Dirty Little Secret About E Coli

There's a dirty little secret about E. Coli, salmonella, campylobacter and other forms of food poisoning that hasn't become common knowledge for the general public -- yet -- and there is considerable cause for concern.

What's the dirty little secret? The news, according to this Associated Press article is alarming some sectors of the health industry:

It's a dirty little secret of food poisoning: E. coli and certain other foodborne illnesses can sometimes trigger serious health problems months or years after patients survived that initial bout. Scientists only now are unraveling a legacy that has largely gone unnoticed.

What kind of health problems? Here's one example from the article:

Consider Alyssa Chrobuck of Seattle, who at age 5 was hospitalized as part of the Jack-in-the-Box hamburger outbreak that 15 years ago this month made a deadly E. coli strain notorious.

She's now a successful college student but ticks off a list of health problems unusual for a 20-year-old: High blood pressure, recurring hospitalizations for colon inflammation, a hiatal hernia, thyroid removal, endometriosis.

"I can't eat fatty foods. I can't eat things that are fried, never been able to eat ice cream or milkshakes," says Chrobuck. "Would I have this many medical problems if I hadn't had the E. coli? Definitely not. But there's no way to tie it definitely back."

Donna Rosenbaum of the consumer advocacy group Safe Tables Our Priority (S.T.O.P.) is quoted saying;

"We're drastically underestimating the burden on society that foodborne illnesses represent."

S.T.O.P.'s newly elected president, Ms. Nancy Donley of Chicago, is no stranger to the effects of food poisoning. Their website indicates that "Ms. Donley, who previously served as S.T.O.P.’s President from 1996-2004, is nationally known for her extensive advocacy work on preventing foodborne illness and death. She became a member of S.T.O.P. and started her advocacy work after the tragic death of her six-year-old son, Alex, in 1993 from E. coli O157:H7-contaminated meat."

Now, if you are really curious to learn more about foodborne illnesses, you really should spend some time on the S.T.O.P. website. There "...is a collection of stories and testimonies given by victims and families of victims of foodborne illness. They bear witness to the fact that existing and emerging foodborne illness ravages victims without mercy."

The Center for Disease Control is aware of the problems relating to foodborne illness. They say foodborne illnesses cause 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths a year. Among survivors, some long-term consequences are obvious from the outset. Some required kidney transplants. They may have scarred intestines that promise lasting digestive difficulty.

But unfortunately, there has been little data collected on what happens to food poison survivors AFTER...

For now, some of the best evidence comes from the University of Utah, which has long tracked children with E. coli. About 10 percent of E. coli sufferers develop a life-threatening complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, where their kidneys and other organs fail.

Ten to 20 years after they recover, between 30 percent and half of HUS survivors will have some kidney-caused problem, says Dr. Andrew Pavia, the university's pediatric infectious diseases chief. That includes high blood pressure caused by scarred kidneys, slowly failing kidneys, even end-stage kidney failure that requires dialysis.

"I don't want to leave the message that everyone who had symptoms ... is in trouble," stresses Pavia.

Miserable as E. coli is, it doesn't seem to trigger long-term problems unless it started shutting down the kidneys the first time around, he says. "People with uncomplicated diarrhea, by and large we don't have evidence yet that they have complications."

There are other proven long-term consequences of food poisoning. You can read the article here for more details.

In addition to foodborne illnesses, antibiotic resistance is also one of the top concerns for the Center for Disease Controll.

The "dirty little secret" on foodborne illness comes out following another important article published on January 20, 2008, in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Bacteria race ahead of drugs Falling behind: Deadly infections increasingly able to beat antibiotics"

Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't take you back to the manure issues surrounding CAFOs, considering the above news.

So many, many times before on this blog I've pointed out study after study after study regarding how long these pathogens can survive in our soils and waters. You need only look to our 303d water reports to see the E. Coli problems in Indiana waterways.

My point is this -- if you can't kill it first, you shouldn't be planting it in (or spraying it on) the ground in such massive, concentrated quantities.

BigAg has been on a mission to push farmers to "grow big or get out" for years now. And yet, in all their talks about so-called "nutrient" absorbance capacity of the land in "safe manure handling practices" it simply astounds me that they spend so little time on the health issues relating to factory farming practices that appear to be leaving a dirty trail all the way from the farm to the fork.

And what supremely ticks me off is how their push for BIG has slaughtered so many family farms across this great nation while they -- Big Ag -- keep digging into taxpayer pockets to deal with the issues surrounding their "model" for the future of our food -- to have taxpayers pay to clean up their mess.

They're eager to throw another few billion at the FDA for tighter food safety.

They're happy to see more billions flow to the USDA for greater food safety.

They eagerly wait to see how much more money can go into farm subsidies and the like to deal with everything from........

DANG IT!!! They created the dang mess in the first place... even convincing small farmers, who would have had to quit and lose their farms, to go BIG so they could compete in the industry -- glossing over the unresolved problems tied to this style of Agriculture. AND NOW -- DIG DEEPER INTO TAXPAYER POCKETS ...scare the hell out of them to make them pay more, and more, and more... and... geez. It's time to get responsibility back where it belongs, dangit!!

Sorry. Got a little carried away with this post. (taking a deep breath here)

Gotta run -- but you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be back soon with more on this issue.

Want to do something right now?

Call Rep. Crawford ASAP and request that he schedule HB 1168 for a hearing and vote in House Ways and Means Committee. They're trying to keep it out.

His office number at the statehouse is 317-232-9875.

The toll free number for the Indiana House is 800-382-9842.

You only have until Thursday, by the way. Yeah, they like to slip past these as fast as possible -- my humble opinion.

5 Big Stories Missed in 2007

There are 5 BIG STORIES that were either buried or skipped entirely by mainstream media in 2007 that might have tremendous impact on 2008. As we head into the New Year, I thought it prudent to highlight them here. In no specific order, they are:

1. In World Events - Ms. Bhutto's Taped Interview Provides Shocking Revelations

Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, loved by many in her country, was brutally assassinated at the end of 2008 throwing the country into turmoil. But the big story that was either buried (or skipped?) goes back to a previous attempt on her life.

When she first returned to Pakistan in October of 2007, her convoy was hit by a deadly bombing attack in which 158 of her loyal followers lost their lives.

In early November, following the attack, she was interviewed by Sir David Frost -- a taped interview (linked here) -- when she revealed astonishing news about Osama Bin Laden that, if true, should have rocked the headlines throughout the USA.

But our media never said a word about it.

It was just a tiny segment, one second about one third of the way into the interview, a small part of just one sentence... in which she describes one of three people she believes is behind much of the terroristic activities in their region. She says, and I quote:

"...he also had dealings with Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Osama Bin Laden..."

After listening to the entire interview several times, the first set of questions that come to mind are:

Was it just a slip of the tongue and she meant "the man who murdered David Pearl" ...? Or did she really mean OBL? What is the truth? Why didn't David Frost follow up on the statement with her? Why did he accept the statement so easily? What do they know over there that we do not know over here?

The next set of questions are even more uncomfortable:

Was it missed by our media? Was the information about OBL that she referred to withheld? Is our media still trying to be corroborated the story? Or have our media been instructed not to dig too deeply here?

Before the mention of "the murder" she clearly mentions OBL's son as the leader of one of several groups that General Musharrif wrote to her about and told her she might be under threat from.

But she responded to him in a letter naming three names that she felt should be investigated -- three people she believed strongly are out to stop democracy in Pakistan through the funding and supporting of activities by those groups.

Interestingly, OBL was NOT one of the names on the list for those groups. No.

But in the interview she CLEARLY and PRECISELY named the son -- not the father -- as the leader of one of the groups she was told might be out to attack her; almost as though it's common knowledge over there that the father is no longer alive?

If the information she said is true (hard to doubt based on how it was said and in the context in which it was delivered), then it's sure to have a profound impact going into 2008 on how some will view the so-named "war" in which our country is embroiled.

She was VERY SPECIFIC in naming names. I find it difficult to believe she meant someone other than OBL. But, will we ever know the truth?

You can watch the interview here and draw your own conclusions.

2. North American Monetary Events - The Dawn of a Different Dollar?

Everyone in financial sectors is hopping up and down, talking about the sub-prime mess, but few have highlighted one important story that blipped on the screen as early as 2006 and continued "blipping" in 2007 which could drastically change how we view the dollar in 2008 and beyond.

By now, you've probably seen (maybe even closely watched) what happened in Europe when the monetary system was changed over to the Euro, right?

Think something like that can't happen on our shores?

Think again...

In certain circles it's been said the Amero dollar is coming. The ability to make it happen (and acceptable) however, is fraught with a few obstacles that need to be addressed.

Starting out in 2007, the first hurdle was that the American dollar was too high, the Mexican far too low, and everything needed to be leveled out to somewhere near the middle where the Canadian dollar fit nicely... or so the story goes.

So, the sub-prime mess -- was it an instrument (pure conjecture on my part) to make certain conditions come about (?) -- or was it, as reported, just really poor, and I mean really really really really shoddily poor, judgement and incompetance throughout the entire credit and financial chain.

Hard to believe so many so-called financial wizards could be so culpable as a whole, isn't it?

Beyond the value of currencies in North America, there is another hurdle that must be overcome. The second hurdle is to get all three countries on board with the plan with some form of an agreement. Make sense?

Well, well, well... lookey here. Watch this blip on mainstream media: "NORTH AMERICAN UNION"

So, now we have this here little agreement in place since 2006 plus a massive drop in the American dollar value on world markets. What next?

The third hurdle would be getting the people to believe in a new form of currency that would encompass all of North America. High inflation coupled with high unemployment is a recipe for recession (actually bordering depression) which some say would definitely accomplish the goal.

I'm guessing that would spur people to accept a new currency.

You know, on December 23, 1913, the Federal Reserve Act was signed by President Woodrow Wilson. He seems to have had some regret afterward as this quote attributed to him would seem to suggest:

"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, all our activities are in the hands of a few men... (W)e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world; no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men." -- Woodrow Wilson

By events of this past year, one can't help but think along the same lines as Mr. Wilson.

If you really want to understand a bit more about fiat currencies and would like some light reading on the history of money, here's an interesting piece you might enjoy.

It's old news already, and yet the full story hasn't been written yet; but keeping a careful eye on the evolution of our dollar would be well-advised in light of the preceding.

Is the Amero Dollar on the way? Here's another little "blip" on the mainstream media screen. Check this short 2006 video out: "The Amero - North American Currency"

It's no wonder the entrepreneurial establishment of the Liberty Dollar had to be swiftly -- and most thoroughly -- shut down so close to the end of 2007. It would be a terrible thing if another form of "currency" were to appear in the middle of all of this, wouldn't it? Gotta stop that nonsense from happening... I say tongue-in-cheek.

3. Health in our Future - Salmonella Microbes and More

What happens to salmonella microbes when they are exposed to space travel? Answer -- "The returning microbes are now three times as nasty as their primitive Earth-bound cousins." (link)

That little-reported experiment probably means nothing to people residing on our planet, but it could mean a whole lot with respect to any foods sent to the space station or beyond.

You see, the nasty little microbe problem here on earth is worse than most people are probably even aware... and new "morphs" are emerging all the time.

If these pesky little salmonella microbes could triple in size, what could happen to things like e. coli, listeria, etc., etc.?

The MRSA superbug story hit mainstream media, but missing in most coverage was the animal connection. Just like the e. coli contaminated water investigation in the California produce growing regions, again the animal connection was treated lightly at best.

Add up all the recalls (and recalls that might have been missed?) and you might start thinking these pesky bugs are being churned out on our planet at factory-level speeds.

The year 2008 is shaping up to be a challenging one for bio-tech scientists to wrestle with, possibly taking their attention off of fabricating new proteins and manipulating genes, and instead seriously studying the nasty spread of microbes that are quickly turning into unstoppable killers.

It's not too late ....is it?

In other health news, there are experiments underway regarding how we (humans) age that are producing mind-blowing theories. For one example, it's believed among some scientists involved that humans are actually capable of living to be 1,000 years old. But, as with anything so radical that could have the potential to wipe out trillion dollar industries like the health industry, there are people who want to stop the research. (Go figure.)

For a bizarre look at the experimentation underway that has, in my opinion, completely fallen off the mass media screen, check this blog out.

Imagine if we actually did live up to 1,000 years in age. That's a very very long time to get to the truth of some unanswered (even forgotten) questions. Picture the huge body of knowledge and experiences we could then pass on to future generations. Hmmmmm....

4. That's Entertainment - the Move to Digital TV

Okay, this is a short one. I just find it odd that not more about it appears in mainstream media, but maybe I'm not watching the right stations. And for those who don't already have a digital viewing capable television set, they most likely won't be watching any television beginning on February 18, 2009. Why? That's when the big switch goes through and television stations will stop broadcasting analog signals.

Those with cable or satellite services won't need to bother with getting a converter.

But for the rest...

You can read more about it and learn how you can get your digital tv converter coupons (2 per family) free from the Government in this article.

5. Asteroid Collision - The Answer to My Last Riddle

In my last post, I posed the following riddle:

QUESTION: What are scientists watching closely as we near January 30/2008 that is: big (about 50 meters in diameter), flies at a speed of 1.2 km per second (8 miles/second) and carries the potential to unleash energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb?

The answer was supposed to be posted the following day, but you simply wouldn't believe how busy things have been here for me.

So, number five on the list of BIG STORIES MISSED is actually the ANSWER to the riddle.

You see, there is this asteroid hurtling its way through space, that a couple weeks ago was said to have a one in 75 chance of hitting Mars on Jan. 30, 2008. Hey -- that's this month!

And it looks like the asteroid now has an even higher probability of slamming into Mars, at least according to this Reuters article on the subject.

The JPL website notes that, in the unlikely event of an impact, the head-on collision would take place on January 30th at 2:55 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, with an uncertainty of a few minutes.

The odds are now about 1 in 25 ...which by any calculation is positively HUGE when it comes to space. You can bet star watchers all over the world will be waiting and watching with baited breath to see what happens later this month.

And if it hits?

Scientists will have a field day! Just imagine how much data can be retrieved by our little robots on Mars... that is, if the dust fallout doesn't totally destroy their solar energy collecting capabilities.

This is one collision the scientific community is actually hoping will take place.

It's shaping up to be a very interesting year ahead.

Happy New Year to all of you... and thank you for reading. I appreciate you.


PS: And the next riddle is.

QUESTION: How big is the biggest diamond now known to man?

Gotta run. See 'ya soon!

MRSA - honey bees - and a new riddle

"Our Decrepit Food Factories" is the title of the New York Times article by Michael Pollan published Dec. 16/2007 which highlights how dangerously far we have wandered from the sustainability path.

He compares two important news stories that have cropped up this past decade which may have profoundly serious impact on our future. He begins with the first, discussing an urgent subject that really hasn't received the attention it deserves -- namely community-acquired MRSA:

...the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Back in June of this year I wrote a draft copy of a very detailed article on the subject of MRSA, complete with links, but never had time to complete it. I'll bring it to you early in the new year.

What does MRSA have to do with food factories (aka CAFOs)?

According to the article:

No one is yet sure how or where this strain evolved, but it is sufficiently different from the hospital-bred strains to have some researchers looking elsewhere for its origin, to another environment where the heavy use of antibiotics is selecting for the evolution of a lethal new microbe: the concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO.

More specifically, pig operations are receiving the closest scrutinity after a recent "European study found that 60 percent of pig farms that routinely used antibiotics had MRSA-positive pigs (compared with 5 percent of farms that did not feed pigs antibiotics)."

On December 13/2007, the CDC also published a study showing that a strain of “MRSA from an animal reservoir has recently entered the human population and is now responsible for [more than] 20 percent of all MRSA in the Netherlands.” The study stated:

The density of NT-MRSA isolates corresponds to the density of pig farming, whereas the density of typable strains corresponds to the density of the human population. The density of cattle farms is more or less identical to the density of pig farms.

Further study is underway.

For the record, Michael Pollan admits:

Scientists have not established that any of the strains of MRSA presently killing Americans originated on factory farms. But given the rising public alarm about MRSA and the widespread use on these farms of precisely the class of antibiotics to which these microbes have acquired resistance, you would think our public-health authorities would be all over it. Apparently not.

Meanwhile, what about the honey bees?

I had another post about the colony collapse disorder affecting honey bee populations around the world but never had a chance to publish it. However, I did mention the subject here.

Michael's article focusses more on how we're treating bee populations rather than the full background story on CCD.

It is the second news item that Michael Pollan draws our attention to with respect to the unsustainable methods growing within Big AG practices today.

We're asking a lot of our bees. We're asking a lot of our pigs too. That seems to be a hallmark of industrial agriculture: to maximize production and keep food as cheap as possible, it pushes natural systems and organisms to their limit, asking them to function as efficiently as machines. When the inevitable problems crop up — when bees or pigs remind us they are not machines — the system can be ingenious in finding "solutions," whether in the form of antibiotics to keep pigs healthy or foreign bees to help pollinate the almonds. But this year's solutions have a way of becoming next year's problems. That is to say, they aren't "sustainable."

I'm just the messenger, bringing attention to the story. How you choose to take the message is entirely up to you.

And now... the new riddle.

QUESTION: What are scientists watching closely as we near January 30/2008 that is: big (about 50 meters in diameter), flies at a speed of 1.2 km per second (8 miles/second) and carries the potential to unleash energy equivalent to a 15-megaton nuclear bomb?

ANSWER: coming tomorrow.

Until then, stay safe and be healthy!