Tag Archives: Irradiation

Irradiate the liars at the FDA

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tomato berryMost of the food in the American diet is approved by the FDA for irradiation and chemotherapy treatments. Our fresh produce and meat are subjected to these invasive procedures 1) to kill microorganisms and other pathogens 2) to arrest or delay the ripening process 3) to act as a pesticide 4) to prevent spoilage or sprouting. Although they don’t say it explicitly, irradiation also masks serious sanitation problems in both farming and meat processing and provides greater immunity to the food industry executives who can claim that their products were “clean” when they left the facility.

The FDA has assured us over and over that the process of irradiation is completely safe. So safe, in fact, that consumers don’t even need to know which foods are exposed to ionizing radiation.

I think the FDA should define its terms. What do they mean by safe? Irradiation works by breaking down molecules and creating free radicals. Sure, the free radicals kill some bacteria, but they also damage vitamins and fragile enzymes. The free radicals can combine with existing chemicals in the food, like pesticides, to form new chemicals, called unique radiolytic products (URPs). Some of these URPs are known toxins like benzene and formaldehyde, and others are unique to the irradiated foods. Since they are unique, I guess we can assume they are safe.

After the anthrax scare a few years back, the US Postal Service began irradiating our mail. Because there is no danger in irradiating anything, least of all the mail, they were surprised when postal employees began to experience headaches, nausea, eye irritation, lightheadedness, nose irritation, and chest or throat tightness when processing irradiated mail. The USPS hired an industrial hygiene consultant who found elevated levels of carbon monoxide, ozone, chlorine, and other volatile organic chemicals in the work area. The USPS called OSHA.

Long and short of it, OSHA came in and did a bunch of tests. They found the same URPs that the consultant had identified, and quite a few more. But instead of addressing the dangers of mail irradiation, OSHA made the following recommendations:
1) “Air out” the mail before processing.
2) Monitor facilities for high concentrations of toxic chemicals/gases and, if found, try a change in handling methods or provide additional ventilation.
3) Keep a log to track health problems related to handling or being exposed to irradiated mail. Have the log reviewed periodically by an occupational medicine physician to look for trends or areas requiring further evaluation. (like maybe increased cancer rates or other pesky statistics)
4) Recommend that employees experiencing eye irritation use over-the-counter eye drops as often as necessary to relieve symptoms.

Can you believe it? OSHA sold the postal employees down the river so they could keep the irradiation-is-perfectly-safe lie going. I’m sure they weren’t given much leeway by the unscrupulous ignorant bastards at the FDA.

Scientists have known for years that irradiation causes food to become vitamin deficient which leaves well-fed bodies starved for nutrition. Irradiation deactivates food enzymes which affects the digestion process, which affects absorption of nutrients, which affects every cell in the human body. Irradiation damages the very DNA of not only the food, but also the bacteria it’s supposed to kill. This, in turn, leads to irradiation-resistant super germs that are far more dangerous to us than the original pathogens. Irradiated food contains toxic radiolytic products, aka poisons, which are ingested by you and me and everyone we know. Irradiation creates free radicals which are known to cause cell damage. The cell damage can manifest in innumerable ways, from premature aging to cancer to blindness.

radura logoThe process of irradiation is safe? It’s certainly not free of harm. I guess the FDA means that irradiation is safe from public scrutiny, safe from government accountability, safe from ethical study, safe from its own sad truth.

I HATE THE FDA! HATE ‘EM. HATE ‘EM. HATE ‘EM.

Is your hate of Hillary all your own?

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Stuart RisdenIf you’re indulging yourself gloating about Hillary’s dashed presidential aspirations, you might consider who’s cheering with you. As the battle for the nomination dragged on, Ms. Clinton faced near universal scorn, whipped up gleefully by all of media-dom. When has the media reported anything that you’ve discovered was truthful? Anything?
 
(Man’s traditional response to threatening women, midwives or healers? They’re witches!)

Unless you have been keeping in touch with Hillary Clinton personally, I would hesitate to say you don’t know if she has been represented objectively. Unless you’ve seen her in person, can you really say if her head’s the size of a pumpkin? Have you seen, heard, felt pangs of intuition that weren’t spun by the waves of an electronic transmission fashioned over an editor’s desk?

I’ve become rather suspicious that Ms. Clinton may have posed the biggest threat to the powers that be, to the beltway and the corporate media, and that’s why she was painted with such dastard derision.

Maybe?

The unanimity and height of disrespect shown in the catty ridicule made of Hillary has an identical scent really of an earlier smear campaign, the ulterior motives now well documented, against the embarrassment “beyond words” of Hillary’s First Husband, Bill.

President Clinton was too centrist for my taste, but it turns out he made some inroads for the people even despite being mostly thwarted by the corporate multinationals and the bankers.

Was the combined Clinton battle experience going to be crucial facing the still predominantly neoconservative-crony Washington establishment? The DC heavyweights are criminals and profiteers to the last, do we expect them to invite a reformer into the White House?

As much as they hated the Clintons, and Hillary Clinton in her own right, the power brokers appear to be smitten by Barack Obama. What does that say to you?

Some think it’s a sign that everyone’s ready for change. Some think the Republicans are content to let a Democrat be left to pick up Bush’s pieces. A friend of mine quotes T. S. Eliot:

“An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.”

I think the vociferous appetite the Neocons have shown in devouring America’s treasury at the expense of the middle class indicates they don’t intend to leave even a piece until it’s in their bank account. The bad guys are not through. In these days of irradiation, they do not need their poultry kept live.

The media favoritism of Barack over Hillary says to me, they’ll abide a black man on their porch because they have no intention of letting him inside. They can serenade him even, confident they can excuse their ultimate inhospitality on the Appalachian problem. If American voters prove more progressive than they want, Diebold’s blackboxes will smite our great last hope.

Republican McCain has been criticized by none of the press. With Hillary out of the way, the press has already started to unleash on Obama, and will now be now free to lavish the erstwhile witch with the affection they now display for her term-limited husband.

America’s masters needed one heck of a ringer to face the Bush blow-back. A presumptive presumptuous first black president will prove just the straw man they need. Even the most cynical voter will not be surprised that white America is not ready to elect a black president.

All that hoopla about Obama needing to distance himself from his pastor’s unpatriotic rants was very telling. Do you remember Reverend Wright’s chief focus? God Damn America, yes, but his chief refrain? America’s racism. White America doesn’t want to believe it is racist, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

Apparently racism is gone if we want it gone. To decry its persistence is to break the self-hypnotic spell and bring racism back. Blame the messenger apparently.

It is not racist to predict that Obama faces entrenched racism. It would be swell to think America is otherwise, and the media would love for us to believe it. But they and the lobbyists and their owners Big Pharma, Big Agra, Big Oil, the financiers and the war machine are banking on McCain.

FDA rapists on the loose, again

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Bachelorette nutrition One of my favorite jump starts to the day is a breakfast of cottage cheese, fresh fruit and almonds. It’s is a simple meal, easy to prepare, and represents a near-perfect combination of protein, carbohydrate and healthy fat. It’s the almonds that provide the magic. In addition to a low glycemic index, which curtails a heavy duty insulin response, almond intake protects proteins from oxidative damage while delivering vitamin E and other antioxidants, magnesium, calcium, folic acid, protein, fiber and living enzymes.

Thank goodness that the USA has a near lock on almond production. 70% of the world’s almonds come from California. I can only thank goodness that raw almonds are readily available in our bountiful land, even at most corporate grocery stores.

Oh, but wait. The FDA recently decided that all California almonds must be either irradiated or chemically pasteurized prior to sale. Not so for almonds exported to other countries. No. This particular punishment is reserved especially for the American people.

What this means is that our pristine, nutritious and beautiful almonds are subjected to gross degradation by FDA rapists. Irradiation exposes food products to extremely high levels of radiation that kill bacteria, parasites and fungi. Never mind that animal studies have shown that irradiation may promote chromosomal damage and cancer. And never mind that toxic radiation demolishes the nutritional value of food.

Chemical pasteurization is even more dangerous. The technique used is called propylene oxide fumigation, which makes use of a chemical compound that the EPA has classified as a probable human carcinogen. Here’s another interesting note: Propylene oxide was once used in racing fuel, but in 1993 the National Hot Rod Association banned its use because of cancer concerns. Yet this poison is used to pasteurize almonds and other foods – EPA and FDA approved. Oh yeah, baaaaby, just gimme the purple stamp!

One comforting tidbit, we needn’t worry our purty heads over this because it’s all being done without our knowledge or approval. Ya’ll know that ignorance is bliss. The FDA — that trusty public servant — has allowed almond growers to pretend that it’s business as usual. California almond growers may still label their almonds “natural” and “raw” even though they’ve been corrupted by irradiation and chemical pasteurization.

The FDA is tired of being held accountable by the vocal few. They are more than willing and able to fly under the radar. And, obviously, California almond growers are happy to fly with them. One of them should stand tall and expose the FDA for the abusive piece of shit that it is. If they’d take that leap of faith, I’d buy their almonds — though they be unfit for consumption — until the poor drugged fallen cows come home!

No more reporting on the beef recall?

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Suspect beef product ON HOLD on school shelvesThe largest beef recall in history has taught us what, so far? That 37 million pounds went to the USDA school lunch program, which was distributed to schools unknown. We quietly presume the USDA had been pawning off the questionable product to the poor and dismissible among our population. But why won’t they release the names of the schools? In whispered tones with food program insiders, you learn why. Because the USDA product goes to ALL schools. (NOTE: Corpus Christi School found the recalled meat on their shelves and made the switch to a safer supplier, shouldn’t your school do the same?)

While all or any of the Colorado schools may have taken delivery of the Hallmark suspect product, the USDA school food program in Colorado gets the bulk of its meat from Advanced Meatpacking out of Oklahoma. Advanced is regarded by industry watchers as likely worse than Hallmark. We’re not talking about the tip of an iceberg, we’re [not] talking about the as yet largely unexposed large underbelly of American factory farming.

What’s so bad about US meat that foreign markets won’t buy it? Our government regulators won’t test it adequately. Individual meatpackers who want to submit their product for voluntary testing are prevented by the USDA, for fear of creating a stigma around non-tested meat.

Other countries test their 100% of their herd animals for BSE. They also prohibit the feeding of rendered animals to other animals. This is the process by which BSE spreads. The US does not prohibit the use of rendered feed. US calves are raised on a diet of milk and blood: milk fortified with the blood of their predecessors. It redefines “adulterated” I think.

US methods to prevent mad cow disease resemble more the measures necessary not to see it. The official word is that the USA doesn’t have mad cow disease. Cattle which display the traits resembling mad cow disease in Europe, here are called “downer cows.” Our safety guidelines are thus: keep those cows from reaching the meat packers. Easy enough, unless you run across slaughterhouse workers with the initiate to use forklifts and chains to harvest downed cows like any other. Then you need video cameras to catch them.

But video cameras cannot catch the biggest flaw in this screening process. Most cattle infected with BSE do not begin to show symptoms until after they are two years old. Most cattle in the US reach the slaughterhouse before they are two.

Even with a breach of our paltry preventive procedures, the USDA is still unwilling to say their prescribed screening is insufficient.

Perhaps the USDA fears that implementing European testing standards would reveal a huge chunk of US beef to be tainted with mad cow. This would profoundly impact the food industry and our economy as a whole. Perhaps a few thousand CJD fatalities five years from now is a small price to pay for stability now. Besides, those in the know have money to buy organic beef from verifiable sources. The prosperity of the market has always been borne on the backs and at the expense of the common mortal. CJD means fewer to reach retirement.

Newspapers don’t want to touch this subject, many of their advertisers are restaurants which can’t afford to deal in the more expensive meats. Alternative news-weeklies rely on supermarkets for their distribution sites.

(NOTE: Except Ralph Routon and the Independent, March 6)

No one wants to shake consumer confidence in the food supply. The problem extends beyond beef, beyond poultry, beyond farmed fish, beyond ocean fisheries, beyond imported produce, beyond domestic agribusiness, beyond pesticides, irradiation and biogenetics. So the media is not going to start with any of it. As it is with the American health care system, your health is up to you.

By the way, most of the meat being recalled has already been consumed. Of what’s left, the USDA is only asking schools to set it aside for the time being. It is being neither recalled, nor destroyed. Probably it would be too alarming to ask cafeteria workers to destroy what only a day before they had been serving up for their kids for years.

This is good news for you, if you want to find out which schools were serving the bad meat. You still have a chance to call those responsible for the food service at your child’s school. Public or private, I assure you the probability is similar. Ask them if they’ve got the recalled Hallmark stock on hold.

Tom Warren- GreenGo pimp for the Pentagon

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Tom Warren of DECAMTom Warren feigns being a folksy, bearded, hippy ranger-ranch type, and is the perfect Pentagon GreenGo pimp to be in charge of the public’s manipulation by the military to put Fort Carson expansion into place in Pinion Canyon.

He heads up DECAM and talks ‘environment’ a lot, while pushing for the Pentagon’s toxicity to be implemented into the local area.

‘Aw Heck’ he seems to exude smilingly, ‘We’re going to become the best Wild Life refuge in The Land!’

Sure the Pentagon will be, Tommy. They always are for sure. I’m sure that the wildlife are doing just great out at Chernobyl, too. And out where all the Depleted Uranium has been dropped in The Balkans and Middle East. And the wildlife certainly must love the Pentagon’s Agent Orange spread all over in SE Asia, since it keeps the human predator population down.

You’re right, Tommy, the Colorado birds and deer need the Pentagon to take it all over! And be sure to help us be efficient in energy use for folk out there on base, Comandante Tommy.

What an act, and what an actor! We pay the tax dollars, and they then buy the comedy routine by military GreenGo propaganda pimps, like this guy, Tommy Warren. What suckers the American taxpaying public certainly are to do this!

I had a chance to meet this snake in person last week, and talk about a corn ball. He offered to waive the fees if any of us wanted to be sucked into the inside of his ‘sustainability’ act that was playing inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel that week. We preferred to protest planned Pinion Canyon expansion by the military outside in the street instead.

Go Army! Be all you can pretend to be! How silly some of this corporatized pretend Green stuff coming out actually is. After he gets done here, Maybe Tom Warren can apply for the PR pimp position out in Amarillo for the Pantex atomic bomb factory there? He would be perfect talking about how irradiation keeps the beef all sanitary and what not. The Pentagon, land for many uses… blah, blah, blah.

For more about Tom’s work to keep suburbia from encroaching on Fort Carson (poor Fort Carson!) and bird habitat read about Comandante Tom’s contributions here… Save the rare birds, sez Tom Warren. by making your local military establishment grander!

For Tom Warren’s military connection see name #11 on Fort Carson military list here. What a con artist this guy is pretending to be part of the civilian community! This seems to be the new thing where police and Pentagon people come to community meetings out of uniform and play like concerned civilian community types.