7/17/14 Health News: Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition ♦ PHONY HEALTH CLAIMS ABOUT CACTUS JUICE ♦ SNAILS SEIZED THREAT TO HEALTH ♦ Inspections can’t keep up with food imports

Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition

It is a question being asked about children across India, where a long economic boom has done little to reduce the vast number of children who are malnourished and stunted, leaving them with mental and physical deficits that will haunt them their entire lives. Now, an emerging body of scientific studies suggest that Vivek and many of the 162 million other children under the age of 5 in the world who are malnourished are suffering less a lack of food than poor sanitation.Continue Reading

PHONY HEALTH CLAIMS ABOUT CACTUS JUICE RESULT IN $3.5-MILLION FTC SETTLEMENT

TriVita Inc. of Scottsdale, AZ, will refund $3.5 million to consumers for marketing its cactus juice as a cure-all for pain, inflammation, and respiratory and skin problems. All those health claims are unfounded, according to a unanimous Federal Trade Commission. The marketers of the cactus-based fruit drink have agreed to the refunds to settle FTC... Continue Reading

SNAILS SEIZED AT LA AIRPORT FOR THREAT TO PUBLIC HEALTH, AGRICULTURE, ECONOMY

U.S. officials confiscated 67 giant African snails at the Los Angeles International Airport on July 1, citing a triple threat to public health, agriculture and the economy. The snails, weighing 35 pounds total and coming from Nigeria, are prohibited in the U.S. because, among other things, they carry parasites that can lead to meningitis in... Continue Reading

Inspections can’t keep up with food imports

Are you reading this while eating? There’s at least a 15 percent chance your food or some of its ingredients was produced in one of 150 foreign countries. And there’s almost no chance that your imported food or the processing plant it comes from was inspected by U.S. regulators. The Food and Drug Administration is so understaffed and tests so little imported food that one former …continue reading

Australia Exporting Contaminated Meat

Australia is following our lead in having companies to inspect their own meat. Six Months ago the  Food & Water Watch (a nonprofit group) notified the USDA that  the Australian Export Meat Inspection System (AEMIS) led to an increase in import rejections of unsafe Australian meat because of privatized inspections. The US meat producers that have privatized their inspections are having the same results.

The USDA is supposed to be protecting the American people.  We don’t.want meat with half digested corn covering it. We don’t want feces contaminating our meat. I don’t think the USDA or the meat industry understand that as the public realizes that the meat is unsafe less people will eat meat. WE will have more vegetarians and vegans.