The Kevin Trudeau Show: 5-5-12

Today, the director of Farmageddon, Kristin Canty, stops by to give you the inside story on what really happened during the Rawesome Foods raid and why her documentary is so important for every American to see! Plus, is America becoming a dictatorship right before our eyes?

Self Help:
Global Information Network
Your Wish Is Your Command

Government:
Congress’ Next Challenge: Forming The Debt “Super Committee”
Shift On Executive Power Lets Obama Bypass Rivals
Rise Of The Petty Dictator
Two-Party Dictatorship: US Choosing Lesser Evil?
Judge Allows American To Sue Rumsfeld Over Torture
Is Western Democracy Real Or A Facade?

Wealth:
How To Survive The Stock Market’s Wild Ride
Hope For Financial Freedom
EU Austerity Madness
The Illusion Of Capital

Everything Kevin:
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Rise In Resistant Bacteria Could Make Some Diseases Impossible To Treat

February 20, 2012

The Independent

By Jeremy Laurence

Britain is facing a “massive” rise in antibiotic-resistant blood poisoning caused by the bacterium E.coli – bringing closer the spectre of diseases that are impossible to treat.

Experts say the growth of antibiotic resistance now poses as great a threat to global health as the emergence of new diseases such as Aids and pandemic flu.

Professor Peter Hawkey, a clinical microbiologist and chair of the Government’s antibiotic-resistance working group, said that antibiotic resistance had become medicine’s equivalent of climate change.

The “slow but insidious growth” of resistant organisms was threatening to turn common infections into untreatable diseases, he said. Already, an estimated 25,000 people die each year in the European Union from antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections.

“It is a worldwide issue – there are no boundaries,” he said. “We have very good policies on the use of antibiotics in man and in animals in the UK. But we are not alone. We have to think globally.” Between 2005 and 2009 the incidence of E.coli “bacteraemias” [the presence of bacteria in the blood] rose by 30 per cent, from 18,000 to over 25,000 cases. Those resistant to antibiotics have risen from 1 per cent at the beginning of the century to 10 per cent.

“Only one in 20 of infections with [resistant] E.coli is a bacteraemia, so the above data are only the tip of an iceberg of infected individuals,” says a report produced by Professor Hawkey’s group, commissioned by the Department of Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dame Sally Davies, the Government’s chief medical officer, has pledged £500,000 to fund research into the threat. Drug companies have lost interest in developing new antibiotics because it is increasingly difficult to find new agents and it is not commercially viable – antibiotics are taken for a few days, compared with, say, a heart drug which may be taken for life.

“There are only so many antibiotics available and as we lose them it becomes more and more difficult to replace them,” Professor Hawkey said.

The rapid rise in E.coli blood poisoning is thought to be linked with the ageing of the population. E.coli is a common cause of urinary-tract infections but may also cause wound infections following surgery or injury. These are regarded as minor conditions, but if they became untreatable they would be life-threatening.

Click here for the full report from The Independent.

Free-Range Eggs Outselling Battery-Farmed In UK

February 8, 2012

The Independent

By Martin Hickman

Twenty years ago free-range eggs were rarely bought but for the first time this year they will outsell those from caged birds, according to industry estimates.

Of the 9 billion eggs laid in the UK in 2012, 49 per cent will come from free-range hens allowed to roam outdoors, compared with 48 per cent from hens cooped up in cages. A further 3 per cent come from “barn” hens that wander around indoor sheds, according to the British Egg Industry Council.

Animal welfare groups say there has been a quiet revolution in shopping habits since 1995, when 86 per cent of British eggs came from battery cages.

Although barren battery cages were banned by the European Union on 1 January, their replacement, “enriched” cages, contain perches and litter for pecking and scratching, but give each hen only 750cm squared – little more than a sheet of A4 paper.

Some farmers using battery cages are thought to have left the business in recent months rather than invest in “enriched” cages, further tilting the balance in favour of free-range.

The RSPCA believes the transformation in our egg-buying habits has been spurred by the introduction eight years ago of compulsory labelling which forced producers to state the method of production.

Several retailers such as Waitrose, the Co-op and Marks & Spencers will not stock any eggs from caged birds, but other supermarkets such as Tesco and Morrisons, will sell eggs from enriched cages.

The RSPCA says the rise of free-range sales shows shoppers are prepared to pay more to ensure good animal welfare. On average, free-range costs 4p more per egg, with Tesco selling a free-range box of six for £1.68 and six from caged birds for £1.46.

Click here for the full report from The Independent.

Documents Reveal U.S. Diplomats On Monsanto Payroll

January 11, 2012

Natural News

By Anthony Gucciardi

Biotech giant Monsanto has been genetically modifying the world’s food supply and subsequently breeding environmental devastation for years, but leaked documents now reveal that Monsanto has also deeply infiltrated the United States government. With leaked reports revealing how U.S. diplomats are actually working for Monsanto to push their agenda along with other key government officials, Monsanto’s grasp on international politics has never been clearer.

Amazingly, the information reveals that the massive corporation is also intensely involved in the passing and regulations concerning the very GM ingredients they are responsible for. In fact, the information released by WikiLeaks reveals just how much power Monsanto has thanks to key positions within the United States government and elsewhere. Not only was it exposed that the U.S. is threatening nations who oppose Monsanto with military-style trade wars, but that many U.S. diplomats actually work directly for Monsanto.

In 2007 it was requested that specific nations inside the European Union be punished for not supporting the expansion of Monsanto’s GMO crops. The request for such measures to be taken was made by Craig Stapleton, the United States ambassador to France and partner to George W. Bush. Despite mounting evidence linking Monsanto’s GM corn to organ damage and environmental devastation, the ambassador plainly calls for ‘target retaliation’ against those not supporting the GM crop. In the leaked documents, Stapleton states:

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices.”

The undying support of key players within the U.S. towards Monsanto is undeniably made clear not only in this release, but in the legislative decisions taken by organizations such as the FDA and USDA. Legislative decisions such as allowing Monsanto’s synthetic hormone Posilac (rBGH) to be injected into U.S. cows despite being banned in 27 countries. How did Monsanto pull this off?

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

Equal Pay For Women? Not Until 2109

September 20th, 2011

Aol Jobs

By: Dan Fastenberg

Equal Pay is on the way.

If by “on the way,” you accept 2109. That’s the year analysts with the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) expect pay disparity will disappear between the genders. The number was calculated based on the current pace of change. The year 2109 was the expected date for top levels of management, while 2067 is a fair estimate for lower down on the corporate totem pole. The study was also mindful of entrenched legal frameworks that inhibit investigations of wage disparity, such as a lack of infrastructure protecting against corporate wage opacity.

Chartered Management is in fact a British firm, and made its prognostications for that country. But the U.K.’s experience with the wage gap mirrors America’s. British women make on average 79 percent the salaries of their counterparts, according to a report in The Guardian. And while that is slightly lower than the European Union-wide average of 82 percent, it places it ever so slightly ahead of the American tally of 77 percent.

The CMI released its findings along with strong words of caution.

“The prospect of continued decades of pay inequality cannot be allowed to become reality,” said CMI’s head of policy, Petra Wilson. “We want to see the government take greater steps to enforce pay equality by monitoring organizations more closely and naming and shaming those who fail to pay male and female staff fairly.”

Analysts have long questioned the intractability of the wage gap. It has been 48 years since John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in the U.S., but the momentum toward total parity stalled more than two decades ago, says Ariane Hegewisch, the study director for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), in an interview with AOL Jobs.

Hegeswisch advocates for measures like greater salary transparency in hoping to level the playing field once and for all. She supports the Paycheck Fairness Act (PFA), which Congress has let languish in committee. The PFA would would make it illegal for companies to retaliate against female employees who try and find out information about males’ wages. The transparency argument has also been made in Europe, where advocates share the belief that no manager can openly embrace unequal pay models.

Nevertheless, CMI has also released a toolkit for women to empower them in the face of the unequal workplace. In providing women with a grounding in taking on a host of issues, including unequal pay, CMI offers a three-point basic checklist:

1. Negotiate the best deal when you are offered a new role.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for a pay-raise, but approach the situation with as many facts as you can find.

3. Be proactive in establishing a diversity management program at your workplace.

Other strategies can center on pointing out the ridiculousness of unequal pay. An accompanying report in The Guardian pointed out all the things that are expected to happen by the time equal pay may become a reality.

“Robots should finally be smart enough to liberate us from mundane chores — and space tourism will be old news, as will planetary exploration. Instead we will begin reaching out beyond our solar system to neighboring stars, using millions of tiny nanoships to scout for suitable planets, and giant solar sails to carry us there. And we will use clean nuclear fusion to meet all our energy needs,” writes Duncan Graham-Rowe.

Click here for the full report from Aol Jobs

EU Bans Chemical BPA in Baby Bottles

November 29th, 2010

AOL News

By: Lauren Frayer

Starting next year, the European Union will outlaw baby bottles that contain the so-called “gender-bending” chemical BPA, which mimics female hormones and has been linked to breast cancer, fertility problems and other illnesses.

By March 1, BPA will be forbidden in all baby bottles manufactured on the continent. And by June 1, Europe will ban the import and sales of such products. The ban was announced Thursday by EU Health Commissioner John Dalli.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a chemical that acts as a hardener in plastics compounds. But it can also be a “tumor stimulator,” Dalli told The Independent newspaper. In September, the European Food Safety Authority cited some “uncertainties” about BPA. “On that decision we decided to ban the use of Bisphenol A in baby bottles,” Dalli said.

“The decision … is good news for European parents who can be sure that as of mid-2011 plastic infant feeding bottles will not include BPA,” Dalli also told the UK’s Daily Mail.

However, BPA remains in the lids of baby food jars and many other consumer products, including soda cans, cash register receipts, cell phones and computers. Scientists estimate that 90 percent of Westerners have been exposed to BPA and carry traces of it in their bodies.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it has “some concern” over BPA’s potentially harmful effects on the human brain and development of glands in fetuses, babies and young children. Several U.S. states have since moved to restrict the substance.

Last month, Canada became the first country to officially list BPA as a toxic substance.

Plastics manufacturers object to BPA bans, saying research has been inconclusive about how harmful it can be. But groups like the Brussels-based Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) say the chemical can affect human brain tissue even “at surprisingly low doses.”

The chemical releases harmful toxins when it’s heated up with certain compounds found in food, HEAL spokeswoman Lisette van Vliet told EuroNews. In a demonstration with a plastic bowl made for children, van Vliet said, “If you put some fatty substance in here, and you put this in the microwave, and you heated it up, it is possible for bisphenol A to leach out of this and into the food.”

BPA is also found in some food packaging, milk containers, water pipes — and even dental work.

Click here for the full report from AOL News

Ahmadinejad Doubts 9/11 Attacks

September 7, 2010

Breitbart

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned the accepted narrative of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, saying it was still not clear who was behind them.

“Something happened in New York and still nobody knows who the main perpetrators of that act were,” Ahmadinejad told diplomats and newspaper editors late on Sunday while on a brief visit to Qatar.

“No independent people were allowed to try and identify the perpetrators,” he charged.

“They say terrorists were hidden in Afganistan and NATO mobilised all its resources and attacked Afghanistan,” he said.

“They say that in the Twin Towers, 2,000 people were killed. In Afganistan, so far more 110,000 have been killed.”

Ahmadinejad has on several occasions questioned the accepted version of the 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda militants, which killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

In March, he referred to the attacks as “a big lie,” Iranian state media reported.

Iran is locked in a standoff with Western governments over its nuclear programme.

The UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of sanctions on June 9 over Iran’s failure to heed repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment, the sensitive process which can produce fuel for nuclear reactors or, in higly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

The European Union, Japan and the United States have all imposed additional sanctions of their own, over and above the UN ones.

Western governments suspect Iran’s nuclear programme is cover for a weapons drive, something Tehran strongly denies.
Click here to read the full report

EU Food Supplement Crackdown Overrides Consumer Choice

August 26, 2010

The Business Muse

hundreds of food supplements and thousands of health-benefit claims concerning food supplements will be banished from the European market as each European Union member state enforces the EU Supplements Directive of 2002. That administrative rule is one of the Western world’s most extensive experiments in centralized government planning. By order of the European Food Safety Authority, as confirmed by the European Commission, the nations of Europe will dutifully dispatch their health investigators and police to remove from the market hundreds of food supplements consumed for decades without serious complaint.

Companies forced to downsize or closeThose agents will force the downsizing or closure of a number of companies that have manufactured and distributed the banned products, particularly small to medium-size businesses. The agents will also censor health information in ways more sweeping (reaching health claims made in all 27 member states) than the dreaded English Licensing of the Press Act of 1662. The food supplement market in Western Europe is estimated to have an annual value of approximately US$80 billion. About 40 per cent of the adult population of Europe use dietary supplements daily, varying in kind preferred and in level of interest by country. Increasingly, Europeans have come to associate above-recommended daily intake of certain vitamins and minerals with beneficial health effects, causing them to depend on access to those products as part of a personal health regimen.

Countries seriously affectedCertain countries in Europe already suffering from high unemployment rates, such as Spain (near 20 per cent), Ireland (13 per cent), Portugal (10 per cent) and Greece (9.2 per cent), stand to suffer the most from unemployment resulting from the EU crackdown on supplements and supplement claims. The directive has empowered that bureaucratic scientific body – the Safety Authority – to stand between those who make and distribute food supplements and European consumers, and to dictate which products previously lawfully available may henceforth be allowed to reach consumers and what may henceforth be said about them. Its aim is to render uniform the entire European market, despite the great diversity in food-supplement preferences that exist among the peoples of Europe.
The system discriminates against small companies and new market entrants in favor of large companies and incumbent sellers because it presumes all products sold without incident to be unlawful unless proven – based on clinical trial evidence – to be safe and bioavailable. Proof, in the form of scientific dossiers, must establish to EFSA’s satisfaction that products intended for sale are safe and bioavailable. No claims may henceforth be made unless scientific dossiers establish to EFSA’s satisfaction that the claims are proven to a near conclusive degree. The dossiers are expensive, roughly US$500,000 or more per submission. At least 90 per cent of the companies in this market cannot afford to submit a dossier and so must either cease sales altogether or reduce product offerings to those that others succeed in getting approved.
EFSA, a draconian taskmasterTo date, EFSA has proven itself a draconian taskmaster. Of some 800 dossiers for food-supplement approval that have been submitted, almost 80 per cent haven’t been approved by the agency.  Unless a food supplement is placed on EFSA’s list of approved supplement ingredients, it is unlawful to sell. That method reversed the prior burden of proof. Before the EU Supplements Directive, if a product was derived from food, it was presumed safe unless a government in Europe established the product to be adulterated (i.e., to be unsafe for human consumption). Since the EU Supplements Directive, every food supplement is presumed unsafe, regardless of its prior history of safe use, unless scientifically established to EFSA’s satisfaction to be safe and bioavailable.
Proof of safety and bioavailability has proven to be a catch-22 in EFSA’s Kafkaesque system of risk reviews. If a food supplement could be unsafe at some dose level (a truism for everything in nature, including water), then it is presumed unsafe at every dose level unless a dossier proves safety at a particular dose level. In addition, if a food supplement has an effect on the body (true for almost every food supplement and dependent on dose), then if that biological effect can be linked to some potential adverse event it becomes an impermissible dose. In the end, this system reduces dosages for food supplements to levels of inactivity, making them largely useless as aids to health, undermining entirely the market for these products by eliminating them except at dose levels that have no beneficial health benefits.
To date, EFSA has also been an effective censor. Of some 9,000 health-claim dossiers filed, EFSA has acted on only 1,080. EFSA says it will act in September on the remainder still on file. Its rulings have generally been negative, condemning nearly every claim for probiotic products, antioxidants, even omega-3 fatty acids. Claims not supported by proof to a near-conclusive degree are rejected. Although almost no science, including nutrition science, is ever provable conclusively, EFSA condemns all nutrition science that accurately reflects the extent to which a nutrient may affect health on the illogical presumption that science is false unless conclusively proven true.
In the real world of science, information exists on a continuum between a bare hypothesis and a proposition that is proven, with most existing in the realm between the two, backed by credible evidence that links the nutrient to an effect on health and disease, albeit inconclusively. EU fails to disclose informationConsumers depend on credible science that is inconclusive in making daily purchasing decisions. Indeed, they depend on inconclusive science to make critical, life-affecting decisions in the market – everything from which car to buy to what drug to take. Uniquely, the EU has chosen to keep from consumers all less-than-conclusive information about nutrients potential to cause illness or disease. In this way, the EU is dumbing down the European marketplace for food supplements, robbing Europeans of essential information on emerging science and the potential of certain nutrients to reduce disease and improve health.
Ironically, while EU officials contend that this experiment in centralized planning protects the health of Europeans, it may well harm their health. Science linking certain nutrients to disease risk reducing effects (such as omega-3 fatty acids and heart and brain health; antioxidants and reduction in the risk of certain kinds of cancer; selenium and reduction in certain kinds of cancer, among many others) may well prove true, yet in Europe, consumers will be denied that information in the market into the foreseeable future.
Consequently, those Europeans who would wish to bet on the provability of emerging science by exercising choice in the market will be denied the opportunity to make that bet by a paternalistic EU, an EU that thinks it knows better than the typical European what is in that European’s own self-interest. The result may well be a higher level of heart disease, senescence, Alzheimer’s, and cancer than would otherwise be the case. At a minimum, this new system reduces the sovereignty of EU member states and, most importantly, citizens of each EU member country, proving once again that a common market can also mean common enslavement

Notable Information:
·         Jonathan W. Emord is the only attorney in history that has beat the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) in federal court a record breaking seven times.  These victories proved that there is scientific evidence that:

1.     Folic acid is a key in neural tube defect risk reduction.
2.     Antioxidant vitamins are key cancer risk reduction
3.     Omega-3 fatty acids are key coronary heart disease risk reduction
4.     Dietary fiber is key in colorectal cancer risk reduction
5.     B vitamins and folic acid are key in the reduction in the risk of vascular disease
6.     Selenium is key in cancer risk reduction
Jonathan W. Emord has two Amazon bestselling books: The Rise of Tyranny (2008) which sold 3000+ units and Global Censorship of Health Information (2010) which sold almost 1500 units.  He is also the author of Freedom, Technology, and the First Amendment, a critically acclaimed academic work published by the Pacific Research Institute in 1991, which has sold in excess of 10,000 copies worldwide.
·         George Noory, Coast to Coast AM, The #1 rated night nationally syndicated commercial radio host conducts a 4 hour interview with Jonathan Emord on FDA regulation, corruption and health care reforms: http://www.emord.com/radio.html

·         Jonathan W. Emord served as a vice-president of the Cato Institute during the Reagan Administration.

About  Jonathan W. Emord
Jonathan W. Emord, principal of Emord and Associates, practices constitutional and administrative law in Washington D.C. before the federal courts and agencies.  He is the only attorney in American history who has defeated the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seven times in federal court, six times on First Amendment grounds.
Emord began his legal career as an attorney in the Mass Media Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission in 1985 during the Reagan Administration.  In 1992, he served as a Vice President at the Washington, D.C. think tank the Cato Institute. Re-entering private practice, he formed his own law firm, Emord & Associates, in 1994 beginning with 10 clients and had over 450 by 2009. From 1994 to the present he has represented clients principally before the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Emord is rated “AV” (preeminent in the law, the highest possible legal rating in both legal ability and ethical standards) by the Martindale-Hubbell organization. His career is marked by defense of individual rights against government regulation. He was awarded the Cancer Control Society’s Humanitarian Award in 2007 for writing “critically acclaimed First Amendment books and professional papers” and for “tearing down walls of censorship.”
Congressman, and presidential candidate, Ron Paul has referred to Emord as “a hero of the health freedom revolution” and has said “all freedom-loving Americans are in [his] debt.” Emord has written several pieces of legislation for Congressman Paul designed to restore constitutional government, including the Health Freedom Act; the Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act; and the Freedom of Health Speech Act.
In 2009, Emord began working with jurists and public interest groups in Europe and Canada to develop legal strategies for attacking restrictions on the right to communicate health information in those countries.  Increasingly Emord’s work on defense of the right to communicate truthful nutrient-disease information has become international.  In 2009 the Walter Reed publishing company together with Nutraingredients.com invited Emord to Brussels to explain how European Food Safety Authority restrictions on the right to communicate nutrient-disease information could be challenged before the European Court of Human Rights. Emord’s December 10, 2009 speech was widely reported in the European and American trade press.
Emord is the author of the Amazon Bestselling and critically acclaimed books: The Rise of Tyranny (2008) ; and Global Censorship of Health Information (2010) He is also a weekly columnist for www.newswithviews.com and a monthly columnist for Troy Media.
Julian M. Whitaker, M.D.: “Global Censorship of Health Information is a must read—and call to action—for every lover of liberty.”

Paul H. Rubin, Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics,
Emory University: “Jonathan Emord is a litigator involved in the actual pursuit of the right to free speech, and a dedicated defender of freedom. … Anyone interested in the First Amendment in the U.S. or in issues of free speech in general should read this book.”

Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, Scientists and NY Times Best-Selling Authors:
“A wonderful and badly needed book! Everyone should read it.”

Scientist and Columnist, Whole Foods Magazine Richard A. Passwater, Ph.D.: “The various efforts by government agencies may seem unrelated at first, but when Emord exposes the larger picture, readers will understand the magnitude of the problem confronting their future health. If you don’t think [health information censorship] is a serious problem to you and your family—read Global Censorship and you will think again.”

Click Here For Full Report

Salmonella Vaccine May Prevent Egg Recalls

August 26, 2010

Pharm Pro

By MICHAEL J. CRUMB

Low-cost vaccines that may help prevent the kind of salmonella outbreak that has led to the recall of more than a half-billion eggs haven’t been given to nearly half the U.S.’s egg-laying hens.

The vaccines aren’t required in the U.S., although in Great Britain, officials say vaccinations have given them the safest egg supply in Europe. A survey conducted by the European food safety agency in 2009 found about 1 percent of British flocks had salmonella compared to about 60 to 70 percent of flocks elsewhere in Europe, said Amanda Cryer, spokeswoman for the British Egg Information Service.

Since Britain’s vaccinations began, the only salmonella outbreaks in eggs have been linked to those imported from elsewhere in the European Union, Cryer said. Overall salmonella cases in the country dropped by half within three years.

There’s been no push to require vaccination in the U.S., in part because it would cost farmers and in part because advocates have been more focused on more comprehensive food safety reforms, those watching the poultry industry said. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not yet determined how the hens in Iowa became infected.

But Darrell Trampel, a poultry veterinarian at Iowa State University, predicted vaccination will become more common after the recent outbreak.

“I think (vaccination) will move from hit and miss to being a standard,” Trampel said.

About 125 million of the 218 million egg-laying hens in the U.S. have been vaccinated, said Gary Baxter, a spokesman for French pharmaceutical company CEVA, which makes some of the vaccines available in the U.S. The salmonella vaccine prevents chickens from becoming infected and then passing the bacteria on to their eggs. It has been available in the U.S. since 1992.

There are two forms. One is a spray that uses a live bacteria, and chickens inhale it. The other contains dead bacteria that’s injected. Jewanna Porter, a spokeswoman for the Egg Safety Center, an industry group, said both forms provide good protection. The injected vaccine lasts longer, but veterinarians recommend both be updated.

In most cases, laying hens are vaccinated at between 10 and 16 weeks old, which is before they are put into production.

The FDA said last month it doesn’t believe mandatory vaccination is necessary, but it supports farmers doing it voluntarily.

Data on the vaccine’s effectiveness in field trials conducted in real world conditions “was insufficient to support a mandatory vaccination requirement,” the agency said in the text of new rules requiring increased inspections and testing of eggs.

“If individual producers have identified vaccines that are effective for particular farms, FDA encourages the use of vaccine as an additional preventative measure,” the agency said.

Telephone and e-mail messages left for FDA spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy for further explanation were not immediately returned Tuesday.

Doug Grian-Sherman, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the vaccine deserves additional study, but it would likely have only have limited effectiveness against a bacteria like salmonella, which has many different strains.

“It’s only going to be a Band-Aid on a much bigger problem,” he said.

It would be more effective to give the FDA additional authority to stop repeat offenders and pull contaminated products off shelves and to move away from big production facilities that ship across the nation and can quickly spread disease, Grian-Sherman said.

“The way we produce a lot of our food and meat and eggs in particular, has gotten to a scale where it’s very difficult to prevent these problems,” he said. “That needs to change and we need to think about producing food on a scale that is better for the communities and safer for consumers.”

Trample, the Iowa State University veterinarian, said no vaccine for any disease is required for chickens.

“They are all left up to the decision of the producer,” he said. “Almost all other vaccines are strictly for chicken diseases that have no public health significance.”

Both farms involved in the recall vaccinated some of their chickens.

Julie DeYoung, a spokeswoman for Hillandale Farms, said the company began purchasing vaccinated laying hens in September 2009. The company didn’t vaccinate older hens but replaced them with vaccinated ones as they went out of production, she said.

“So about 80 percent of the hens have been vaccinated,” DeYoung said.

Wright County Egg has vaccinated some hens since 2009, investing more than $570,000 in the effort, spokeswoman Hinda Mitchell said. She declined to offer details due to an FDA investigation but said young hens were vaccinated “when they are in our care.”

The FDA’s El-Hinnawy said Monday it appeared the company vaccinated some but not all of its hens.

In Great Britain, farmers use a vaccine that goes into the water hens drink. The British government began encouraging, but not requiring, vaccination after a salmonella scare in the late 1980s crippled its egg industry. There was a 60 percent drop in egg sales overnight, Cryer said.

“Looking back, that scare was probably the best thing for the industry because we sorted out the problem, and we now have very high standards and there are no consumer concerns about safety,” she said.

At least 90 percent of eggs in Great Britain come from vaccinated hens. The other 10 percent come from very small farmers who may have vaccinated chickens but don’t sell to major retailers.

Dr. George Boggan, a veterinarian with CEVA, said they aren’t always effective. If egg farms are dirty, and there’s a lot of contamination, the bacteria can “overwhelm” the protection from the vaccine, he said.

“It’s in the best interest to keep the environment as clean as possible,” Boggan said.

S&R Farms near Whitewater, Wis., began inoculating its 2.5 million hens seven years ago.

“We kept our birds on that program and we’ve never had a positive (salmonella) result in the thousands of tests we’ve done,” manager Dave Hill said.

He didn’t know exactly how much the company paid for the vaccines, but others estimated vaccination costs between 40 and 60 cents per bird. That includes the cost of the vaccine and the expense involved in administering it.

“It’s a relatively inexpensive thing to do for the safety you get from it,” Hill said.

Click Here For Full Report

Israel Has ’8 Days’ To Hit Iran Nuclear Site

August 17, 2010

Yahoo! News

Israel has “eight days” to launch a military strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear facility and stop Tehran from acquiring a functioning atomic plant, a former US envoy to the UN has said.

Iran is to bring online its first nuclear power reactor, built with Russia’s help, on August 21, when a shipment of nuclear fuel will be loaded into the plant’s core.

At that point, John Bolton warned Monday, it will be too late for Israel to launch a military strike against the facility because any attack would spread radiation and affect Iranian civilians.

“Once that uranium, once those fuel rods are very close to the reactor, certainly once they’re in the reactor, attacking it means a release of radiation, no question about it,” Bolton told Fox Business Network.

“So if Israel is going to do anything against Bushehr it has to move in the next eight days.”

Absent an Israeli strike, Bolton said, “Iran will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has and that is a functioning nuclear reactor.”

But when asked whether he expected Israel to actually launch strikes against Iran within the next eight days, Bolton was skeptical.

“I don’t think so, I’m afraid that they’ve lost this opportunity,” he said.

The controversial former envoy to the United Nations criticized Russia’s role in the development of the plant, saying “the Russians are, as they often do, playing both sides against the middle.”

“The idea of being able to stick a thumb in America’s eye always figures prominently in Moscow,” he added.

Iran dismissed the possibilities of such an attack from its archfoes.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday that “these threats of attacks had become repetitive and lost their meaning.”

“According to international law, installations which have real fuel cannot be attacked because of the humanitarian consequences,” he told reporters at a news conference in Tehran.

Iranian officials say Iran has stepped up defensive measures at the Bushehr plant to protect it from any attacks.

Russia has been building the Bushehr plant since the mid-1990s but the project was marred by delays, and the issue is hugely sensitive amid Tehran’s standoff with the West and Israel over its nuclear ambitions.

The UN Security Council hit Tehran with a fourth set of sanctions on June 9 over its nuclear programme, and the United States and European Union followed up with tougher punitive measures targeting Iran’s banking and energy sectors.

The Bushehr project was first launched by the late shah in the 1970s using contractors from German firm Siemens. But it was shelved when he was deposed in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

It was revived after the death of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, as Iran’s new supreme leader Ali Khamenei and his first president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, backed the project.

In 1995, Iran won the support of Russia which agreed to finish building the plant and fuel it.
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