Is the FDA about to finally admit Europeans are right on antibiotics for cattle?

Found this today:
Is the FDA about to ban antibiotics for cows? Maryn McKenna explains ... - Boing Boing

Here's why antibiotics in the food chain are harmful:

Europe is far ahead of the United States in the responsible use of antibiotics. On January 1, 2006, the European Union banned the feeding of all antibiotics and related drugs to livestock for growth promotion purposes.

Long-term, low-level feeding of antibiotics to animals, a practice common in U.S. livestock production, creates the ideal conditions for the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Source: European Union Bans Antibiotics for Growth PromotionAntibiotics in cattle

So, it seems the FDA about to finally admit Europeans are right on antibiotics for cattle?

How long will it take for them to also realise hormones are not a good idea either?


Still on food, another bad practice tries to hide: Big Corn wants to change "High Fructose Corn Syrup" to "Corn Sugars"

foodings.blog.uk, beef, hormones, antibiotics, USA, EU, FDA, health, junkfoodnation, HFCS, cattle, agriculture

Earth day: NOx, electric cars and diesel

I was listening to Robert Evans from Cenex, a company developping fuel-cell and "low carbon" (whatever that really means) technologies in this podcast on guardian.co.uk.

He suggests electric cars are THE solution (he would says that, would he not?) as they cut pullution. The interviewer doesn't buy this and questions if it's not just moving the pollution to coal fired plants (in the UK between 60% and 33% of the electricity is generated from coal and the 74% from fossil (can't seem to cross-reference 2 sources), 49% of electricity is made burning coal in the US, while in France 78.1% comes from nuclear in 2006).

Evans answered that moving the CO2 emission from tailpipes up to a power station chimney reduces NOx emissions. Which brings the whole issue I've been raising about diesel.

The goverment has been focussing solely on CO2 emissions, via car tax bands linked to emissions for instance (note that airlines and ships are exempt of fuel duty), which had the effect to favour diesel cars: oil burners registrations have grown from 13.8% in 1999 to 43.6% in 2008!

The problem is while diesel engines emit less CO2 (about 20-30%), they emit much more NOx and particulates, about 24 times more according to this source. While CO2 is not an actual pollutant, NOX and particulates are and are harmful to anyone in the vincinity of traffic -in particular children in urban environments.

Just another proof that the government is using CO2 as an excuse to tax with no proven ecological reasons.

UK, pollution, environment, diesel, automobile, globalwarming, richmondtransits.blog

Hoon's farce as Heathrow expansion is announced

Geoff Hoon gave in the lobbies arguments and gave the Government's Go-ahead for new Heathrow runway.

His arguments are farcical for a lack of better words to describe their implausibility and the inadequacy of measures aimed at alleviating the impact of a third runway:

• The languge about the "the possibility of new high-speed rail links from the airport" means it's unlikely to happen. Same goes for the idea of "set[tting] up a company to look into creating a high speed rail line between London and Scotland - adding there was a "strong case" for a new high speed rail hub at Heathrow": it's just there to appease opponents.
  
• The 125,000 flights cap probably won't meet EU emissions regulations (thanks god to the European Union for making rules to protect citizens from their own government), even with his fictional "green planes"
  
• More passengers means more car traffic. The government's answer is to use hard shoulders. Brilliant, except anyone who's travelled on the M4 at peak hours knows that any little incident already causes a major congestion.
  

The only good news for Richmond residents was the concession to keep the "mixed mode" use of runways (plane noise only half of the day), however nothing on night fligts. But those living further West will be exposes to more takeoff noise thanks to the end of the Cranford agreement.

BAA and the DfT conveniently forget to state that there are FOUR other airports around London when making the case to expand Heathrow. An estuary airport would have been cheaper that T5 + T6 + a 4rd runway.

Finally, the economic case for LHR is based on un-proven assumptions.

Most major European countries have in the last 20 years:

• relocated their main airport
• invested in high-speed rail
• created multimodal nodes (air+rail)

During this time, British ones sat on their bottoms... (read also What if those who govern us had a long term view about strategic infrastructures?)

Here's the Decision text in full.

rail, trains, air, airways, BA, BAA, DfT, LHR, Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, UK, politics, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

And now wash your hands...

Some scientists, maybe with too much... time ... on their hands, decided to swab 409 people and this led to the following headline:
BBC NEWS | Health | Faecal bacteria join the commute

In this article, we learn Newcatle bus commuters are dirtiest. All that could be laughable if the lack of basic hygene didn't lead to some potentially embarassing sicknesses.

health, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

Stating the obvious: Heathrow expansion will pollute more

Sometimes, stating the obvious helps:
BBC NEWS | England | London | Third runway will 'damage health' (06/10/08)

"If the third runway goes ahead, if we get that extra both air and
ground traffic that will arise out of that, then it is absolutely
certain that nitrogen dioxide levels will go way beyond what they ought
to be for the sake of human health."


Why is that important?

Because, as a spokesman for the Department of Health (DfT) said: "The government
has always been clear that expansion at Heathrow could not go ahead
unless strict local environmental conditions could be met."


Read also: Listen to the Heathrow expansion lobbies...

In a nutshell:

• lobbies speaking about the economicimpact of Heathrow expansion are not basing their statements on any reliable economic impact study
• the DfT, BAA and BA are in collusion to preserve their own interests and not that of Londoners or the country
• when they talk about Heathrow not being competitive compared to other European capitals, they conveniently forget that only London has FIVE international airports and that many other capitals have successfully relocated their airport
  

Tags: Heathrow, heathrowexpansion, airport, air, airlines, rail, railways, transportation, pollution, health, UK, London, environment, richmondtransits.blog

Free range children?

Are we too protective of our kids?
Are we living in an overly clean environment?

I've been wondering awhile about those questions, so when I read those, they certainly added fuel to my thoughts:

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone
This post on the blog Free Range Kids discusses about how much independence to give children: it's something I often discuss and sometimes argue about with my wife.

• Should my 4 year old go to the post box on the corner of our street, just one house away, on her own -with us watching from the window? We think so.
  
• Should my 7 year old be allowed to open the oven unsupervised to prick a cake with a sharp cooking knife and check if the clafoutis is ready? I think so, my wife disagrees.
• From what age can they walk about a mile to school -unsupervised? 8? 10? 15???

Apparently unrelated are allergies. They seemed no provisions for allergic kids when I was at school and now everyone's going nuts about it. Nuts and a growing list of things are banned from kids parties.
As I've written here, we're exposed to more pollutants like diesel and many chemicals and many suspect there are links to cancers, asthma, allergies, etc...

As I've written here, I think we shold eat more un-pasteurised foods. This article from the Beeb seems to confirm this: Farm pregnancy 'cuts asthma risk'


My conclusions? Should we be less protective of our children, while reducing the chemicals ingestion and exposure and eating more natural stuff? I think so.

Tags: health, freerangekids, pollution, children, richmondtransits.blog

Does the DoH really think it's going to solve the obesity epidemic by sanitising the language?

Sometimes political correctness drives me over the edge:
Nothing To Do With Arbroath: British government bans the word 'obese' to describe overweight children

Does using euphemism help solving the issue?

At a time when "Obesity 'threatens future of NHS'" (The cost to the NHS is £480m each year - 1.5 per cent of NHS expenditure) and in a country where "UK women are now officially the fattest in Europe", it seems to me that not telling fat people the only solution is eat less and exercice more (since most of obesity causes are self inflicted).

Sure that's quite harsh. But then society is harsher on speeding drivers and smokers, even though Obesity Deadlier Than Smoking (and car accidents).

It maybe extreme, but social pressure helps combatting obesity, just as smoking is no longuer socially accepted even though it was the norm 20 years ago.

Tags: junkfoodnation, obesity, UK, health, richmondtransits.blog

Today, I've solved the energy crisis (Friday post)!

See my commentary on

Rob Enderle's post: The Desk That Could Save Your Life.

Actually, I think I've solved several problems:

• reduce dependency on (foreign) oil and other fossile energy sources via a totally renewable (read "breeding) source
• reduce NHS deficit and combat obesity epidemic
• solve back problems of office workers
• provide new-age management metrics
• and many more!

Should Americans eat more excrements (or just camembert?)

In this Slate article, Kent Sepkowitz asks whether the food chain is too clean?
Why Americans should eat more excrement. - By Kent Sepkowitz - Slate Magazine

The answer to the question is simple but not quite as simplistic as the author puts it. When I go to the US, it always strikes me that you can't find much fresh food in their supermarket: everything is sanitised and vacuum packed. They won't cook beef blue because it's against the law. They may be just ahead of us, I get this as an excuse here too.

I would rather suggest Americans to stop eating shit: dump all crap processed food, stop pasteurising all their "cheeses", eat sushi and beef tartare, fresh vegatables and oysters.

I bet they would soon discover that cooking from fresh ingredients, eating camembert, roquefort, raw seafood is not only better to taste but I also better for the waistline.

Camembert for instance is not pasteurised. Those who think it stinks may be right, I just say it's an acquired tate. My 6 and 3 year old love it so much that I am lucky if I eat 1/8th. Of course, roper camembert is of course unpasteurised and helps the digestion system to be reactive and healthy.


Tags: foodings.blog.uk, camembert, cheese, health, cheese