New CDC Program to Reduce Obesity!

Atlanta, Special to HG&W

The US Centers for Disease Control has unwrapped its brand new Anti-Obesity Campaign.
It relies heavily on imported food, but the Feds have every expectation that US companies will join the effort.

Panama Leads the Way

"A syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in antifreeze.

It is also a killer. And the deaths, if not intentional, are often no accident.

The kidneys fail first. Then the central nervous system begins to misfire. Paralysis spreads, making breathing difficult, then often impossible without assistance. In the end, most victims die.

Many of them are children, poisoned at the hands of their unsuspecting parents.

Over the years, the poison has been loaded into all varieties of medicine - cough syrup, fever medication, injectable drugs - a result of counterfeiters who profit by substituting the sweet-tasting solvent for a safe, more expensive syrup, usually glycerin, commonly used in drugs, food, toothpaste and other products.

Toxic syrup has figured in at least eight mass poisonings around the world in the past two decades. Researchers estimate that thousands have died. In many cases, the precise origin of the poison has never been determined. But records and interviews show that in three of the last four cases it was made in China, a major source of counterfeit drugs.

Panama is the most recent victim. Last year, government officials there unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into 260,000 bottles of cold medicine - with devastating results. Families have reported 365 deaths from the poison, 100 of which have been confirmed so far. With the onset of the rainy season, investigators are racing to exhume as many potential victims as possible before bodies decompose even more.

The Panama death toll leads directly to Chinese companies that made and exported the poison as 99.5 percent pure glycerin."

Meanwhile, back in the US,

20 Million Melamine-Fed Chickens Released to Market

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture said today that some 20 million chickens that ate feed contaminated with melamine will be released to market. The chickens had been held on farms in several states.
"In several cases, feed samples have tested negative for melamine and related compounds," USDA said in a statement. "It is assumed that because only small amounts of the contaminated feed were mixed with other rations, the melamine and related compounds were no longer detectable."

Last week, USDA said there were 38 farms in Indiana where some 3.1 million chickens may have eaten tainted feed in February, but were slaughtered and sent to market. Also, about 6,000 hogs in six states may have also eaten contaminated feed.

A hold was placed on the 20 million birds late Friday as the melamine investigation continued.

An assessment conducted by scientists from five federal agencies concluded today that there is "very low risk to human health" from consuming meat from hogs and chickens that ate feed supplemented with pet food scraps that contained melamine and melamine-related compounds.

In the most extreme risk assessment scenario, when scientists assumed that all the solid food a person consumes in an entire day was contaminated with melamine at the levels observed in animals fed contaminated feed, the potential exposure was about 2,500 times lower than the dose considered safe.

It was well below any level of public health concern, the government scientists said.

The risk assessment is a component of the continuing federal joint investigation into imported wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate from China that contained melamine and melamine-related compounds.

It first showed up in pet food that killed thousands of cats and dogs earlier this year. Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the pet food had been eaten by three million chickens and hogs in six states.

The risk assessment was conducted by scientists from the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security and the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This team is now compiling a scientific assessment of the risk to animal health associated with ingestion of animal feed containing melamine and its compounds.

To ensure no further contaminated products enter the U.S., the federal government will continue to monitor imported wheat and corn gluten as well as rice protein concentrate and isolates arriving from all countries destined for human and animal consumption.

The FDA import alert for these products sourced from China remains in effect and U.S. Customs and Border Protection will continue laboratory testing of the products as they enter the United States. The inspections are a precautionary measure, said the FDA, adding, "There is no evidence to suggest products bound for the human food supply are contaminated."

Absolutely not!! And you who think the FDA or the Department of Agriculture might bullshit us, SHAME ON YOU!