Is nothing safe?? BY LOCAL PRODUCE!!!
By: James Burge
October 31st, 2008
Ok, so I’ve made 2 posts already on the preceved threat of high levels of Melamine in various Chineese made candies and food products. The problem is, Melamine is also added to animal feed, that means that now eggs have been contaminated with Melamine. The AP article goes on to say that very little research has been done because Melamine contamination due to leaching isn’t very common and wouldn’t be expected to create high enough levels for any adverse effects. Were it not for Chinese maufacturers deliberately adding the toxic chemical there wouldn’t have been a risk to consumers.
But while scientists say it’s not dangerous to ingest small amounts, they cannot be definitive because there have been no tests on melamine’s effects in humans. Until the contaminated baby formula became public in September, there was never any reason to.
Source: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hud2xejzcnuymvyU35uIkpblGfSAD945LRC00
So I’ve found a list of products that have been tested and found to be safe, the only problem is, its for Malaysia. But hey its what I was looking for.
List of Products Not Affected By Melamine Contamination-Updated Till 28.10.2008
this information was found here: http://fsq.moh.gov.my/modules/news/
Hopefully this will be the last I have to post on this. (not likely…)
Tainted imports, what better reason to buy local
By: James Burge
October 30th, 2008
Update: More info here: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/465.html
I wanted to take a moment to blog again about the story I posted yesterday about the allegedly tainted food products imported to North America from Chinese manufacturers. I admit it was slightly alarmist and I’m not sure that angle is very effective, so I will attempt, with a more level head, to address these concerns again.
Let’s start with what we know.
We know that in recent years many tainted food scandals have affected consumers in this country, the most notable being the Listeria outbreak that continues to get attention (and rightfully so). Other notable cases include the recent tomato and spinach salmonella outbreaks and the dog food recall back in March of this year which caused kidney and liver failure in pets. What didn’t really make headlines was the cause of the kidney and liver failure. Most articles attribute the recall to tainted wheat gluten. But what was the wheat gluten tainted with??? The answer is Melamine.
Melamine is a toxic chemical used in fertilizers and thermosetting plastics.
Ingestion of Melamine may lead to reproductive damage, or bladder or kidney stones, which can lead to bladder cancer.[15][20][21][22][23]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine#Chronic_toxicity
(the one that I find most interesting is the reproductive damage coupled with the high risk to infants, but that’s another story altogether)
We know about reported cases of Melamine-contaminated powdered infant formula from China.
Over 6240 cases of kidney stones in infants with three deaths have been reported from across China as of 17 September [2008]. Kidney stones in infants are very rare.
Source: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2008_09_19/en/index.html
One of China’s biggest dairy producers received consumer complaints about its baby milk formula as early as December 2007.
Earlier this month, government investigators said that Sanlu officials had delayed acting on consumer complaints and warnings in June, and that local government officials in Hebei knew of the problems in early August, just before the Olympic Games opened in Beijing.
Food safety experts say the delays may have allowed the tainted powdered milk supplies to spread more widely, making tens of thousands of children ill.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/world/asia/24milk.html
Lastly, we know that the instance of kidney stones in American children is on the rise. Once considered a middle age ailment, more and more young children are developing kidney stones. This rise is attributed to excess salt in ones diet along with the instance of obesity.
Now lets talk a bit about what we don’t know.
We don’t know the amount of contaminated products have been imported into North America, but since the Chinese government was trying to save face while the world was watching, products continued to be imported to North America and may still be on store shelves.
We don’t know, what the Canadian (or US for that matter) government is doing about concerns regarding food imports. Although the Canadian Government is trying to change laws that would require a clarification if products from other countries were used in manufacturing, it may be a case of to little to late.
[U]nder current Canadian law, if 51 per cent of the production costs were incurred in Canada and the last substantial transformation of the product occurred in Canada, it is legal to use those labels.
The made-in-Canada label will mean the product was manufactured or processed in Canada. While such a product can include non-Canadian contents, the label must make it clear by specifying it was made in Canada with imported ingredients.
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/21/food-label.html
Update: We now know what the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is doing about the Melamine contamination:
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is advising all importers of food products from China containing milk or milk-derived ingredients that the Agency will require documentation demonstrating certain safety and compliance for these products.
Source: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/fssa/concen/2008melinfoe.shtml
We also now know which products have tested positive for high levels of Melamine. A list can be found here.
What we still don’t know is which products have been tested and found to be safe. I know that this may be asking a lot because there is no way to test everything that is currently on shelves in stores. But countries like Korea have removed the following:
M&M milk chocolates, Snickers peanut fun size bars, Kit Kat bars from Nestle, and Ritz “sandwich cracker cheese and rice cookies”
Source: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/463.html
The above mentioned are North American Brand Name candy bars, and the Snickers specifically says the fun size bars, I am assuming this means the small bite size bars usually given out at Halloween. Since the milk power itself was imported to the US, there is a chance that even American brand name chocolate bars could be contaminated, and need to be tested (although it would be easier just to find out who imported milk powder from China (after Dec 2007) and which batches it was used it, this information is likely already known in the US, but has not been released)
We don’t know why the media hasn’t been mentioning the risks to candy, ESPECIALLY since (as I’m writing this), it is Halloween. In 24h the damage will already have been done.
We don’t know the scope of the contamination. Most of the stories have highlighted milk powder or whey, but includes products like chocolate, cookies, cakes, and even things like packaged macaroni and cheese. While some of the recalled candy doesn’t even contain milk powder as one of the ingredients. Egg powder is also being identified as a potential source of this contamination.
A recall was issued for foil-wrapped Pirate’s Gold chocolate coins because they contain melamine.
Source: http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/coins.asp
We don’t know how much, if any of the candy currently in stores for sale for Halloween has been tested, and therefore we don’t know what candy to avoid. This will put an unfortunate damper on Halloween this year.
So what can we do?
We can do our best to limit or eliminate any Chinese made products that may contain milk, milk powder, egg powder, whey. (although this is easier said than done)
We can pressure government officials to step-up testing of products which are imported to this country and could contain chemical additives (whether deliberate or accidental) deemed harmful.
We can educate everyone we know on the risks, and we can hope that we don’t see that kind of kidney damage in children before we act.
We can buy local food, and try, whenever possible, to stay away from pre-packaged manufactured food and candy. Only by refusing to buy potentially unsafe products will testing become standard in order to ease the public’s concerns.
For some more information, Brass Check TV has compiled some videos here: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/462.htm
OMFG, you have to see this!! Tainted Halloween candy COVERUP!?!
By: James Burge
October 29th, 2008
Wholly shit! This isn’t the first I’ve heard about this but this video does a great job of putting it out there. Make sure everyone you know sees this.
Canadian ‘War-on-Health’???
By: James Burge
October 23rd, 2008
So I came across an article today that made me think. It is on a topic that hasn’t been getting much attention, which is good, because if it was getting the attention it deserves most would be outraged and the public outcry would likely put a stop to such things, if only for a short time, because, as we have seen in the case of politics for years, something which isn’t popular now, can be made popular under the right circumstances. (Its worth pointing out that much of what I’m about to talk about is nothing more than speculation)
So the article “FDA Running Extortion Racket: Natural Supplement Companies Threatened with Arrest if They Don’t Pay Up” by: Mike Adams talks about the ways in which the US Food and Drug Administration has been using extortion style techniques to strong arm small Natural Health businesses who can not afford a legal fight and will settle out of court to try and salvage their business. What the FDA is trying to do is to get Natural Health companies to stop linking to scientific articles which explain or backup the benefits of various natural supplements.
Cherry products, for example, cannot link to scientific articles explaining the simple biological fact that cherries ease inflammation in human beings. Such links are considered “drug claims” by the FDA.
Canadians following the development of Bill C-51 will likely notice the parallels between the US FDA’s tactics and some of the things proposed by this bill. I would be willing to bet that this whole Bill C-51 thing is to pave the way for similar tactics or provide a legal framework allowing Health Canada to continue this practice (assuming this has already happened, which I think is likely). The article says that the US FDA is also trying to make Natural Health Websites remove consumer testimonials and are threatening imprisonment if companies don’t comply.
Can you imagine, even saying something like “An Apple a day, keeps the DR away” or even a simple anecdote recommending the use of Garlic as an antibiotic could be considered a “drug claim” by the US FDA even though they make fraudulent “drug claims” constantly!!!
FDA analysts estimated that Vioxx caused between 88,000 and 139,000 heart attacks, 30 to 40 percent of which were probably fatal, in the five years the drug was on the market.
So basically, (if my assumptions are correct, I haven’t read the bill, but I’m starting to think I should) it is attempting to criminalize not only the natural health products themselves, but the promotion of natural health supplements as beneficial, in favor of synthetic drugs most of which were deemed ‘safe’ under questionable circumstances, and Health Canada wants the same tools as the Americans in order to silence any source of opposition.
Already, it is against the law for any Natural Health supplement to make a claim on its packaging as to any health effects it has, something that usually has decades or more of real world anecdotal evidence. On the other hand, most prescription drug trials go as follows:
- Group A is given a new experimental drug, and group B is given sugar pills,
- Both groups are tested for any number of physical ailments/benefits like blood pressure, cognitive function, lung capacity, and whatever else they can think of, until it is found that Group A has a statistically significant deviation from group B.
- If, for example, Group A has significantly lower Cholesterol then Group B, regardless of any other outside factors for such a discrepancy, the drug is then marketed with the claim that it lowers Cholesterol which little to no mention of the fact that it could have any number of other effects that weren’t statistically significant (or beneficial) enough to mention.
So then the public goes to their DR with high blood pressure and are given a drug that could have any number of long term side effects, yet to recommend Coenzyme Q10, Garlic, Hawthorn (herb), Fish Oil, Folic acid, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and, of course, Exercise; all of which have been shown to reduce blood pressure, and have no known toxic effects (unlike newly synthesized chemicals), would be illegal.
Its amazing to think that this bill could be used to criminalize vitamins and minerals in the form of daily health supplements and to “penalizing parents who give herbs or supplements to their children.” As well, if the government requires a prescription for a drug, any naturally occurring source would also require a prescription. What if they decided that potassium has health benefits that should be monitored by a physician and require a prescription to obtain potassium supplements, they would be criminalizing people from buying, owning, and eating Banana’s without a proper prescription. The only question left is if such prosecutions would be made under the controlled drugs and substances act. It really takes the ‘war-on-drugs’ to a whole new level.
Update: Only because I think this is an important issue, I thought I’d include a link on how to find your Member of Parliament here.
Update 2.0: Just came across this article about Vioxx, I havn’t finished reading it so take a look for yourself.
I refuse to be deceived!!!
By: James Burge
October 15th, 2008
I’m not sure whether to be shocked or to feel stupid for thinking things in Canada could be different. In what can only be described as taking a page from the US playbook the RCMP have used taxpayers money to fund a study designed to undermine the work of Insite, BC’s safe injection site designed for harm reduction of a niche of society that has been effectively marginalized federally. Insite, despite the a conservative witch hunt “has been subject to rigorous, independent third party research and evaluation by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, recognized as one of the world’s leading research organizations.” Taken from its own site, some of the results include:
- increased uptake into detoxification programs and addiction treatment. (New England Journal of Medicine)
- has not led to an increase in drug-related crime, rates of arrest for drug trafficking, assaults and robbery were similar after the facility’s opening, and rates of vehicle break-ins/theft declined significantly. (Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy)
- reduced the number of people injecting in public and the amount of injection-related litter in the downtown eastside. (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
- attracting the highest-risk users – those more likely to be vulnerable to HIV infection and overdose, and who were contributing to problems of public drug use and unsafe syringe disposal. (American Journal of Preventive Medicine)
- reduced overall rates of needle sharing in the community, and among those who used the supervised injection site for some, most or all of their injections, 70% were less likely to report syringe sharing. (The Lancet)
- Nearly one-third of Insite users received information relating to safer injecting practices. Those who received help injecting from fellow injection drug users on the streets were more than twice as likely to have received safer injecting education at Insite. (The International Journal of Drug Policy)
- Insite is not increasing rates of relapse among former drug users, nor is it a negative influence on those seeking to stop drug use. (British Medical Journal)
- Insite is preventing overdose deaths and reducing hospital visits (The International Journal of Drug Policy)
Source: http://www.vch.ca/sis/research.htm
The problem is that all the above mentioned benefits to society aren’t enough for the conservatives who are still trying to push an incarceration/punitive based approach to drug enforcement. It seems that the RCMP agree, so much so, after receiving reports from two separate studies which didn’t effectively demonize Insite, they went back for two more, one of which was headed “by the director of a national drug-prevention organization that opposes Insite.”
This type of cherry picking from only those studies that reinforce policy IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!! This is the same type of shit that convinced the US that Saddam had Newkuler weapons!!!
Its amazing to me, that a Canadian politician can suggest adopting an almost 40 year old failed US policy and have ppl (‘conservitives?’) buy it as a ‘hard on crime’ policy, when it is really just a policy to incarcerate those who obviously need help. This wouldn’t be successful if addicts hadn’t already been marginalized, and organized crime linked so closely with the drug trade, a link which can be blamed solely on the type of prohibition a ‘war-on-drugs’ tends to propagate. (I thought we were smarter than that, but I’m not surprised to see Harper prove me wrong, again, and again and… well you get the picture)
When political policy begins to influence the same studies used to sell the policy to the public, its called DECEPTION!!! I refuse to be deceived!!!
Hiroshima Video
By: James Burge
October 14th, 2008
Hiroshima: Warning To The World – Japan
Years in the making, Martial Law on US doorsteps
By: James Burge
October 9th, 2008
Also see
- FEMA sources confirm coming martial law
- Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out “Crowd Control”
- Incredible Documentary Footage of Mass Arrest in St. Paul
How Far the Mighty have Fallen…
By: James Burge
October 9th, 2008
It amazes me in a country that was founded on protest against the government/establishment could slide so far into fascism. The following is a short video of a group of people which includes families with children, collage students and cameramen who were congregating in a park across the river from a hip-hop concert which happened to be the opening day of the Republican National Convention. Obviously there were protests and marches but the end result is a completely unjustified mass arrest of individuals which include both peaceful protestors and citizens who are caught in the middle. In my opinion, such arrests are a precursor to larger arrests of political dissenters and protestors; they just want to register the level of outrage/pleasure in watching innocent families and collage students being arrested in the name of national security.
(I included pleasure because I’m sure you can find some American licking their lips at seeing liberals being arrested, because to some, to be liberal is to be less that human, although I tend to think the opposite is true)
McSame, McShame…
By: James Burge
October 7th, 2008
Also check out Make-Believe Maverick
Selling out Canadian Sovereignty
By: James Burge
October 6th, 2008
I was less than surprised to read an article from the Prince George Citizen titled “Prime Minister Harper officially endorses North American Union!” I knew that Canadian Sovereignty was low on Harpers list of concerns, but to so blatantly call for the end of Canadian Sovereignty is actually kinda shocking and I think the tag line says it all.
YOU WANT HARPER IN A MAJORITY GOVERNMENT?? CANADA WILL BE LOST, PLEASE VOTE SMART.
The goal of the North American Union (NAU) (for those unaware, and there are lots of you because Media tends to gloss over the details) is an assimilation of Canada into a “New America” basically destroying any fair trade deals with Mexico and the US and allowing a Non-Canadian body to make decisions that will greatly effect all Canadian citizens without being accountable to those same citizens. You will see most news trying to diminish the roll of the US as directing Canadian policy, but if this is not the end goal then why the push for the NAU.
Indeed, the Stephen Harper government has been reported to be in the process of getting various Canadian government departments and agencies to “harmonize”, with U.S. governmental agencies, to expedite the assimilation of Canada into the neo-conservative vision of a “Fortress North America”.
(I think what they meant to say was FACIST North America, but I digress…)
North American Union architects have used the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to legitimate the take over of Canada by U.S. interests as a “logical outcome” of the terms of NAFTA.
This gives you an idea of how these people think, as far as they are concerned we gave up our rights to set a fair price on Canadian exports once we signed NAFTA. And for those who try to make the case that this is just an extention of NAFTA and has no berring on our soveriegnty, if the NAU is a logical extention of NAFTA what is a logical extention of the NAU, a Canadian State of America?? Just don’t be fooled that Candian Soverignety means anything to US lawmakers who seem to put little virtue in US soveriegnty.
In effect, the Government of Canada appears to be governed not from a sovereign Parliament in Ottawa, but run through a New York City-based political fraternity, which seeks to replace a democratic form of government, with the rule of society by a “Council of Wise Men” (the US Council on Foriegn Relations).
The US Council on Foreign Relations has been criticized for its pursuit of globalization and lack of concern with sovereignty and with great interest in breaking down any barriers for the exploitation of foreign markets, workforce and resources.
The architects of such a fascistic government look upon their vision of society, to be much more “efficient” in dealing with the need to vanquish enemies, i.e. “terrorists”. [...] A terrorist is broadly defined by the architects of the North American Union, as any individual or group which opposes the New World Order agenda.
John Manley, former Liberal Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, who is part of an apparent Liberal-Conservative-Bloc parliamentary alliance on the SPPNA, also endorses the replacement of the Canada-U.S. border, with a new international border around Canada, the U.S., and also Mexico.
How can we expect American politicians to do whats best for Canadians when even our own politicians wont?
