Food wars: How European health authorities are using the e.coli scare to wage economic warfare against vegetable farmers

Even as hospitals in Germany are now filling up with people sickened by a super-powerful drug-resistant “superbug” strain of e.coli that looks like it was bioengineered (http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_e…), European health authorities are leaping at the opportunity to spread fear about organic foods while ignoring the obvious true cause of the contamination in the first place — the widespread abuse of antibiotics in animal farming operations.

The e.coli blame game has become a circus of musical chairs. First, they blamed the Spaniards as a form of retaliation for Spain’s resistance to accepting GMOs (http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_G…). This act drove Spanish farmers into bankruptcy through a savage campaign of rumor-mongering. After ravaging the Spanish vegetable farmers, they began to randomly instill widespread fear about a variety of vegetables: First it was cucumbers, then lettuce and then finally tomatoes. And now, the blame has come full circle and is now being cast upon organic sprout growers in Germany!

This has all been nothing more than despicable rumor-mongering that has now reached the point of economic warfare against vegetable farmers. And now it turns out even the latest round of blame cast upon sprouts was completely fraudulent: New tests reveal that the organic sprouts are NOT contaminated with e.coli.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting:

“The Lower-Saxony state agriculture ministry said 23 of 40 samples from the sprout farm suspected of being behind the outbreak have tested negative for the highly aggressive, “super-toxic” strain of E. coli bacteria… In a surprising U-turn, German officials said initial tests published Monday provided no evidence that sprouts from an organic farm in northern Germany were the cause of the country’s deadly Escherichia coli outbreak.” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100…)

Huh? Weren’t these sprouts being blamed as the source of the outbreak up until yesterday?

The truth is that we are witnessing an economic blame game run amok as health authorities destroy trust in one vegetable crop after another. It has become an episode of Godzilla, with the monster of German health authorities rampaging through the city, crushing vegetable farmers left and right by merely uttering the name of what they grow.

CUCUMBERS! No, wait. Now it’s TOMATOES! Hold on, nope. It’s actually SPROUTS! Wait a sec. Nope, not that either…

This has all become a circus of nonsense that translates into the economic devastation of vegetable growers. And that’s the whole point, actually: To demonize fresh vegetables and convince people that the only safe food is dead food. So through this campaign of destructive rumor-mongering, European health authorities can steer people away from eating the very things that help keep them healthy: Fresh vegetables and sprouts, all of which contain natural medicines and phytonutrients that prevent diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.

By scaring people away from these fresh vegetables, they are pushing people toward less healthful options: Processed foods, dead foods, pasteurized beverages and fumigated or irradiated vegetables. Across both the EU and the USA, this is what health regulators have been deviously pushing for the last few years. All it takes is a few engineered e.coli scares to convince the public to avoid nearly all fresh vegetables!

Already, sales of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and sprouts have plummeted across Europe… even though there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that these vegetables are the source of the e.coli contamination. Astonishingly, virtually the entire public is now increasingly convinced that the only SAFE foods are processed foods!

Yep: Beware of fresh veggies because they might kill you! Instead, eat your GMO-contaminated, pesticide-ridden processed dead foods because that’s safe! This is the incredible conclusion of the war being waged against fresh vegetables — a war that is now using bioengineered weapons in the food supply to create fear and cause fatalities among innocent consumers.

Read more in my previous report on how this strain of e.coli appears to have been bioengineered to cause human fatalities: http://www.naturalnews.com/032622_e…

Food wars: How European health authorities are using the e.coli scare to wage economic warfare against vegetable farmers.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032623_ecoli_fresh_vegetables.html#ixzz1OcleWW9Z

Forensic evidence emerges that European e.coli superbug was bioengineered to produce human fatalities

Image via Wikipedia

June 06, 2011
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews)

 

Even as the veggie blame game is now under way across the EU, where a super resistant strain of e.coli is sickening patients and filling hospitals in Germany, virtually no one is talking about how e.coli could have magically become resistant to eight different classes of antibiotic drugs and then suddenly appeared in the food supply.

This particular e.coli variation is a member of the O104 strain, and O104 strains are almost never (normally) resistant to antibiotics. In order for them to acquire this resistance, they must be repeatedly exposed to antibiotics in order to provide the “mutation pressure” that nudges them toward complete drug immunity.

So if you’re curious about the origins of such a strain, you can essentially reverse engineer the genetic code of the e.coli and determine fairly accurately which antibiotics it was exposed to during its development. This step has now been done (see below), and when you look at the genetic decoding of this O104 strain now threatening food consumers across the EU, a fascinating picture emerges of how it must have come into existence.

The genetic code reveals the history
When scientists at Germany’s Robert Koch Institute decoded the genetic makeup of the O104 strain, they found it to be resistant to all the following classes and combinations of antibiotics:

• penicillins
• tetracycline
• nalidixic acid
• trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazol
• cephalosporins
• amoxicillin / clavulanic acid
• piperacillin-sulbactam
• piperacillin-tazobactam

In addition, this O104 strain posses an ability to produce special enzymes that give it what might be called “bacteria superpowers” known technically as ESBLs:

“Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases (ESBLs) are enzymes that can be produced by bacteria making them resistant to cephalosporins e.g. cefuroxime, cefotaxime and ceftazidime – which are the most widely used antibiotics in many hospitals,” explains the Health Protection Agency in the UK (http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Infect…).

On top of that, this O104 strain possesses two genes — TEM-1 and CTX-M-15 — that “have been making doctors shudder since the 1990s,” reports The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis…). And why do they make doctors shudder? Because they’re so deadly that many people infected with such bacteria experience critical organ failure and simply die.

Bioengineering a deadly superbug
So how, exactly, does a bacterial strain come into existence that’s resistant to over a dozen antibiotics in eight different drug classes and features two deadly gene mutations plus ESBL enzyme capabilities?

There’s really only one way this happens (and only one way) — you have to expose this strain of e.coli to all eight classes of antibiotics drugs. Usually this isn’t done at the same time, of course: You first expose it to penicillin and find the surviving colonies which are resistant to penicillin. You then take those surviving colonies and expose them to tetracycline. The surviving colonies are now resistant to both penicillin and tetracycline. You then expose them to a sulfa drug and collect the surviving colonies from that, and so on. It is a process of genetic selection done in a laboratory with a desired outcome. This is essentially how some bioweapons are engineered by the U.S. Army in its laboratory facility in Ft. Detrick, Maryland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation…).

Although the actual process is more complicated than this, the upshot is that creating a strain of e.coli that’s resistant to eight classes of antibiotics requires repeated, sustained expose to those antibiotics. It is virtually impossible to imagine how this could happen all by itself in the natural world. For example, if this bacteria originated in the food (as we’ve been told), then where did it acquire all this antibiotic resistance given the fact that antibiotics are not used in vegetables?

When considering the genetic evidence that now confronts us, it is difficult to imagine how this could happen “in the wild.” While resistance to a single antibiotic is common, the creation of a strain of e.coli that’s resistant to eight different classes of antibiotics — in combination — simply defies the laws of genetic permutation and combination in the wild. Simply put, this superbug e.coli strain could not have been created in the wild. And that leaves only one explanation for where it really came from: the lab.

Engineered and then released into the wild
The evidence now points to this deadly strain of e.coli being engineered and then either being released into the food supply or somehow escaping from a lab and entering the food supply inadvertently. If you disagree with that conclusion — and you’re certainly welcome to — then you are forced to conclude that this octobiotic superbug (immune to eight classes of antibiotics) developed randomly on its own… and that conclusion is far scarier than the “bioengineered” explanation because it means octobiotic superbugs can simply appear anywhere at any time without cause. That would be quite an exotic theory indeed.

My conclusion actually makes more sense: This strain of e.coli was almost certainly engineered and then released into the food supply for a specific purpose. What would that purpose be? It’s obvious, I hope.

It’s all problem, reaction, solution at work here. First cause a PROBLEM (a deadly strain of e.coli in the food supply). Then wait for the public REACTION (huge outcry as the population is terrorized by e.coli). In response to that, enact your desired SOLUTION (total control over the global food supply and the outlawing of raw sprouts, raw milk and raw vegetables).

That’s what this is all about, of course. The FDA relied on the same phenomenon in the USA when pushing for its recent “Food Safety Modernization Act” which essentially outlaws small family organic farms unless they lick the boots of FDA regulators. The FDA was able to crush farm freedom in America by piggybacking on the widespread fear that followed e.coli outbreaks in the U.S. food supply. When people are afraid, remember, it’s not difficult to get them to agree to almost any level of regulatory tyranny. And making people afraid of their food is a simple matter… a few government press releases emailed to the mainstream media news affiliates is all it takes.

First ban the natural medicine, then attack the food supply
Now, remember: All this is happening on the heels of the EU ban on medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements — a ban that blatantly outlaws nutritional therapies that help keep people healthy and free from disease. Now that all these herbs and supplements are outlawed, the next step is to make people afraid of fresh food, too. That’s because fresh vegetables are medicinal, and as long as the public has the right to buy fresh vegetables, they can always prevent disease.

But if you can make people AFRAID of fresh vegetables — or even outlaw them altogether — then you can force the entire population onto a diet of dead foods and processed foods that promote degenerative disease and bolster the profits of the powerful drug companies.

It’s all part of the same agenda, you see: Keep people sick, deny them access to healing herbs and supplements, then profit from their suffering at the hands of the global drug cartels.

GMOs play a similar role in all this, of course: They’re designed to contaminate the food supply with genetic code that causes widespread infertility among human beings. And those who are somehow able to reproduce after exposure to GMOs still suffer from degenerative disease that enriches the drug companies from “treatment.”

Do you recall which country was targeted in this recent e.coli scare? Spain. Why Spain? You may recall that leaked cables from Wikileaks revealed that Spain resisted the introduction of GMOs into its agricultural system, even as the U.S. government covertly threatened political retaliation for its resistance. This false blaming of Spain for the e.coli deaths is probably retaliation for Spain’s unwillingness to jump on the GMO bandwagon. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030828_G…)

That’s the real story behind the economic devastation of Spain’s vegetable farmers. It’s one of the subplots being pursued alongside this e.coli superbug scheme.

Food as weapons of war – created by Big Pharma?
By the way, the most likely explanation of where this strain of e.coli was bioengineered is that the drug giants came up with it in their own labs. Who else has access to all the antibiotics and equipment needed to manage the targeted mutations of potentially thousands of e.coli colonies? The drug companies are uniquely positioned to both carry out this plot and profit from it. In other words, they have the means and the motive to engage in precisely such actions.

Aside from the drug companies, perhaps only the infectious disease regulators themselves have this kind of laboratory capacity. The CDC, for example, could probably pull this off if they really wanted to.

The proof that somebody bioengineered this e.coli strain is written right in the DNA of the bacteria. That’s forensic evidence, and what it reveals cannot be denied. This strain underwent repeated and prolonged exposure to eight different classes of antibiotics, and then it somehow managed to appear in the food supply. How do you get to that if not through a well-planned scheme carried out by rogue scientists? There is no such thing as “spontaneous mutation” into a strain that is resistant to the top eight classes of brand-name antibiotic drugs being sold by Big Pharma today. Such mutations have to be deliberate.

Once again, if you disagree with this assessment, then what you’re saying is that NO, it wasn’t done deliberately… it happened accidentally! And again, I’m saying that’s even scarier! Because that means the antibiotic contamination of our world is now at such an extreme level of overkill that a strain of e.coli in the wild can be saturated with eight different classes of antibiotics to the point where it naturally develops into its own deadly superbug. If that’s what people believe, then that’s almost a scarier theory than the bioengineering explanation!

A new era has begun: Bioweapons in your food
But in either case — no matter what you believe — the simple truth is that the world is now facing a new era of global superbug strains of bacteria that can’t be treated with any known pharmaceutical. They can all, of course, be readily killed with colloidal silver, which is exactly why the FDA and world health regulators have viciously attacked colloidal silver companies all these years: They can’t have the public getting its hands on natural antibiotics that really work, you see. That would defeat the whole purpose of making everybody sick in the first place.

In fact, these strains of e.coli superbugs can be quite readily treated with a combination of natural full-spectrum antibiotics from plants such as garlic, ginger, onions and medicinal herbs. On top of that, probiotics can help balance the flora of the digestive tract and “crowd out” the deadly e.coli that might happen by. A healthy immune system and well-functioning digestive tract can fight off an e.coli superbug infection, but that’s yet another fact the medical community doesn’t want you to know. They much prefer you to remain a helpless victim lying in the hospital, waiting to die, with no options available to you. That’s “modern medicine” for ya. They cause the problems that they claim to treat, and then they won’t even treat you with anything that works in the first place.

Nearly all the deaths now attributable to this e.coli outbreak are easily and readily avoidable. These are deaths of ignorance. But even more, they may also be deaths from a new era of food-based bioweapons unleashed by either a group of mad scientists or an agenda-driven institution that has declared war on the human population.

Additional developments on this e.coli outbreak
• 22 fatalities have so far been reported, with 2,153 people now sickened and possibly facing kidney failure.

• An agricultural ministry in Germany said that even though they now know the source of the outbreak is a German sprout farm, they are still not lifting their warnings for people to avoid eating tomatoes and lettuce. In other words, keep the people afraid!

• “The German variant of E coli, known as O104, is a hybrid of the strains that can cause bloody diarrhoea and kidney damage called ‘hemolytic uremic syndrome’.” (http://www.independent.ie/world-new…)

• A total of ten European nations have reported outbreaks of this e.coli strain, mostly from people who had visited northern Germany.

• The following story is in German, and it hints that the e.coli outbreak might have been a terrorist attack (http://www.aerztezeitung.de/medizin…). Yeah, a terrorist attack by the drug companies upon innocent people, as usual…

Forensic evidence emerges that European e.coli superbug was bioengineered to produce human fatalities.

Related articles

• Forensic evidence emerges that European e.coli superbug was bioengineered to produce human fatalities (via End Times Signs) (ascleses.wordpress.com)
• Forensic evidence emerges that European e.coli superbug was bioengineered to produce human fatalities (birdflu666.wordpress.com)

E coli outbreak: WHO says bacterium is a new strain

World Health Organisation says fatal E coli is a mutant form of two different E coli bacteria that has never been seen before

The World Health Organisation has said that the E coli outbreak that has left 17 people dead is a completely new strain. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

The World Health Organisation has said that the E coli bacterium responsible for an outbreak that has left 17 dead and infected hundreds in Europe is a new strain that has never been seen before.

Preliminary genetic sequencing suggests that the strain is a mutant form of two different E coli bacteria, with lethal genes that could explain why the Europe-wide outbreak appears to be so big and dangerous, the agency said.

Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO told The Associated Press that “this is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before”.

She added that the new strain has “various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing”.

So far, the mutant E coli strain has infected more than 1,500 others, including 470 who have developed a rare kidney failure complication. Researchers have been unable to pinpoint the cause of the outbreak, which has hit at least nine European countries.

Nearly all the sick people either live in Germany or recently travelled there. Two people who were infected are now in the US, and both had recently travelled to Hamburg, Germany, where many of the cases occurred.

Fearful of the outbreak spreading into Russia, the country on Thursday extended its ban on vegetable imports to all of the EU. Russia had banned fresh imports from Spain and Germany on Monday.

Lyubov Voropayeva, spokeswoman for the Russian Agency for the Supervision of Consumer Rights, told the AP that the ban has been imposed immediately for an indefinite period of time.

The agency’s chief Gennady Onishchenko told Russian news agencies that this “unpopular measure” would be in place until European officials inform Moscow of the cause of the disease and how it is being spread.

“How many more lives of European citizens does it take for European officials to tackle this problem?” he told the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.

No infections have yet been reported in Russia.

Medical authorities appeared no closer to discovering the source of the infection. The outbreak is already considered the third-largest involving E coli in recent world history, and it may be the deadliest. Twelve people died in a 1996 Japanese outbreak that reportedly infected more than 12,000, and seven died in a Canadian outbreak in 2000.

E coli outbreak: WHO says bacterium is a new strain | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Canadian debt load: $26,000 – excluding mortgages – Moneyville.ca

Canadians love credit cards but the interest rate charges are high.

MARK LENNIHAN/

By Dana Flavelle | Wed Jun 01 2011

More Canadians are living closer to the edge as consumer debt loads continued to climb in the first three months of the year, a study shows.

Already at record levels, Canadians now owe just under $26,000 on average on their lines of credit, credit cards and auto loans, according to credit rating agency, TransUnion.

That’s an increase of 4.5 per cent, or another $1,000, over the same period last year.

The report comes a day after Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney warned consumers to curb their spending, saying record low interest rates aren’t going to last forever.

The fear is that higher rates could push more consumers beyond their ability to repay their loans.

“There are going to be a lot of people in the market who are near the edge,” TransUnion vice-president Thomas Higgins said in an interview. “If there’s a drastic change in interest rages or unforeseen unemployment or some other shock from the U.S. or the European Union that throws off a province, or a region, or an industry, the people on the edge have no buffer.”

The news is not all bad.

Debt growth in Canada is slowing from the double-digit pace seen before the recession, Higgins said.

And total borrowing, including mortgages, typically the biggest household loan, is slowing, major Canadian banks said recently in their quarterly reports.

TransUnions’ figures don’t include mortgages, which typically make up two-thirds of a household’s debt.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday he’s not concerned about a slowdown in consumer spending, as it suggests Canadians are heeding official warnings about spending beyond one’s means.

However, TransUnion said the fact that consumers’ debt load is still rising is a worry.

The Bank of Canada’s trend-setting overnight lending rate is just 1 per cent. But with inflation running at 3.3 per cent, above the central bank’s ideal range, Carney is under pressure to start raising lending rates to dampen demand.

Analysts predict a rate hike could come later this year barring unforeseen circumstances.

Total debt per consumer increased to $25,597 in the first three months of this year, Trans Union said.

Among types of loans, TransUnion said credit card debt, usually the most expensive to carry, barely budged from a year ago, falling $25 to an average of $3,539.

In a sign some borrowers may already be struggling, the national credit card delinquency rate rose 11 per cent. The rate measures the ratio of consumers who take 90 days or more to pay their bill.

The average line of credit, the most popular loans for their low cost and high flexibility, rose 5.9 per cent to $33,762 compared to last year. However, total line of credit debt declined for the first time in five quarters.

One noticeable shift was the decreased use of lines of credit, Higgins said. The category is the largest among consumer loans, making up 41 per cent of the total, and even more in Ontario, at 57 per cent.

But consumers are moving way from these highly flexible, low-cost products in favour of more rigid installment type loans, perhaps in a bid to force themselves to make regular payments, he said.

The average auto loan rose 12.4 per cent to $16,181 compared to a year ago. Total auto debt declined slightly to $45.8 billion.

The study found debt loads rose in all provinces, led by Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. British Columbians had the highest load at $36,649.

The average borrower debt on auto loans was also up in the quarter — by 12.4 per cent to $16,189 from $14,402 in the first quarter of 2010. The delinquency rate on auto loans fell slightly to 0.1 per cent from 0.13 per cent a year ago.

Lines of credit are the most popular form of consumer debt, excluding mortgages, accounting for more than 41 per cent of outstanding debt at the end of the first quarter. Debt on lines of credit stood at an average $33,981, up 5.9 per cent from $31,867 in the first quarter of 2010.

The report is based on anonymous credit files of all credit-active Canadians.

Canadian debt load: $26,000 – excluding mortgages – Moneyville.ca.

Internet security: cookie monster unleashed following EU ruling

Browsing the internet may become frustrating as a ruling forces all websites to gather user consent before storing data

Most popular websites are yet to implement the new security measures. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Warning notices at the top of websites, annoying pop-up windows, forms asking for your consent … fears have been voiced that browsing the web could become more complicated and time-consuming as a result of “challenging” new EU rules on internet cookies.

They are small text files put on to our computers by websites so they can remember things about us, and almost every site uses them.

But at one minute past midnight on Thursday 26 May, the law surrounding the way they are used changed.

From that date, all UK businesses and organisations running websites in this country were required to obtain people’s consent before they install cookies on their machines.

Some experts have said that where the new rules could have a big impact is if people are looking at lots of different sites they have no relationship with. For example, you might be browsing a dozen online retailers looking for the best price on an item. The worst-case scenario is that every time you visit a new site, you face a pop-up window, a “splash page” (which comes up before the home page) or a bar at the top, informing you about how cookies are used on the site, and asking for your consent.

If you accept, you hopefully won’t be bothered again while you are on the site. If you don’t, some of the website’s functions may not work properly, or it may not even let you in. But anyone who has been on the internet since Thursday morning will probably be wondering what on earth this is all about, because you will struggle to find a UK website that is obeying the new law by asking for your permission to use cookies.

This is because, in an eleventh-hour intervention, the UK government – which is not a fan of the rules – announced on Wednesday that no business or organisation would get into trouble if they effectively turn a blind eye to the new rules between now and May 2012, provided they can demonstrate they are taking steps to address the issue.

With the government declaring there “will be no immediate changes to how UK websites operate,” many online retailers, publishers and other businesses will have breathed a sigh of relief. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), whose job is to protect individuals’ data privacy, says it will be giving all operators up to 12 months “to get their house in order”, and that it expects them to be complying with the law from May 2012.

However, the ICO pointedly chose not to follow the government’s advice on a phased approach. Since the middle of this week, its own website front page has featured a header bar giving visitors information about the cookies it uses and allowing people to tick a box saying that they accept them. If you don’t say yes, you can carry on browsing without having any record kept of where you have been on the ICO site. (The Department for Culture, Media and Sport says there is “absolutely no truth” in the suggestion that there has been any disagreement between it and the ICO).

Some might say that, in announcing a breathing space, the government is merely delaying the pain. Others will applaud it for riding to the rescue, and say it is good that website operators have a year to develop workable technical solutions in an attempt to ensure that browsing doesn’t become an unpleasant experience.

The ICO will have sent a shiver down many spines when it said immediate implementation of the new law could “significantly restrict the operation of internet services that users generally take for granted. It would be likely to cause disproportionate inconvenience … Nevertheless, implementation is required”. It adds that the 12-month breathing period “does not let everyone off the hook”.

Some experts have outlined a potential nightmare scenario where someone who indulges in a spot of online browsing during their lunch hour is plagued by endless pop-up windows asking for their permission to use cookies.

Before the 26 May rule change, all a website had to do was to tell people how it used cookies, and how they could “opt out” if they objected. Many sites dealt with this by simply putting the information in their privacy policy.

Users of major websites will have so far noticed no difference. On Thursday, we could find nothing on the sites of major online retailers such as Amazon, eBay, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer. And what about the Guardian? For the time being, visitors will not notice anything different, but it is reviewing its website to ensure it is fully compliant, and users can expect to see changes “shortly”.

Internet security: cookie monster unleashed following EU ruling | Money | The Guardian.

Amid health fears, Diet Coke sweetner in safety spotlight

By Sean Poulter

 27th May 2011

A sweetener, aspartame,  used in Diet Coke is to undergo a safety review over fears that it has harmful effects on human health

An artificial sweetener used in Diet Coke is to undergo an urgent EU safety review.

Aspartame is ingested every day by millions of people around the world in more than 6,000 well-known brands of food, drink  and medicine.

However, it has been the subject of a number of studies that appear to show harmful effects on human health.

One recent study linked diet drinks containing aspartame to premature births, while another suggested it could cause cancer.

To date, health watchdogs, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), have ruled out any link to ill-health.

But after several MEPs asked for a new investigation following pressure from European health campaigners, EU Commission officials have now asked the EFSA to bring forward a review that had been planned for 2020.

The concern about artificial sweeteners such as aspartame relates to the fact that they contain methanol, a nerve toxin which can be metabolised in the body to form two more nerve toxins: formic acid and formaldehyde, the chemical used to preserve dead bodies.

Earlier this year, experts on Britain’s Committee on Toxicity(CoT) ruled that ‘long-term exposure to methanol consumed through food, including from aspartame, is unlikely to be harmful to health’. 

The committee pointed out that methanol is also found in fruit and vegetables.

As a result of the experts’ conclusions, the FSA ruled the consumption of aspartame ‘is not of concern at the current levels of use’.

Despite this verdict, the FSA is currently recruiting volunteers for an investigation into anecdotal reports of ill health, including headaches and stomach upsets, associated with aspartame.

The watchdog announced the research project in 2009, however it has had difficulties recruiting volunteers who claim to suffer problems.

EFSA spokesman, Lucia De Luca, said: ‘Aspartame is one of hundreds of flavourings. It is on the market because it has been assessed in the past and considered safe.

‘We have received an official request for a complete re-evaluation of the safety of aspartame.

‘The re-evaluation is scheduled for 2020 but the Commission asked us to do this re-evaluation now in the light of recent events.

A study last year of 60,000 mothers-to be found a correlation between the amount of diet drink consumed and an early birth

‘In the past year, there have been a couple of studies looking at aspartame and concerns expressed by consumer groups and others.’

In July last year, EU-funded research by Danish scientists, which looked at almost 60,000 mothers-to-be, found a correlation between the amount of diet drink consumed and an early birth.

Previously, the Independent Ramazzini Foundation in Italy has published research suggesting aspartame caused several types of cancer in rats at doses very close to the current acceptable daily intake for humans.

Both of these have been evaluated by EFSA experts, who have rejected any risk to human health.

Aspartame is manufactured by Ajinomoto Sweeteners Europe. The firm said it welcomes the decision to bring forward the safety evaluation.

A spokesman said: ‘EFSA reaffirmed the safety of aspartame in 2006, 2009 and 2010. In addition, recent allegations about the safety of aspartame made in France and by a handful of MEPs have already been dismissed by EFSA. 

‘This review of the extensive body of science on aspartame will provide additional confirmation of the ingredient’s safety.

‘By providing an excellent sweet taste, aspartame makes a useful contribution to a healthy, calorie-controlled diet and can help people to avoid overweight and obesity, and their associated diseases.’

Amid health fears, Diet Coke sweetner in safety spotlight | Mail Online.

Computer As Prophet To Predict Imminent Techno-Socio-Economic Crises

Wednesday, May 04, 2011 10:52

European researchers are seeking to create a global computer model named FuturICT, a collective analysis platform for a better understanding of the world. The visionary idea is to design this knowledge accelerator in order to make better predictions about imminent techno-socio-economic crises and suggestions on how to alleviate or even prevent them.Among other things, the ‘FuturICT’ project is looking to model what impact political decisions have globally on society, the environment and the economy

<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”http://www.futurict.ethz.ch/images/sictclx.jpg&#8221; rel=”prettyPhoto

Image source: http://www.futurict.eu

Never before has mankind faced challenges as great as those of today. Climate change, destruction of the environment, conflicts, crises on the financial markets, and many more, are all problems linked to human behaviour. They are not isolated from each other, but interconnected with one another and interdependent in a complicated way. No human being can entirely comprehend this complexity, and much less foresee the consequences that social or economic activities will have elsewhere in the world.

<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”http://www.futurict.ethz.ch/images/headers/sensor_netb.jpg&#8221; rel=”prettyPhoto

Image source: http://www.futurict.eu

A group of researchers, led by complexity scientist Dirk Helbing from ETH Zurich, has now proposed a visionary project, FuturICT, with which they want to address these big challenges. The project will develop a platform – the “Living Earth Simulator” – that allows techno-commercial-sociological-ecological systems to be simulated and analysed, to investigate, for example, how political or economic decisions affect our world. The computer model is planned to be capable of simulating systems on a global scale, considering interactions between up to 10 billion individuals.

A knowledge accelerator is needed
Scientific project coordinator Dirk Helbing says, “We need this knowledge accelerator to enable better informed decisions that are to be made in a techno-socio-economic-ecological context.” The “Living Earth Platform” is designed, amongst other things, to help minimise, or even prevent, unwanted side effects. For example, bio-fuel production has unexpectedly led to food price increases by competing with the conventional use of cultivated acreages. The consequence was, and still is, social unrest in various parts of the world.

<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”http://www.futurict.ethz.ch/images/headers/crisisobs.jpg&#8221; rel=”prettyPhoto

Image source: http://www.futurict.eu

The fact that the time is ripe for this project is illustrated by the financial crisis, which caused dramatic losses within a very short time period and would have ruined whole nations without global intervention and the European rescue system stepping in. It shows that economists and financial specialists failed to recognise the imminent dangers early enough, and were unable to keep the risks sufficiently under control. This is also why voices calling for better models, particularly models of systemic risks, are becoming louder.

However, FuturICT aims not only to recognise imminent financial or economic crises at an early stage, but also to link different areas together. Various “Crisis Observatories” dealing with financial markets, the real economy, epidemics, conflicts or environmental changes, will be integrated into one “Living Earth Platform”.

With EU flagships to new knowledge horizons
The initiative still exists only as a research proposal submitted to the EU Research Commission. FuturICT currently stands in first place among the 26 submitted projects. It is planned that the winning project will receive one billion euros over ten years. The Commission will make the final choice in 2012. Until then, the researchers have time to work out their applications in detail, for which the EU Commission has provided 1.5 million euros.

One billion euros sounds like a lot of money. However, major projects in physics (CERN, ITER), the engineering sciences (Galileo) or biology (Human Genome Project) are often ten times as expensive, and up to now, the financial crisis has cost more than a thousand times as much. The duration and size of the project also put this figure into perspective: hundreds of researchers are taking part in FuturICT to fill the serious knowledge gaps about our techno-socio-economic systems, as quickly as possible.

<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”http://www.futurict.ethz.ch/images/headers/grid-net.gif&#8221; rel=”prettyPhoto

Image source: http://www.futurict.eu

A perfect example of interdisciplinarity
The project’s alignment will be exceptionally interdisciplinary and will combine a broad spectrum of scientific expertise to overcome specialisation and ivory tower thinking. Computer scientists, ICT experts, and complexity scientists are needed, as well as economists, sociologists, and experts in sustainability and systemic risks. The purpose of this collaboration is firstly, to lead to a new renaissance of the social and economic sciences and secondly, to lead to a harmonious, sustainable “co-evolution” of technology and society through the development of information and communication systems that adapt to their users’ needs.

Success in this venture needs, in particular, a modern platform that can record and analyse gigantic amounts of data, transfer them into computer simulations and make them usable by everyone. That is also why the term ICT, which stands for “Information and Communication Technologies”, appears in the project title. Operating the Living Earth Simulator needs data sets collected in real time, as well as new approaches to data mining.

The data sources can be population statistics, for example, as well as freely accessible Internet data. This also shows one of the difficulties that the researchers must deal with: how much and which data does this kind of model really need? Helbing assures that “we don’t collect just all the data that is available, otherwise one would drown in a sea of data.”

Big Science, not Big Brother Science
FuturICT is definitely not intended to be a citizen surveillance instrument either, he explains. Quite the opposite: the scientists want to use this project to point out new pathways and solutions to enable better privacy protection in the digital age. Helbing says, “we have no interest in what individuals are doing, the aim is to understand the bigger picture.”

For example, FuturICT could inform us about the effects of the Japanese earthquake on the global supply and production network or on social cohesion. Social upheavals, migration, conflicts – there’s a certain interconnection between all of them. Dirk Helbing says, “We want to use FuturICT to gain a better understanding of these relationships to enable better, more sustainable decisions in the future, because global interdependencies have increased enormously. Had we understood them, it is unlikely that a financial crisis of this magnitude would have emerged.”

The ETH Zurich professor and the research community behind FuturICT also aim to use the project and the planned participatory platforms to strengthen democracy. “Most of all, technological development should not endanger democracy”, he says. That is why FuturICT will, among other things, be concerned with how data that is freely available on the Internet can and should be handled. “There is still no consensus between the economy and society here.” He does not at all share the opinion that privacy is an obsolete concept in the digital age. He says, “a society cannot function without the privacy of the individual. The public and private spheres are two sides of the same coin; the public domain is definable only by drawing a boundary between it and privacy.”

<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”http://www.futurict.ethz.ch/images/headers/multimodeling.jpg&#8221; rel=”prettyPhoto

Image source: http://www.futurict.eu

Privacy and individual participation taken seriously
Helbing points out the particular challenge is to develop new technical methods of data encryption, storage and processing that allow the kind of data mining that benefits individuals and society, but which also protects individual privacy and confidential commercial data. Nevertheless, it must remain possible to inspect data in a limited, democratically controlled way where this is necessary to combat corruption and terrorism. Until now there has been a lack of technical solutions that can satisfy all three requirements.

Furthermore, Helbing stresses “the main priority is to find ways of giving back control of personal data to the user”. The World Economic Forum is now making the same recommendation. He also emphasises that the research within the FuturICT project will have a strong emphasis on ethical questions and a clear code of values. He says, “FuturICT will give top priority to protecting sensitive data and will be fully transparent and democratically controlled. Among all the activities working with large volumes of data, this is the most transparent project. Without such a project it will hardly be possible to learn about the dangers of large data sets and to take effective action to protect society from these dangers”.

Finally, it is important to point out that FuturICT does not want to be a tool that is restricted to a number of privileged political or economic decision makers. Just like the Internet empowers individuals and small organizations with a global reach and unlimited access to information, the project intends to create a participatory platform allowing everyone to access and utilize the data and models developed by the project for their own purposes and applications.

Source: ETH Life

<a class=”wpGallery mceItem” title=”gallery2″ href=”" rel=”prettyPhoto

Related Articles

• Exploring the future with modern information technology (physorg.com)
• Blueprint of a trend: How does a financial bubble burst? (scienceblog.com)
• Sweden is most ICT-wired country (bbc.co.uk)
• “Ireland 29th most ICT-connected country – WEF report” and related posts (siliconrepublic.com)

‘Legal highs’ outstrip attempts at regulation

EU agencies warn synthetic psychoactive substances are spreading at an unprecedented rate, with 41 new ones in 2010

Many of the legal highs identified in 2010 were designed to imitate the effects of ecstasy (pictured), amphetamines and cocaine. Photograph: Paul Faith/PA

New “legal highs” are being made widely available online and in specialised shops at an unprecedented pace, outstripping attempts to control them, the European Union‘s drugs agency has warned.

In a report published jointly with the law enforcement agency Europol, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) says in 2010 the two agencies officially noted 41 new psychoactive substances, many of them imitating the effects of ecstasy. Fourteen of them were first identified in Britain.

The Lisbon-based monitoring centre says the new substances are appearing at an “unprecedented pace”, with the 41 new ones the largest number reported in any single year. The figure compares with 24 identified in 2009 and 13 in 2008.

The agencies say roughly a quarter of the substances identified last year – 11 of the 41 – were variants on synthetic cannabis drugs such as Spice, which 16 European countries, including Britain, have decided to ban or control amid health concerns.

A further 15 are synthetic cathinone derivatives, including mephedrone – also known as meow meow – which imitate the effects of ecstasy, amphetamines and cocaine. These were banned across Europe last December. The European drugs experts also identified for the first time derivatives of two other established drugs, ketamine and PCP.

The report says many of the newly identified substances were picked up by national police agencies through test purchases either online or from specialised “smart” or “head” shops. Many are marketed as legal highs or as plant food, and labelled “not for human consumption”. The descriptions are specifically designed to circumvent drug controls.

It says their accelerating proliferation demonstrates the speed and sophistication at which the market is reacting to attempts to ban or control them, and the growing challenges presented by globalisation and innovation. Many are being developed by chemists in illegal laboratories in south-east Asia.

Wolfgang Götz, the EMCDDA’s director, said: “Given the speed at which new developments occur in this area, it is important to anticipate future challenges. While our early-warning system has recently upped its operational capacity to react rapidly to new substances and products identified, it currently lacks the ability to anticipate emerging threats.” He suggested the EU should give the agency the power to buy the new compounds so it could synthesise and study them.

Rob Wainwright, Europol’s director, said the emergence of the substances was now a major feature of Europe’s drugs problem: “Organised crime groups are increasingly active in producing and distributing drugs which can be associated with ecstasy,” he said. “We are determined to combat this phenomenon.”

Legal highs’ outstrip attempts at regulation | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Related articles

• Dublin: Record Number Of New Psychoactive Drugs Available Across Europe (lostchildreninthewilderness.wordpress.com)
• Are legal high dangerous (wiki.answers.com)
• Cocaine use to be reviewed by government drug advisers (guardian.co.uk)

China’s trade surplus jumps to $11.4bn

After the country reported a rare trade deficit for the start of this year, China has showed a strong rebound for April but it is likely to fuel US calls to revalue its currency

US vice president Joe Biden opens the US-China talks in Washington. News of China’s large trade surplus is likely to increase pressure from the Americans to relax currency controls and allow greater access to overseas firms. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

China reported an unexpectedly large April trade surplus, in an announcement that is likely to fuel US pressure over currency controls and market access as American and Chinese officials hold high-level talks in Washington.

China’s global trade surplus widened to $11.4bn (£7bn) as import growth fell amid government efforts to cool an overheated economy and exports rose by nearly 30%, data showed on Tuesday. The gap exceeded forecasts of $5bn to $10bn and was a strong rebound after China reported a rare trade deficit in the first quarter of this year.

China’s trade gap has angered Washington and other trading partners who blame currency controls and other policies which they say are hampering trade and a global recovery.

At the start of two days of talks in Washington, US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner pressed China’s envoys on Monday to allow the yuan to rise faster against the dollar. That might help to boost Chinese imports, narrowing the American trade surplus with China, which hit an all-time high last year.

China’s commerce minister, Chen Deming, responded that yuan appreciation was being carried out in a “very healthy manner”. He said the United States needed to change its policies on hi-tech sales and investment to spur American manufacturing.

Beijing has allowed the yuan to rise about 5% against the dollar since it promised more exchange rate flexibility last June but American manufacturers and others say the currency still is undervalued. The yuan’s link to the dollar means it has declined against the euro as the American currency weakened over the past year.

China’s April trade surplus with the United States rose 52% over a year ago to $15.1bn. The gap with the European Union, China’s biggest trading partner, narrowed slightly to a still large $10.3bn.

Foreign manufacturers complain that China’s trade surplus also is swelled by policies that hamper imports and encourage companies to shift production to China.

The country’s global trade gap, up from just $1.7bn in April 2010, reflected a slowdown in demand for imports as Beijing tries to cool an economy that grew by 9.7% in the first three months of this year.

China’s trade surplus usually narrows early in the year as manufacturers restock following the Christmas export rush. This year’s decline was unusually large due to high prices for oil and other commodities.

China recorded a trade deficit for the first three months of 2011 and a surplus of just $140m for March.

Still, analysts expect China to show a global trade surplus for the year of $160bn to $200bn. Last year, China ran a trade surplus of about $16bn a month.

China’s trade surplus jumps to $11.4bn | Business | guardian.co.uk.

Herbal medicines banned as EU directive comes into force

By Daily Mail Reporter
30th April 2011

Patients have lost access to hundreds of herbal medicines today, after European regulations came into force.

Sales of all herbal remedies, except for a small number of popular products for ‘mild’ illness such as echinacea for colds and St John’s Wort for depression have been banned.

For the first time traditional products must be licensed or prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner.

The Government allowed access to some unlicensed manufactured herbal medicines via a statutory register

Both herbal remedy practitioners and manufacturers fear they could be forced out of business as a result.

Some of the most  commonly used products were saved after the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley approved a plan for the Health Professions Council to establish a register of practitioners supplying unlicensed herbal medicines.

However, many remedies were lost as it was only open to those who could afford the licensing process which costs between £80,000 to £120,000.

At least 50 herbs, including horny goat weed (so-called natural Viagra), hawthorn berry, used for angina pain, and wild yam will no longer be stocked in health food shops, says the British Herbal Medicine Association.

The 2004 EU directive demands that a traditional herbal medicinal product must be shown to have been in use for 30 years in the EU – or at 15 years in the EU and 15 years elsewhere – for it to be licensed.

The UK drug safety watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency, has issued more than a dozen alerts in the past two years, including a warning last month over a contaminated weight loss pill called Herbal Flos Lonicerae (Herbal Xenicol) due to concerns over possible side-effects.

Mr Lansley, in a written statement, said the Government wanted to ensure continuing access to unlicensed herbal medicines via a statutory register for practitioners ‘to meet individual patient needs’.

Acupuncture falls outside the EU directive and so remains unaffected.

Prince Charles, a long-standing supporter of complementary therapies, has voiced his support for formal regulation of herbal practitioners.

Up til now the industry has been covered by the 1968 Medicines Act. This was drawn up when only a small number of herbal remedies were available.

But recent studies show that at least six million Britons have used a herbal medicine in the past two years.

Professor George Lewith, professor of health research at Southampton University, said: ‘Evidence for the efficacy of herbal medicines is growing; they may offer cheap, safe and effective approaches for many common complaints.’

Herbal medicines banned as EU directive comes into force | Mail Online.

Related Articles

• Herbal Medicine (anthomas760.wordpress.com)