Wednesday, August 26th, 2015
Lindsay Abrams, Staff Writer - Salon
Stephan: American food safety is becoming very problematic. Here we are in summer when hamburgers are regular fare for many. Perhaps they should rethink that, for the reasons this report explains.
Credit: Constantine Pankin/Shutterstock
If that raw hamburger meat you bought to cook for dinner hasn’t given you a stomach ache yet, this might: according to a Consumer Reports investigation, store-bought ground beef is teeming with dangerous bacteria, including “superbugs” resistant to three or more classes of antibiotics, as well as a whole lot of poop.
That’s a big problem, the report warns, because of Americans’ penchant for under-cooked meat. But the study, which analyzed 300 packages of meat purchased from grocery, big-box, and natural food stores across 26 U.S. cities, found some important differences dependent on how the beef was raised: either conventionally — in grain and soy feedlots where food is supplemented with antibiotics and other growth-promoting drugs — or what the report terms “sustainably”: meaning, in this case, that no antibiotics were used, and which also could include organic or grass-fed cattle.
According to the researchers, conventionally raised samples turned out to have more bacteria, in general. And 18 percent contained at least one strain of bacteria resistant to the drugs most commonly used in human medicine, […]
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Wednesday, August 26th, 2015
Philip J. Landrigan, M.D., and Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., Department of Preventive Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York (P.J.L.); and the Department of Crops and Soil Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, WA (C.B.). - The New England Journal of Medicine
Stephan: When what is arguably the top medical journal in the U.S., and one of the four leading medical journals in the world comes out with an editorial arguing against GMOs and the toxins that industrial chemical system of agriculture requires it seems to me one ought to pay close attention.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not high on most physicians’ worry lists. If we think at all about biotechnology, most of us probably focus on direct threats to human health, such as prospects for converting pathogens to biologic weapons or the implications of new technologies for editing the human germline. But while those debates simmer, the application of biotechnology to agriculture has been rapid and aggressive. The vast majority of the corn and soybeans grown in the United States are now genetically engineered. Foods produced from GM crops have become ubiquitous. And unlike regulatory bodies in 64 other countries, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not require labeling of GM foods.
Two recent developments are dramatically changing the GMO landscape. First, there have been sharp increases in the amounts and numbers of chemical herbicides applied to GM crops, and still further increases — the largest in a generation — are scheduled to occur in the next few years. Second, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified glyphosate, the herbicide most widely used on GM crops, […]
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Wednesday, August 26th, 2015
Stephan: Like most older men I take an 81 milligram aspirin for cardiovascular reasons. Now there is a second reason for doing so, as this report explains.
A daily 75 to 150 milligram dose of aspirin taken for at least five years cut the chances of developing bowel cancer by 27%, a study found
Taking a low-dose painkiller every day can reduce the risk of bowel cancer, a new study has found.
The research shows that a daily 75 to 150 milligram dose of aspirin taken for at least five years cut the chances of developing the disease by 27%.
Continuous use of aspirin or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen, was associated with a risk reduction of 30% to 45%.
A daily 75 to 150 milligram dose of aspirin taken for at least five years cut the chances of developing bowel cancer by 27%, a study found
Non-aspirin NSAIDs with the best ability to suppress a pro-inflammatory enzyme called Cox 2 had the greatest effect.
The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, reviewed data on […]
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Wednesday, August 26th, 2015
John B. Alexander, Ph.D, - The Huffington Post
Stephan: I don't think anyone who makes assessments based on facts would disagree that the U.S. geopolitical and military strategies are and have been for several decades deeply dysfunctional. Our place in the world, how we are viewed by the rest of the world, the results of our choices have produced nothing but calamity, violence, and death. John Alexander's essay is an excellent assessment of this.
The National Military Strategy is periodically published to enunciate the overarching goals and objectives for the Department of Defense (DOD). Based on a changing and challenging geopolitical environment, this document outlines the military’s missions in the broadest terms. That directly impacts force structure, or how the DOD is organized. In the latest two versions an egocentric addition has emerged–universal values. Portending hubris, that concept is both wrong and potentially dangerous to our position in the world. It is wrong because there are no agreed upon “universal values” and dangerous because it reinforces concerns professed by many people around the world that the United States holds itself to be the supreme judge of moral authority and arbiter of global power.
The current version of the strategy is dated June 2015 and it is the first change since 2011. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s foreword realistically notes, “Global disorder has significantly increased while some of our comparative military advantage has begun to erode. We now face multiple, simultaneous security challenges from traditional state actors and transregional networks of sub-state groups — all taking advantage of rapid technological change. Future conflicts will come more rapidly, last longer, […]
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Tuesday, August 25th, 2015
Stephan: As you read this story, that no one wants to talk about, think about 17 million little children in the U.S. who aren't sure where there next meal is coming from, and who maybe didn't have dinner today. Or think about the grannies eating cat food. Think about the college students graduating with such a large debt that it will shape the arc of their lives, for all their lives. Bear in mind that we spend more on our military, intelligence, security establishment than, China, Russia, France, the U.K. and Germany combined. And literally trillions of those dollars disappeared like a mist in the morning.
Each of these stacks is made up of $100 bills. $8.5 trillion is a VERY big number.
This is roughly what 8.5 Trillion dollars would look like… and those are $100 bills. Take another look and let that sink in for a bit… I find it absolutely astonishing that the pentagon could lose track of this much money and for there to be no main stream media coverage of this scandalous amount of mismanagement and fraud. Where is the demand for accountability? Why is the first question to ANY candidate for president not “What would you do about the massive fraud and waste at the Pentagon?” Where are the hearings, nay indictments, that are warranted when a sum equal to 1/2 of our national debt can be sent to the pentagon to never be accounted for. More below.
We progressives need to work this scandal into every political conversation we engage in, especially when we talk to conservatives. Cutting government spending and accountability are supposed to be core GOP values.
Combine
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