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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
 Fri May 17, 2002 6:57 am
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Here's an article that fits in this thread Phantom.
Yonkers building evacuated after chemical scare; 6 people sick
By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press, 5/16/2002 23:08
YONKERS, N.Y. (AP) A four-story apartment building was evacuated Thursday night after six residents who ate together became ill because of what authorities feared was cyanide contamination. ''They thought it was cyanide,'' said Susan Tolchin, a spokeswoman for Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano. ''Then they thought it was food poisoning. They don't know what it is. They really don't know.''
The six people, all from an apartment on the building's top floor, were taken to St. Joseph's Medical Center; two were in critical condition and the others were stable, hospital spokesman Nicholas DeRobertis said.
The two critical patients were unconscious and on life support, Mayor John Spencer said. The other residents of the 18-apartment building were taken to a nearby parish hall. There were ''some other people'' in the apartment with the victims who did not get sick, and health officials were leaning toward a cause that was food related and was not airborne, Spencer said. ''Some did not eat,'' he said, ''and they're all right.''
The FBI and state terrorism officials were helping local police with the investigation ''due to the sensitivity of it and the times we live in,'' the mayor said. The contaminant was ''some sort of poison ... possibly cyanide,'' he said.
Police Commissioner Charles Cola said the victims' conditions deteriorated very quickly, not typical for food poisoning victims, leading him to believe ''it was some kind of chemical they ingested.'' He said police were trying to find out ''what food it was, how it got there and what was in it.''
The hospital's emergency room was quarantined briefly as a precaution. It was tested, deemed safe and reopened. Police officers, firefighters and hazardous-materials teams surrounded the Nepperhan Avenue building after the 8 p.m. evacuation. No other buildings were affected, but nearby streets were cordoned off. Police said they didn't know if the people in the apartment were related.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/136/region/Yonkers_building_evacuated_aft:.shtml
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Dan Rockwell on 05-17-2002] |
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hooligan
Joined: 02 Feb 2002
Posts: 76
Location: Seattle |
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Fri May 17, 2002 5:18 pm
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lots of cyanide out there somewhere...
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police found a stolen truck on Thursday that had been carrying 10 tons of sodium cyanide, but most of the deadly chemicals were missing.
The Environmental Ministry urged border guards to take precautions to ensure that large amounts of the chemical weren't smuggled out of the country. Officials called the alert "precautionary" and said there was no evidence any sodium cyanide had left Mexico.
Authorities cordoned off the area around where the truck was discovered, abandoned along a highway in Zacatlan, about 120 miles northwest of Mexico City in central Puebla state.
Only about half a ton of the cyanide, contained in barrels, was still inside the truck and investigators were searching for the remainder, police said http://foxnews.com/story/0,2933,53008,00.html |
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Fri May 17, 2002 6:09 pm
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Thanks Hooligan. - Now they're blaming what happened to those people in New York on a mystery illness.
Food Cited in N.Y. Illness Mystery
By Jim Fitzgerald
Associated Press Writer
Friday, May 17, 2002; 10:06 AM
YONKERS, N.Y. –– Six people became suddenly and violently ill in an apartment, sparking a chemical-contamination scare that led to the evacuation of the building and the deployment of hazardous materials workers and anti-terrorist agents.
Officials said later that the illness was probably caused by something in the victims' food, but the outbreak was still being treated as a possible crime."We're leaning toward some kind of food poisoning because of the violent way they got sick," Police Commissioner Charles Cola said Friday. He mentioned botulism as one disease that might match the symptoms.
Two people were in critical condition and on life support, Mayor John Spencer said. The others were listed as stable, said Dr. Nicholas DeRobertis of St. Joseph's Medical Center."It's definitely something they ingested, that they ate or drank, but we don't know what," he said.
Tests that might determine the cause of the illness would not be finished until much later Friday, the hospital said.The hospital closed briefly when emergency room workers reported rashes that may have been caused by contact with the victims. But tests showed no airborne contamination or contagion, Spencer said. He urged residents to be calm, saying, "It looks like everything is going to be all right."
The New York City anti-terrorism task force was called in Thursday night "due to the sensitivity of it and the times we live in," the mayor said.
Spencer initially said the illness seemed to be caused by "some kind of poison," and cyanide was considered a possibility. Cola said the victims' conditions deteriorated quickly.
The victims, whose names were not released, had eaten together in the apartment less than a mile north of the New York city line. Other people in the apartment who had not eaten did not become ill, the mayor said.
Residents of the 18-unit building, including several children, were taken to an auditorium and tended by Red Cross workers until police allowed them to return home before dawn."They said it wasn't something you could see and so I didn't know which way to go," said neighborhood resident Lawrence Kelly, 22. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32491-2002May17.html
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Dan Rockwell on 05-17-2002] |
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KrissaTMC2
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Greenwich, CT, USA |
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Sun May 19, 2002 6:43 pm
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Today: May 19, 2002 at 7:25:16 PDT
Food Preservative Blamed for Illness
YONKERS, N.Y.- A food preservative was to blame for the sudden outbreak of illness that triggered a chemical-contamination scare in downtown Yonkers, a health official said.
"The food that the family digested was heavily contaminated with sodium nitrite," said Mary Landrigan, spokeswoman for the Westchester County Department of Health. "In that quantity it can be deadly."
Six victims were taken to St. Joseph's Medical Center Thursday night with severe breathing problems, bluish pallors and mental confusion. Because the cause was not immediately known, police, firefighters, hazardous-materials workers and anti-terrorist agents were deployed.
One victim remained in critical condition Saturday; another was in critical but stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said. The other victims have been released.
Health officials said the victims, identified only as adults of Egyptian heritage, had been at a dinner party featuring a dish that included processed food from Egypt.
Officials narrowed their hunt for a cause Saturday to a substance, in a packet labeled in English and Arabic, that the victims said they had sprinkled on their meal.
"A sample from a packet labeled 'refined iodized table salt' did not contain table salt - it was 100 percent sodium nitrite," Landrigan said.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/may/19/051907373.html
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KrissaTMC2
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Greenwich, CT, USA |
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Sun May 19, 2002 7:01 pm
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Here's some more information on Sodium Nitrate.
SODIUM NITRATE
MSDS Number: S4442 --- Effective Date: 11/02/01
Potential Health Effects
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Inhalation:
Inhalation of dust irritates the respiratory tract. Symptoms may include coughing, shortness of breath.
Ingestion:
May cause gastroenteritis and abdominal pains. Other symptoms may include dizziness, bloody diarrhea, convulsions, and collapse. Purging and diuresis can be expected. Small repeated doses may cause headache and mental impairment. Rare cases of nitrates being converted to the more toxic nitrites have been reported, mostly with infants.
Skin Contact:
May cause irritation, symptoms including redness, itching, and pain.
Eye Contact:
May cause irritation, symptoms including redness, itching, and pain.
Chronic Exposure:
Under some circumstances methemoglobinemia occurs in individuals when the nitrate is converted by bacteria in the stomach to nitrite. Nausea, vomiting, dizziness, rapid heart beat, irregular breathing, convulsions, coma, and death can occur should this conversion take place.
Aggravation of Pre-existing Conditions:
Workers with a history of kidney or lung disease may be more susceptible to the effects of this substance.
http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/s4442.htm
What is Sodium Nitrite?
Sodium nitrite is a food additive that has been used for decades to preserve meats, poultry and fish.
When used alone or in conjunction with sodium nitrate, nitrite gives cured meats their characteristic reddish-pink color, flavor and texture. Nitrite and salt also inhibit the outgrowth of C. botulinum.
Sources of Sodium Nitrite
More than 85 percent of a person's daily intake of nitrite comes from nitrate in green, leafy vegetables or root vegetables, such as lettuce, spinach and carrots, and some drinking water. At most, about 5 percent of a person's daily intake comes from cured meats.
Role of Sodium Nitrite in the Body
Sodium nitrite has a number of biological functions in the body. Your body needs a certain level of nitrite in order to fight bacteria found in the stomach and protect against bacterial illnesses, such as gastroenteritis. In fact, your body produces nitrite from sodium nitrate through a naturally occurring chemical process in the saliva.
Sodium nitrate that is consumed is absorbed quickly in the body and the majority is eliminated from the body through urine in approximately five hours. A portion of the nitrate is secreted into the salivary glands, and a small percentage (approximately 5 percent) of the salivary nitrate is reduced to nitrite in the saliva and travels down the gastrointestinal tract to the stomach.
In the stomach, nitrite can form nitric oxide. Nitric oxide has been found to serve as a biological messenger in important physiological functions, such as healing wounds and burns, controlling blood pressure and boosting immunity.
The body generates more nitrite through this process than is ingested through food. Some scientists believe that the body's natural production of nitrite from foods may be a part of its defense mechanism since nitrite inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria and prevents deadly food-borne diseases.
How Safe is the Use of Sodium Nitrite in Cured Meats?
Some of the concern about nitrite grew out of the fact that nitrites could potentially react in the stomach with certain chemicals that are released during protein digestion to produce a chemical known as N-nitrosamines. N-nitrosamines has been associated with cancer in animals.
There also were a number of studies during the 1970s that linked the consumption of nitrite with cancer in laboratory animals or associated the consumption of cured meats with illnesses in children. As a result of some lingering concerns about nitrite safety, the FDA and the USDA commissioned a comprehensive review of sodium nitrite's role as a food additive.
The results were two scientific reports from the National Academy of Sciences (issued in 1981 and 1982). The 1981 report stated that nitrate does not cause cancer, although some population studies have found an association between high exposure to nitrate levels and certain cancers. Also, nitrite does not act directly as a cancer-causing agent in animals. The NAS recommended that both these issues be researched further. The NAS also recommended that people's exposure to both nitrates and nitrites be reduced as much as possible without jeopardizing the protection against botulism.
The 1982 NAS report investigated alternatives to the use of nitrate in foods. Although there were some promising results, a workable alternative has not yet been found.
Recent Developments on Nitrite Safety
Two important actions in the year 2000 have reinforced the message that the use of sodium nitrite in cured meats is safe and is not associated with cancer risk in humans.
The first is a thorough review of the results of sodium nitrite studies by the National Toxicology Program, which undertook the review at the request of the FDA. After carefully considering all the evidence presented, the NTP Board of Scientific Counselors voted unanimously in May 2000 that the evidence showed that sodium nitrite does not cause cancer in male rats, male mice or female rats. While they found "equivocal evidence" in the forestomachs of female mice, the scientists have determined that the finding is not relevant to human health because humans do not have forestomachs. This comprehensive review by NTP shows that sodium nitrite does not cause cancer in laboratory animals, even when they are fed massive doses throughout the animals' lifetime.
The second action occurred in the state of California, where a panel of independent expert toxicologists reviewing almost 100 scientific publications about sodium nitrite voted that the evidence does not show that sodium nitrite causes developmental or reproductive toxicity. If found by the DART committee to be harmful, sodium nitrite would have been listed under the state's Proposition 65 law, which was enacted to protect citizens against known cancer-causing agents and reproductive toxicants.
Use of Sodium Nitrite Today
The FDA and USDA have deemed sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate, or the combination, as safe to use as a preservative for meat and poultry at specific, regulated levels. By law, the curing process must result in no more than 200 parts per million (ppm) of sodium nitrite in the finished meat or poultry product.
The cured meat industry made substantial changes to the manufacturing process in the past 20 years to address some of the concerns about nitrite in cured meats. It has stopped using sodium nitrate (except for some specialty meats) in major meat processes and reduced the use of nitrite in the processing of cured meats. Residual levels of nitrite found in nitrite-cured meats have decreased in the past 20 years and now average one-tenth of what the regulations actually allow. The industry also has increased the use of two other substances – ascorbate and erythorbate – in the curing process, which are known to deplete residual nitrite and inhibit the production of N-nitrosamines. http://www.medem.com/MedLB/article_detaillb.cfm?article_ID=ZZZ80XEN0IC&sub_cat=380
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Mon May 20, 2002 5:46 am
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It's interesting how quickly the story was downgraded from a possible incident of cyanide poisioning, to a mystery illness and then to sodium nitrate poisoning. |
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Fri May 24, 2002 5:15 am
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May 22, 2002
Mislabeling Cited in Mystery Illness
YONKERS, N.Y.- A chemical that poisoned six people at a dinner party has been traced to a bag labeled "salt" that instead contained sodium nitrite. The mislabeled bag apparently came from a meat-curing business. The chemical is often used as a preservative in small amounts. Commissioner Charles Cola said Tuesday that one of the victims had found and kept the bag when she cleaned out the apartment of a man who had moved back to Egypt. "The bag was factory sealed on the top and looked like it was unopened, but on the bottom it was stapled closed," he said. "The guy had apparently used it to store sodium nitrite, maybe from bigger bags. So these people opened it thinking it was a fresh bag of salt, and meanwhile it was a repackaged bag of sodium nitrite." Cola said there were other properly labeled bags of sodium nitrite in the apartment. Police have not yet spoken to the man. All six victims survived the Thursday night poisoning, which sparked initial fears of chemical contamination. One remained hospitalized in stable condition. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/may/22/052203773.html
USA: Wendy's sandwich "exploded" says woman in lawsuit
21 May 2002
Source: just-food.com editorial team
Mitzi Pumphrey was in court last weekend to demand no less than US$25,000 in compensation from Wendy’s quick service restaurant chain, claiming that she suffered severe burns when a chicken sandwich purchased at the company “exploded” onto her face and hands.
The Clyde, Ohio woman filed the suit in Sandusky County Common Pleas Court, and insisted that US$25,000 is a reasonable amount given the level of suffering inflicted on her and family by the exploding sandwich.
Her attorney, Samuel Bolotin, explained that there must have been a defect in the design of the chicken sandwich, and that the jury should make a judgment against Wendy’s because its employees failed to warn customers of the potential dangers involved in eating one. http://just-food.com/news_detail.asp?art=49585&app=1&c=1
Tainted meat eluding detection
Critics: USDA bacteria testing system plagued by problems
ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 23 — A bacteria testing system meant to ensure that ground beef is safe instead is allowing potentially tainted meat to be put on the market, consumer advocacy groups said Thursday.
A STUDY OF Agriculture Department records found the meat safety system plagued by delays after it was started in early 1998.
At some plants, testing stopped for months at a time before being completed. In other cases, the department waited weeks to take corrective action at plants that had clearly flunked, said the report released by Public Citizen and the Government Accountability Project.
The report accused USDA of operating under a “don’t look, don’t find policy” that is “fundamentally deceiving the public with false reassurances” about the safety of meat.
Elsa Murano, USDA’s undersecretary for food safety, said the testing system “is continuously being reviewed, evaluated and improved” and that the department is “aggressively targeting” plants that fail to control bacteria.
The groups said the findings raise questions about testing data that the department has presented as evidence of reduced salmonella contamination at plants.
“Companies were failing these tests and USDA was allowing them to continue to put out meat stamped inspected and approved for extended periods of time, and they’re still doing it,” said Carol Tucker Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America’s Food Policy Institute.
In addition to being a health hazard itself, the presence of salmonella is considered by USDA to be an indication of sanitation problems in meat plants. The Clinton administration developed the testing program after a 1993 E. coli outbreak linked to tainted burgers killed four people and sickened hundreds.
Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in children, the frail and the elderly. Healthy people infected with salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
LENGTHY PROCESS
Under USDA’s rules, ground beef processors are considered to have failed the tests if six of 53 meat samples test positive for the bacteria. But even if the first six samples are positive, USDA doesn’t consider a plant to have failed until all 53 samples are completed — a process that can take months, the report said.
At one Texas plant cited by the report, 16 weeks passed after the sixth positive sample was discovered before any corrective action was required, the report said. By the time all 53 samples were collected, 25 were positive for salmonella. At an Arkansas plant, it was 19 weeks after the sixth positive sample until the department took action.
USDA officials say they wait until the testing is complete to require corrective action so they can determine the extent of the problem.
Other data in the report indicated the pace of testing accelerated from 1998 to 2001.
“It’s accurate to say at the beginning of the testing program there were more gaps than there are now. The agency has been upfront and open in recognizing that this was a big undertaking,” said Patricia Abraham, who oversees the testing program.
Last year, the Bush administration abandoned a court battle with the meat industry over the government’s authority to close plants that repeatedly failed the tests. An appeals court said in December that salmonella alone doesn’t make meat unsafe and ruled the department could not close plants based on the test results.
UNSCIENTIFIC STANDARDS?
The testing standards are based on average contamination rates in the 1990s and vary with the type of meat and poultry. The meat industry says they are not scientifically based.
“If the presence or absence of salmonella on a raw product were a measure of whether a product is safe or unsafe, then the government would be forced to require that only canned and cooked foods be sold,” said Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, a trade group.
USDA long has credited the testing for its reported drops in salmonella levels on meat and poultry. Industry officials say the decline is due to improvements they have made in plant sanitation systems.
Last year, 2.8 percent of ground beef tested positive for salmonella bacteria, compared with 3.3 percent in 2000 and 6.4 percent in 1998, according to the Agriculture Department.
The department recently announced that it would start requiring beef-grinding plants to have at least one anti-microbial treatment for beef — or else buy their meat from a slaughterhouse that does. http://www.msnbc.com/news/756543.asp?cp1=1#BODY
[Edited 2 times, lastly by Dan Rockwell on 05-23-2002] |
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Wed Jun 12, 2002 1:36 am
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White House Opposes Biotech Labels
By Paul Elias
AP Biotechnology Writer
Monday, June 10, 2002; 9:18 PM
TORONTO –– The Bush administration opposes the labeling of genetically engineered food, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson told the world's premier biotechnology industry gathering.
"Mandatory labeling will only frighten consumers," he said during a breakfast speech Monday at the BIO 2002 conference. "Labeling implies that biotechnology products are unsafe."
Labeling food produced through genetic engineering is a touchy subject for the U.S. biotech industry, both at home and abroad. Domestically, the industry worries that labels would sour consumer demand.
Abroad, however, 19 countries require labeling and the European Union has since 1998 banned the sale of any new engineered products. The ban has angered U.S. exporters and hampered the growth of European agricultural biotech firms. The EU is expected to consider lifting the ban later this year, but may require labeling.
Some 70 percent of the world's biotech food is grown in the United States. Soy and corn genetically engineered to be pest- or herbicide-resistant are used in a wide variety of foods and drinks. The Food and Drug Administration says the ingredients are just as safe as those produced by conventional methods.
U.S. officials have said the labeling could cost U.S. companies $4 billion a year.
Thompson said biotechnology can lead to safer food that are better for the environment because of improved crop yields, among other benefits.
Critics complain that not enough testing has been done to determine the long-term health effects of splicing the genes of two species together to create food.
"The science is so immature, we don't know what we are doing," Canadian genetics professor David Suzuki said at an anti-biotech rally in a Toronto park on Sunday. If you took Bono out of U2 and stuck him in the Toronto Symphony and said make music, noise would come out but you have no way of knowing what it would sound like."
Thompson on Monday also called on drug makers to lower their costs and promised to overhaul the approval process of the FDA.
"We are creating an FDA where risk management is the rule and not the exception," he said. "You will not recognize the FDA a year from now."
He said the FDA currently treats all applications the same, whether its for cosmetics or lifesaving drugs.
While the FDA is streamlining its application process, Thompson called on drug makers to lower the cost of their products.
"They're looked at as part of the problem instead of part of the solution," he told a news conference. Some drugs sold in the United States sell for 40 percent less in other countries, including Canada, Thompson noted.
If drug companies don't heed the call to lower their prices, public and regulatory pressure could ultimately lead to price controls, he said.
Thompson also said that the impact on his department of President Bush's proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security have not yet been detailed. Bush proposed to move 300 workers, mostly involved with bioterrorism research, and $4 billion from Thompson's agency to the new department.
Thompson also said a permanent FDA chief could be nominated "within a few weeks." The post has been vacant since Bush's inauguration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28346-2002Jun10.html
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Thu Jun 27, 2002 12:34 am
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Today: June 26, 2002 at 11:00:23 PDT
Hundreds Fall Ill on Spain's Holiday
ASSOCIATED PRESSGIRONA, Spain- Forty-four people were hospitalized and another 832 fell ill after eating a local delicacy at a festival on Spain's northeastern holiday coast, the region's healthy ministry said Wednesday. The outbreaks of vomiting, diarrhea and fever were traced to "cocas," a creme-filled pastry sold over the weekend at an outdoor summer event in Torroella de Montgri, 70 miles northeast of Barcelona.
The ministry said first analysis showed the presence of the salmonella bacteria, which is more often found to contaminate eggs. Most people recover within a week without treatment, but the infection can be deadly.
The regional health minister, Joaquim Casanovas, warned that the number of victims could rise significantly since the bakery making the cocas had produced 6,800 portions.
Casanovas said violations of hygiene codes had been discovered at the bakery in Torroella, according to the news agency.
Thirteen of the infected are under 14 and nine of them are elderly people, the ministry said in a statement. The bakery that made the pastries has been shut down pending an investigation. Casanovas said the establishment passed an inspection in March, but had been required to make certain improvements that he did not specify.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jun/26/062601236.html
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Today: June 26, 2002 at 11:00:23 PDT
Cancer-Causing Food Report Expected
ASSOCIATED PRESSGENEVA- An emergency U.N.-sponsored meeting of experts on food safety has examined what is known about newly suspected cancer-causing substance acrylamide and is preparing recommendations for release to consumers Thursday, a spokesman said.
The three-day meeting that started Tuesday was called to determine why acrylamide forms in some french fries and other products and how to keep the substance at safe levels.
"Part of the mystery so far is what is the chemical process or the chemical reaction that causes acrylamide to form," said Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the World Health Organization. Hartl said the two dozen experts from Europe, North America and Japan were expecting to work late into the night "looking at their conclusions."
"They've been kicking around what's known and deciding what's not known and what they will be able to say on Thursday in terms of recommendations to national food authorities and to consumers," Hartl said.
The recommendations may include such details as the safest temperature for cooking french fries and the quantities of different foods that can safely be consumed, he said.
The meeting was organized after initial tests in Europe - subsequently backed up by a study in the United States - found high levels of acrylamide in some foods.
Acrylamide, used to produce plastics and dyes and to purify drinking water, has been shown to be carcinogenic in animal experiments and is suspected of causing cancer among people exposed to high levels for long periods. Although traces of it have been found in water, its possible presence at high levels in basic foods came as a shock.
A Swedish study published in April sounded the first alarm that some starch-based foods cooked at high temperatures contained acrylamide. Subsequent studies in Norway, Britain, Switzerland and the United States basically backed up the findings of Sweden's National Food Administration.
A number of scientists have expressed misgivings about the validity of the Swedish results, which were based on 100 foods, and were released at a government news conference rather than passing through normal peer review procedures in a scientific journal.
Food industry representatives also said the study findings had yet to be confirmed. Mary Sophos, spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, said people shouldn't change their diets based on the initial findings such as those released Tuesday by the Washington-based consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
"CSPI's news release is premature and misleading," Sophos said. "We don't yet have enough information to make any informed statements about acrylamide. We must allow the experts in Geneva to do their work."
The U.S. findings agreed with European findings that french fries had the highest levels of acrylamide. Potato chips also had high levels. But the U.S. group found puzzling variation in levels.
One brand of corn chips had a tiny amount of acrylamide while another had a moderate amount and a brand of similarly made corn taco shells had high levels. The U.S. federal Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it had developed its own method to test precise levels of acrylamide in foods and has begun testing dozens of different products.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jun/26/062601379.html
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Today: June 26, 2002 at 8:00:38 PDT
Some Foods May Cut Alzheimer's Risk
ASSOCIATED PRESSCHICAGO- Eating nuts, leafy green vegetables and other foods rich in antioxidants such as vitamin E may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's, two studies suggest.
The findings build on growing research into the effects of antioxidants on dementia. The latest studies seem to suggest that vitamin-rich foods, but not vitamin supplements, have beneficial effects.
The researchers, however, said more definitive studies are needed. The connection, at least, is considered plausible: Antioxidant vitamins have been shown to block the effects of oxygen molecules called free radicals, which can damage cells and are thought to contribute to cancer and heart disease.
And lesions typically associated with exposure to free radicals have been found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. One of the studies found strong effects from vitamins E and C. In the other, results from vitamin E foods were more conclusive, but researchers said there was a suggestion vitamin C also provided benefits.
Previous research suggested that vitamin E pills could slow disease progression in people already diagnosed with Alzheimer's. The new studies examined people who had not developed the mind-robbing ailment at the outset and suggested no effect from pills.
But pill use was somewhat uncommon and of comparatively short duration in both studies.
The studies appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. One study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, involved 815 Chicago residents 65 and older who had no initial symptoms of mental decline.
They were questioned about their eating habits and followed for an average of about four years. Alzheimer's developed in 131 participants. It was diagnosed in 14.3 percent of those with the lowest intake of vitamin E foods, compared with 5.9 percent of those with the highest intake.
When factors such as age and education were taken into account, the highest-intake group faced a 70 percent lower risk of developing the disease. Intake of vitamin C, found in foods such as citrus fruits, also appeared to have offer some protection, but those results were not statistically significant, said lead researcher Martha Clare Morris of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.
Morris said participants with the highest vitamin E intake ate amounts that could be obtained from a diet that includes whole-grain cereal for breakfast, a sandwich with whole-grain bread for lunch and a dinner including a green leafy salad sprinkled with nuts. There was no protective effect in participants with a gene variation called apoplipoprotein E-4, which has been linked to the development of Alzheimer's.
The other study, from Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, involved 5,395 people in the Netherlands 55 and older who were followed for an average of about six years. Alzheimer's developed in 146 participants. Those with high intakes of vitamins E and C were less likely to become afflicted, regardless of whether they had the gene variation.
"The idea that vitamin E and vitamin C might have beneficial effects on the underlying Alzheimer's disease process makes sense, and it seems unlikely that antioxidant-rich foods would negatively affect brain aging," Daniel Foley of the National Institute on Aging and Dr. Lon White of Pacific Health Research Institute in Honolulu said in an accompanying editorial. Still, they noted several limitations in both studies, including relying on participants' memories of their eating habits and not following them longer.
National Institute on Aging scientist Neil Buckholtz said several NIA-funded studies are attempting to help answer whether antioxidants in food or pills affect mental decline.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jun/26/062601009.html
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Fri Jun 28, 2002 10:29 pm
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Loads of Radioactive Berries Seized
The Associated Press
Friday, June 28, 2002; 2:17 PM
MOSCOW –– Nearly 1,500 pounds of berries from an area heavily hit by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster were seized this month from Moscow markets because of radioactive contamination, an official announced on Friday.
The bilberries, akin to blueberries, were found to have 14 times the acceptable levels cesium, said Yelena Ter-Markirosova, spokeswoman for Radon, the capital's radiation-monitoring agency.
She said experts had confiscated 1,472 pounds of the berries – grown in western Belarus – since June 18.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61958-2002Jun28.html
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rainheart
Joined: 03 Oct 2001
Posts: 175
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Sat Jun 29, 2002 2:58 am
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RCMP seek cause of mystery illness
by Nova Pierson
Calgary Sun
Security and medical officials are trying to determine how 30 Mounties stationed at Kananaskis for the G-8 summit ended up with symptoms of food poisoning.
http://www.calgarysun.com/cgi-bin/niveau2.cgi?s=generic&p=59107.html&a=1
Case closed on Mountie misery
The case of the sick Mounties has been officially closed and what caused 30 officers to become ill on Sunday will remain a mystery.
"The RCMP sees this investigation as basically over," said Const. Max Johann with the G-8 security office.
Food poisoning from food served at the Nakiska Camp where the ill officers are stationed has been ruled out.
Traverse Food Services is cooking once again for cops who are stationed in Kananaskis for the G-8.
2002-06-26
http://www.calgarysun.com/cgi-bin/niveau2.cgi?s=generic17&p=59167.html&a=1
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Sat Jun 29, 2002 3:22 am
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Thanks for the information about the Acrylamide rainheart. It's disturbing to know that quite a bit of it ended up here in Connecticut. I went on a tour of a water treatment plant not too long ago and was surprised by what kind of chemicals that they were dumping into the drinking water besides Flouride and Clorine.
That story about the RCMP was so interesting that I just had to post the full text of it here. It's really strange that they closed the case on the mysterious illness that affected the mounties.
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RCMP seek cause of mystery illness
by Nova Pierson
Calgary Sun
Security and medical officials are trying to determine how 30 Mounties stationed at Kananaskis for the G-8 summit ended up with symptoms of food poisoning.
Four of the RCMP officers were taken from Nakiska Camp to Foothills Hospital on Sunday night.
Three of them were hospitalized and received treatment for dehydration. Two were released yesterday.
Officers who weren't hospitalized were isolated and treated at the camp — and unit commanders checked out members stationed at the camp who weren't affected by the outbreak.
It isn't believed there is any security threat involved in the incident or that G-8 leaders would be in danger of contracting food poisoning.
"There is no foul play suspected so far," said Const. Max Johann of the summit security office.
An RCMP investigation has since eliminated food services at Nakiska Camp in Kananaskis as a possible source of the illness.
National Defence medical technicians, RCMP doctors and the Calgary Health Region examined all contracted food services at Nakiska Camp and determined food met or exceeded all industry standards.
"We have eliminated food services as a possible source and have reinstated Traverse Food Services effective immediately," said Insp. Gordon Black, officer in charge of camps.
An investigation is under way to discover what caused the sickness of the Mounties, some of whom were ill prior to arriving at the Nakiska Camp.
"They have to interview 30 people to find out what they ate in common, if it's an ice machine or something else," Johann said.
It isn't clear whether the hospitalized Mounties will return to work in time to continue their G-8 duties.
The 26 who weren't taken to hospital remain at the Nakiska Camp and are expected to be able to work through the summit.
Officials say there will be 16 government food inspectors, dressed in white coats and hair nets, scrutinizing every morsel of food served at Kananaskis.
They are to be in the kitchen around the clock, to monitor food preparation and see that proper dishwasher and refrigerator temperatures are maintained
http://www.calgarysun.com/cgi-bin/niveau2.cgi?s=generic&p=59107.html&a=1
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Mon Jul 01, 2002 8:42 pm
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Ground beef recalled over E. coli fears
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (July 1, 2002 6:19 a.m. EDT) - ConAgra Beef Co. of Greeley, Colo., is voluntarily recalling approximately 354,200 pounds of fresh and frozen ground beef products that may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria, the Agriculture Department announced Sunday.
The department's Food Safety and Inspection Service said the labels on all the products being recalled bear the establishment code "EST.969" inside the USDA seal of inspection. It was produced on May 31 and distributed to retail, food service and institutional establishments nationwide. the problem was discovered through microbiological traceback sampling, the inspection service said.
"Because of the potential hazard of foodborne illness from consumption of meat products contaminated with harmful bacteria such as E. coli ... I urge consumers who have purchased the suspect product not to eat it and return it to the place of purchase," said Linda Swacina, acting FSIS administrators. "USDA is informing the public so consumers who may have purchased and stored the product in their refrigerators or freezers will know to check. Also, diners may wish to ask if their meals contain the recalled product."
She said the government has received no reports of illness associated with the meat being recalled.E. coli can cause serious illness and sometimes death. Symptoms include chills and bloody diarrhea.Consumers with questions about the recall may contact the company at 970-506-8052.
http://nandotimes.com/healthscience/v-text/story/452273p-3619651c.html |
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