The Village Voice, in a very critical article, said:
A study by the Center for Public Integrity, a D.C. watchdog group, found that only 43 percent of all meat products recalled by their manufacturers from 1990-1997 was recovered. The rest of the meat — some 17 million pounds — was eaten by unsuspecting consumers. Yet Congress fought off efforts by the Secretary of Agriculture during that time to get the authority to issue mandatory recalls of contaminated meat.
The investigation found that during the 1990s the highly-exclusive meat business spent $41 million financing political campaigns of Congress members, more than one-third of them from House or Senate agriculture committees. Among them: the majority and minority leaders of the Senate (Trent Lott and Tom Daschle), the speaker of the House and the House minority leader (Newt Gingrich and Dick Gephardt), and six past or present chairmen or ranking minority members of the Senate and House agriculture committees.
I did a quick tour around OpenSecrets.org to see who is giving and who is getting contributions from the agriculture interests.
Here is a list of the top contributors:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.asp?Ind=A
Here is a list of who got the money:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/recips.asp?Ind=A
Who are the agriculture PACS backing? List here:
http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/pacrecips.asp?Ind=A
Be sure you take a look at Newsweek’s Mad Cow coverage. It is deep and useful and includes some nice online interactives.
Cattle Auctions Hurting
You might make a visit to your local livestock auction this week. They are really hurting because of Mad Cow.
The St. Petersburg Times reported about one such auction which normally sells more than 100 animals in a day and one day last week they sold five — that’s right, five cows.
Another livestock auction near me here in Florida canceled sales after Christmas.
Confusion over the Human Form of Mad Cow
I have heard a lot of journalists identify the human form of Mad Cow as a disease. That is not exactly right. The human form is really “new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD).” The Oregonian does a nice job sorting out the confusion.
Here’s some raw data about the Mad Cow disease in humans.
What is the Real Human Threat?
The Toronto Star put it this way:
In Britain, where mad cow disease ran rampant for years, up to 180,000 animals were infected. They were widely consumed. Yet, in a population of 60 million, only about 150 people developed variant CJD. And incidence of the disease has steadily dropped, indicating it has peaked.
That is not an argument for complacency. Better tracking is needed to trace the origin of an infected animal. Rules on feed should be re-examined, and toughened as needed.
In fact far more adults, 2,000 a year or so, die from choking on the food they eat. So the bigger threat (so far) might well be that you will choke on a piece of steak, not die from Mad Cow related illness.
Back to School, Kids Spreading the Crud
An AP story says this will be a key week to watch the spread of the flu.
The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., recommends that school staffers clean commonly-used surfaces, such as handrails and eating surfaces and desks, frequently with disinfectants or bleach solutions.
That’s what the 41,000-student Indianapolis public school system did over the holidays.
Custodians wiped disinfectant on restrooms and door handles, said Pat Kiergan, head of nursing and health services. Normally she and her staff of 15 school nurses would be bracing for outbreaks of chickenpox that family get-togethers over the holidays seem to bring. This year, they wonder how many students will return to school in January with new bugs to spread to classmates.
“When they have relatives coming from other states, they bring the Tennessee or Kentucky germs with them,” Kiergan said.
The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools says tissues should be made available in all classrooms and school buses. Students should be encouraged to cover nose and mouth while coughing or sneezing and all students should avoid sharing glasses, water bottles, and utensils.
When You Root Out Fraud, Car Wreck Claims Drop
In Massachusetts, once investigators started going after people who commit insurance fraud, the number of people who claimed to have been in wrecks dropped like a rock. Here’s the story from The Boston Globe. And here’s another version from the Boston Herald.
Gold Goes Higher, Dollar Goes Lower
While you slept, gold hit another near-14-year high Monday as the U.S. dollar sank to a record low against the euro.
DUI Deaths, Wrecks Still Rising
Now that everyone has sobered up from the long holiday, let’s ask a question: Why, after years of PR bluster about tough new DUI laws and mandatory jail time, are DUI deaths still rising? Is it because there are more drivers?
The Southern Illinoisan (in Carbondale) reported:
The effects, factors, and tragedies of drunken driving aren’t having the impact on motorists they used to. In Illinois and nationwide, the numbers of DUI offenders, arrests, and fatalities have been rising since 1999, much to the dismay of traffic safety officials scrambling to find new and powerful warnings to reverse the trend.
Here’s a similar story from Greenwood, Miss.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics for 2002 stated one DUI-related death occurred every half-hour. Total alcohol-related traffic crashes for 2002 nationally were 17,419, up from 15,786 in 1999.
Abortion by the Numbers
The CDC’s reporting service recently released the latest tracking figures on abortions in America.
The 2000 data says:
In 2000, the highest numbers of reported legal induced abortions occurred in New York City (94,466), Florida (88,563), and Texas (76,121); the fewest occurred in Idaho (801), South Dakota (878), and North Dakota (1,341). (see Table 3)
The highest percentages of reported abortions were for women:
Fifty-eight percent of all abortions for which gestational age was reported were performed at less than 8 weeks of gestation, and 88 percent were performed before 13 weeks.
- Aged less than 25 years (52 percent)
- Women who were white (57 percent)
- Unmarried women (81 percent)
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