety of their milk and meat and even the soundness of the cloning process itself.
CN World’s first monkey clones created in China
To Watch This Interesting Video: CLICK HERE
To clone an animal, “scientists start with a piece of ear skin and mince it up in a lab. Then they induce the cells to divide in a culture dish until they forget they are skin cells and regain their ability to express all of their genes,” writes the Los Angeles Times’ Karen Kaplan. “Meanwhile, the nucleus is removed from a donor egg and placed next to a skin cell. Both are zapped with a tiny electric shock, and if all goes well the egg grows into a genetic copy of the original animal.”
So far so good except that it turns out many clones lack the ability to “reprogram the somatic nucleus of the donor to the state of a fertilized zygote,” says the FDA report and be the perfect replica a clone is supposed to be.
The reprogramming problem, called epigenetic dysregulation, means many clones — some say 90 percent — are born with deformities, enlarged umbilical cords, respiratory distress, heart and intestine problems and Large Offspring Syndrome, the latter often killing the clone and its “mother,” the surrogate dam. Clones that survive epigenetic dysregulation often require surgery, oxygen, and transfusions at birth, eat insatiably but do not necessarily gain weight and fail to maintain normal temperatures, admits the report.
While denying that such dysregulation is endemic to cloning, the FDA report nonetheless reassures readers that “residual epigenetic reprogramming errors that could persist” in clones will “reset” over time. The errors will also “reset” in offspring who, though “the same as any other sexually-reproduced animals,” may nonetheless have them. Oops.
The FDA report, written in collaboration with Elizabethtown, PA-based Cyagra, and Austin, TX-based ViaGen, another clone company, tries hard to talk around these and other clone problems. Too hard.
Although clones’ calcium, phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase and glucose levels exceed those seen in normal animals, “all of the elevations can be explained by the clones’ stage of life or stress level, and the increased levels observed do not represent a food consumption risk,” says the report.
The “slight mammary development” in a 4 1⁄2-month-old Jersey calf? Such precociousness “sometimes occurs in conventional heifers if they are overfed.”
The rats fed cloned meat and milk who exhibited greater “frequency of vocalization,” a signal of emotional response? It was probably “incidental and unrelated to treatment,” says the report.
Cloned meat samples that show “altered” fatty acid composition and delta-9 desaturase? “No comparisons were made with historical reference values for either milk or meat,” says the report. Maybe it’s an overall trend in meat and milk…
Worse, the report relies on government regulation-as-usual to catch clone aberrations in the food supply. Nutrition Labeling Requirements will determine if clone milk is okay says the report since “determining whether animal clones are producing a hazardous substance in their milk although theoretically possible, is highly impractical.” (We can inject a nucleus into an egg but can’t analyze milk?)
And the hapless and sick throwaways that are cloning’s bycatch? Those animals won’t be a threat to the food supply says the FDA report, because they die at birth. And if they don’t die but remain sickly, they’ll be kept out the food supply by the same slaughterhouse inspectors who kept out mad cows, Hallmark school lunch cows and E. coli. Bon appetit.
“According to the three standards used to determine if cloned food is safe — nutrition, toxicology and chemical composition — eating cancerous tissue or pus would also be safe,” Dr. Shiv Chopra, a veterinarian, microbiologist and human rights activist told AlterNet when we asked about cloned food safety. It is like the wide-scale and unlabeled bovine growth hormone used to produce milk “in which a cow gene was inserted into E. coli,” says Dr. Chopra — a huge experiment conducted on the public.
Even meat and restaurant interests agree with Dr. Chopra in written comments about cloning on the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) web site.
Despite the science, there is an “important limitation” to cloning projections says Coldiretti, Italy’s largest farming interest group: “The impossibility to make prediction (sic) on a long-term base. The ‘Inquiry into BSE’ [Mad Cow] shows how no scientists had been able to foresee the problems connected to the practice of recycling animal proteins in herbivores feeding. The BSE prion needed around 50 years to develop.”
CLITRAVI, the Brussels-based European Association for the Meat Processing Industry concurs. “In the light of EFSA’s own clearly expressed concerns regarding animal health and animal welfare, we take the view that further research is needed before offsprings of cloned animals are used for any purpose whatsoever, included medical,” it wrote.
The US-based Union of Concerned Scientists agrees that more research about cloning is necessary — not to mention labeling. “The choice of whether to purchase such foods should be in the hands of individual consumers, not the government or the industry. Consumers will have such a choice only if the foods are labeled,” says the 250,000-member non-profit science group.
In defending cloning, the FDA, Big Meat and Biotech claim its negatives are no worse than in vitro fertilization and other Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) techniques already entrenched in factory farms, and that it will aid “world hunger.” Animal suffering is downplayed by simply not counting the animals who don’t make it in final figures leading the World Society for the Protection of Animals to observe that welfare and mortality are not just risks for surviving clones but effects that “occur in a large proportion of surrogate dams and clones.”
While the FDA admits that clone calves that “die or are euthanized due to poor health” are rendered into animal feed byproducts that present “possible risks” to food animals and the people who eat them, it is less worried about healthy clones. Healthies are “unlikely” to be used for human food “given their potential value as breeding stock” or even used as animal food, “except through rendering of dead clones that occurred at parturition or by accident.”
Since the first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep was created in 1996, cloning has become more common and causes less outrage than new Frankenfoods like the Enviropig with its roundworm gene and AquAdvantage salmon with its Chinook salmon gene (both moving toward FDA approval.) But whether it’s become common in our food no one can know — because it’s unlabeled. And could be anywhere.
Food, Inc. – A Movie Review and Recap
In this article, we take a look at the Academy Award-nominated movie Food, Inc. as part of our 2010 Product and Service Review Series. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature, Food, Inc. examines the highly mechanized and industrialized food industry as it exists today.
Originally released in the USA on April 3, 2009, it took 6 years to bring this movie to the screen. Director/producer Robert Kenner has done a wonderful job taking the viewer from past to present in terms of the once personalized nature of food to the now profit-driven, corporate-controlled food supply.
Initially, one might think what a wonderful thing the industrialization of food has been. We’re now able to “produce a lot of food on a small amount of land at a very affordable price.” Why wouldn’t that be a good thing?
Back in the 1950’s, it took 70 days to raise a chicken. Today, chickens are raised in 48 days and they are twice as big. Additionally, since more people like to eat white meat, the chickens have been redesigned to have larger breasts. Progress. 🙂
A Handful Of Companies
Kenner shows that nowadays, there are only a handful of companies controlling the food industry. For example, in the 1970’s the top 5 beef packers controlled 25% of the market. Today, the top 4 control 80%. Meat and poultry no longer come from farms, but from factory style, assembly line productions.
Food producers are not the only ones controlling the industry. McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of ground beef in the United States. By controlling that much of the market, they can pretty much dictate how ground beef is produced. It’s now all about “faster, fatter, bigger, cheaper”.
Corn Production
In addition to taking a look at meat and poultry, the film also points out that 30% of our land is being planted in corn. Corn is used to feed chickens, hogs and cattle and now even to fish. If you look at the products on the supermarket shelf, you will probably find corn or soybeans (or both) in 90% of them.
So much of our industrial food turns out to be clever rearrangements of corn.
Cows are not designed by evolution to eat corn; they’re designed to eat grass. But because corn is cheap (since the government subsidizes it) and it makes them fat quickly, we feed them corn.
Unintended Consequences
Unfortunately, cows fed diets high in corn result in E. coli that are acid resistant… the harmful E. coli such as the deadly strain called O157: H7. The runoff from concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) contaminates other crops as well, as seen in the recent cases of E. coli in spinach.
Food, Inc. interviews Barbara Kowalcyk, a mother turned food safety advocate, whose 2-year-old son Kevin died as a result of E. coli O157: H7. She has been fighting for years to get a law passed called Kevin’s Law that would give the USDA authority to shut down plants with multiple violations of contamination.
If you’re like me, you probably thought the USDA already had that authority. They did, initially, until the meat and poultry associations took the USDA to court and won. So Barbara still fights to get the law reinstated nine years after her son’s death.
If you take feed lot cattle off of their corn diet, give them grass for 5 days, they’ll shed 80% of the E. coli in their gut.
Instead of looking at the current process and thinking perhaps it would be best to go back to what Mother Nature intended and feed cows grass, big business instead resorted to ammonia as a “processing tool”. Food, Inc. goes inside a Beef Products Inc. (BPI) facility and films hamburger meat filler (cleansed with ammonia to kill the E. coli) being boxed and prepared for shipment to consumers around the country.
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Virginia
Some of my favorite parts of the movie are those that include Joel Salatin. He is the owner of Polyface Farms, “a family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley”. They produce beef, pork and poultry.
His matter-of-fact demeanor and knowledge of his business are entertaining, educational and eye-opening.
A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist on that critter will probably view individuals within its community, and other cultures in the community of nations, with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentality. ~Joel Salatin
Wal-Mart Good?
Another interview in the film that woke me up to face reality is the one with Stonyfield Farm’s founder and CEO Gary Hirshberg. He addresses how so many of the large corporations are now getting involved in organic and how his environmental buddies are horrified when they find that he now keeps company with the likes of Wal-Mart.
But my eye-opener came in this statement from Gary when he explained what “the impact of one purchase order from Wal-Mart is in terms of, not pounds but, tons of pesticides, tons of herbicides, tons of chemical fertilizer.” He goes on to say that no one can debate the fact that a Stonyfield “sale of a million dollars to Wal-Mart helps to save the world.”
Genius.
90% Of Soybeans Are GMO And Owned By One Company
This story is one of those “Silkwood” / “Erin Brockovich” type stories. When you see the movie you’ll understand what I mean by that.
Essentially, if a farmer decides that he doesn’t want to plant GMO soybeans, this company will most likely investigate and prosecute him. For what you ask? For patent infringement. Chances are… pollination from nearby GMO farms has contaminated his crop. It’s then up to that one small non-GMO farmer to prove that he didn’t willingly violate the patent and to defend himself against a multi-national corporation.
Are you surprised to find that the farmer usually loses or gives up?
Revolving Door Between Big Business & The Regulating Agencies
This part of the movie shouldn’t have surprised me at all, but it did. The extent to which businesses and the agencies that regulate them are in bed together is mind-boggling. Why isn’t more being done about this conflict of interest? Where’s the media when these things are going on?
Kenner gives several examples, but the one that struck me most was Michael Taylor.
Michael Taylor’s credentials below:
(1984 – 1991) King & Spaulding Lawyer-Client Monsanto – Advised Monsanto on genetically modified food labeling.
(1991 – 1994) FDA Deputy Commission For Policy – Oversaw FDA’s decision not to label genetically modified foods.
(1998 – 2000) Monsanto Vice President for Public Policy
Is it just me, or is this scary?
Veggie Libel Laws
Who knew such a thing existed? This came as a surprise to me too, but it really shouldn’t have since the whole Oprah / Texas Cattleman lawsuit was based on these.
The Veggie Libel Laws are laws passed in 13 U.S. states that make it easier for food producers to sue their critics for libel. These laws typically allow a food manufacturer or processor to sue a person or group who makes disparaging comments about their food products. In some states these laws also establish different standards of proof than are used in traditional American libel lawsuits, including the practice of placing the burden of proof on the party being sued. (See Wikipedia for Food Libel Law information)
Funny that it’s okay to burn the American flag, but it’s not okay to say something disparaging about ground beef. What’s that document? Oh yes, the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment… must not apply to those with power and money.
Sound un-American?
In Colorado it’s a felony if you’re convicted under a veggie libel law, so you could go to prison for criticizing the ground beef that’s being produced in the state of Colorado.
Summary
Although often horrifying and gut-wrenching, Kenner ends the movie on a positive note by giving people ideas of what they can do to make a change or difference. He does this on screen with written ideas fading in and out as Bruce Springsteen sings “This Land Is Your Land” in the background. A nice and powerful touch.
Food, Inc. is about 90 minutes long and it’s packed with mind-blowing information. Not only is it educational and something everyone in America should see, but it’s also entertaining and done very professionally. I can’t recommend this movie enough. I only wish I had seen it sooner.
If you have seen it, or after you see it, I would love to hear from you and get your thoughts and comments.
Valuable Information
- You can view the Food, Inc. movie online on Netflix if you have it. If you aren’t already a member of Netflix, you can signup here: http://www.netflix.com
- The official Food, Inc. website
- Food, Inc. overview from Wikipedia
- Food, Inc. on FaceBook