Government fights to prevent testing slaughtered cattle for mad cow

Byoliveridley

Imagine a country where the government will go to great lengths to prevent you, a small business, from holding your products to high safety standards because it is concerned that big business will be hurt. Well, if you live in the US of A, it is your government! Yes, it sounds anti-competitive to me, and it is, but the USDA is in the hands of big business, and the plutocracy protectionary principle is in full force here, I can only laugh! Wouldn’t you like it if you’re suspected of a crime and try to argue that you don’t want to be fingerprinted because there might be a false positive identification on you? I suspect you would not get very far with that argument!

That being said, it would be interesting to compare the incidence rate of mad cow disease with the incidence rate of false positives, would settle this question…

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow – International Herald Tribune

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone should test its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive tests on their larger herds as well.

The Agriculture Department regulates the test and argued that widespread testing could lead to a false positive that would harm the meat industry.

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    South Asians: Watch your Heart

    Byoliveridley

    Seems like us South Asians die earlier from heart attacks.

    ScienceDaily: South Asians Have Higher Levels Of Heart Attack Risk Factors At Younger Ages

    Deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur 5 to 10 years earlier in South Asian countries than in Western countries, according to background information in the article. This has raised the possibility that South Asians exhibit a special susceptibility for acute myocardial infarction (AMI; heart attack) that is not explained by traditional risk factors.

    But why?

    The prevalence of protective risk factors (leisure time physical activity, regular alcohol intake, and daily intake of fruits and vegetables) were markedly lower in South Asian study participants compared with those from other countries.

    Um, it is mainly behavioral, not genetic according to the authors, and hence can be mitigated by lifestyle changes.

    Well, I guess it is time to take a personal stock as of 1-18-2007:

    • Weight – Well, I am in the lower end of the healthy BMI.
    • Exercise – 4-5 days of 45 minutes – 1 hour per day, pretty good.
    • Food – Well, mostly good, especially if the candy can be avoided. I need to eat more vegetables, but I eat a lot of high fibre, and whole wheat food, probably not enough protein, mostly vegetarian.
    • Alcohol (1-2 drinks is apparently a heart protector) – Amen, I am a religious one drink a day partaker, more on weekends :-;
    • Smoking – Well, gave that up a while back, now to quit that occasional “party” smoke.
    • Stress – Well, not so good, this is probably the area I would need to work on the most.
    • Hypertension – Well, I am borderline on my blood pressure readings 🙁 Need to work on that.
    • Cholesterol – Still waiting for results on my physical.

    On the whole, I seem to be in decent shape. It’s good to take stock once in a while.

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    Lead and Crime

    Byoliveridley

    leadcrime.jpg

    The next time Giuliani tries to take credit for the decrease in violence during his tenure as NYC’s mayor, send him this chart.

    The NY Times shines some light on Jessica Reyes’ excellent work linking decreased lead exposure to a drop in violent crime in the US. The decreased lead exposure, of course, was from the phase-out of leaded gasoline from the American market. BTW, Nascar still uses leaded gasoline in its cars, nice going, guys.

    The answer, according to Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, an economist at Amherst College, lies in the cleanup of a toxic chemical that affected nearly everyone in the United States for most of the last century. After moving out of an old townhouse in Boston when her first child was born in 2000, Reyes started looking into the effects of lead poisoning. She learned that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive (Emphasis Added).

    Lead exposure at an early age (2-3 years) is especially significant as this is an age where personality development occurs and any interference in neuron development and apoptosis (death!) can cause permanent changes in personality. This excellent review article summarizes the effects of lead on neuronal development.

    Reyes’ research mentions that while decreased lead exposure was very well correlated with violent crime (accounting for 56% of the reduction in crime), no correlation was found to property crimes (such as theft). This of course makes intuitive sense. A property crime is usually premeditated whereas violence is usually impulsive (excluding serial killers, of course). It is more likely that a budding criminal sets out to steal a car than to beat somebody to pulp. It is when the crime goes wrong that the probability of a violent crime increases. An individual with damaged impulse control is then more likely to seek a violent way out of the bad situation.

    Our society (like most) views violent crime as a moral issue, a matter of good and evil that is determined by your “character”. So, a simple chemical correlator to violent crime that can explain a majority of the commission of violent acts goes a long way in undermining this whole notion of morality and crime. Of course, there are other sociological factors at play which need to be addressed. But it is heartening to know that beyond all the complicated and recalcitrant social issues that underly crime, there’s a ubiquitously evil pollutant lurking that can be eliminated. I am guessing that this line of reasoning is not going to be very popular among the “tough on crime” types that perpetrate our political airwaves these days.

    Reference

    Reyes, Jessica Wolpaw (2007) “Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime,” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 (Contributions), Article 51.

  • Autism epidemic not caused by shifts in diagnoses; environmental factors likely

    Byoliveridley

    California’s sevenfold increase in autism cannot be explained by changes in doctors’ diagnoses and most likely is due to environmental exposures, University of California scientists reported. The scientists who authored the new study advocate a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on an array of potential factors in the environment that babies and fetuses are exposed to, including pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products.

    Autism epidemic not caused by shifts in diagnoses; environmental factors likely — Environmental Health News

    One of the most common arguments you will see about a lot of mental health diagnoses is that doctors have changed their diagnostic practices significantly. While there is evidence of this occurring in diagnoses of childhood depression, anxiety, or even bipolar disorder due to the millions of dollars involved in medication and the attendant corruption, autism is different.

    This population study used 17 year data in California and concluded that diagnostic changes were only responsible for a 2 fold increase, not the seven fold increase seen. The rest is unexplained, and the authors attribute it to a confluence of environmental and genetic factors.

    And no, for the last time, VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM!

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    Colonialism: Environmental Edition

    Byoliveridley

    Does put recycling in context…

    Independent Online Edition > Environment

    Regardless of how carefully you separate your waste, there is a good chance a disposal firm will dump it all in together with other kinds of plastic trash and ship it to the developing world to be dealt with by a family of migrant workers earning a pittance. They will deal with the salad-bar container, the pistachio ice-cream container and the superfluous bag for carrots in your shopping basket in a variety of different ways – it may be recycled, it may become landfill or it may simply be burnt. Whatever happens, it is generally not a priority for the waste disposal company. Britain dumps around two million tonnes of waste in China every year, everything from plastic mineral water bottles to shopping bags and other forms of superfluous packaging from some of the country’s biggest supermarkets.

    Same for India as well. The article says that all of this “recycling” is illegal. But how do you hide 200,000 tonnes of plastic waste?

    Read the whole article, it is tragic. Some highlights:

    So too are the many and varied health complaints suffered by the local population, who risk multiple skin ailments and exposure to potent carcinogens as they touch the contaminated materials. Poisonous chemical effluents stream into their water supply, turning it black or lurid red, and studies by Greenpeace show that acid rain is the norm in this region. Children are prone to fevers and coughs. Their skin is often disfigured by the toxic plastic waste they have to process.

    A report by the University of Shantou on the town of Guiyu, another Guangdong recycling hub, showed that more than 80 per cent of local children suffer from lead poisoning.

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    NC House Smoking Bill passes committee

    Byoliveridley

    Updates on the smoking bills I mentioned last week….

    Bill Would Extinguish Indoor Smoking Statewide :: WRAL.com

    Dismissing North Carolina’s heritage as a tobacco state, a House committee on Tuesday passed a far-reaching indoor smoking ban.

    The Judiciary Committee passed the ban by a 9-4 vote. The measure would prohibit smoking in all indoor workplaces in North Carolina, including bars and restaurants. The rules also would apply to private clubs, except those with nonprofit or tax-exempt status.

    The measure would be complaint-driven — local health departments would act on complaints from the public — and violators would first receive warnings.

    “This was a significant and important event to advance the public’s health in North Carolina,” said Dr. Leah Devlin, director of the state Division of Public Health.

    But critics of the legislation, House Bill 259, pointed out that it faces an uphill battle on the House and Senate floors.

    “What they really want is a complete prohibition of indoor smoking in North Carolina,” said state Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake. “We all know smoking is nasty and dangerous. The question is whether, in a free society, you let people do some things that are nasty and dangerous.”

    Some opponents said passing the bill could set the stage for similar bans inside personal vehicles and homes.

    “You want to smoke and you own the building. Is it really that bad for the public?” asked state Rep. Ronnie Sutton, D-Robeson.

    Yes Paul and Ronnie, not only did you construct a straw man, you blew smoke on it, gave it lung cancer, tortured it with cigarette butts and finally set it on fire. Sheesh, what asses.

    Update

    From Laura Leslie, WUNC (our local NPR affiliate) reporter who maintains a reporter’s blog at WUNC

    Under the current version of the bill, which isn’t available on the web just yet, only NON-profit clubs could allow smoking – like the Elks Lodge, for example.

    So for the standard nightclub or bar, smoking would be banned.

    Hope it helps – and thanks very much for reading!!
    Laura

    So, that’s a lot of progress on the house bill, making it very close to the senate bill.

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    Flame Retardants and Hyperthyroidism in Cats

    Byoliveridley

    Caveat Emptor: They found a correlation, not a causative mechanism. But Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs, yum!) have structures that can mimic endocrine hormones. Because hormones signal at very low doses and continuously, our whole toxicological risk testing structure of looking for acute effects at high doses and trying to extrapolate those effects to low doses is flawed for endocrine disrupting compounds. We are finally beginning to see some new research, especially with other toxics such as Bisphenol A, which test for chronic conditions and subtle gene and hormonal signalling effects at low doses. After all, small changes in hormone regulation especially at childbirth and a young age can have very serious effects later on in life.

    Inside Bay Area – NEW: Flame retardants linked to thyroid disease in cats

    A mysterious epidemic of thyroid disease in cats may be linked to flame retardants common in carpets, foam furniture and mattresses, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency researchers, who suggest that scientists have underestimated the damaging health risk the chemicals pose to humans.

    The research, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, does not prove these compounds, known as PBDEs, caused the rash of hyperthyroidism in the nation’s household cats over the past 30 years.

    Rather, it lays out a hypothesis, showing that cats are heavily contaminated by these compounds, which leach from household products and are found everywhere, particularly household dust. Cats, meticulous cleaners, ingest PBDE-contaminated dust daily.

    The case of fire retardants is especially difficult because they save many lives, so manufacturers can always point to that fact and resist change. The logical fallacy, however is as follows:

    1. Fire retardants save lives (therefore good)
    2. PBDEs are fire retardants
    3. Therefore, PBDEs are good!!

    The search for a safer fire retardant needs to continue, and will not happen unless the old ones are under pressure of being phased out.