12/27/14 Health News:The Salad Bowl of America Turns Toxic ♦ New evidence links air pollution to congenital defects ♦ Existing drug, riluzole, may prevent foggy 'old age' brain

The Salad Bowl of America Turns Toxic

The Salinas Valley, with its superlative moniker “the salad bowl of America,” is where some 60 percent of the nation’s lettuce is grown, and close to half of its strawberries. It’s some of the most productive agricultural land in the world, on rich silt accumulated over centuries of flooding on wetlands. Continue Reading

New evidence links air pollution to congenital defects

The health effects of air pollution are a major concern for urban populations all over the world. A new study provides new evidence linking high exposure to air pollution to an increased risk of congenital malformations. Continue Reading

Existing drug, riluzole, may prevent foggy 'old age' brain, research shows

Forgetfulness, it turns out, is all in the head. Scientists have shown that fading memory and clouding judgment, the type that comes with advancing age, show up as lost and altered connections between neurons in the brain. But new experiments suggest an existing drug, known as riluzole and already on the market as a treatment for ALS, may help prevent these changes. Continue Reading

10/24/2013 Daily Food News: AG Runoff Causing Health Risk, Meat with Drug Residue, Vaccine for Multiple Strains of FLu, Russia Bans Foods

EMERGING CONTAMINANTS: AG RUNOFF POSES HEALTH RISKS

The most well-documented impacts of agriculture runoff on human and ecological health are primarily related to nutrient pollution in water, where nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers cause oxygen-starved “dead zones” in water. Now, scientists and government agencies are also examining the impacts of agriculture runoff as a significant source of emerging contaminants, substances that may... Continue Reading

FOOD-SAFETY COALITION ASKS FARM BILL CONFEREES TO REJECT TWO AMENDMENTS

Note: Time to Write your Congressman

Members of a food-safety coalition are gunning for two amendments to the Farm Bill they say would delay implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act and impede a state’s ability to protect its citizens from foodborne illness. Eight consumer groups comprising the Make Our Food Safe Coalition and the Safe Food Coalition sent a...Continue Reading

FDA WARNS NY RANCHER ABOUT POTENTIALLY HARMFUL DRUG RESIDUES

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning letter to the owner of Riverview Ranch and Livestock in New York, after an investigation found that the operation sold an adulterated animal for slaughter for food.. Continue Reading

Study: Flu vaccine plus immune suppressor may offer broader protection

US researchers reported yesterday that giving mice a flu vaccine and simultaneously treating them with rapamycin, an immune-suppressing drug, caused them to generate antibodies that were protective against other flu strains, including H5N1 and H7N9. Continue Reading

PROBLEMS POSED BY ANIMAL AGRICULTURE HAVE WORSENED IN RECENT YEARS

In the past five years, policies by the Obama administration and Congress have worsened the problems that animal agriculture poses to public health, the environment and animal welfare, Continue Reading

Russia’s Food Patriotism and Bans on Select Imports

You may not have heard of Gennady Onishchenko, but if his own accounts are to be believed, he’s the Russian government official who single-handedly averts major public health crises posed by foreign countries’ dangerously lax and unsophisticated food safety standards. To others, Onishchenko, Russia’s chief sanitary inspector, is also Russia’s chief manufacturer of elaborate food safety scares to wage geopolitically motivated trade wars with other countries, particularly former Soviet republics. Continue Reading