Chipotle Says It Dropped GMO's. Now A Court Will Decide If That’s Bullshit.

Turns out, proving that your food is GMO-free is pretty difficult.

—By Tim McDonnell

su-lin/Flickr

What should have been an easy public-relations win for Chipotle is turning into a major headache—but one that could have interesting repercussions in the public debate about genetically modified organisms.

Back in April, the fast-casual burrito chain announced that it would stop serving food prepared with genetically engineered ingredients. At the time it didn't seem like a huge change, since only a few ingredients—notably the soybean oil used for frying—contained GMO's. (More than 90 percent of the soy grown in the United States is genetically engineered.) But as critics in the media were quick to point out, there was an obvious hole in Chipotle's messaging: The pigs, chickens, and cows that produce the restaurant's meat and dairy offerings are raised on feed made with GMO corn. (In fact, 70-90 percent of all GMO crops are used to feed livestock.) And don't forget the soda fountain, serving up GMO corn syrup by the cup.

 

This is the first lawsuit to challenge the veracity of an anti-GMO marketing campaign.

Last week, Chipotle got officially called out, when a California woman filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for allegedly misleading consumers about its much-publicized campaign to cut genetically modified organisms from its menu.

"As Chipotle told consumers it was G-M-Over it, the opposite was true," the complaint reads. "In fact, Chipotle's menu has never been at any time free of GMO's."

Chipotle has never denied that its soda, meat, and dairy contain, or are produced with, GMOs. A spokesman, Chris Arnold, said the suit "has no merit and we plan to contest it." Still, the case raises an unprecedented set of questions about how food companies market products at a time when fewer than 40 percent of Americans think GMOs are safe to eat (they are) and a majority of them think foods made with GMO's should be labeled.

The California statute applied in the lawsuit deals with false advertising: Allegedly, the "Defendant knowingly misrepresented the character, ingredients, uses, and benefits of the ingredients in its Food Products." The suit then provides a cornucopia of Chipotle marketing materials, such as the image to the left, which implies that that taco has no GMOs in it—even though, if it contains meat, cheese, or sour cream, then GMOs were almost certainly used at some stage of the process. The suit goes on to detail how Chipotle stands to gain financially from this anti-GMO messaging. The upshot is that, according to the complaint, Chipotle knew its stuff was made from GMOs, lied about it, and duped unsuspecting, GMO-averse customers like Colleen Gallagher (the plaintiff) into eating there. (Gallagher is being represented by Kaplan Fox, a law firm that specializes in consumer protection suits. The firm didn't respond to a request for comment.)

It will be up to the court to decide whether Gallagher's claims have any merit. But there's a big stumbling block right at the beginning: There's no agreed-upon legal standard for what qualifies a food as being "non-GMO," and thus no obvious legal test for whether Chipotle's ad campaign is legit. In fact, several food lawyers I spoke to said this is the first suit to legally challenge the veracity of that specific claim, which means it could set a precedent (in California, at least) for how other companies deal with the issue in the future. That sets it apart from deceptive marketing suits related to use of the word "organic," for example, for which there is a lengthy legal standard enforced by the US Department of Agriculture. (Organic food, by the way, is not allowed to contain GMO's.)

"There are many definitions of what constitutes non-GMO that are marketing-based definitions," said Greg Jaffe, biotechnology director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "But nothing like [the federal standard for organic labeling] exists for GMOs at the moment."

In the context of this lawsuit, that lack of clarity may work to Chipotle's advantage, said Laurie Beyranevand, a food and ag law professor at Vermont Law School. Without specific guidelines to adhere to, Chipotle could basically be free to make "non-GMO" mean whatever the company wants it to mean (more on that in a minute). The question before the court is about the gap, such as it exists, between Chipotle's understanding of that term and its customers' understanding of it, when it comes to the meat, dairy, and soda at the heart of the suit.

Beyranevand said the soda could be a weak point for Chipotle. Even though the company's website is clear that its soda is made with GMO corn syrup, customers could still be misled by the advertising into thinking it isn't.

 

Even if a chicken has been stuffed full of genetically modified corn its whole life, it's no more a GMO than I would be if I ate the same corn.

Meat and dairy are a different story, and there's a bit of existing law that makes Chipotle's rhetoric seem more defensible. In Vermont, the only state to have passed mandatory GMO labeling laws, meat and dairy products are exempted. And that makes some sense: Even if a chicken has been stuffed full of genetically modified corn its whole life, it's no more a GMO than I would be if I ate the same corn.

"Chipotle is just sort of riding on the coattails of that state legislation," Beyranevand said. In other words, Chipotle could have pretty good grounds to argue that a reasonable person wouldn't confuse its advertising with the notion that livestock aren't fed GMO's.

Of course, not everyone agrees with Vermont's approach. That includes the Non-GMO Project, an independent nonprofit that has endorsed nearly 30,000 food products as being non-GMO over the past five years. The group won't give its stamp of approval to meat products that have been fed GMOs. According to Arnold, Chipotle "would love to source meat and dairy from animals that are raised without GMO feed, [but] that simply isn't possible today."

Let's zoom out to the broader issue: Why isn't there a standard definition for what makes a food product count as "non-GMO"?

The closest thing is a bit of draft language the Food and Drug Administration published in 2001 that was meant as a nonbinding blueprint for companies that want to voluntarily label their foods as non-GMO. Turns out, that simple-sounding phrase is loaded with pitfalls. As "GMO" has gone from a specialized term used by biochemists to describe seeds, to broadly used slang for the products of commercial agriculture, its meaning has gotten pretty garbled. That makes it hard to come up with a legal definition that is both scientifically accurate and makes sense to consumers, and it leaves companies like Chipotle with considerable linguistic latitude.

First of all, there's the "O" in GMO. A burrito, no matter what's in it, isn't really an "organism," the FDA points out: "It would likely be misleading to suggest that a food that ordinarily would not contain entire 'organisms' is 'organism-free.'" Then there's the "GM": Essentially all food crops are genetically modified from their original version, either through conventional breeding or through biotechnology. Even if most consumers use "GMO" as a synonym for biotech, the FDA says, it may not be truly accurate to call an intensively bred corn variety "not genetically modified."

Finally, there's the "non": It might not actually be possible to say with certainty that a product contains zero traces of genetically engineered ingredients, given the factory conditions under which items such as soy oil are produced. Moreover, chemists have found that vegetables get so mangled when they're turned into oil that it's incredibly difficult to extract any recognizable DNA from the end product that could be used to test for genetic modification. So it would be hard, if not impossible, for an agency like the FDA to snag your tacos and deliver a verdict on whether they are really GMO-free.

 

"It would likely be misleading to suggest that a food that ordinarily would not contain entire 'organisms' is 'organism-free.'"

The point is that Chipotle likely isn't bound to any particular definition of the non-GMO label, and that we just have to take their word that the ingredients they say are non-GMO are, in fact, non-GMO. Lawmakers are attempting to clear up some of this ambiguity: House Republicans, led by Mike Pompeo (Kan.), succeeded in July in passing a bill that would block states from passing mandatory GMO labeling laws similar to Vermont's. The bill is now stalled in the Senate, but it contains a provision that would require the USDA to come up with a voluntary certification for companies like Chipotle that want to flaunt their GMO-less-ness.

Until then, another solution would is to seek non-GMO certification from the Non-GMO Project, though the group would likely reject Chipotle's meat products. In any case, Arnold said, neither Chipotle nor its suppliers are certified through the project, and they don't intend to pursue that option.
"We are dealing with relatively niche suppliers for many of the ingredients we use," Arnold said. "By adhering to a single certification standard, we can really cut into available supply of ingredients that are, in some cases, already in short supply."

With all this in mind, here's a final caveat: When Chipotle has its day in court, how we actually define what is or isn't a GMO product might not matter too much, explained Emily Leib, deputy director of Harvard's Center for Health Law. That's because the California laws in question here are as much about what customers think a term means, as what it actually does mean.

"The court will ask, 'Is there a definition [of non-GMO] or not?" Leib said. "They'll say, 'No,' and then they'll ask, 'Is this misleading?' How does this use compare to what people think it means?"
That's what makes this case interesting, since the truth is that most of the burrito-eating public knows very little about GMOs. Does that make it illegal for Chipotle to leverage peoples' ambiguous (and mostly unfounded) fears to sell more barbacoa? We'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, probably don't eat too much Chipotle, anyway.

Tim McDonnell

Climate Desk Associate Producer

Tim McDonnell is Climate Desk's associate producer. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email at tmcdonnell [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS |

How The Egg Lobby Paid Food Blogs And Targeted Chef To Crush A Vegan Startup

Internal emails reveal coordinated attack by American Egg Board to quash the rise of Hampton Creek’s egg alternative in possible breach of federal regulations

By Sam Thielman

A government-controlled industry group targeted popular food bloggers, major publications and a celebrity chef as part of its sweeping effort to combat a perceived threat from an egg-replacement startup backed by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names, the Guardian can reveal.

The lobbyists’ media counterattack, in possible violation of US department of agriculture rules, was coordinated by a marketing arm of the egg industry called the American Egg Board (AEB). It arose after AEB chief executive Joanne Ivy identified the fledgling technology startup Hampton Creek as a “crisis and major threat to the future” of the $5.5 billion-a-year egg market.

A detailed review of emails, sent from inside the AEB and obtained by the Guardian, shows that the lobbyist’s anti-Hampton Creek campaign sought to:

• Pay food bloggers as much as $2,500 a post to write online recipes and stories about the virtue of eggs that repeated the egg lobby group’s “key messages”
• Confront Andrew Zimmern, who had featured Hampton Creek on his popular Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods and praised the company in a blog post characterized by top egg board executives as a “love letter”
• Target publications including Forbes and Buzzfeed that had written broadly positive articles about a Silicon Valley darling
• Unsuccessfully tried to recruit both the animal rights and autism activist Temple Grandin and the bestselling author and blogger Ree Drummond to publicly support the egg industry
• Buy Google advertisements to show AEB-sponsored content when people searched for Hampton Creek or its founder Josh Tetrick

The scale of the campaign – dubbed “Beyond Eggs” after Hampton Creek’s original company name – shows the lengths to which a federally-appointed, industry-funded marketing group will go to squash a relatively small Silicon Valley startup, from enlisting a high-powered public relations firm to buying off unwitting bloggers.

One leading public health attorney, asked to review the internal communications, said the egg marketing group was in breach of a US department of agriculture (USDA) regulation that specifically prohibited “any advertising (including press releases) deemed disparaging to another commodity”.

Tetrick called for the USDA to clamp down on the food lobby, as thousands of petitioners called on the White House to to investigate the USDA itself for “deceptive endorsements”.

“This is a product that has been around for a very long time,” the Hampton Creek founder said. “They are not used to competition and they don’t know how to deal with it.”

In statements, AEB’s Ivy and a USDA official denied any wrongdoing. An agriculture department official said that it “does not condone any efforts to limit competing products in commerce”.

The AEB contracted Edelman, the world’s largest public relations company, to coordinate the attack. One passage within the email tranche suggests that AEB amended its contract with Edelman to include a section called “Beyond EggsConsumer Research”.

“Conduct qualitative/quantitative consumer research to pinpoint and prioritize areas of focus. For example, research will, ideally, provide actionable intelligence on what attacks are gaining traction with consumers and which are not so as to help industry calibrate level of communications response (if any) to ensure a consistent response strategy moving forward,” the passage reads.

“Ads considered disparaging are those that depict other commodities in a negative or unpleasant light via either video, photography or statements,” said attorney Michele Simon, of the law firm Foscolo and Handel, after reviewing the AEB emails. “The entire contract [amendment] with Edelman violates this rule.”

Some of the web’s biggest food blogs were unwittingly paid from the “Beyond Eggs” budget to write supportively about eggs as AEB executives privately expressed mounting frustration about Hampton Creek, whose high-profile backers include the Facebook backer Peter Thiel, billionaire investor Vinod Khosla and other Silicon Valley luminaries.

When one Edelman executive, Jamie Singer, advised that the board wait on “an eventual and organic balancing of the media narrative”, Kevin Burkum, AEB’s senior vice-president of marketing, shot back: “Help us understand why the recommended course of action seems to always be sit back and do nothing?”

More recently, Hampton Creek has in fact faced its own PR woes with allegations of suspect science and hazardous work environments. And last month the US Food and Drug Administration warned the California startup that the name of its flagship product, Just Mayo, was misleading and and should be renamed, insisting an egg-less product should not be described as mayonnaise.

The emails reveal how AEB executives had grown increasingly frustrated about coverage of Hampton Creek, hailing the company as providing a high-tech and sustainable alternative to factory-farmed eggs.

In an email an AEB executive noted a blogpost by Zimmern – an influential TV celebrity – that complimented Hampton Creek and described caged-chicken egg production as “the poster child for everything farming and food systems shouldn’t be”.

The AEB executive complained Zimmern’s post was “a new love letter” to Hampton Creek and suggested sending the TV chef a study underwritten by the AEB to contradict his take. A long exchange discussed whether or not to respond to Zimmern’s offer to host a bake-off between Beyond Eggs and hen eggs.

On behalf of the egg group, Edelman contacted high-profile food blogger and Food Network star Drummond, author of several top-selling cookbooks. Drummond did not agree to work on the campaign, the emails indicate. The group also sought out Grandin, another famous figure whose endorsement would have been valuable. Grandin, too, appears to have declined.

In 2013, Google bought ads against Hampton Creek’s name and other search terms including Tetrick’s name and his chief product, Just Mayo, so that links to egg board-sponsored talking points about industrial farming would pop up alongside links to Hampton Creek. The AEB emailed about how to deal with Buzzfeed’s Rachel Sanders, who reported on the ads, and others who followed up on the campaign, in the emails.

The AEB retained at least five bloggers and contacted many more during the period covered by the emails. The bloggers disclosed the egg group’s advertising on their sites. The two bloggers who responded to the Guardian for this article said they were completely unaware that the sponsorships were part of a concerted effort against Hampton Foods.

Hemi Weingarten, author of the popular food blog Fooducate and an occasional columnist for the Huffington Post, published a post marked as sponsored by the AEB entitled “10 Reasons to Love Eggs” that including this sentence: “At just $0.15 each, eggs are the least expensive source of high-quality protein per serving.” This language is consistent with one of the American Egg Board’s most regularly used talking points.

Weingarten said he knew nothing of the campaign against Hampton Creek and pointed out that his blog had published positive coverage of the company. “As part of our ad sales activities we reach out to healthy brands and commodity boards to spend their ad dollars to reach our audience,” Weingarten told the Guardian.

Lori Lange, of the popular blog Recipe Girl, is listed by Edelman as receiving a fee of $2,500 for a bagel quiche recipe. Lange disclosed the post was sponsored. The Guardian emailed Lange for comment; she did not respond but did remove an AEB infographic that read in part: “Today’s hens are producing more eggs and living longer due to better health, nutrition and living space.”

Blogger Gaby Dalkin was paid $2,000 to include the AEB’s “Incredible Eggs” talking points in a recipe for breakfast burritos, and Susan Whetzel of Doughmesstic included the language in her in her Italian Egg Frittata recipe, according to the emails. Both disclosed the posts were sponsored.

Whetzel said she, too, was unaware that the blog post was considered part of a campaign against Hampton Creek by the AEB, and that she had adhered to the Federal Trade Commission’s advertising guidelines by including a disclosure notice. “It’s obvious it’s a sponsored post,” she wrote in an email to the Guardian.

Dalkin did not respond but an email bounce back said she was out of the country.

The cache of 600 pages of AEB emails, first reported last week, was obtained by Ryan Shapiro, a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Washington DC-based Foia specialist attorney Jeffrey Light.

The messages show Ivy, who is set to leave the AEB at year’s end after being named the industry’s 2015 Egg Person of the Year, received many messages from egg producers and processors who make up the board’s constituent members, are required by law to supply its budget and were evidently unnerved over the rise of Hampton Creek.

Ivy expressed a desire to push back at the positive media coverage the company would start to receive, from the pages of Forbes magazine to Buzzfeed and beyond.

“We know that shell egg producers are [...] feeling threatened by the introduction of this product,” she wrote in a September 2013 email.

In a statement to the Guardian, Ivy said the AEB’s efforts to “balance existing media efforts” were “common” practice and “part of a larger business strategy”.

“While egg replacers have been around for many years, we recognize that the interest in this category has increased recently,” she said. “In response, we bolstered our efforts to increase the demand for eggs and egg products through research, education and promotional activities.

“These activities, which are common within the consumer products industry, include continuing to work with industry thought-leaders, conducting a paid social media strategy to balance existing media efforts and liaising with partner organizations.”

However it is the process of targeting a perceived rival that could prove most controversial for the AEB, a statutory body paid for by industry but partly appointed by the US agriculture secretary.

Paid-for or “sponsored” blog posts are not uncommon, but the notion that a quasi-governmental body funded a campaign to undercut a Silicon Valley food startup could raise eyebrows.

Tetrick, the Hampton Creek founder, called for a congressional inquiry on Thursday, saying that the agriculture department should be held responsible for the AEB’s actions.

“They have gone way beyond what they are allowed to do,” Tetrick said of the egg lobbying group.
He said the scale of the egg lobby’s retaliation against his company’s rise was “hard to wrap your head around”.

“They play the same game over and over again,” he told the Guardian on Friday. “They say they are doing it to promote eggs, but it’s got nothing to do with competition.”

Despite Recent Scientific Findings On Dangers of GMO's, U.S. House Passes DARK Act

By Ernest A. Canning

By a vote of 275-150 (including the support of 45 Democrats), the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Safe and Accurate Food Act" this past week.

Don't be fooled by the name.

The Act, which would prevent state and local governments from mandating the labeling of genetically engineered foods (GMOs), has alternatively been described by opponents as the "Deny Americans the Right to Know" or "DARK Act", as well as the "Monsanto Protection Act".

Disturbingly, the House vote comes on the heels of a new, peer-reviewed scientific report finding an "accumulation of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and a dramatic depletion of glutathione, an anti-oxidant necessary for cellular detoxification, in GMO soy, indicating that formaldehyde and glutathione are likely critical criteria for distinguishing the GMO from its non-GMO counterpart."

The study, published in Agricultural Sciences this month, used "a new biology method to integrate 6,497 in vitro and in vivo laboratory experiments, from 184 scientific institutions, across 23 countries." It is critical of the U.S. government's current standard for GMO assessment which, the report concludes, are "outdated and unscientific for genetically engineered food since it was originally developed for assessing the safety of medical devices in the 1970's."

Peer review of the study cited its new methods and findings to conclude that "until such Standards are developed for testing, we believe it premature to approve GMOs and to consider them safe." The study's lead author, MIT-trained biologist Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Ph.D, adds: "This is not a pro- or anti-GMO question. But, are we following the scientific method to ensure the safety of our food supply? Right now, the answer is 'no'."

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), one of 300 organizations opposing the "DARK Act", has vowed to fight the measure in the U.S. Senate.

Although the legislation would deprive U.S. citizens of a right to know possessed by citizens in 64 other nations including China and most of Europe, there is a silver lining, of sorts. No doubt final passage would furnish comedian Bill Maher with the material needed to repeat the hilarity he offered following California's rejection of a GMO labeling initiative last year.

"If you’re one of the millions of Californians who voted against labeling genetically modified foods," Maher said, "you can’t complain when it turns out there’s horse meat in your hamburger and your sushi is made out of lost cats and condoms. You said you didn’t want to know. Now lap that shit up!"
* * * Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam Vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968). Follow him on Twitter: @cann4ing.

El Salvador Farmers Successfully Defy Monsanto

For small-scale farmers who scored major victory against the biotech giant, it's all about planting local, GMO-free seeds.

By Dahr Jamail / Truthout

 

The perils of ingesting food that has any contact with a Monsanto-produced product are in the news on nearly a weekly basis.

As Dr. Jeff Ritterman has documented, Monstanto's herbicide, Roundup, has been linked to a fatal kidney disease epidemic, and has also been repeatedly linked to cancer.

Recently, a senior research scientist at MIT predicted that glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup, will cause half of all children to have autism by 2025.

Farmers in El Salvador are acutely aware of the importance of producing their own seeds, and avoiding those from the bioengineering giant. The farmers, who have already been consistently outperforming Monsanto with their seed, as the local seed is far healthier and more productive, have just managed to bring about a giant defeat of Monsanto by preventing it from supplying El Salvador with its seeds. Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture released a new round of contracts to provide seed to subsistence farmers across the country.

RELATED: How Monsanto Could Get Even Bigger and More Powerful

"Remember that Monsanto is together with DuPont, Pioneer, all the large businesses that control the world's seed market," said Juan Luna Vides, the director of diversified production for the Mangrove Association, a nongovernmental organization that was created to support a grassroots social movement for environmental conservation in El Salvador. "Unfortunately, many of the governments in Latin America, or perhaps the world, have beneficiary relationships with these companies."

Vides said that his group is working to "minimize this dependency" — and the dire situation in El Salvador demonstrates the importance of doing so.

"The efforts of transnational companies are masked by other companies within small countries," he explained. "In the case of El Salvador, this example is very obvious ... the company of ex-president [Alfredo] Cristiani Burkard manages the business within the [national] market ... Although you don't see the Monsanto brand, it's Monsanto."

Thus, companies like Pioneer generate commercials for various media in El Salvador that market their agrochemical products, exerting great influence over the local farmer population of the country.

The Importance of Keeping It Local

"We are losing the traditions of local seed, so we are trying to maintain it here," small-scale seed producer Santos Cayetan told Truthout. "Native seeds don't have what these other seeds have that come with the chemicals, based in chemicals."

Cayetan, who is a recipient of corn seed from the government program that uses local, GMO-free seeds and also works to grow native corn, said that the difference between using local seed versus Monsanto's is stark.

"[Native seeds are] always the same, they always produce, and they're always there," he said. "[Native seeds] are drought resistant."

Vides said that native seeds are also far better adapted to local conditions like droughts and floods in his country, as well as the climate and soil.

"[Native seeds] don't need a great injection of agrochemicals in comparison to other seeds.... Seeds coming from different places, we don't know if those seeds are GMO or modified in some way," he said. "You can reuse native seeds and create a full cycle; you can use your own seeds for the next planting. That's not the case with hybrid seeds."

RELATED: Why Did Gov't Give Big Thumbs Up to Notorious Monsanto Pesticide We Now Believe Causes Cancer?

Oscar Cruz scatters fertilizer on a cornfield in Tecomatepe, El Salvador, 23 miles north of the capital. (image: U.S. State Department)

One of Monsanto's insidious goals is to force farmers to purchase the company's seeds every year, at very expensive prices.

What's more, it is well known that Monsanto's hybrid seeds are dependent upon a high level of toxic fertilizers, and without those the yields of the hybrids would be far, far lower.

"[Using only local seed] would be much better [for Salvadoran farmers]; they wouldn't have to buy seeds every year," Vides added. "It has to do with generating the conditions to promote food security ... you can produce what you consume ... produce and consume the same product."

Cayetan said that many farmers in El Salvador simply cannot afford Monsanto seeds — and that is by design.

"If all the producers produced [imported] seed, [local producers] would lose their businesses ... this is what [Monsanto] wants."

RELATED: How Seed Laws Make Farmers’ Seeds Illegal

Jesus Reyes Fuente, also a local seed producer in El Salvador's Ciudad Romero, told Truthout that native seeds also taste better than hybrid seeds.

"They're less contaminated by fertilizers," he said. "And you can use them year after year ... with hybrids, after the second year, you can't use them."

Like the others with whom Truthout spoke, Fuente was aware of the health dangers of Monsanto products, and stressed the importance of stopping Monsanto from forcing local farmers to use its products.

"It's an imposition ... they [Monsanto] are trying to force people to use transgenic seeds," he said.
"There's pressure, to make us produce in a way we don't want to."

Evelyn Martinez is a political analyst for Salvadoran Foundation for Reconstruction and Development (REDES). REDES works to strengthen organizational capacity and advocacy among vulnerable populations who are looking to improve their quality of life.

"Before, there was a monopoly in the seed market. It was controlled by Cristiani Burkard, which today is Monsanto, and other large agribusinesses," Martinez told Truthout. "Today, we have opened the possibility for local production. We have opened the market."

The local seed program has also generated jobs, increased investment in equipment and infrastructure by local producers, and has had positive social impacts by preventing youths from joining gangs, as well as enabling producers to improve their production techniques and business skills.
"In economic terms, the country is less dependent on importers and has increased its autonomy," Martinez added. "The [local] seeds are better adapted for climate change and to the soils of El Salvador and have high yield potential."

Martinez was very clear about why any dealings with Monsanto would be harmful for El Salvador.

"At the global level, Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta have control of 67 percent of the seed and agrochemical market. Monsanto controls 23 percent of the corn market and 80 percent of the world's GMO market," she said. "What Monsanto wants is to take more market share ... in order to increase their profits. Monsanto wants to increase the use of their seed in the country, not to benefit the small-scale producers. If you control the seed, you control the whole production process."

RELATED: Monsanto GMOs Defeated by Oregon Organic Farmers as Federal Judge Upholds Seed Ban

Martinez also stressed the importance of food sovereignty and was blunt about what would happen politically if local farmers had to rely on Monsanto seed.

"The nutrition of the country will depend on transnational companies ... We will lose our autonomy," Martinez concluded. "In terms of democracy, this isn't democratic; [Salvadorans] can't decide what we eat. It's a dictatorship."

Local Government Support

In 2014, the U.S. government threatened to deny all foreign aid to El Salvador unless it opened up its seed contracts to foreign businesses (i.e. Monsanto). Now, however, the United States claims that it supports the country's contract on seed, through which domestic seed producers offer both a better and more financially competitive product.

This is not a new battle — farmers in El Salvador have also successfully opposed the use of Monsanto seeds in the past — but it is one that Salvadorans find themselves perpetually fighting.

To make protections more permanent, El Salvador Congresswoman Estela Hernandez stressed the importance of farmers continuing to have the freedom to make their own decisions.

Interestingly, she also said that the pressure to use Monsanto seeds came more from the United States than from Monsanto itself.

"Monsanto didn't express its opinions here.... the pressure really came from the politicians from the United States, in this case the ambassador," she said. "We don't know if it was for the quality of seed, more likely for the businesses."

Elias Figueroa, a technical agronomist in the Ministry of Agriculture, also strongly supports the movement to keep seed local, and to disallow companies like Monsanto from introducing their seed into the country.

"This year the government purchased corn and bean seed in accordance to CAFTA's [Central American Free Trade Agreement] tender requirements ... demonstrating that what the [U.S.] embassy suggested, that the process was not transparent, was not true," Figueroa told Truthout. "Under this [bidding] process, everyone can participate, as long as they meet the legal and technical requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture."

Figueroa explained how El Salvador has a center for the investigation of El Salvador's National Center for Agricultural and Forestry Technology, called CENTA, which since 2011 has participated in increasing the domestic production of seed.

El Salvador used to import more than 70 percent of seed used nationally, but since 2000, CENTA has worked with the Center of Investigation for Corn and Wheat in Mexico to produce a parent seed.

CENTA generated the parent seed for H-59, the hybrid variety produced domestically. The plant is created for the tropical climate: It is drought resistant, produces high yields under local conditions, and is resistant to plagues and fungi.

In contrast, GMO seeds from Monsanto, which are more susceptible to plagues and aren't drought resistant, are clearly not designed for the tropical climate. The verdict from producers?

RELATED: Monsanto Herbicide Faces Global Fallout After World Health Organization Labels It a Probable Carcinogen

"According to the latest census, 84 percent of producers in the country prefer using H-59," Figueroa said. "The most important [thing] is that it has generated employment, nearly 240,000 direct jobs."
Still, Figueroa said, the public relations fight continues: He explained that Monsanto is "running an aggressive marketing campaign," portraying its seed as better and spreading false claims that local seed is mediocre and not certified.

"But this doesn't worry us," Figueroa said. "The national seed law, approved by Congress, and CAFTA lay out the parameters for quality, and we are complying with all of these. We have the best product, the best product in all of Central America. We can outcompete them in export markets as well. We have the studies that demonstrate the quality of our seed."

Figueroa added that 100 percent of the seed required for the country's food security program is now provided by national producers, and that one of the ministry's objectives is to promote native seed varieties by establishing local seed banks.

Nathan Weller, the program and policy director for EcoViva, an NGO that supports environmental sustainability, social justice and peace for communities in Central America, has been working with local farmers in El Salvador for years, supporting their efforts to produce and control their own seeds.

"El Salvador is ensuring that its national seed lineage doesn't need to be outsourced to foreign interests, and can be developed by its own farmers," Weller told Truthout. "It's better for the farmers who earn access to the best product, better for the government that can stretch limited public budgets to outreach to the most farmers, and better for El Salvador's struggling rural economy which drives many families to migrate away from their communities."

Weller explained that the Salvadoran producers' success came as a result of their flexibility and responsiveness to the people using the seed.

"They innovated to meet government standards, learned how to navigate administrative hurdles to earn contracts and employed hundreds of people in traditionally underserved rural areas where opportunity is scarce," he said. "Transnational agribusiness like Monsanto treat farmers in the developing world as consumers, not partners. They have yet to demonstrate an ability to provide such sweeping benefits to El Salvador's rural economy."

While the recent victory for local farmers and organic seed is important, and even the U.S. Embassy has endorsed the outcome, Vides is aware that there is still work to do.

"There doesn't exist a [national] agriculture policy supporting alternative farming, producing organically and ecologically," he said. "But regional efforts exist, such as La Coordinadora and the Mangrove Association, that are [supporting] local producers [in working] with alternative production techniques, such as using organic inputs and producing in an ecological manner."

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Dahr Jamail, a Truthout staff reporter, is the author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan (Haymarket Books, 2009, and Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from Iraq for more than a year, as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last ten years, and has won the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism, among other awards.

Adding Injury To Insult

This post originally appeared on RingofFireRadio.com.

As if one of the wealthiest corporations on the planet paying poverty wages wasn’t bad enough, McDonald’s (one of several franchises being represented in a lawsuit against the city of Seattle over its recent mandate to raise wages to $15 an hour) apparently believes itself to be exempt from regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Remember Ketchup As a Vegetable?

In the great tradition of the Reagan years, the management at McDonald’s “restaurants” consider mustard and mayonnaise to be first aid ointments. It’s not a joke. In a press release from the website FightFor15.org, a McDonald’s worker from Chicago described her experience:

“My managers kept pushing me to work faster, and while trying to meet their demands I slipped on a wet floor, catching my arm on a hot grill…the managers told me to put mustard on it, but I ended up having to get rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.”

This worker’s story is not unusual. At least 80% of McDonald’s employees report suffering moderate to severe burn injuries. Of that 80%, 6 out of every 10 workers suffered multiple injuries. 1 in 3 report that the first aid kit (mandated under OSHA regulations) is either not readily accessible, lacking supplies – or missing altogether.

And what of safety equipment? Dream on, folks – you think this is a four-star French cafe?

(Incredibly, there are 1,200 McDonald’s outlets in France – but in order to survive in that country, the corporation was forced to adapt to French eating habits and preferences…and you’d better believe working conditions are better as well.)

Actually, McDonald’s and most other “fast food” franchises have far more in common with an automotive assembly line than any sort of upscale dining establishment.

A Bit of History

The concept of “fast food” in the United States goes back over a century, but arguably, the first modern “fast food” chain was A&W (of root beer fame), which began franchising in 1921. 19 years later, two brothers in San Bernardino, California, created a kitchen and food service method modeled on the same assembly lines pioneered by Henry Ford.

The brothers’ names? Richard and Maurice McDonald.

In 1954, a salesman for milkshake blending machines visited the McDonald’s operation in order to learn why the brothers had ordered a dozen machines (most eating establishments and soda fountains had one or two at most). When the dust settled from that visit, the McDonald’s had a partner in that visiting salesman, who went by the name of Ray Kroc. He opened the first McDonald’s franchises in his home state of Illinois shortly thereafter. By 1961, Kroc was in a position to buy out the McDonald brothers – and the modern McDonald’s Corporation was born.

It’s Not All Bad

For better or worse, this food service business model has become almost ubiquitous. However, some present-day fast food restaurants treat employees far better than others. Not surprisingly, these tend to be either small, independent family businesses or more localized chains, such as the Pacific Northwest’s Burgerville or the Southwest’s In-N-Out Burger. Both of these companies have always paid starting employees more than minimum wage and provide low-cost, full medical and dental benefits. Current and former employees give the companies high marks when it comes to worker satisfaction, despite the fast-paced and stressful nature of the job.

So….what is it about these issues that McDonald’s doesn’t get?

Ronald Could Learn a Thing or Two

On 16 March, 28 complaints from workers having suffered burn injuries were filed with OSHA. This issue – now attracting national attention – is quickly becoming part of the fight for higher wages among these workers from across the nation. Demonstrators in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere in the country are gathering outside of McDonald’s stores, not only demanding $15 an hour, but speaking out about unsafe working conditions as well.

A spokesperson for McDonald’s told USA Today that alleged safety violations would be investigated, but added that the media should to be aware that said allegations were “part of a larger strategy” on the part of “activists” who were targeting the company.

According to the allegations, as managers exert extreme pressure on employees to work faster and “more efficiently,” basic, common-sense safety precautions are ignored. One of these is to wait for cooking oil to cool down before emptying fryers for cleaning. At least one employee was instructed to line a cardboard box with plastic, fill it with ice, and dump hot cooking oil into it so the fryer could be cleaned faster and the used product disposed of sooner.

After all, profits are at stake. Franchisees are themselves under intense pressure from the corporate office, which sends out inspectors regularly to make certain they are toeing the line. (Conformity appears to be the main concern, here; safety is low on the priority list.)

It must be paying off for someone. Despite a great deal of bad press in recent years, McDonald’s – a global corporation with 36,000 locations worldwide – has been seeing a modest increase in sales. In 2012, the corporation had revenues of $27.5 billion, a little over 3% over the prior year. That averages just under $764,000 per restaurant.

In-N-Out, which has a mere 232 locations in five Western states, made an estimated $625 million that same year. But that represents an income of nearly $2.7 million per restaurant – about 350% better than McDonald’s.

One significant difference between the two restaurant change is that the global corporation must grow and expand at all costs. If that means cutting corners and gaming the system, so be it. If workers get hurt and customers get sick, well, that’s just part of the cost of doing business.

It is what the late author and social critic Edward Abbey described as “the mentality of the cancer cell.”

The regional chain, which was founded in 1948, has an entirely different business philosophy. Central to In-N-Out’s philosophy is treating employees well and sharing the corporation’s success with the workers who make it possible. According to Wall Street wisdom, anything that cuts into the profit margin and prevents constant, rapid expansion is bad business.

Yet In-N-Out is doing phenomenally well by all standards. McDonald’s, which follows Wall Street convention, is facing charges for violating labor regulations, armies of angry, dissatisfied employees demanding a greater share of the wealth they work to generate – and a rapidly tarnishing public image.

And in the meantime, McDonald’s employees continue to suffer unnecessary, painful, on-the-job injuries. One hopes that OSHA officials will take these complaints seriously and give the Golden Arches a good, hard, detailed once-over.

How Processed Foods Can Be A Disaster For Your Health

Used in mayonnaise and sauces, emulsifiers could raise your blood sugar and make you fat.

By Ari LeVaux

Processed foods are suspected of causing a variety of heath issues. Foods high in sugar and refined carbohydrates, for example, are known to cause high blood sugar and obesity. But recent research has uncovered an entirely new mechanism by which many metabolic disorders can be triggered. Certain additives that are commonly used in processed foods are being shown to impact health, at least in mice, by altering the body’s population of bacteria that live in the gut. Collectively referred to the microbiome, the importance of this bacterial community of millions is just beginning to be understood.

Research published last September demonstrated that artificial sweeteners can raise blood sugar levels in mice, stimulate their appetites, and possibly lead to obesity and diabetes. The artificial sweeteners appear to create these conditions by changing the micriobiome’s composition.

Last month, a different set of research was published that also suggested a disease pathway mediated by microbiome disturbance. This time, commonly used food additives called emulsifiers are the culprits.

Emulsifiers help keep sauces smooth and ice cream creamy, they hold dressings together and prevent mayonnaise from separating into oil and water. The new research gives reason to suspect that emulsifiers could raise your blood sugar, make you fat and even make your butt hurt.

The study, published in Nature, looked at two common emulsifiers, Polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), and found a range of metabolic problems that appeared in mice who were given water dosed with these chemicals in quantities proportional to what a human might consume. The mice who drank either emulsifier tended to eat more, gain weight and develop conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, colitis and metabolic syndrome, which is a range of pre-diabetic conditions.

The effects of these additives were dependent on the dosage; the more emulsifier the mice consumed, the worse off they were. A control group drank water laced with a common preservative, sodium sulfite, and did not show any negative effects on the gut.

The team found that the bacterial diversity of the mice microbiomes were altered. They also discovered the mucous membrane of the gut was thinner in mice who were fed emulsifiers. The thinner mucous membrane allowed the microbes closer to the gut wall than they would normally get, they wrote, which could cause the observed inflammation of the gut wall, and diseases like irritable bowel syndrome.

John Coupland, a professor of food science at Penn State University, thinks this research could be a game changer, providing it can be shown that these emulsifiers can do to humans what they do to mice. “[It] really challenges a lot of the way we think about assessing toxicology and nutritional value of foods,” he said in an email.

Coupland noted that Polysorbate 80 and CMC are very different molecules. While Polysorbate 80 is small, and doesn’t carry an electrical charge, CMC is large, and charged. These molecules are not only built differently, but they behave differently, he said, pointing out that CMC is technically not even an emulsifier, but a thickener that makes emulsions more stable. That they both cause similar microbial disruptions, mucous reductions and associated health problems is a striking discovery.

In an email interview, the study’s co-author, Benoit Chassaing, acknowledged that CMC is more of a thickener than an emulsifier, but noted that it does have emulsification properties, due to its charge. He suspects the resulting emulsifying activity is to blame.

I asked how they originally thought to look at emulsifiers. Chassaing explained:

"The incidence of IBD and metabolic syndrome has been markedly increasing since about the mid-20th century, and this dramatic increase has occurred amidst constant human genetics, suggesting a pivotal role for an environmental factor. We considered that any modern additions to the food supply might play an important role, and addition of emulsifiers to food seems to fit the time frame of increased incidence in these diseases.

"We hypothesized that emulsifiers might impact the gut microbiota to promote these inflammatory diseases and designed experiments in mice to test this possibility."

The team is currently investigating other common emulsifiers, aiming to identify any others that might cause microbial disturbances, or inflammation of the gut. Carrageenan, Chassaing noted, has already been found to cause inflammatory bowel disease in rats. Extracted from seaweed, carrageenan is widely used in processed “natural” foods. Like CMC, carrageenan is more of a thickener than an emulsifier, but is, like CMC, on the spectrum of additives that exhibit emulsifying properties.

One molecule his team is currently investigating is lecithin, which is a true emulsifier. Like carrageenan, lecithin is used in many “natural” processed products. If lecithin shows similar activity to carrageenan, CMC, and Polysorbate 80, it would cast a shadow over many, many processed food formulations. Organic processed foods are still processed foods. Organic approved additives like carrageenan can still give you ulcerative colitis.

Food additives are tested for certain toxilogical activities, like the ability to cause cancer, or to cause a mouse to instantly drop dead. But they aren’t tested for any potential effects they might have on one’s microbiome, or their ability to stimulate one’s appetite, or cause conditions like irritable bowel syndrome.

If the recent results on mice can be repeated in humans, current testing protocols for food additives will be revealed as woefully inadequate.

If you stay away from highly refined, heavily processed foods with long lists of ingredients, you can avoid most of these additives in one swoop, and not have to worry about inadequate testing procedures.

But not everyone has the luxury of being able to avoid processed foods, especially the poor, and ironically, people stuck in institutions like hospitals. That’s why we need the standards by which food additives are evaluated to be updated sooner, rather than later.

 

Ari LeVaux writes a syndicated weekly food column, Flash in the Pan.

Blue Bell ice cream recall linked to 3 Listeria deaths

By Danielle Haynes

 WASHINGTON, March 13 (UPI) -- Blue Bell Creameries has recalled several styles of ice cream novelties after listeria infections sickened five people who consumed the products, three of whom died.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are investigating an outbreak of listeria monocytogenes infections in five patients in Kansas.

All five people were admitted at a Kansas hospital for unrelated conditions and became ill with the infection between January 2014 and January 2015. For the four patients whose food intake was documented, all had consumed milkshakes made with a single-serving Blue Bell ice cream product called Scoops while in the hospital.

Three of the patients died.

The CDC and FDA determined Blue Bell products were likely the source of the outbreak. As part of an unrelated investigation, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control isolated listeria monocytogenes in single-serve products Chocolate Chip Country Cookie Sandwiches and Great Divide Bars. Scoops products were made on the same production line.

Additionally the Texas Department of State Health Services isolated the bacteria in products samples at Blue Bell's production facility in Brenham, Texas.

Blue Bell said it removed all products made from the same production line from stores and has shut down the production line. The other items included in the recall are Sour Pop Green Apple Bar, Cotton Candy Bar, Vanilla Stick Slices, Almond Bars, six-pack Cotton Candy Bars, six-pack Sour Pop Green Apple Bars and 12-pack No Sugar Added Mooo Bars.

A notice posted on the Blue Bell website indicates this is the first recall the company has had in its 108-year history.

Purina sued over claims it killed 4,000 dogs with 'toxic' food

By James Joiner 

A class action lawsuit alleges a mold byproduct used in kibble is leading pets to agonizing deaths.

Despite years of online allegations that one of the most popular dog food brands has been poisoning pets, it wasn’t until just weeks ago that the cat was let out of the bag in a court filing. A class action lawsuit was filed that blames the deaths of thousands of dogs on one of Purina’s most popular brands of chow.

Googling Nestle Purina Petcare’s Beneful brand will get you the pet food manufacturer’s website, a Facebook page with over a million likes, and, in stark contrast, a Consumer Affairs page with 708 one-star ratings supported with page after grim page detailing dogs suffering slow, agonizing deaths from mysterious causes.

Internal bleeding. Diarrhea. Seizures. Liver malfunction. It reads like something from a horror movie or a plague documentary, but a suit brought in California federal court by plaintiff Frank Lucido alleges that this is all too real—and too frequent to be a coincidence.

But it all relies upon finding a chemical that may be in the food—and has been a staple in dog food recalls in the past—with an experiment that neither Lucido, his lawyers, or even independent scientists have even begun to conduct.

Lucido said it began last month when his beloved German shepherd began losing an alarming amount of hair, smelled strange, and wound up at the vet with symptoms “consistent with poisoning.” A week later, his wife found one of their other dogs, an English Bulldog, dead. An autopsy showed signs of internal bleeding in the stomach and lesions on the liver, symptoms eerily similar to the shepherd’s, according to the complaint. Then their third dog also became ill.

“All these dogs are eating Beneful,” explained Jeff Cereghino, one of the attorneys representing Lucido in the action. “And the dogs are all, for a variety of reasons, not in the same house. So you take away the automatic assumption that the neighbor didn’t like the dogs or whatever. He was feeding them Beneful at the start of this, and one got sick and died, the other two were very ill. And then he started doing a little research, and he realized the causal link, at least in his mind, was the food.”

It doesn’t take much digging to uncover what appears to be a pattern of allegations, Cereghino said. Lots and lots of allegations. After hearing Lucido’s story, Cereghino checked it out for himself.

“We found a significant number of folks who were trying to draw exactly the same causal link.

Thousands,” he said.

The sheer volume is what made the seasoned lawyer—one who said “a good part of our business is class action work”—realize something may be fishy.

“But when I look at 4,000? Holy hell, there’s a lot of people out here.”

“If it’s a hundred or so, it’s like, ‘Okay, a lot of dogs eat Beneful; things happen.’ But when you start getting into the thousands… The long and short of it is the complaint pyramid is such that even with the Internet–easy access to complain about things– there’s still a very large percentage of folks who simply don’t complain, or whose vet tells ‘em, ‘We don’t know what happened,’ and they’re not drawing conclusions or leaping to assumptions, “ he said.

“But when I look at 4,000? Holy hell, there’s a lot of people out here.”

So Cereghino and his partners started talking to those people, comparing more and more of the stories of heartbreak.

“There seems to be somewhat of a singular event. [The dogs] are vomiting. They’re having liver problems, failures,” he said. “I’m not a vet, but you look at some of this stuff and say, ‘OK, we’re starting to have similar symptoms across the board, and we’re starting to have causation.’”

When these dire accusations first started appearing online years ago, the initial accusation was that one of the additives in the food, propylene glycol, was the culprit.

Purina maintains the type of propylene it uses is perfectly safe for consumption, saying on its website: “Propylene glycol is an FDA-approved food additive that’s also in human foods like salad dressing and cake mix.”

It’s also the same substance that caused the spiced whiskey Fireball to be recalled in Europe, which found excessive amounts of the chemical, also used in antifreeze, in the cinnamon swill last fall. The tainted liquor was from the North American batch because, in the U.S., much higher volumes of antifreeze additives are OK for human—or canine—consumption.

“It’s horrible. That is something that you don’t want in dog food,” noted veterinarian and author Karen "Doc" Halligan when reached by phone. “It’s controversial. Why do you want to take a risk if there’s any kind of chance that that could be bad for them?”

But whether it’s good for dogs or not, food grade propylene glycol has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. It also hasn’t been linked to toxicity, especially the type being alleged against Beneful.

Cereghino thinks there’s another culprit in the mix, and he’s named it in the lawsuit. They’re called mycotoxins.

Translated directly from the Greek words for “fungus poison,” mycotoxins are, essentially, a toxic byproduct of mold. When it comes to ducking discovery, they’re an especially crafty brand mold byproduct, and one found in all types of grains.

If you read the ingredients label of Beneful, it sounds an awful lot like breakfast cereal: ground yellow corn, corn gluten meal, whole wheat flour, rice flour, soy flour. Sure, there’s some “chicken byproduct meal” and “animal fat preserved with mixed-tocopherols,” but the food is certainly more grain than meat.

“In the channels of trade, grain is quite a lot like hamburger these days. As in ‘There’s multiple cows in a hamburger,’ if you will,” explained Dr. Gregory Möller, professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of Idaho and Washington State University joint School of Food Science. “It’s a mixed and blended commodity. So one farmer, one granary, or one mill, may have not stored their product well, which allowed for mold growth in storage.”

Even if a scientist were to stumble upon a load of grain rife with mycotoxins, Möller added, he or she could test it and still miss them.

“You can go into a sample that is known contaminated,” Möller noted. “But the particular sub sample you pull may not have enough on it to actually see. There is that challenge.”

This can be exacerbated when the host grain is earmarked for non-human use.

“Commodities that are targeted towards pet foods are managed a little bit differently, in terms of the regulatory criteria they have to pass,” he continued. “It is a very large industry. There is attention and concern about quality, but there is a difference in how the concern is managed.”

In layman’s terms?

“I think what’s put forth here is a plausible scenario,” Möller said.

When asked about the alleged symptoms described in the class action suit and online, especially the repeated liver failure, Halligan was clear in her potential diagnosis, especially as it pertained to animals of a variety of ages.

“Toxins would be real high on my list. If an animal ingests some type of toxin, that can lead to liver disease because the liver has to process it,” said Halligan.

But there have not yet been any tests to determine if mycotoxins are in Beneful at all—or any other dog food, for that matter.

Cereghino said he’s determined to find that out.

“As soon as we are able to, and the federal courts move at a fairly rapid rate, we will get discovery,” said Cereghino.

That’s when Cereghino will get to find out where Beneful’s products come from, how they’re stored, whether there’s a “connecting piece in the storage or the grain, the sourcing of it all, that sort of make sense.” He plans on running tests on the food both he and other members of the class action suit have saved to send over to a lab in the next few weeks.

That’s when they’ll know if those potentially dangerous chemicals are in the formula. And, if they are, they’ll still have to fight to prove that the mycotoxins are dangerous enough to make thousands of dogs sick.

As for Purina, when approached for comment, Keith Schopp, vice president of corporate public relations, read this statement to The Daily Beast:

“We believe the lawsuit is without merit and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves. Beneful is a high-quality nutritious food enjoyed by millions of dogs each year and there are no product quality issues with Beneful.”

Chris Hayes: What's Really In Those Supplements Sold By Major Retailers?

By karoli

Chris Hayes expanded on the story Susie posted earlier this week about the natural supplements which were devoid of that ingredient on the label they purported to contain.



Here's a little more specific information:

Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Executive Deputy Attorney General Martin J. Mack issued cease-and-desist orders to GNC Holdings, Inc., Target Corporation, Walgreens, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., regarding the marketing of up to seven herbal supplements: Gingko [sic] biloba, St. John’s Wort, Ginseng, Garlic, Echinacea, Saw Palmetto, and Valerian root. (Valerian was only tested from Target, in place of Ginseng.)

The office states that products from three or four New York state retail stores were tested up to five times each by a DNA barcoding technique developed at the University of Guelph, Ontario and published last year in the journal, BMC Medicine.

The actions have nothing to do with the clinical effectiveness of the products, another issue entirely and one that is not required under the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).

According the formal documents, an attorney general’s researcher, Dr. James A. Schulte II of Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY, determined that only 4 percent to 41 percent of products contained DNA from the plant species indicated on the product label.

While some samples had absolutely no DNA in them, some had DNA from other plants entirely. Some Ginkgo and saw palmetto products contained garlic whereas some garlic products contained no garlic at all.

Isn't this straight-up fraud? Whatever you might think about the efficacy of supplements themselves, people are being told that a bottle of "X" actually contains "X" when in fact, it contains little pieces of "A, Z and Y". It seems to me that a cease-and-desist order is the very least they should be doing here. How about an investigation?

Or better yet, how about some regulation of the supplement industry? Oh, wait. As Hayes points out, Senator Orrin Hatch is the guy who made sure supplements could escape regulation, since Utah is the "Silicon Valley" of the supplement industry.

I wonder if there's a connection between the lunacy that is anti-vaxxers and the supplements they're taking.

Liberians Explain Why the Ebola Crisis Is Way Worse Than You Think

By Alex Park

Health workers in Liberia haul away the body of a person suspected of dying of Ebola Abbas Dulleh/AP

As of this week, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is known to have infected more than 5,700 people and taken more than 2,700 lives. Yet those figures could be dwarfed in the coming months if the virus is left unchecked. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the total number of infections could reach 1.4 million in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January 2015. Though cases have been reported in five countries, nowhere has been harder hit than Liberia, where more than half of the Ebola-related deaths have occurred.

More MoJo coverage of the Ebola crisis.

• These Maps Show How Ebola Spread In Liberia
• Even Liberia's Legislature Can't Escape the Ravages of Ebola
• Listen to Some of Liberia's Top Artists Sing about Ebola
• Why the World Health Organization Doesn't Have Enough Funds to Fight Ebola
• New Drugs and Vaccines Can't Stop This Ebola Outbreak
• We Are Making Ebola Outbreaks Worse by Cutting Down Forests

The outbreak has crippled Liberia's economy. Its neighbors have sealed their borders and shipping has all but ceased, causing food and gas prices to skyrocket. Schools and businesses have closed down, and the country's already meager health care system has been taxed to the breaking point.

Meanwhile, as panic grips the country, crime has risen steadily and some reports suggest that Liberia's security forces are among the perpetrators. To get a picture of how dire the situation is on the ground, we got in touch with Abel Welwean, a journalist and researcher who lives outside of Monrovia. He conducted a handful of interviews with Liberians in his neighborhood in the second week of September and also provided his own harrowing story of what life is like in the country.

The outbreak has forced many Liberians to stay indoors and avoid interacting with other people. Since the virus can be caught merely by touching the sweat of an infected person, once-common forms of physical contact, like handshakes, have become rarer.

Frances (a university student): Football has been suspended in our country. We are sitting at home just doing nothing—all in the name of protecting ourselves. It is hurting us, but we have to play the safe rules, because we value our own lives.

Abel: I don't wear short sleeve shirts to step outside my house. I keep my children in my yard throughout the day. I make sure we wash our hands periodically. We do not shake hands with anybody outside of our house. We do not entertain visitors in our house… These behaviors are very strange amongst Liberians… Shaking hands is our one of the cultural values that we have. Liberia may be poor and not willing to be developed, but we are friendly people who believe in shaking hands in a special way, and eating together from the same bowl.

Frances: Schools are closed for time indefinite. We don't know when schools will open. We are sitting at home, watching and praying that school will open sooner. Rumors are coming that schools will open next year— we don't know. What I think the youth can do now is to get on our feet and educate the common man, those that are still in the denial stage, to sensitize them, give them the actual information about this Ebola virus, let the youth get on their feet from house to house, door to door, and try to inform the populace about the deadly Ebola virus, and how it can be prevented.

Abel: I worry a lot about the future of our children's education. I was at the verge of paying my children's tuition when the government announced the closure of all schools in the country. For now, I am my children's tutor at home.

 

"We are urging the international community to come to our rescue, for the downtrodden, because pretty soon there will be another war, and that will be the hunger war."

When the epidemic struck Liberia, a number of hospitals closed, often because their staffs had fled in fear. Adding to the problem, Ebola's symptoms mimic other, still common diseases, but treating anything that resembles Ebola necessitates protective gear that's not always available outside the quarantine centers. That means that many people who are suffering non-Ebola illnesses are going untreated.

Esther (a nurse and midwife): Before, August, September were months we had diarrhea cases in Liberia. But right now, the symptoms of Ebola and malaria are all the same. It's very, very difficult to know an Ebola patient from malaria, so it's very, very difficult to treat any patient in that direction.

Frances: Many were afraid that if you have malaria, you have common cold, you have fever, you go to the hospital, they would diagnose you as an Ebola patient... I even got sick during the outbreak. I was afraid to go to the hospital. I had to do my own medication, but God looked out for me. I'm well. But these were the messages that were going around, that once you have this, they will confine you to a place, they will quarantine you for 21 days, they will inject you. So many Liberians were afraid to go to hospitals. But now the message has spread out. We now know people are surviving of Ebola. Even if it is not Ebola, you just have malaria, you go there, you are treated. They get you tested; they release you on time.

Brooks (an American who was working at the Accountability Lab, an anti-corruption NGO, in Monrovia and has since left the country): Even in July, you heard stories of pregnant women going into labor, bleeding profusely, and not being tended do because people were afraid of Ebola.

Esther: As a midwife, most of the time I have to do deliveries. But right now, as we sit here, this clinic is closed. These are cases that could be treated, but since we don't have the proper equipment, the proper outfits to wear and treat our patients and do tests [for Ebola], we decided to stay away from treating patients, because you don't know who you are touching. Obviously, it's a kind of embarrassment, but we have to go through with it for now.

Before it spread to Monrovia, Ebola struck in Lofa County, Liberia's rice-producing center. Many farmers avoided their fields, severely hurting domestic food production. Food imports (the country imports about two-thirds of its grain supply) have also been hampered because of the crisis. Borders with neighboring countries have been closed, and shipping companies have avoided the nation's ports. All of that has led to the biggest increases in food prices since the nation's civil war, which ended in 2003. In a country where 84 percent of everyone lived on less than $1.25 per day in 2011, this shock has become its own crisis.

Esther: There were times, we were paying, for a 25-kilo [55 pound] bag of rice, we were paying something like 1,150-1,250 [Liberian dollars, or $14 to $15], but right now it's like 1,500 [$18].

John (a Liberian employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross): I see so many people, sometimes they are walking to town [about six miles]. Even if they have money, they prefer walking a distance and saving the money to buy food so they will eat for the day. We tend to be afraid to assist someone from the vehicle, even to tell them the distance they are going, because we don't know who is carrying the virus.

Lawrence (the Liberia country director for Accountability Lab): Hunger is really hitting the country… If the ships are not coming, [farmers] are not making rice, the stockpiles are depleted…the animals are eating the crops, what happens then? The production will decrease, the price will increase, and if you don't have money, what is going to happen? Hunger is going to strike… This is a serious war, without bullets.

It's not just a rise in food prices that Liberians are struggling with; transit costs have increased as well, partly because the government has forbidden commercial vehicles from carrying large numbers of people. Markets have been shut down; NGOs and companies are asking employees to stay at home; schools are closed so teachers are not working. On September 17, the World Bank warned that Ebola could cut Liberia's GDP by 3.4 percentage points, costing $228 million by 2015.

Esther: In my own clinic, I have a staff of twelve. But right now, everybody has to be home until otherwise. Since we don't have protective gear, we don't have anything to work with, we cannot risk our own lives, because if you are not able to protect yourself, you will not able to work with other people. It will be difficult for their families.

Frances: It is better for us to stay at home, but we need, also, to have our daily bread. The international community, international donors, need to come to our rescue, because hunger is taking over Liberia, gradually.

Abel: I have gone out of job because of the Ebola outbreak. Before the outbreak, I had contracts with Princeton, PBS Frontline, Nursing For All, and the Gender Ministry. All of my contracts are on hold until the crisis is over.

The statistics are unreliable, but many report that violent crime is rising since the outbreak began. Even more troubling: some of these crimes have reportedly been at the hands of police and soldiers in uniform. Some Liberian's blame the government's curfew for the problem.

John: Armed robbery is increasing because the government placed this curfew from 9 [p.m.] to 6 AM. Before, there used to be community watch teams. At that time, there was no curfew.

Abel: Our lives were relatively peaceful before the deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus. We could go out any hour and return any hour. There were robberies once in a while, but not compared to the recent ones… I do not know if the proliferation of robberies was political or some criminals just decided to take advantage of the situation.

There have been numerous cases of armed robberies since the curfew was announced… There was one in my community and my neighbors were badly affected. I was really afraid that night when I heard the bullet sound. At that time my family and I were watching movie in the living room. We got scared so much that we couldn't continue the movie. We turned the video off, turned all the lights in the rooms off and went to bed. Fortunately for me, those police officers that came to rescue my neighbors were my friends. They came to my house that night to see how my family and I were doing. [Later, I learned] the robbers wore police uniforms and were fully armed.

Esther: I was a victim about four days ago. I just left my back door open to hang clothes in the front. By the time I was back in, someone had snuck in and took the two phones I had charging. Because the children are not in school, most of the young ones are turning to crime—and not just the young ones, even people who were working and they are not able to work now, some of them are thinking, how do they maintain their families? They are collaborating with some of these criminals to get their way through.

Frances: Liberia is declining, the economy is declining, and things are just getting difficult on a daily basis. We are not free to move around, we are not free in our own country because of this deadly Ebola virus. We are urging the international community to come to our rescue, for the downtrodden, because pretty soon there will be another war, and that will be the hunger war.

Plums, peaches recall expanded by California company

Wawona Packing Company of California is expanding their product recall due to possible listeria contamination.

MONDAY, Aug. 4, 2014 (HealthDay News) - A recall of fresh, whole peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots is being expanded by Wawona Packing Company of California due to possible listeria contamination.

Listeria monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, seniors, and people with weak immune systems. Listeria infection can also cause miscarriages and stillbirths in pregnant women.

On July 19, the Wawona Packing Company issued a recall for specific fresh, whole peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots packed between June 1 and July 12, 2014. The expanded recall covers all such fruits packed between June 1 and July 17.

The recalled products include the brands Sweet 2 Eat, Sweet 2 Eat Organic, and Mrs. Smittcamp's, and were also packed under private labels. Anyone with the recalled products should throw them away.

For more information, consumers can go to Wawona's website or call the company at 1-888-232-9912, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. EST or Saturday and Sunday between Sun 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. EST.