Agri-Bio Terrorism, Bird Flu, Mad Cow, Chinese Imports, Food recall, Agriculture Warnings

Dumplings Poisoned 'on Purpose' - "Chinese dumplings which were laced with pesticide and made at least 10 Japanese people ill were probably poisoned on purpose, Japan's health minister says. The frozen dumplings were contaminated with a highly toxic organophoshate pesticide methamidophos."

2 U.S. firms recall feed ingredients - "For the first time, the industrial chemical that contaiminated pet food ingredients imported from China has been found in livestock and fish feed ingredients produced in the USA. Two companies in Ohio and Colorado recalled the ingredients found to contain melamine...The melamine was found in products used to bind feed pellets together made by Tembec BTLSR of Ohio...."

20 Million Chickens Held Because of Feed - "Federal officials on Friday placed a hold on 20 million chickens raised for market in several states because their feed was mixed with pet food containing an industrial chemical."

Suspect melamine-contaminated ingredients imported from China
• Wheat gluten - a protein found in wheat bread, oats, barley, rye, and some cereal fillers
• Corn gluten
• Cornmeal/corn gluten meal, corn by-products
• Soy protein/soy gluten also found in soy sauce

• Rice bran or or barley malt; mung bean protein
• Rice gluten, rice protein, rice protein concentrate

China's Food Safety Woes Expand Overseas - "...The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella..."

Tainted Wheat Gluten Found in U.S. Food Plants - "The tainted wheat gluten that triggered a massive pet food recall also ended up in processing plants that prepare food consumed by people, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said. While agency leaders offered assurances Monday that the U.S. food supply remains safe, they said they cot yet completely rule out contamination of human food by the suspect wheat gluten, which contained melamine, a chemical found in plastics and pesticides."

...from the field, water, and streams to your dinner table - a Lampholder 20-year Prophecy forewarning....

1 Million Lbs. of Suspect Chinese Seafood in U.S. - "The frozen shrimp, catfish and eel arrived at U.S. ports under an “import alert,” which meant the FDA was supposed to hold every shipment until it had passed a laboratory test."

Huge Dust Plumes From China Cause Changes in Climate - Air - "An outpouring of dust layered with man-made sulfates, smog, industrial fumes, carbon grit and nitrates is crossing the Pacific Ocean on prevailing winds from booming Asian economies in plumes so vast they alter the climate. These rivers of polluted air can be wider than the Amazon and deeper than the Grand Canyon."

Faulty Fireworks Were Made In China - "Nearly all fireworks used in the United States are made in China. But a string of Fourth of July fiascoes in the Tampa Bay region and around the country involving Chinese-manufactured fireworks could raise new questions about their safety and quality. Chinese-manufactured fireworks exploded on the ground during city-sponsored celebrations in St. Pete Beach and Treasure Island, injuring a dozen people. Similar accidents involving Chinese fireworks that exploded prematurely wrecked six displays in northern Virginia, injuring 11 people. And two pyrotechnic workers were injured in Savah, Ga., when a firework detonated on the ground and set off a chain reaction."

China Has Cornered The Global Market on Vitamins - "If you pop a vitamin C tablet in your mouth, it's a good bet it came from China. Indeed, many of the world's vitamins are now made in China. In less than a decade, China has captured 90 percent of the U.S. market for vitamin C, driving almost everyone else out of business. Chinese pharmaceutical companies also have taken over much of the world market in the production of antibiotics, analgesics, enzymes and primary amino acids. According to an industry group, China makes 70 percent of the world's penicillin, 50 percent of its aspirin and 35 percent of its acetaminophen (often sold under the brand name Tylenol), as well as the bulk of vitamins A, B12, C and E."

Chinese Warning Over Toy Safety - "More than 20% of Chinese-made toys and baby clothes are below standard...some were even dangerous...Some baby clothes contained harmful chemicals...."

FDA: Throw away toothpaste made in China - "The agency is not aware of any poisoning from toothpaste in the United States, but it did find the antifreeze ingredient in a shipment at the U.S. border and at two retail stores: a Dollar Plus store in Miami and a Todo A Peso store in Puerto Rico."

China's Additives on Menu in U.S. - "China exported $2.5 billion of food ingredients to the United States and the rest of the world in 2006, an increase of 150% from just two years earlier, according to Chinese industry estimates. It is now the predominant maker of vanilla flavoring, citric acid and varieties of vitamin B such as thiamine, riboflavin and folic acid — nutrients commonly added to processed flour goods such as Mission tortillas and Tyson breaded chicken."

Asia Food Safety - "Sometimes health risks are created for merely cosmetic reasons, as when Chinese producers last year used the cancer-causing dye Sudan Red, normally used for colouring solvents and shoe and floor polish, to colour duck egg yolks and chilli oil. Perhaps the highest-profile recent case was in 2004, when 13 babies died in central China and nearly 200 suffered malnutrition after drinking milk made with fake powder.Chinese chemicals have also made their way into the foodchain in Vietnam where authorities have become so alarmed at the prevalence of adulterated food that Professor Nguyen Ba Duc of the Vietnam Cancer Association has blamed one third of the 150,000 ual cancer cases on tainted food."

Poisoned Toothpaste - "Diethylene glycol, a poison, has been found in 6,000 tubes of toothpaste in Panama, and customs officials there said Friday that the product appeared to have originated in China."

China Confirms Bird Flu Outbreak - "China has confirmed a new outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus in the central province of Hunan, state media has reported. More than 11,000 poultry died of the virus in Shijiping village near Yiyang city, the Agriculture Ministry said."

Even Vitamin Additives Coming From China - "The United States is sitting on a powder keg with uncontrolled importation and the distribution of low-quality food ingredients. Before it explodes – putting more animals and people at risk – corrective steps must be taken."

Chicken From China? Questionable Farming Practices Fuel Skepticism of US Plan to Import Poultry - "In China, some farmers try to maximize the output from their small plots by flooding produce with unapproved pesticides, pumping livestock with antibiotics bed in the United States, and using human feces as fertilizer to boost soil productivity. But the questionable practices don't end there: Chicken pens are frequently suspended over ponds where seafood is raised, recycling chicken waste as a food source for seafood, according to a leading food safety expert who served as a federal adviser to the Food and Drug Administration."

Xuzhou, China - Gluten Factory Had Toxic History - "Before Mao Lijun's business exported tainted wheat products that may have killed American pets, his factory sickened people and plants around here for years."

Tracing a Poison's Global Path Back to China - "A syrupy poison, diethylene glycol, is an indispensable part of the modern world, an industrial solvent and prime ingredient in antifreeze."

"For Environmentalists and some public health experts, one of the most puzzling practices of modern agriculture is the addition of arsenic-based compounds to most chicken feed. The point of the practice is to promote growth, kill parasites that cause diarrhea, and improve pigmentation of chicken meat. But Tyson Foods, the U.S.'s largest poultry producer, stopped using arsenic compounds in 2004, and many high-end and organic growers raise chickens quite successfully without them. What's more, McDonald's has asked its suppliers not to use arsenic additives, and the European Union bed them in 1999."

Eat at Your Own Risk - "The uncontrolled distribution of low-quality imported food ingredients, mainly from China, poses a grave threat to public health worldwide."

FDA eyes imported human fare after pet food scare - "Wheat gluten, corn gluten, cornmeal, rice bran and rice protein are among the imported products being tested in both the animal and human food supply...."

Canada - Dealing with Bio Threats "If it’s not a significant part of your pling, it should be. You need to understand it, recognize it, do exercises and drills for it...."

USA - Keeping your food safe - "In response to mad cow disease and the possibility of bio-terrorism, the federal government is making plans to track animals like cows, pigs and chickens ..."

China tries to calm fears over virus outbreak - "The Chinese government has dispatched medical experts to eastern Anhui province in a bid to curb a rapidly spreading outbreak of an intestinal virus that has killed at least 20 children. But officials sought to calm fears amid reports that almost 1,900 children have been taken ill with enterovirus 71, or EV71, which can cause hand, foot and mouth disease."

Drug-Tainted Asian Fish Slip Into U.S. - "...of 94 samples of Chinese catfish checked by Alabama since March, the state reports that 41 tested positive for fluoroquinolones, antibiotics bed in the U.S. for seafood. Of 13 more samples of species similar to catfish, including one called basa, five tested positive for the antibiotic. The exporting countries included Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia."

"...pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella..."

"...proposed legislation intended to elevate global warming to a national defense issue."

CDC Report on Bird Flu - CDC report provides background information about avian influenza, including recent outbreaks, the viruses, and the risk to human health.

Map - Tracking the Spread of Bird Flu - until the alerts were recently removed, this map was originally covered with bird flu alerts throughout Asia and Europe

Canada Is Investigating Bird Flu-Infected Gosling for Lethal H5N1 Virus

Canada finds bird flu case, plans further testing

Canada finds bird flu, unclear what virus strain

WHO completes bird flu study on biggest cluster death in Indonesia

WHO puts Tamiflu maker on bird flu alert - Indonesia — Possible human-to-human spread of the virus -"The World Health Organization has for the first time asked the maker of the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu to ready the global stockpile after human-to-human transmission was suspected in a family cluster in Indonesia, a WHO official said Saturday."

"Scientists discover bird flu virus one gene away from human to human transmission. (PRWEB) March 8, 2006 -- Scientists have now verified through gene sequencing that the H5N1 virus has been rapidly mutating and evolving towards a strain that will be deadly for humans. Six months ago scientists estimated that the H5N1 virus needed to make about five changes to it’s gene structure for it to be deadly for humans. Now it requires only one last change."

Avian Influenza Update Iraq - WHO - "The Ministry of Health has further informed WHO of a third human case of respiratory illness that is under investigation for possible H5N1 infection."

1 more death - all the human bird flu deaths have so far been in Asia - "Bird flu has taken another human life, officials said on Thursday -- a 48-year-old Thai man who was the 67th person known to have been killed by a virus steadily creeping into Europe and toward Africa."

Bird Flu Joins List of Border Worries - "...fears that the deadly virus could make a southwestern entry into the country via the porous Arizona-Mexico border or Southern California ports with heavy traffic from Asia."