Syngenta mixed GMOs into US crops to force the world to accept untested biotechnology, lawsuit claims

NaturalNews

Monday, December 14, 2015 by: J. D. Heyes


(NaturalNews) Agri- and biotech giant Syngenta is being sued by hundreds of farmers in at least 20 states for shocking business practices, including using the American people as GMO guinea pigs.
According to Arkansas Business, one of the lawsuits against the Swiss seed manufacturer, which has been filed on behalf of two Newport-area farms, alleges that Syngenta "has engaged in a criminal conspiracy to contaminate the U.S. corn crop to force China (and) other nations that buy U.S. corn and U.S. farmers to accept" GMO corn.

The publication further reported in online editions:

The suit, field by the Emerson Poynter law firm, which has offices in Little Rock and Houston, alleges that Syngenta violated the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is usually used to fight organized crime.

The firm filed the class-action suit in January on behalf of Eagle Lake Farms and Kenny Falwell, both operating farms in the Newport area. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. At least eight other suits have also been filed against the seed maker, the news report said.

In all, there are hundreds of pending suits against Syngenta that have been filed by American farmers since last fall. The suits claim that Syngenta caused financial losses of between $1 billion and $2.9 billion to U.S. corn farmers after selling them GMO corn that China had yet to approve for use. China is a major (and growing) importer of American corn and maize-related byproducts.

Drop in value

 

In particular, the suits identified the Agrisure Viptera seed, also known as MIR 162. The suits say the seeds have been genetically altered to resist corn pests including earworms and cutworms. The seed was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2010.

In November 2013, China began banning shipments of U.S. corn after its scientists detected the GMO trait, leading to a dramatic decrease in the price and value of U.S. corn. The suits allege that even farmers who did not use the GMO corn suffered economic losses as well.

Farmers in 20 states have filed suit. Together, they represent 86 percent of all corn planted in the United States last year, plaintiffs' lawyers said.

Arkansas Business further reported:

China went on to approve Viptera in December, but plaintiffs' lawyers say the development has little, if any, effect on their case. Scott Powell of Hare Wynn Newell & Newton of Birmingham, Alabama, is one of those lawyers.

China, with its rapidly expanding middle class, has "a voracious appetite for corn," Powell said, and when it stopped buying U.S. corn, it found other vendors, like Brazil. And once a country finds a substitute vendor for a product, it rarely switches back.

It's not just farmers lining up to sue Syngenta for its shady practice. Other agri-business giants are suing as well.

'We don't mess with China'

 

For example ADM, one of the world's largest processors of corn, filed suit against the Swiss company in November. "Syngenta chose to sell a corn seed product with traits that were not approved in all major export markets, without undertaking reasonable stewardship practices to prevent the resulting crop from commingling with or otherwise tainting the rest of the U.S. corn supply," an ADM spokeswoman told Arkansas Business.

For it's part, Syngenta says the suits are baseless, saying it "believes that the lawsuits are without merit and strongly upholds the right of growers to have access to approved new technologies that can increase both their productivity and their profitability," as reported by AgWeb.com.

The company added that it "commercialized the trait in full compliance with regulatory and legal requirements," "obtained import approval from major corn importing countries," and "has been fully transparent in commercializing the trait over the last four years."

U.S. farmers take China's business seriously.

"We don't mess with China," Deb Volnek, a Nebraska farmer involved in the suit against Syngenta, told Reuters. "When China buys something, the markets go up. When they don't, the markets go down."


Sources:

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com
http://www.agweb.com
http://www.reuters.com

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Just weeks after the discovery in China of bacteria resistant to all known forms of treatment, the same strain has been found in Denmark. Except Denmark's has been around since 2012.

news.com.au

Bacteria containing mcr-1 gene resistant to all known antibiotics found in Denmark

December 7, 20159:26am

 

Lethal tummy bug ... A strain of the common e. coli bacteria resistant to all known treatments has been found in Denmark.

Network WritersNews Corp Australia Network

JUST weeks after the discovery in China of bacteria resistant to all known forms of treatment, the same strain has been found in Denmark. Worse: It’s been there since 2012.

Late last week researchers at the Technical University of Denmark announced they had found the feared ‘invulnerability’ gene among E. coli bacteria samples taken from humans and food.

The scientists had been conducting a review of a genetic database of some 3000 different E. coli samples taken since 2009.

Specifically they were seeking the mcr-1 gene, a mutation which gives bacteria a frightening resistance to the last effective family of antibiotics — colistin.

ANTIBIOTIC APOCALYPSE: A new dark age of medicine looms

 

Read More Here

 

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NewsMax Health

New Superbug Resistant to Last-line Antibiotics: Study

Sunday, 06 Dec 2015 11:19 AM

Scientists warned of the "epidemic potential" of deadly and fast-spreading bacteria resistant to last-line antibiotics.

The new superbugs, found in southern China, could erase nearly a century of antibiotic protection against killer diseases born by common germs such as E. coli, the researchers reported in a study.
"These are extremely worrying results," said Jian-Hua Liu, a professor at Southern Agricultural University in Guangzhou and co-author of the study.

Liu and colleagues found a gene, called MCR-1, that makes bacteria resistant to a class of antibiotics, known as polymyxins, used to fight superbugs.

The gene -- detected in common but deadly bacteria such as E. coli and K. pneumoniae, which causes pneumonia and blood disease -- effectively makes these bacteria invincible.

 

Even worse, MCR-1 allows the bacteria to spread easily from one strain or species to another, said the study, published in Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Until now, rare cases of resistance occurred only through mutation in individual organisms, severely limiting transmission.

"Polymyxins were the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell," said Liu.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has already warned antimicrobial resistance may result in "a return to the pre-antibiotic era," where infections once easily cured prove fatal.

Most of the 50 to 100 million people who died during the 1918 flu pandemic -- 10 years before the discovery of penicillin -- were killed by bacterial pneumonia, not the flu virus itself.

 

Read More Here

 

 

 

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Agricultural Use Of Antibiotics Could Create Health Crisis, Experts Warn China’s use of thousands of tons of antibiotics in agriculture is a major cause for concern.

 

 

Asian Scientist Newsroom | November 24, 2015 | In the Lab

 

AsianScientist (Nov. 24, 2015) - Two medical experts from The University of Queensland are urging China to curb its use of antibiotics in animals to avoid what could be a ‘major health catastrophe’ for humans, following their research published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

 

Polymyxin antibiotic class is a “last-defence” antibiotic for patients, including in intensive care units, but its extensive use in agriculture in China was leading to resistance in humans, warned Professor David Paterson, Head of the Infection and Immunity group at UQ Center for Clinical Research.

 

“It will be very dangerous if people stop responding to this treatment. A key part of many intensive treatments relies on antibiotic success to fight life-threatening infection and keep further infections at bay. However, resistance to this antibiotic is now becoming widespread in chickens, pigs and other animals across Asia, and has now been detected in humans,” cautioned Paterson.

 

In the report, Paterson said the resistance was directly linked to agricultural use of the antibiotic in the food-chain. “When humans eat the food derived from these animals fed with antibiotics, this leads to antibiotic resistance. By the end of 2015, China is projected to use thousands of tonnes of polymyxins. Chinese leaders needed to take urgent and decisive action to curb this use.” Paterson said.

 

 

 

 

Read More Here

 

 

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New antibiotic resistance gene that breaches 'last line of defense' found in China

Written by Catharine Paddock PhD

Published: Thursday 19 November 2015 at 3am PST

email

 

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A new gene that makes bacteria resistant to polymyxins - the last-resort antibiotics for treating infections - is widespread in a large family of bacteria sampled from pigs and people in South China, says a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

 

 

The researchers first found evidence of transferable resistance to the polymyxin drug colistin in bacteria isolated from a pig on an intensive farm in China.

 

The researchers say some of the bacterial strains that have acquired the new resistance gene - called MCR-1 - also have epidemic potential.

The discovery is particularly alarming because the researchers found the new gene on plasmids - a mobile form of DNA that is easily shared and spread among different bacteria via horizontal gene transfer.

It echoes an earlier discovery in India a few years ago of the resistance gene NDM-1 that makes bacteria resistant to nearly all antibiotics, including the last-resort antibiotics carbapenems.
In their study, the researchers, led by members from South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, conclude:

"The emergence of MCR-1 heralds the breach of the last group of antibiotics, polymyxins, by plasmid-mediated resistance. Although currently confined to China, MCR-1 is likely to emulate other global resistance mechanisms such as NDM-1."

Co-author Jian-Hua Liu, a professor specializing in antimicrobial resistance in animals, says the results are "extremely worrying" because the polymyxins were "the last class of antibiotics in which resistance was incapable of spreading from cell to cell."

Polymyxin resistance transferring readily among common bacteria

 

 

Read More Here

Doctors in China have removed 420 kidney stones from a man's body, blaming an excessive amount of tofu in his daily diet.

Doctors remove 420 kidney stones 'caused by excessive tofu' from patient in China

The operation to remove hundreds of tiny stones took doctors around two hours

The stones removed by doctors Photo: EuroPics

 

By Charlotte Middlehurst, Shanghai

10:48AM BST 09 Jun 2015

 

Doctors in China have removed 420 kidney stones from a man's body, blaming an excessive amount of tofu in his daily diet.

Mr He from Zhejiang Province in eastern China, checked into the Dongyang People's Hospital complaining of intense pain in his abdomen last month. A CT scan revealed that his left kidney was packed full of stones, most of them tiny.

Doctors operated on Friday in an agonising procedure that lasted about two hours.

Mr He said he had a history of suffering from kidney stones. Twenty years ago he had 10 stones removed using a procedure called lithotripsy, which sends shock waves to break up stones in the kidney, bladder, or ureter until they are small enough to pass in the urine.

"I have worked as a doctor for 30 years and have never seen so many stones," said Zhou Changchun, the attending surgeon, according to state newspaper Qianjiang Evening Post.

The unusually high number of stones was attributed to the high concentration of gypsum tofu, a popular local food, in Mr He's diet. The tofu contains calcium sulphate, which cannot be expelled from the body without a sufficient intake of water.

Read More Here

Petco, Petsmart Phasing Out Sales of Chinese Pet Treats

Food Poisoning Bulletin

May 21, 2014 by Linda Larsen 

Petco and Petsmart have announced plans to stop carrying pet treats imported from China after last week’s FDA announcement that they can’t find the cause of 4,800 dog and cat illnesses. The government has been researching this issue for seven years and cannot figure out what is going wrong.
Veterinarians and the government are reminding pet owners that these treats are not necessary to a pet’s nutrition or health. Safety advocates have been asking the government to ban these imported treats for years, but nothing has been done.
Food & Water Watch commends Petco and Petsmart for taking this step, but say that they should remove those products from their shelves immediately rather than simply phasing them out. More than 1,000 dogs have died after consuming these treats.


Read More Here

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Are Whole Foods employees intentionally misleading customers about toxic heavy metals in rice protein products?

Action item:

Tuesday, May 06, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)

(NaturalNews) Go to Whole Foods today, pick a rice protein product off the shelf, and ask the store manager why they are selling rice protein containing toxic heavy metals at such high levels that they often exceed California Prop. 65 limits by over 1,000%! The answer you get may shock you: some Whole Foods employees and store managers are falsely claiming there are no heavy metals in the products they sell!
One store employee told a Natural News contributing writer, "Oh, that's just somebody on the internet. We would never sell something if it had heavy metals in it." (Really? Then they are sadly misinformed...)
A store manager at another store actually said, "That's been debunked. Mike Adams doesn't even have a lab. There are no heavy metals in the proteins we sell." (Except that there are, see results below...)
Some Whole Foods employees, in other words, seem to have no clue that the products they're representing -- including "organic" products -- contain concerning levels of toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. They may have even been instructed to provide false and misleading answers when customers ask about the issue. What they don't seem to be telling customers is that just one scoop of a rice protein sold at Whole Foods can expose you to over 1,000% the daily lead limit defined by California Prop. 65.

Join the action campaign: Go to Whole Foods today and ASK

To set the record straight, I'm asking you to go to your local Whole Foods store TODAY and ask the store manager this question: "Why are you selling rice proteins containing such high levels of toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten?"
Email the response you get to reply@naturalnews.com, and be sure to include the city of the store. (We won't use your name, don't worry. But we are collecting responses from various Whole Foods stores to see how many are informed about this issue.)
Nearly all the rice protein sold at Whole Foods, by the way, comes from China and other Asian countries where environmental standards are rarely enforced. Just recently in fact, the Chinese government declassified a once-secret document admitting that 20% of China's farms are contaminated with toxic heavy metals.
This is where a lot of the rice protein sold at Whole Foods really comes from. But instead of admitting these products contain toxic heavy metals, some Whole Foods managers appear to be routinely misleading customers.

Confirmed: Whole Foods keeps selling rice protein products containing high levels of toxic heavy metals

Just to make sure this is still going on, I went to the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin Texas last week and purchased nearly $700 worth of products (see the scan of my receipt, to the right). The receipt appears to be in two parts because Whole Foods prints items on the FRONT and the BACK of each receipt, so I had to stitch together two photos.
The results of testing these rice proteins in my ICP-MS laboratory -- the Natural News Forensic Food Labs -- once again confirms alarming levels of lead, cadmium and tungsten in multiple rice protein products sold by Whole Foods. If you're curious how I found tungsten in these products, click here to see the videos from our lab.
Here are just some of the results we found from rice proteins purchased at Whole Foods last week (1,000 ppb = 1 ppm)
Brown Rice Chocolate Protein (Lot #50696014) purchased at Whole Foods
Lead: 312 ppb (over 1,000% higher than California Prop 65 daily intake limit, based on serving size)
Cadmium: 1015 ppb
Tungsten: YES ("YES" means tungsten was detected at significant concentrations)
Raw Rice Protein Chocolate (Lot #I3553A #I3562) purchased at Whole Foods
Lead: 311 ppb (over 1400% higher than California Prop 65 daily intake limit, based on serving size)
Cadmium: 1731 ppb
Tungsten: YES

Read More Here




















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Chinese researchers have found breast and colorectalcancer patients with higher levels of vitamin D at the time of diagnosis may have better chances of survival

Warm Winter Sun Bath  Glitterchirag
Wikimedia.org
...

Prevent Disease

The Higher Your Vitamin D Levels, The Better Your Chance To Both Prevent and Survive Cancer

The active form of vitamin D essentially shuts down cancer cells by several mechanisms which inhibit proteins involved in metastases. Now Chinese researchers have found breast and colorectalcancer patients with higher levels of vitamin D at the time of diagnosis may have better chances of survival and remain in remission longer those who are deficient, according to a scientific review.

For the past several years, there has been considerable interest in the role vitamin D plays in improving health and preventing disease. Previous finding show that low levels of vitamin D have been directly associated with various forms of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Stephen B. Kritchevsky, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine and Transitional Science at the Wake Forest School of Medicine found a signficant correlation.

"We observed vitamin D insufficiency (defined as blood levels <20 ng/ml), in one third of our study participants. This was associated with nearly a 50 percent increase in the mortality rate in older adults," said Kritchevsky. "Our findings suggest that low levels of vitamin D may be a substantial public health concern for our nation's older adults."

Although vitamin D can be obtained from limited dietary sources and directly from exposure to the sun during the spring and summer months, the combination of poor dietary intake and sun avoidance has created vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency in large proportions of many populations worldwide. It is known that vitamin D has a wide range of physiological effects and that correlations exist between insufficient amounts of vitamin D and an increased incidence of a number of cancers. These correlations are particularly strong for cancers of the digestive tract, including colon cancer, and certain forms of leukemia.

"Almost every disease decreases in frequency and duration as we move towards equatorial populations, and the data shows that there is a minimum of a 1000 percent increase for many diseases in countries furthest from the equator, however we have obtained the same results based on data through populations and vitamin D supplementation," said Dr. Anthony Petaku who studies the effects of Vitamin D2 and D3 on mutating cells.

"Physicians need to pay close attention to vitamin D levels in people who have been diagnosed with cancer," say Chinese researchers.
Better Chances of Survival
In a recent study, author Dr Hui Wang, said: "The results suggest vitamin D may influence the prognosis for people with breast cancer, colorectal cancer and lymphoma, in particular."
The meta-analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, included 25 studies and 17,332 cancer patients. In the majority of the research included the patients were tested for vitamin D levels before undergoing any cancer treatment. The researchers from Shanghai's Institute for Nutritional Sciences and other Chinese universities and institutions found a ten nanomole/liter (nmol/L) increase in vitamin D levels correlated with an increased survival rate of 4%.
Significant associations

In another study in Anticancer Research, breast cancer patients with high levels of vitamin D in their blood are twice as likely to survive the disease as those with lower levels, new research has suggested.

A study by Dr. William Grant, Ph.D., internationally recognized research scientist and vitamin D expert, found that about 30 percent of cancer deaths -- which amounts to 2 million worldwide and 200,000 in the United States -- could be prevented each year with higher levels of vitamin D.

Higher vitamin D (25(OH)D) levels were "significantly associated" with reduced cancer-specific mortality for patients with colorectal cancer and lymphoma, while improved disease-free survival for patients with breast cancer or lymphoma was observed.

Meanwhile the researchers found less evidence of a connection in people with lung cancer, gastric cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, melanoma or Merkel cell carcinoma, but said the data available was positive.
The paper speculated that cancer patients with higher vitamin D levels had an improved overall survival because of better general health status. "Due to the limited data of randomized controlled trials, it is unclear whether vitamin D status is causally related to diseases or if circulating 25(OH)D merely acts as a biomarker for health status of patients," the researchers wrote.
No significant difference in levels was found for patients with early or later stages of the diseases.
Supplementation
"Considering that vitamin D deficiency is a widespread issue all over the world, it is important to ensure that everyone has sufficient levels of this important nutrient," Dr Wang said. "Physicians need to pay close attention to vitamin D levels in people who have been diagnosed with cancer."
Professional recommendations for supplementation are made for groups at risk of deficiency including pregnant and breastfeeding women, children under the age of five not fed infant formula, people over 65 and those not exposed to much sun. It says supplementation should not exceed 25 micrograms (0.025mg) a day, as it "could be harmful".
It said taking too many vitamin D supplements over a long period of time could cause more calcium to be absorbed than can be excreted, which could lead to kidney damage and softened and weakened bones.

For this reason it's very important to take a high quality calcium and magensium supplement with vitamin D such as Life Choice Opti-Cal/Mag Complex which also contains Vitamin K2 which in itself also has been found to prevent cancer and also improve bone, cardiovascular, skin, brain, and now prostate health.

Sources:
endocrine.org

Mae Chan holds degrees in both physiology and nutritional sciences. She is also blogger and and technology enthusiast with a passion for disseminating information about health.

Researchers Identify How Omega-3 and Vitamin D Enhance The Immune System

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• Researchers find link between Vitamin D and cancer

FDA Approved pet treats that may be poisoning your dogs and cats with toxic heavy metals.

Pet treats found contaminated with heavy metals - Health Ranger releases shocking data on lead, mercury and cadmium in dog and cat treats

Monday, April 21, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) My food science research in the Natural News Forensic Food Labs has turned up yet another alarming discovery... and this time, it's about pet treats that may be poisoning your dogs and cats with toxic heavy metals.
Over the last several months, I've been testing popular brands of pet treats sold by retailers like Amazon.com, and what I found is downright alarming:
• An astonishing 1.8 ppm of lead in Mundy Rawhide Gourmet Dog Treats made by a company called Cadet. The treats are made in China and labeled "NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION."
• A startling 6 ppm of cadmium found in "Red Shrimp" reptile treats made by Zoo Med.
• A shocking level of mercury -- over 0.5 ppm found in "Ocean Whitefish" cat treats made by PureBites and labeled "100% natural" and "made in the USA."
• Over 1.5 ppm lead found in "Natural Rawhide Rings" dog treats from a company called PetSafe. The product package says "Protect. Teach. Love." and is made in Taiwan.
See the full results right now for over 16 products at the Natural News Forensic Food Labs results page.
All results were achieved via ICP-MS laboratory testing that I conducted myself, using EPA-approved methodology variations. The Natural News Forensic Food Lab is in the process of achieving ISO 17025 accreditation.

Watch out! You may be poisoning your pet

What these results show is that high levels of toxic heavy metals are commonly found in pet treats. Even worse, these heavy metals are invisible to the human eye, and because they aren't labeled on products, there's no way to know how much lead, mercury, cadmium or arsenic you may be unintentionally feeding to your pet.
The picture on the right shows chew sticks that contain alarmingly high levels of lead, but you don't see the lead in the photo, do you?
Shockingly, manufacturers never disclose heavy metals content on product labels, and retailers almost never test for heavy metals. To my knowledge, Natural News Store is the only retailer in the world that tests everything we sell for heavy metals. Amazon.com never tests what it sells, and don't expect other retailers to, either.
See the PetSafe natural rawhide rings on the left? They're made in Taiwan from rawhide, sorbitol and potassium sorbate. But they also contain over 1.5 ppm of lead.
Just to give you an idea of what that really means, just one rawhide ring weighing 8 grams would expose your dog to over 24 times the daily lead limit set by California Proposition 65. That's almost a month's worth of lead in a single pet treat.
See the full results right now at the Natural News Forensic Food Labs results page, where more than 16 pet treats are detailed.

Contaminated pet treats can kill your favorite dog or cat

Contaminated pet treats can kill your dogs or cats. The FDA openly warns about this on its website(1), saying:
Since 2007, FDA has become aware of an increasing number of illnesses in pets associated with the consumption of jerky pet treats. As of September 24, 2013, FDA has received approximately 3000 reports of pet illnesses which may be related to consumption of the jerky treats. Most of the reports involve jerky products sourced from China. The majority of the complaints involve dogs, but cats also have been affected. The reports involve more than 3600 dogs, 10 cats and include more than 580 deaths.
Over the years, thousands of family pets have been killed by contaminated pet treats, and more deaths will occur until this industry is required to meet stringent quality standards.
Sadly, the FDA still has no limits on heavy metals in pet treats or pet food, so a company can legally manufacture pet treats containing almost any level of heavy metal toxins while legally selling that product at Amazon.com or your favorite pet store.
The USDA, similarly, has no limits on heavy metals in certified organic pet food. So even "organic" pet foods and treats can contain extremely toxic levels of heavy metals while being certified organic by the U.S. government.
And while heavily-contaminated pet treats can kill your pet in a matter of hours or days, pet treats with sub-acute levels of heavy metals can still cause long-term chronic poisoning over time, where the heavy metals build up with each cumulative exposure.

Are there any pet treats with low heavy metals?

Yes! In fact, my laboratory research was able to verify that the "Real Meat Healthy Gourmet Dog & Puppy Treats" product made by the Real Meat Company(2) was remarkably low in heavy metals, registering zero cadmium, mercury and arsenic while showing only a tiny trace of lead.

Read More Here

Alberta High School student’s science project finds high radiation levels in grocery-store seafood

 

 

   Daily Herald Tribune

Local science project finds high levels of radiation in seaweed

By Elizabeth McSheffrey, Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune

Tuesday, March 25, 2014 3:38:37 MDT PM

Grade 10 Composite High School student Bronwyn Delacruz shows off her Geiger Counter, a handheld detector that measures ionizing radiation in certain food products. Elizabeth McSheffrey/Daily Herald-Tribune

When Bronwyn Delacruz started testing seaweed in her living room last August, she made an incredible discovery: Something unexpected may be lurking in Canadian waters.
The Composite High School Grade 10 student has found disconcerting radiation levels in seaweed products from local grocery stores and is concerned for the health of families who may be consuming them.
Her research on the subject recently earned gold at the regional Canada-Wide Science Fair in Peace River, garnering her a spot at the national competition in Ontario this May.
“I think any dose of radiation can be harmful,” she explained. “Any dose can cause negative health effects, no matter how small it may be.”
Delacruz tested more than 300 individual seaweed samples, with 15 brands exported from New Brunswick, British Columbia, California, Washington, China and Japan.
Each was purchased in an Alberta grocery store, and evaluated for radiation levels using a Geiger counter.
“I just wanted to see if it was contaminated and I did find radioactive contamination in it,” she said. “I’m kind of concerned that this is landing in our grocery stores and that if you aren’t measuring it, you could just be eating this and bringing home to your family.”
Radioactivity is measured in becquerels (Bq), and 0.5 Bq per square centimetre is widely considered an actionable level of contamination.
Delacruz said one Bq is equivalent to 1,450 counts over a 10-minute period, and many of her samples tested well over this amount.
“Kelp was higher than what washttp://www.dailyheraldtribune.com/ considered dangerous,” she explained. “Some of them came up to 1,700, 1,800 (counts).”
The student’s research delves further than surface measurements however, and speculates a cause for the unusual counts.
In March 2011, Japan was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami that led to the meltdown of two Fukushima nuclear power plants.
Delacruz believes the current has carried dangerous radiation from Japan’s east coast to Canada’s portion of the Pacific Ocean.
From April 2011 to October 2012, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) tested more than 250 samples of imported foods from Japan, including fish and seafood, processed product, grain, fruit and vegetables.
None of the samples posed a health risk to consumers, it said, based on a Health Canada action level of 1,000 Bq/kg.

Read More Here


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Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Japan Nuclear Crisis: Information for Canadians Regarding Imported and Domestic Food

Following the March 11 earthquake in Japan, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) took several measures to assess and protect the Canadian food supply from potential effects of Japan's nuclear crisis. In coordination with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and other government and international partners, the CFIA implemented enhanced import controls, which did not allow food and animal feed products from affected areas in Japan to enter Canada without acceptable documentation or test results verifying their safety.
The CFIA also launched a sampling and testing strategy to monitor radiation levels of imported food from Japan, domestic milk and domestic fish off the coast of British Columbia. More than 200 food samples were tested and all were found to be below Health Canada's actionable levels for radioactivity. As such, enhanced import controls have been lifted and no additional testing is planned.

Japan

• Test Results for Imported Food Products from Japan September-October 2012
• Test Results for Imported Food Products from Japan April-June 2011

British Columbia

• Test Results for Domestic Milk from British Columbia
• Test Results for Domestic Fish from British Columbia

Nevertheless, the CFIA continues to monitor events in Japan and assess any potential impacts on Canada's food supply. Canadian officials continue to collect and assess intelligence from Japanese officials, Canada's mission abroad and international authorities. Domestically, atmospheric monitoring continues and Health Canada continues to regularly monitor for radionuclides in food sold in Canada through its Total Diet Study. This would include imports from Japan. As well, Japanese controls on the sale of contaminated product remain intact.

• Canadian Total Diet Study

Additional Information

• Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
• Health Canada - Information Update: No radiation at harmful levels will reach Canada
• World Health Organization - Japan nuclear concerns (food safety)

Date modified:

2014-02-25

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Why Are Babies Dying in China After Receiving the Hepatitis B Vaccine?

Health Impact News

At least nine babies have died in China the past few weeks after being injected with the Hepatitis B vaccine.

In China, the Hepatitis B vaccine is given in three stages. The first shot is taken immediately after birth. The second and third shots of the vaccine are taken after a baby is one month and then six months old.

The pharmaceutical company manufacturing the vaccine has conducted quality control tests on the batch currently in the market, and has not found anything wrong with the vaccine. Similar statements have been made by health authorities:

The drug supervision department in Shenzhen says their test results indicate the vaccines were safe.

“According to our investigation, BioKangtai has produced the vaccine strictly under required standards. And their samples have passed our tests.” Wang Lifeng with Drug Administration of Shenzhen said.

The deaths, which have occurred within a very short time after receiving the vaccine, are gaining wide exposure in the China media. Because vaccines are almost always promoted as safe, injuries and deaths often are not associated with the vaccine, so there may be more deaths than have currently been reported. One of the deaths was reported by a family member after hearing about other babies dying shortly after receiving the vaccine in the media. When the family originally was fighting to save the baby from dying, they had not suspected the vaccine.

Read More Here

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NY Times

China Investigates Vaccine Maker After Deaths of Infants

By DAVID BARBOZA

Published: December 25, 2013

SHANGHAI — Health authorities in China are investigating one of the nation’s biggest vaccine makers after eight infants died in the past two months following injections that were meant to immunize them against hepatitis B.

The government said this week that it had suspended the use of millions of doses of a hepatitis B vaccine produced by the manufacturer, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products. Government inspectors have been sent to examine the company’s facilities.

Six of the deaths have been linked to vaccines produced by Shenzhen Kangtai; the two other infant deaths occurred recently after the use of a hepatitis B vaccine produced by another drug maker, Beijing Tiantan Biological Products. The government did not say whether any action had been taken against Beijing Tiantan or its vaccines. Investigators have not determined the cause of the deaths or linked them directly to the injections, but the cases come at a time of growing public concern in China about food and drug safety problems.

In recent years, China has been troubled by a series of scandals, including tainted rice and milk and the mysterious appearance of thousands of dead pigs floating in the Huangpu River in Shanghai. China has vowed repeatedly to crack down on food and drug safety violations and has moved to strengthen the powers of health officials.

In the vaccine cases, the government is focusing on the role of Shenzhen Kangtai, a privately run drug maker formed in 1992 with government support and the cooperation of the American pharmaceutical company Merck.

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Hundreds of dogs killed by contaminated jerky treats made in China; FDA still mystified by cause

Thursday, October 24, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
(NaturalNews) Thousands of family dogs across the USA have been sickened by pet jerky treats made in China, and nearly 600 dogs have died. The FDA has issued a warning over the deadly jerky treats but has not forced any sort of product recall.
So far, the cause of the fatalities remains a mystery. The FDA says it has tested jerky treats for heavy metals, pesticides, antibiotics, chemicals and even Salmonella but cannot find the cause. The agency is warning pet owners to watch their pets for symptoms of poisoning which may include "decreased appetite, decreased activity, vomiting, diarrhea (sometimes with blood or mucus), increased water consumption and / or increased urination."
Click here to view the FDA's fact sheet on contaminated jerky treats.
According to USA Today, the deadly jerky treats "come mostly from China," and the number of dogs sickened or killed by these treats has been rising all year.
The treats causing this epidemic of death, says USA Today, are "made of chicken, duck, sweet potatoes or dried fruit."

Beware of pet treats made in China

Most consumers do not fully realize that pet treats do NOT have to list their country of origin. Many pet treats are highly deceptive on their packaging, sometimes showing a logo of the continental USA and claiming to be "made with beef from the USA" even though the treats themselves are manufactured in China using toxic chemicals.
The FDA has not issued a recall on the brands it suspects are causing these deaths. This is one of the problems with the agency: it already knows which products are killing dogs, but it has so far failed to release that information to the public. As a result, as more and more people learn about this, all pet treat manufacturers will suffer because consumers will shun the entire product category.

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