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Plan for lethal-virus laboratories leaves Smalltown USA in uproar By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles 29 June 2003 A network of high-security laboratories for storing and investigating some of the most lethal viruses known to mankind is being built across the US, leaving communities in uproar. They not only fear the risk of the viruses escaping, but also contend that the programme, part of the $6bn (£3.5bn) Project BioShield, is a stunning case of overkill. For none of the germs to be studied is related to bioweaponry. In the tiny town of Hamilton, Montana, campaigners worry that they will become...

Much of the investigation so far has been centered on restaurants in California, Colorado and Minnesota where sick people ate. They are not necessarily breakfast places — it's possible some got sick from eating a salad dressing that had a raw egg in it, or eating soup with an undercooked egg dropped in, Braden said. In one state, a cluster of illnesses seem to stem from meringue pie, health officials said. Eggs from Wright County Egg in Galt, Iowa, were linked to several illnesses in the three states. The eggs were distributed around the country and packaged under the names...

The Wright County Egg company, based in Iowa, has issued a recall of 228 million eggs because of reports of salmonella-related outbreaks in several Western states. The eggs are sold to contract companies including Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemps, according to several news reports.

An egg recall is taking place upon recognition of a potential salmonella contamination. Wright County Egg of Galt, Iowa said the affected eggs were shipped to food wholesalers, distribution centers and food service companies. Along with Minnesota, the recall affects Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado and California. There have been seven confirmed cases of salmonella in Minnesota linked to the multistate recall of eggs produced by the Iowa company, said Dough Schultz, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Health. Four of those cases originated at the Muffeletta restaurant in St. Paul last month; the other three were traced...

Jack DeCoster, the owner of the company at the center of one of the largest egg recalls in history, is no stranger to controversy. Jack DeCoster heads to the courtroom in the Wright County Court house to testify in defense of his family's hog confinement facilities in Clarion, Iowa, in this file photo. He's been involved in legal cases that have forced him to settle with the federal government for hiring illegal immigrants, for tolerating sexual harassment at his company, and has faced a litany of animal cruelty charges. DeCoster has also paid millions of dollars in fines and settlements...

Dates and codes can be found stamped on the end of the egg carton or printed on the case label. However, not all affected brands will be printed in the same order. Typically, the plant number begins with the letter P and then the number. In most cases the Julian date follows the plant number, for example: P-1720 223. If your carton has a combination of numbers that matches the affected plant number AND Julian date, your eggs are affected in the recall. Using the example above, P-1720 223 may appear on some cartons as 223 #1720, 1720 223 or...

(NaturalNews) It's always amusing to see how quickly consumers can be worked up into a false fear frenzy by health authorities. We saw it last year with the overhyped H1N1 swine flu scare which was fanned into a flaming fear fest by WHO advisors on the take from vaccine manufacturers. Now we're getting a new round of fear-mongering from many of the same sources who are warning us about salmonella contaminated eggs. According to mainstream news sources, a massive 380-million-egg recall has been announced, and these eggs are all so incredibly dangerous that you have to immediately remove them from...

The recent recall of fresh-cut romaine lettuce processed in an Ohio facility...has given a new rallying cry to activists trying to spur quick Senate passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a self-proclaimed consumer advocacy group, made this statement: "While consumers wait for Congress to pass food safety legislation, the plants that process and bag lettuce and the farms that grow it are operating under an industry honor system which clearly failed in this case. The FDA can’t tell us when it last had inspectors in the plant where this...

Health regulators have approved the use of ionizing radiation for fresh spinach and lettuce, saying the technique already approved for other foods can help control harmful bacteria and other pathogens. The Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday the radiation treatment also would make the leafy greens last longer and give them greater "shelf-life" for retailers and consumers. The approval comes two years after E. coli outbreaks linked to spinach and lettuce sold in grocery stores and served at various restaurants. Outbreaks of the dangerous bacteria sickened dozens of consumers and led some to be hospitalized. In severe cases, patients...

University of Georgia researchers have developed an effective technology for reducing contamination of dangerous bacteria on food. The new antimicrobial wash rapidly kills Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 on foods ranging from fragile lettuce to tomatoes, fruits, poultry products and meats. It is made from inexpensive and readily available ingredients that are recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The new technology, which has commercial application for the produce, poultry, meat and egg processing industries, is available for licensing from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., which has filed a patent application on the new technology....

Dr. Mom Was Right -- And Wrong -- About Washing Fruits And VegetablesA new study shows that irradiation could be key to removing hard-to-reach pathogens inside fruits and vegetables. (Credit: Courtesy of USDA-Agricultural Research Service, photo by Stephen Ausmus) ScienceDaily (Apr. 13, 2008) — Washing fresh fruits and vegetables before eating may reduce the risk of food poisoning and those awful episodes of vomiting and diarrhea. But according to new research, described recently at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, washing alone -- even with chlorine disinfectants -- may not be enough. Studies show that certain disease-causing...

Food Wars New York Times on E. coli outbreaks: Conservatives did it. By Alex Avery According to the New York Times, not only are conservatives responsible for the problems of Iraq, Iran, and global warming, they are also to blame for this fall’s E. coli outbreaks in spinach and lettuce that killed three and sickened several hundred. In a January 2 piece, Adam Cohen of the Times editorial board writes that “harmful bacteria are rampant in meatpacking plants and in produce fields” in large part because Bush “slashed the number of Food and Drug Administration inspectors” and “installed a former...

A Wisconsin State Journal editorial Three cases of mass food poisoning in the United States in the past four months have sickened hundreds and killed three, including a Wisconsin woman. These incidents highlight a need for America to take a leap forward in food safety by promoting the use of irradiation. Irradiation can do for meat and produce what pasteurization does for milk: Kill bacteria that cause illness and death. It's time for Wisconsin to take a leading role in making irradiation an important part of the nation's food safety strategy. •Consumers should demand that irradiated food be offered as...

The recent E. coli outbreaks are playing as a familiar morality tale of too little regulation. The real story is a much bigger scandal: How special interests have blocked approval of a technology that could sanitize fruits and vegetables... The technology is known as food "irradiation," a process that propels gamma rays into meat, poultry and produce in order to kill most insects and bacteria. It is similar to milk pasteurization, and it's a shame some food marketer didn't call it that from the beginning because its safety and health benefits are well established. The American Medical Association, the Centers...

Popeye the Sailor Man would have approved of the green, leafy spinach gobbled up by Sadex Corp. officials early Wednesday morning. Popeye definitely would not have approved of the spinach if he could have seen it under a microscope before it underwent irradiation -- the spinach contained 5 million colonies of E.coli bacteria per gram. "You would have been better off to have a cow come and dump on it," said David Corbin, chairman and chief executive officer of the Sadex Corp. Officials at the Sadex Corp. irradiated the highly contaminated spinach at the Sioux City plant, 2650 Murray St....

CHICAGO - Buying organic milk these days - or organic apples, eggs, or beef - no longer has to mean an extra trip to a Whole Foods supermarket or the local co-op. Organic products now line the shelves at Safeway and Costco. And Wal-Mart - already the nation's largest organic-milk seller - says it wants to sell more organic food. Large companies including Kraft, General Mills, and Kellogg own sizable organic- and natural-food brands. Now, they are developing organic versions of their own products, too. Still, while some organic-food fans welcome its broadening appeal and availability, others worry that the...

Warning: Reading Consumer Reports may be dangerous to your health. Consumer Reports (CR) has helped millions of Americans select the best consumer goods available at the lowest prices and has called attention to some of the excesses of the marketplace. As a result, it has established a reputation among consumers as an honest, informative magazine. In recent years, however, CR policy appears to have been taken over by consumer and environmental activists and the magazine is dispensing advice that is not in the best interests of its readers. For example, CR recommended that consumers buy organic food instead of conventional...

"Originally, Saddam was not a religious fanatic and he didn't like communism; the people of Iraq liked this. Later on I saw his torture chambers underground where people had been irradiated and injected with Ricin ... what I saw still haunts me to this day." These are just some of the comments of Dr. Gazi George, a former high-ranking Iraqi scientist who spoke at a conference for the Michigan Tactical Officers Association. His speech dealt with the time he worked for Saddam Hussein and his eventual escape with his family from Iraq. To a standing-room only audience of law-enforcement and...

The Bush administration's plan to allow irradiated meat to be served to millions of U.S. school children is raising the ire of some concerned parents. Irradiation, which has been endorsed by the World Health Organization, exposes food to low doses of electrons or gamma rays to destroy deadly microorganisms such as E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella. Under the U.S. farm subsidy law enacted in May, the U.S. Agriculture Department must allow government-approved food safety technology such as irradiation to be used in commodities purchased by the federal school lunch program. Some 27 million schoolchildren receive free or low-cost meals daily...

Hamburger Helper You can bet a lot of grills sat cold this weekend after the Department of Agriculture announced a nationwide recall of 19 million pounds of beef -- the second largest in history. With 19 people sick from E-coli contaminated meat, nobody felt much like a hamburger.The truly unfortunate thing about the latest recall is that it didn't have to happen. We've long had the tools to cut back on foodborne illnesses, but government agencies, egged on by groups like Public Citizen, have made it difficult to safely enjoy that steak tartare.According to the Centers for Disease Control,...