Some of the doctors said the main reason was their exam tables or other equipment can’t handle people over a certain weight. But at least six said they were trying to avoid obese patients because they have a higher risk of complications.

“People don’t realize the risk we’re taking by taking care of these patients,” said Dr. Albert Triana, whose two-physician practice in South Miami declines patients classified as obese. “There’s more risk of something going wrong and more risk of getting sued. Everything is more complicated with an obese patient in GYN surgeries and in [pregnancies].”

Plantation ob-gyn partners Jeffrey Solomon and Isabel Otero-Echandi turn down any woman weighing more than 250 pounds.

Solomon and Otero don’t want to begin seeing heavy women and then have to send them to specialists if they later develop problems, said their office manager, who asked not to be named. The two doctors, like several of the others with weight cutoffs, declined to comment.

“This is not a high-risk practice,” the office manager said. “They are not experts in obesity.”

Turning down overweight people is not illegal for doctors, but the policy worried leaders of physician groups, medical ethics experts and advocates for the obese, all of whom said it violates the spirit of the medical profession.

“If I had that policy, I wouldn’t have a practice. I’d lose half my patients,” said Dr. Maureen Whelihan, a West Palm Beach ob-gyn. “We never turn down anyone. We would see them, and if we had to, we would refer them to a specialist.”

Leaders of eight local, state and national medical associations said they had never heard of doctors turning away patients solely because of weight. Several said obese people with no other health issues do not need special treatment.

“No doctor should be unable to treat patients just because they are heavy,” said Dr. Bruce Zafran, a Coral Springs ob-gyn.

So far, the weight cutoffs have been enacted only by South Florida ob-gyns, who have long complained of high numbers of lawsuits after difficult births and high rates for medical-malpractice insurance. More than half go without coverage.

Ob-gyns for years have declined to see pregnant women who are overweight, typically sending them to specialists. It’s new for them to turn down overweight women who are not pregnant, physician groups said.

Several ob-gyn offices said their ultrasound machines do not give good images of internal anatomy in obese women, making it harder to diagnose some medical problems.

The Plantation office manager said weight limits are not uncommon at offices owned, like hers, by the Coconut Grove medical services company VitalMD.

VitalMD treasurer Kerry Kuhn, an ob-gyn in Coral Springs, said he was unaware of his doctors setting weight limits, adding the company has nothing to do with doctor decisions.

“This is individual choice by a doctor,” Kuhn said. “Doctors know who they want to treat.”

Physicians, like any business, can decline service to whomever they choose for any reason — including personality conflicts — as long as it’s not discriminatory. The American Medical Association advises doctors that they cannot reject patients because of race, gender, sexual orientation or infectious diseases.

Doctors also are allowed to drop patients, if they believe they lack the medical skills to properly treat them. They must send notices and refer them to other doctors.

But decisions about patients typically are made after assessing the individual’s condition during an exam, not by ruling out an entire group, said Dr. Robert Yelverton, a board member of the Florida Obstetric and Gynecologic Society. He said he would discourage physicians from excluding the obese.

“Do I think it’s a good policy? No,” Yelverton said. “Overweight people need doctors. I don’t know where a patient in that situation would go if every practice had that policy.”

The AMA and the ob-gyn group declined to comment on doctors setting weight limits. A spokesman for the Obesity Action Coalition in Tampa said the restrictions sound like discrimination.

“This completely goes against the principles of being a doctor,” James Zervios said. “Health care professionals are there to help individuals improve their quality of health, not stigmatize them according to their weight.”

Sales of all herbal remedies, except for a small number of popular products for ‘mild’ illness such as echinacea for colds and St John’s Wort for depression have been banned.

For the first time traditional products must be licensed or prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner.

Both herbal remedy practitioners and manufacturers fear they could be forced out of business as a result.

Some of the most commonly used products were saved after the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley approved a plan for the Health Professions Council to establish a register of practitioners supplying unlicensed herbal medicines.

However, many remedies were lost as it was only open to those who could afford the licensing process which costs between £80,000 to £120,000.

At least 50 herbs, including horny goat weed (so-called natural Viagra), hawthorn berry, used for angina pain, and wild yam will no longer be stocked in health food shops, says the British Herbal Medicine Association.

The 2004 EU directive demands that a traditional herbal medicinal product must be shown to have been in use for 30 years in the EU – or at 15 years in the EU and 15 years elsewhere – for it to be licensed.

The UK drug safety watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency, has issued more than a dozen alerts in the past two years, including a warning last month over a contaminated weight loss pill called Herbal Flos Lonicerae (Herbal Xenicol) due to concerns over possible side-effects.

Mr Lansley, in a written statement, said the Government wanted to ensure continuing access to unlicensed herbal medicines via a statutory register for practitioners ‘to meet individual patient needs’.

Acupuncture falls outside the EU directive and so remains unaffected.

Prince Charles, a long-standing supporter of complementary therapies, has voiced his support for formal regulation of herbal practitioners.

Up til now the industry has been covered by the 1968 Medicines Act. This was drawn up when only a small number of herbal remedies were available.

But recent studies show that at least six million Britons have used a herbal medicine in the past two years.

Professor George Lewith, professor of health research at Southampton University, said: ‘Evidence for the efficacy of herbal medicines is growing; they may offer cheap, safe and effective approaches for many common complaints.’

The concerns relate to an artificial brown colouring agent that the researchers say could be causing thousands of cancers.

‘The caramel colouring used in Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other foods is contaminated with two cancer-causing chemicals and should be banned,’ said the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a health lobby group based in Washington, DC.

‘In contrast to the caramel one might make at home by melting sugar in a saucepan, the artificial brown colouring in colas and some other products is made by reacting sugars with ammonia and sulphites under high pressure and temperatures.

‘Chemical reactions result in the formation of two substances known as 2-MI and 4-MI which in government-conducted studies caused lung, liver, or thyroid cancer or leukaemia in laboratory mice or rats.’

America’s National Toxicology Program says that there is ‘clear evidence’ that both 2-MI and 4-MI are animal carcinogens, and therefore likely to pose a risk to humans.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found significant levels of 4-MI in five brands of cola.

The executive director of the CSPI, Michael F Jacobson, has petitioned America’s food regulator, the Food & Drug Administration, to take action.He said: ‘Carcinogenic colourings have no place in the food supply, especially considering that their only function is a cosmetic one.’

Mr Jacobson said the name ‘caramel colouring’ does not accurately describe the additives, explaining: ‘It’s a concentrated dark brown mixture of chemicals that simply does not occur in nature.’

He added that while regular caramel could not be described as healthy, ‘at least it is not tainted with carcinogens’.

U.S. regulations distinguish between four types of caramel colouring, two of which are produced with ammonia and two without it. The CSPI wants the two made with ammonia to be banned and has received backing from five prominent cancer experts, including several who have worked at the National Toxicology Program.

The type used in colas and other dark soft drinks is known as Caramel IV, or ammonia sulphite process caramel. Caramel III, which is produced with ammonia but not sulphites, is sometimes used in beer, soy sauce, and other foods.

The CSPI admitted that any risk associated with consumption of the chemicals would be extremely small. It said the ten teaspoons of sugar found in a can of regular cola would be more of a health problem.

However, it argued the levels of 4-MI in the tested colas still may be causing thousands of cancers in the U.S. population alone.

Earlier this week, it was claimed that Coca-Cola’s secret recipe had been leaked. It was even suggested it might be possible to recreate the taste and look on the kitchen table.

The leak claims were denied by the company, where a spokesman said: ‘Many third parties have tried to crack our secret formula. Try as they might, they’ve been unsuccessful because there is only one “Real Thing”.’

Coca-Cola and Pepsi did not respond to a request for a response to the CSPI claims.

This morning Coca-Cola rejected the CSPI’s concerns.

A spokesman said: ‘Our beverages are completely safe. CSPI’s statement irresponsibly insinuates that the caramel used in our beverages is unsafe and
maliciously raises cancer concerns among consumers.

‘This does a disservice to the very public for which CSPI purports to serve.

‘Studies show that the caramel we use does not cause cancer.’

The company said its drinks do not contain 2-MEI. It said they do contain 4-MEI in trace amounts.

It said: ‘These extrapolations by CSPI to human health and cancer are totally unfounded.’

They have said that their organic tomato subsidiary, Muir Glen, will being to use the new can liners during the next harvest.

Thus far, there has been no word on whether General Mills will use BPA-free alternatives on any of its other canned products, but the report mentioned that they have not found BPA alternatives that will work for all of the different foods they package in cans.

BPA has been connected to a range of health concerns like cancer, developmental problems and reproductive issues in laboratory tests. Some states and cities in the U.S. have banned its use in certain products, primarily in items for young children that will come into contact with food. Many companies have voluntarily removed BPA from their products or required suppliers to provide BPA-free options.

The chemical is found in numerous products, but its use in hard plastics and plastic liners in metal cans have been of primary concern because in those cases it can more easily leach into foods and, in turn, into people’s bodies.

Muir Glen started using the BPA cans over this summer, but the company does not have plans to label the cans as BPA free.

They did however release this statement:

“One alternative has proven safe and viable in our processing of tomatoes – and Muir Glen has begun the transition to cans with liners that do not use BPA with this year’s tomato harvest. It is an approved non-epoxy alternative. Can coatings used by Muir Glen also comply fully with all applicable U.S. Food and Drug Administration requirements for safe use in food contact applications. The BPA free cans will have a Better If Used By code date year of 2013.”

If you want to support the use of BPA free cans you can look for the Muir Glen’s Organic Tomatoes to be labeled in the cans “Best Used by 2013″

The total number of recalled glasses is somewhere in the 12 million range. Long term exposure to Cadmium has been linked to cancer. Consumers should stop using these products immediately.

The recall was put into effect when regulators learned that the designs on the glasses contained the toxic metal, cadmium.

The glasses were sold at McDonald’s restaurants nationwide from May 2010 to June 2010.

Visit here for Cadmium Material Fact Sheet

The germ, known as Clostridium Difficile, has long plagued the medical profession and is blamed for an increasing amount of illness in patients.

But this is the first time the new strain, known in medical circles as “NAP1,” is believed to have been linked to patient illness and deaths in Arizona, health officials said. It carries at least 20 times as much toxin as the original strain.

According to the county, at least 10 patients have fallen severely ill from this new type of C. diff since early March. Two of those who were infected have died, though the germ has not been named conclusively as the cause of death. All the patients were elderly and suffered from health problems.

“Assuming this continues to evolve, it is going to be a real pain for our health-care communities,” said Dr. Bob England, director of the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.

Like other “supergerms,” all strains of C. diff are resistant to powerful antibiotics, and the infection is difficult and expensive to treat. The germ causes pronounced diarrhea and, in severe cases, can lead to inflammation of the colon, which can be fatal.

Healthy and younger people usually don’t get C. diff. Most cases occur in health-care facilities, and those represent only a small fraction of the tens of millions of admissions to U.S. hospitals and nursing homes every year. But the number of cases has risen sharply over the past decade, to nearly 500,000 in 2007, according to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“If there’s a cluster, an outbreak, we want to report that,” said Dr. John Hensing, executive vice president and chief medical officer at Banner Health, a Phoenix-based non-profit health-care group.

Banner officials say they believe that most, if not all, patients came to Banner Baywood with an active C. diff infection, rather than contracting it at the facility. Some arrived from long-term-care facilities and nursing homes or went to the emergency room after falling sick at home.

The patients were elderly, suffered from other health problems and had been on extensive antibiotics. Prolonged antibiotic use can heighten a patient’s susceptibility to C. diff because the drugs can kill off the body’s “good” bacteria, allowing it to flourish.

Arizona, like many other states, does not track incidences of C. diff.

But a Republic analysis of hospital-discharge records shows that from Jan. 1, 2008, to Dec. 31, 2009, patients at Arizona hospitals were identified as having a C. diff infections more than 15,400 times.

The bug is becoming a major problem for hospitals because it spreads easily. Traditional cleansers and hand sanitizers fail to neutralize its spores, which are often spread through fecal-oral contact. The best ways to deter C. diff is with bleach and aggressive hand-washing.

Banner said officials at Baywood took immediate steps to control the outbreak, including isolating patients who exhibited symptoms of illness.

They also sanitized surfaces and equipment throughout the hospital with bleach and instituted new hand-washing protocols for all patients, including those too sick to get out of bed.

Nurses now bring them bottles of water so they can scrub their hands with soap without getting up, officials said.

They believe they have the outbreak under control.

County public-health officials say it’s likely that this strain will continue to crop up in community and health-care facilities.

Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree. The CDC said Tuesday that the NAP1 C. diff strain has been spreading rapidly since it was first identified in health-care settings in six states from 2000 to 2003.

It has now been officially identified in 39 states, although it’s likely throughout the country, CDC officials said.

“Do I think it just got here? No. But this is the first time it was reported to public health,” said Dr. Rebecca Sunenshine, medical epidemiologist for the county’s Public Health Department. “So, I would start operating under the assumption that every strain we see is this new strain.”

Reach the reporter at ginger.rough@arizonarepublic.com.

Sara from Diet.com and author and Obesity Acitivisist, Julia Havey, show what happens to a McDonald’s cheesburger and fries after sitting out for 4 years. It looks like fast food cheeseburgers age better than most humans. The French Fries still look fresh and vibrant.

Real food is meant to spoil, if the bacteria won’t even touch the stuff then its pretty clear you shouldn’t either.

According to a recent story by Reuters:

“The Switzerland has urged doctors to temporarily stop using GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix vaccine, regulators said on Tuesday, making it the latest country to caution against its use.”

U.S. authorities and the company said on Monday doctors should temporarily stop using the vaccine against a diarrhoea-causing virus called rotavirus because the vaccine is contaminated with the supposedly harmless pig virus DNA.

“There is no evidence at this time that this material poses a safety risk,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told reporters in a conference call.

Rotarix was approved by the FDA in 2008. The contaminant material is DNA from porcine circovirus 1, a virus from pigs that is not yet known to cause disease in humans or animals, Hamburg said.

About 1 million children in the United States and about 30 million worldwide have gotten Rotarix vaccine, she said.

GlaxoSmithKline emphasized Monday that the pig virus is not known to cause illness in humans, saying “it is found in everyday meat products and is frequently eaten with no resulting disease or illness.”

However, the effects from directly injecting the foreign DNA into the bloodstream is still unknown.

Hamburg stressed that the suspension applies only to the United States. Public health officials in countries where the incidence of rotavirus is more severe may decide that the benefits of continuing to use the vaccine outweigh any concerns raised by the contamination, she said. “Such a decision would be very understandable,” she added.

Those who do not wish to have their details on the £11 billion computer system are supposed to be able to opt out by informing health authorities.

But doctors have accused the Government of rushing the project through, meaning that patients have had their details uploaded to the database before they have had a chance to object.

The scheme, one of the largest of its kind in the world, will eventually hold the private records of more than 50 million patients.

But it has been dogged by accusations that the private information held on it will not be safe from hackers.

The British Medical Association claims that records have been placed on the system without patients’ knowledge or consent.

It follows allegations that the Government wanted to complete the project before the Conservatives had a chance to cancel it.

In a letter to ministers published today, the BMA urges the Government to suspend the scheme.

Hamish Meldrum, its chairman, writes: “The breakneck speed with which this programme is being implemented is of huge concern.

“Patients’ right to opt out is crucial, and it is extremely alarming that records are apparently being created without them being aware of it.

“If the process continues to be rushed, not only will the rights of patients be damaged, but the limited confidence of the public and the medical profession in NHS IT will be further eroded.”

At present 1.29 million people have had their details placed on the system. A further 8.9 million records are due to be added by June. By the end of next year, the NHS hopes to have more than 50 million uploaded.

The “summary” records contain basic medical information including illnesses, vaccination history, and could include medication patients have been given. Ages and addresses are also included.

Patients are supposed to be notified by letter at least 12 weeks before their details go live on the system and given the chance to opt out.

The BMA says that letters have gone to the wrong addresses and that many patients have been unsure what they mean.

Doctors point out that there has been no national advertising programme to explain the scheme, as has been the case with other government initiatives.

David Wrigley, from the BMA’s GP committee, said: “The concern is that people may not be aware, because they did not receive the letter, they did not read it or they thought it was junk mail and threw it away.”

The BMA also criticises the fact that the information packs do not include the form which allows patients to opt out. It can only be obtained via the internet or by calling a helpline.

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said: “The Health Service should not put in place bureaucratic obstacles to patient choice because they are worried about what patients might choose to do.”

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “The Government needs to end its obsession with massive central databases.

“The NHS IT scheme has been a disastrous waste of money and the national programme should be abandoned.”

A spokesman for the Department of Health said that ministers “absolutely support” the right of patients to opt out of the scheme, adding that various options were provided to make this straightforward.

“We know what shape, sizes and consistencies pose the greatest risk for choking in children and whenever possible food manufacturers should design foods to avoid those characteristics, or redesign existing foods when possible, to change those characteristics to reduce the choking risk,” said Dr. Gary Smith, immediate-past chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention and lead author of the organization’s new policy statement on preventing choking.

“Any food that has a cylindrical or round shape poses a risk,” he pointed out. Smith said that hot dogs were high on the list of foods that could be redesigned — perhaps the shape, although he said it would be up to the manufacturers to figure out the specifics.

Hard candies, on the other hand, could be designed so they’re flat rather than round, said Smith, who is also director of the Center for Injury Research & Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The AAP policy statement appears in the March issue of Pediatrics and is the first such guidance on the subject from that group.

“There’s a general recognition that more needed to be done to protect children from choking,” according to Smith. “We have a number of laws and regulations that help prevent choking due to toys. There are no such similar regulations for food.”

Health experts welcomed the suggestions.

“I think it’s very reasonable to strengthen regulations to prevent choking injuries for children,” said Dr. Lee Sanders, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “The most common cause of death for kids aged roughly 1 to 5 is choking but it’s also one of the most common reasons for visits to the emergency room and, for kids who don’t die of these injuries, sometimes there are long-lasting injuries or implications,” Sanders said. “It’s a significant public health issue.”

“People should know that grapes are a choking hazard for a certain-age child, that hot dogs are of risk,” added Dr. Mike Gittelman, associate professor of clinical pediatrics in the division of emergency medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it would “carefully review the analysis and recommendations.”

“The FDA is concerned about the deaths and serious injuries caused by choking,” said agency spokeswoman Rita Chappelle. “We will also continue to consult with the Consumer Product Safety Commission on assessing choking hazards associated with food and take action against food products that are ‘unfit for food’ on a case-by-case basis.”

Hot dogs are a prime offender, accounting for 17 percent of food-related asphyxiations in children under the age of 10, according to one study.

“If you were to take the best engineers in the world and asked them to design a perfect plug for a child’s airway, you couldn’t do better than a hot dog,” Smith said. “It’s the right size, right shape. It’s compressible so it wedges itself in. When they’re in that tight [it's] almost impossible, even with the correct training and the correct equipment, to get out. When it’s wedged in tightly, that child is going to die.”

Other high-risk foods include hard candy, peanuts and nuts, even peanut butter.

The policy statement called for the government to establish a “mandatory system . . . to label foods with appropriate warnings according to their choking risk, to conduct detailed surveillance and investigate food-related choking incidents, and to warn the public about emerging food-related choking hazards.”

Manufacturers’ responsibility would be to affix “choking hazard” labels to high-risk products and to consider shapes, sizes and textures when designing products.

“I think there should be a commitment from the entire industry to label not only hot dogs but all high-risk foods with some type of informational label that allows consumers to make informed decisions,” Smith said, adding that he thought companies would figure out that “safety sells.”

The AAP also called on parents, pediatricians and other health-care workers to pay more attention to the issue.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) responded, but put special emphasis on the role of parents, teachers and other child care providers in helping keep kids safe.

“Food safety and consumer confidence is the number-one priority of the food and beverage industry. We applaud the attention the American Academy of Pediatrics is bringing to the prevention of choking among children,” the GMA said in a statement.

“We especially agree that the education of parents, teachers, child care workers, and other child caregivers encouraging them to supervise and create safer environments for children is paramount to the prevention of choking among children. We also strongly agree that pediatricians, doctors and other infant and toddler care professionals should intensify choking prevention counseling including providing parents and care givers guidance on developmentally appropriate food selection for their children. We take our working relationships with FDA and USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] very seriously and look forward to continuing to work with the agencies to ensure that our products are as safe as possible,” the GMA said.

The answer is complex, and will not produce an elixir of eternal life in the foreseeable future.

But the scientists expect better drugs for age-related illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease, to emerge from their discovery of the biochemical pathway involved in ageing.

The Newcastle team, working with the University of Ulm in Germany, used a comprehensive “systems biology” approach, involving computer modelling and experiments with cell cultures and genetically modified mice, to investigate why cells become senescent. In this aged state, cells stop dividing and the tissues they make up show physical signs of deterioration, from wrinkling skin to a failing heart.

The research, published by the journal Molecular Systems Biology, shows that when an ageing cell detects serious damage to its DNA – caused by the wear and tear of life – it sends out specific internal signals.

These distress signals trigger the cell’s mitochondria, its tiny energy-producing power packs, to make oxidising “free radical” molecules, which in turn tell the cell either to destroy itself or to stop dividing. The aim is to avoid the damaged DNA that causes cancer.

The Newcastle discovery plays down the role of telomeres, the protective tips on the ends of human chromosomes, which gradually become shorter as we grow older.

“There has been a huge amount of speculation about how blocking telomere erosion might cure ageing and age-related diseases,” said Tom Kirkwood, director of Newcastle’s Institute of Ageing and Health. “The telomere story has over-promised and the biology is more complicated.”

He added: “Our breakthrough means that we stand a very much better chance of making a successful attack on age-related diseases while at the same time avoiding the risk of unwanted side-effects like cancer.”

His colleague Thomas von Zglinicki emphasised caution in the research’s next stage – to investigate ways to prevent cellular senescence.

“It is absolutely essential to tread carefully in trying to alter processes that cause cells to age, because the last thing we want is to help age-damaged cells from breaking out to become malignant,” said Mr von Zglinicki.

Source: Financial Times

“This study is [reminiscent] of studies from the late 1960s that looked at immigrants from China and Japan to the United States,” said Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society. “They raise risk of cancer by immigrating and raise rates for second generation Americans even more so.”

The researchers used data from the Florida cancer registry, International Agency for Research on Cancer, and 2000 U.S. census to compare the rates of various cancers among Hispanics of different national origins both in the United States and in their home countries, as well as rates among non-Hispanics in the United States, between 1999 and 2001. They found that cancer rates among Hispanics living in the United States are approximately 40 percent higher than rates in Latin America, although the specifics vary by national origin and cancer type. For example, rates of colorectal cancer practically double among Puerto Ricans moving to the mainland, while roughly tripling among Mexican and Cuban migrants.

Mexican immigrants had the lowest cancer rates overall, although rates of cancers associated with minorities, such as cervical, stomach and liver cancer, were high. “New Latinos,” which includes Hispanics from Central or South America, the Dominican Republic or Spain, also had high rates of “minority” cancers, as well as high rates of thyroid cancer and low rates of lung cancer.

The researchers attributed the rise in cancer rates among immigrants to the adoption of unhealthy lifestyle patterns prevalent in the United States, particularly dietary changes including a higher consumption of red meat. Lower levels of physical activity and higher tobacco and alcohol consumption are also likely culprits.

“For Hispanic populations, there are beneficial lifestyles associated with their origin that probably should be kept,” said lead author Paulo Pinheiro. “There are lifestyles that may be more prevalent in the United States that probably should be avoided.”

source: Natural News

The company, Beef Products Inc., had been looking to expand into the hamburger business with a product made from beef that included fatty trimmings that the industry previously relegated to dog food and cooking oil.

The fatty trimmings were particularly susceptible to contamination, but a study commissioned by the company showed that the ammonia process would kill E. coli as well as salmonella.

Officials at the United States Department of Agriculture endorsed the company’s ammonia treatment, and have said it destroys E. coli “to an undetectable level.”

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment.

The founder of Beef Products, Eldon N. Roth, said it had a deep commitment to hamburger safety and was continually refining its operation to provide the safest product possible. “B.P.I.’s track record demonstrates the progress B.P.I. has made compared to the industry norm,” the company said. “Like any responsible member of the meat industry, we are not perfect.”

Beef Products maintains that its ammonia process remains effective. It said it tests samples of each batch it ships to customers and has found E. coli in only 0.06 percent of the samples this year.

The company says its processed beef, a pink mashlike substance frozen into blocks or chips, is used in a majority of the hamburger sold nationwide. But it has remained little known outside industry and government circles. Federal officials agreed to the company’s request that the ammonia be classified as a “processing agent” and not an ingredient that would be listed on labels.

Despite some misgivings, school lunch officials say they use Beef Products because its price is substantially lower than ordinary meat trimmings, saving about $1 million a year.

Balancing Safety vs. Taste

Pathogens died when enough ammonia was used to raise the alkalinity of the beef to a high level, company research found. But early on, school lunch officials and other customers complained about the taste and smell of the beef.

Beef Products has acknowledged lowering the alkalinity, and the U.S.D.A. said it had determined that “at least some of B.P.I.’s product was no longer receiving the full lethality treatment.”

Beef Products said it had submitted new research to the agriculture department showing that its treatment remained effective with lower alkalinity. USDA officials said Beef Products’ latest study is under review.

The greater challenge was eliminating E. coli and salmonella, which are more prevalent in fatty trimmings than in higher grades of beef. The trimmings “typically includes most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass” and contains “larger microbiological populations.” Beef Products said it also used trimmings from inside cuts of meat.

Meat is sent through pipes where it is exposed to ammonia gas, and then flash frozen and compressed — all steps that help kill pathogens, company research found.

The treated beef landed in Washington in 2001, when federal officials were searching for ways to eliminate E. coli. Beef Products already had one study showing its treatment would do that; another company-sponsored study by an Iowa State University professor that was published in a professional journal seconded that finding.

Mr. Roth asserted that his product would kill pathogens in untreated meat when it was used as an ingredient in ground beef — raising the prospect of a risk-free burger. “Given the technology, we firmly believe that the two pathogens of major concern in raw ground beef — E. coli O157:H7 and salmonella — are on the verge of elimination,” Mr. Roth, the founder of Beef Products, wrote to the department.

The Food and Drug Administration signed off on the use of ammonia, concluding it was safe when used as a processing agent in foods. This year, a top official with the U.S.D.A.’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said, “It eliminates E. coli to the same degree as if you cooked the product.”

Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk.

Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef “pink slime” in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said,

“I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

Represented by Dennis R. Johnson, a top lawyer and lobbyist for the meat industry, Beef Products prevailed on the question of whether ammonia should be listed as an ingredient, arguing that the government had just decided against requiring another company to list a chemical used in treating poultry.

School lunch officials said they ultimately agreed to use the treated meat because it shaved about 3 cents off the cost of making a pound of ground beef. “Several packers have unofficially raised concern regarding the use of the product since the perception of quality is inferior,” the 2002 memo said. “But will use product to obtain lower bid.”

In 2004, lunch officials increased the amount of Beef Products meat allowed in its hamburgers to 15 percent, from 10 percent, to increase savings. In a taste test at the time, some school children actually favored burgers with higher amounts of processed beef.

Dr. Theno, the food safety consultant, applauds Mr. Roth for figuring out how to convert high-fat trimmings “with no functional value.”

Odor and Alkalinity

As suppliers of national restaurant chains and government-financed programs were buying Beef Product meat to use in ground beef, complaints about its pungent odor began to emerge.

In early 2003, officials in Georgia returned nearly 7,000 pounds to Beef Products after cooks who were making meatloaf for state prisoners detected a “very strong odor of ammonia” in 60-pound blocks of the trimmings, state records show.

“It was frozen, but you could still smell ammonia,” said Dr. Charles Tant, a Georgia agriculture department official. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Unaware that the meat was treated with ammonia — since it was not on the label — Georgia officials assumed it was accidentally contaminated and alerted the agriculture department. In their complaint, the officials noted that the level of ammonia in the beef was similar to levels found in contamination incidents involving chicken and milk that had sickened schoolchildren.

Beef Products said the ammonia did not pose a danger and would be diluted when its beef was mixed with other meat. The U.S.D.A. accepted Beef Product’s conclusion, but other customers had also complained about the smell.

Untreated beef naturally contains ammonia and is typically about 6 on the pH scale, near that of rain water and milk. The Beef Products’ study that won U.S.D.A. approval used an ammonia treatment that raised the pH of the meat to as high as 10, an alkalinity well beyond the range of most foods. The company’s 2003 study cited the “potential issues surrounding the pH-9.5 product.”

MSNBC debates the strong need for the USDA and Dept of Education

Recap:

1. U.S. government feeds schools meat that was once only fit for dog food.

2. Injecting dog food grade meat with ammonia (window cleaner) makes it safe for human consumption.

3. Despite the addition of this chemical, E-coli and salmonella were still found in the meat. Common sense tells you that if bacterial infections are a problem with low quality fatty meat then we should be eating high quality meats, not adding more harmful chemicals to an already inferior product.

4. Using this lower quality meat (‘pink mush’) only saves 3 cents or 1 million dollars.

5. More government involvement means less accountability and more finger pointing when something goes wrong. Those responsible fall back on on the initial USDA approval and the USDA points back to corporate funded studies and research.

Proof that more bureaucracy can never provide more safety or higher quality, because saving money is their top priority.

It only costs 1 million dollars a year to provide higher quality food for our school systems. However we currently spend 1 million dollars per day per soldier in Iraq. End the wars in the middle east and our children can have a higher quality of life.

Our food is tainted, rotten and full of chemicals, mostly not fit for animals.

Why do you think that are more and more of American children developing cancer and auto immune disorders at increasingly younger age and higher rate?

McDonald’s, whose hamburgers have contained Beef Products meat since 2004, declined to say if it monitored it for pH. But Danya Proud, a chain spokeswoman, said, “We expect the pH level to meet the specifications that are approved by the U.S.D.A.”

The main source for this article was: The New York Times

The recall is due to B. cereus bacteria. This is non-lethal, so if you are affected by a tainted product, chances are you won’t die. However, it is not safe at this time to drink any Slim Fast shakes. Epidemiologists say that the bacteria is usually found in contaminated rice at Mexican and Asian restaurants. Food poisoning isn’t highly reported to authorities, and so bacteria such as this is very hard to track.

Those that have Slim Fast diet drinks are urged to throw them away and contact the company at 1-800-896-9479 to obtain information on getting a full refund.

Examiner

Hester-Perez’s 10-year-old son, Joey, was uninterested in food and was wasting away at 48 pounds. “Everyone that came to my home was watching me watch Joey die,” Hester-Perez told Kauffman. “He was deteriorating hourly.”

But that all changed with a batch of marijuana brownies. After four years of only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Joey’s appetite came to life and revived him in other ways as well.

“We’re seeing Joey come out,” Hester-Perez said. “He’s never made noises, we didn’t even know he could make noise until the first batch of brownies.”

While Kauffman noted that there’s no evidence of marijuana helping with autism symptoms, other parents have come out with similar success stories, as seen in Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s story on Slate’s Double X blog in May.

He noted the boy’s mother could not bear to watch the scene and left the gymnasium. Out of apparent fear of receiving the injection, the student ran out of the building. The school’s resource officer, Ohio County Sheriff’s Deputy John Haglock, coaxed the boy back inside. Once at the shot station, however, Haglock apparently needed some help keeping the boy still, and another deputy assisted.

“He tried to run. I looked over and saw two sheriff’s deputies holding a kid down,” Gamble said. “Mom took off, she couldn’t take it. You had one nurse with the needle, two deputies holding him, one nurse is grabbing hands

Read More: The Intelligencer