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All US fruit Detained Upon Arrival In China For Seven Days
All US fruit Detained Upon Arrival In China For Seven Days
Pesticide Residue Testing
Effective immediately, China's Customs has been instructed to detain and inspect all US fruit shipments for seven days upon arrival into China for pesticide residue testing. A shipment of Washington apples in ShenZheng port was rejected on Saturday and sent back to the US.
Previously only 30% of American shipment where tested at random, now this number has been increased to 100%. Other countries of which currently all 100% of shipments are inspected are Peru and Australia, due to past quarantine issues.
According to Chinese importers, China Customs has strengthened the visual inspection of all US fruit to find traces of for example bugs or rot. If traces are found, the shipments will be held for lab tests. In case these tests are proven positive, the shipment will be returned to the US or destroyed.
Lab tests may take between 2 days up to 2 weeks.
“The majority of Chinese buyers are taking a ‘wait and see’ position at the moment,” says an industry source. “They are concerned about China rejecting shipments that do pass the pesticide residue tests.” China Customers has limited cooler space and products may be stored outside in unrefrigerated conditions. This could result in deterioration and product being lost. Many sea and air shipments are at risk with a seven-day retention.
Impact on California cherry season
This new regulation could have a significant impact on the California cherry season that starts next week and relies heavily on exports to China. It may even impact the Washington cherry season that starts up in a few weeks. “I think the situation may depress domestic cherry markets, including an influx of more Washington cherries into Canada,” a cherry grower-shipper said. “Canadian export prices should strengthen, but the US market will be hurt.”
Trade meetings
The industry source added that the same situation happened with the Philippines a few years ago as a result of tensions between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea. Tomorrow, US-China trade talks are taking place in Beijing and Dalian Yidu Group, one of the biggest importers in China, is hopeful the situation will diffuse after Tuesday’s meetings. “Hopefully, the State Fruit Commissions will also be able to play a role in solving the problem.”
CIQ used to directly operate under The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ). In March earlier this year, China’s National People’s Congress dismantled AQSIQ as part of the most comprehensive government restructure in nearly 50 years. Any new protocols seem to be on hold indefinitely, or until the establishment of a State Market Regulatory Administration (SMRA). The SMRA will eventually adopt the tasks and responsibilities of the AQSIQ. For now, China Customs is in charge of fruit and vegetable imports and inspections.
Publication date: 4/30/2018
Author: Marieke Hemmes
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com
How Consumers Are Reacting to E. coli Outbreak
How Consumers Are Reacting to E. coli Outbreak
Posted by Carol Miller | May 2, 2018
The slowly expanding E. coli O157: H7 outbreak, stemming from Yuma-grown romaine, has kept the story on front pages for several weeks. Restaurants and grocery stores are reacting in two main ways: posting assurances that all romaine sold in the store is not from Yuma or taking romaine off their shelves altogether.
This concern for safe food has spurred reporters to dig into the causes and make suggestions on how to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Naturally, some suggestions are stronger than others. Here’s a brief review of what’s being discussed:
A call for new technology. Forbes takes a look at how past recalls and outbreaks have ruined businesses and growing operations. It calls for more protected agriculture to help curb opportunities for infection. Acknowledging that vertical farming is expensive and years from being a common growing method, Forbes pushes IBM’s new blockchain technology.
Reject All Romaine. Consumer Reports, which called for consumers to dump romaine during the first E. coli outbreak of the 2017-18 growing season, again warns its readers to avoid all romaine, not just the Yuma-sourced.
Identifying one of the Yuma Farms. The New York Times identifies the farm that grew the whole head romaine that sickened prisoners at a correctional facility in Alaska: Harrison Farms. It also explains that investigating E. coli contamination is difficult, due to the time lapse between lettuce being shipped and when an illness is reported.
How DNA may help in the E. coli hunt. Chicago Tribune takes a look at how DNA techniques previously used to trace sources of listeria outbreaks will now be used for E. coli and salmonella.
Explaining how food safety works. A Phoenix-based paper, AZ Central, gives consumers a fair depiction of how food safety protocols work and how current rules came to be. It also points out that the system is not foolproof, as a few different outbreaks have been traced back to certified operations.
Raw food will always carry a risk. The Washington Post asks the question: “Why E. coli Keeps Getting into Our Lettuce?” It explains that raw foods do not go through a kill step, so pathogens can survive postharvest procedures designed to keep food safe.
Within the industry, Food Safety News ran an editorial calling for the return of Microbiological Data Program (MDP).
“The MDP only cost taxpayers about $5 million. The New York Times called it ‘a tiny program that matters.’ But the produce industry hated the MDP, and it apparently had a significant hand in killing it,” says Editor-in-Chief Dan Flynn. “The MDP murder remains unsolved. Big produce did not like it because the testing occurred as fruits and vegetables were being picked and shipped. A positive MDP test could throw a wrench in the salad bowl. MDP did not have ‘predictive value,’ according to the rap on it. But MDP scored for consumers. It caught a rare strain of hepatitis A, preventing its entry into the U.S. from the Middle East and North Africa; and it kept a nasty parasite in Mexico from crossing into the U.S.”
E. Coli Outbreak In Romaine Lettuce Underscores Need For Change And Technology
APR 29, 2018
E. Coli Outbreak In Romaine Lettuce Underscores Need For Change And Technology
Phil Lempert, CONTRIBUTOR cover issues, and trends in the food and agriculture sectors.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Freshly picked and chilled arugula being poured into a sorting bin to be washed. (Photographer: Mark Elias/Bloomberg)
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that 98 people in 22 states have become ill from eating romaine lettuce grown in the region of Yuma, Arizona.
Forty-six of those individuals have been hospitalized, including 10 who have developed a type of kidney failure. The difficulty of discovering just how and when the lettuce was contaminated is due to the fact that, at least in the case of the people sickened at an Alaska correctional facility, the contamination occurred not at the farm where the whole-head lettuce was grown and harvested but elsewhere in the packaging and distribution chain, according to the FDA.
‘Farm to table’ is a common phrase that is used to describe high quality and fresh foods. Along this path for all foods, there are many instances where foods can be contaminated. In the case of this lettuce, which was harvested, put in boxes, shipped to another facility (or multiple ones), stored under refrigeration, washed, chopped and then packaged in bags that may include plain romaine or various salad mixes (that could contain other lettuces or vegetables grown from other farms) that contained the romaine. Many touch points that could be the culprit of the contamination.
Food production is complex, and following proper food safety handling techniques is very difficult. Since April 1, 2018, there has been 38 food recalls from the FDA ranging from having undeclared ingredients in protein bars to Listeria monocytogenes in mini éclairs to Salmonella in organic coconut flour to this lettuce recall due to E. coli.
The CDC has told consumers to avoid eating and restaurants and retailers to stop selling or serving chopped, baby, organic, whole head, hearts, of romaine lettuce, or any salad mixes that contain romaine if it comes from Yuma, or if it cannot be identified where it comes from. The CDC estimates that nearly half of all food-borne illnesses are caused by produce and in a 2013 report wrote that leafy vegetables (which includes lettuces) were the number one source of food poisoning.
There have been brands that have never recovered from having their products pulled from shelves. The FDA ordered the shutdown Bon Vivant Soup Company’s plant in Newark, New Jersey on July 7, 1971, after Samuel J. Cochran died as a result of botulism poisoning traced by Federal Food and Drug Administration investigators and State Health Department. Five cans of soup out of 324 that they found were contaminated with botulinum toxin, all in the initial batch of vichyssoise that was recalled.
The recall destroyed public confidence in the Bon Vivant name. Peter Pan peanut butter has never gained back their market share since their initial recall back in 2007 where they had to recall three years of production from store shelves due to a nationwide salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 625 people in 47 states, was missing from stores for 6 months and more than a decade later had to pay the largest criminal fine in a US food safety case of $11.2 million.
On September 14, 2011, FDA issued a press release to announce that Jensen Farms issued a voluntary recall of Rocky Ford Cantaloupe because the cantaloupes have the potential to be contaminated with Listeria and may be linked to a multi-state outbreak of listeriosis which resulted in 33 deaths and a pregnant women’s miscarriage – the source was found to be improper equipment that washed the cantaloupes before shipping to retailers for sale.
There are solutions that could help to avoid and more rapidly discover where these outbreaks occur.
All our foods start in agriculture, where our food comes from. Our land, water, soil and environment are all under siege and the USDA says that climate change is going to create challenges. The location where we grow our foods, on dirt farms, is where many of the food safety recalls occur can change. At the same time, we are seeing more consumers opting for more of a plant-based diet. There is also a new breed of younger farmers entering the fields – the USDA’s latest Census of Agriculture reports that the number of farmers aged under 35 is increasing – that’s only the second time that’s happened since 1900, and 69% of them have college degrees – far higher than the 40% of the general population that has graduated from college. Younger, smarter farmers will bring us into a new era of agriculture and food safety.
By 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.6 billion with 65% of us living in urban areas.
Most of the lettuces sold in the US are shipped from California. The bagged lettuce you buy in a bodega or supermarket in Manhattan had to travel 3,000 miles, hopefully in a truck that was immaculate and under the proper temperature.
Vertical indoor farming is more efficient bringing more farms closer to where people live, reducing expense and environmental impact.
Kate Hofman of GrowUp Urban Farm, producing fresh fish, salads, and herbs using a combination of aquaponic and vertical growing technologies, in London in 2016. (Photo by Miles Willis/Getty Images)
In Linkoping Sweden, a multi-use building will open in 2020 with 16 stories of farms to offices at a 3:1 ratio, with a retail store and a wholesale operation and a controlled environment which would greatly reduce the risk of contamination. This farm also is much more energy efficient and saves 1,100 tons of CO2 emissions and 13 million gallons of water while producing 4 to 6 times the yield as one outdoor acre, and can be built in downtown Manhattan and deliver to that bodega or supermarket that is just a few miles away. Of course, these types of vertical farm buildings are expensive and take years to build.
In the meantime, blockchain technologies can be used to more efficiently track our foods across the supply chain. IBM is developing the IBM Food Trust food safety solution which consists of digital information including farm details, batch numbers, factory and processing data, expiration dates, storage temperatures and shipping detail which are digitally connected to food items and the information is entered into the blockchain along every step of the process. According to IBM’s Shanker Ramamurthy, General Manager Global Strategy & Market Development, in a blog post “the information captured in each transaction is agreed upon by all members of the business network; once there is a consensus, it becomes a permanent record that can’t be altered. Each piece of information provides critical data that could potentially reveal food safety issues with the product. The record created by the blockchain can also help retailers better manage the shelf-life of products in individual stores, and further strengthen safeguards related to food authenticity.” Which clearly would speed up the discovery process and likely result in less illnesses and deaths.
Blockchain is an initiative that must be fast-tracked in order to reduce food borne illnesses and reinforce consumer trust in our food supply.
Phil is known as "The SupermarketGuru" and writes and reports on food trends. Check out SupermarketGuru.com for more insights into the world of food and his new food product reviews
FDA Wants To Regulate Amazon’s Fulfillment Centers As Food Facilities. Amazon Begs To Differ.
Amazon
FDA Wants To Regulate Amazon’s Fulfillment Centers As Food Facilities. Amazon Begs To Differ.
April 10th, 2018
by Joe Fassler
In Lexington, Kentucky, Amazon is engaged in a protracted regulatory standoff, one that’s gone largely overlooked by the public for nearly a decade. It’s not over sales tax or drone delivery this time. Instead, the debate is over whether the company’s warehouses need to register with the government under federal food safety law.
The story starts with the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2011 (FSMA), which mandated that the nation’s “food facilities” all register with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Registered facilities must also allow FDA to inspect their premises at all times, agree to the regular inspection schedule stipulated by FSMA, and renew registration every two years. But these requirements have proven to be too onerous for Amazon: MarketWatch reports that the company has let its facility on the west side of Lexington go unregistered since 2000, when it was built.
For now, it looks like Amazon has decided to call the agency’s bluff.
For its part, the government is clear: It defines a “food facility” as any entity “engaged in manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding food” that isn’t sold to customers directly. (Farms, restaurants, and retail food establishments that sell food for immediate consumption have their own set of food safety rules.) For facilities regulated this way, FDA makes clear that the term “food” applies to almost anything a human being might ingest—baby formula, candy, supplements, booze, even plain old bottled water. You can find all of those things on Amazon.com, of course. And yet Amazon still hasn’t moved to register its Lexington warehouse.
It’s not that the government hasn’t noticed. The FDA sent the company a warning letter in 2008, according to Marketwatch, insisting that the warehouse be registered. In 2010, FDA dropped by for its first inspection—its first in 10 years, and its first ever. When it visited the facility again in 2013, it once more insisted that Amazon register the warehouse. But as of today, according to documents obtained by MarketWatch, the facility remains unregistered.
Related: Could this be the Wikipedia for food safety?
That’s despite the fact that FDA turned up food safety issues at the facility during both of its inspections. When I looked at FDA’s records for those visits, I found that the agency noted “foodborne biological hazards” in both 2010 and 2013, and an additional violation in 2013 of the Radiation Control and Health Safety Act. (The public reports don’t get more specific, and FDA did not respond to my request for more information by press time.)
For its part, Amazon has insisted it’s doing nothing wrong. According to a report reviewed by MarketWatch, the company has claimed to investigators that it is a retail company and therefore doesn’t need to register with FDA. The government has disputed that designation in its dealings with the company, according to the article.
Amazon remains unregistered despite the fact that FDA turned up food safety issues at the facility during both of its inspections. NFE
Which means, for now, that the company is likely sticking with self-policing—at least in Lexington. “Food and product safety are top priorities for Amazon,” an Amazon spokesperson told The New Food Economy, in an emailed statement. “Our fulfillment centers are not only permitted as required by state and local health departments, but we have a robust food safety program to ensure our products are safe for our customers.” The company did not answer my more specific questions about whether other facilities remained unregistered, or whether it disputes its designation as a “food facility” more generally.
Legally, FDA has the right to penalize an unregistered facility, including by revoking its right to sell goods. But it hasn’t done so in Amazon’s case, which brings up another issue. The agency rarely takes enforcement action against food facilities, even when it finds serious violations.
Related: Mislabeled egg rolls could’ve killed someone. Why did it take a week to get them off shelves?
According to a 2017 report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General (OIG), 22 percent of significant food facility inspection violations met with no action from FDA. How serious is “significant”? The three examples provided by the report aren’t for the faint of heart: Salmonella contamination at a pepper processing plant in New Mexico; live birds and crickets rampant in a Washington tofu facility; live and dead pests throughout a cheese factory in Kentucky, as well as an employee found stirring curds with his bare hands.
In most instances like these, FDA took only “advisory” action—essentially, issuing a verbal warning and allowing the facility to clean up its act voluntarily. This widespread practice has led to accountability issues, according to OIG.
“If FDA takes no action in such cases, facilities may not correct the violations; this undermines FDA’s efforts to ensure that the food supply is safe,” the 2017 report said. “When FDA did take action, it most commonly relied on facilities to voluntarily correct significant inspection violations; these actions were not always timely nor did they always result in the correction of these violations.”
Legally, FDA has the right to penalize an unregistered facility. But it hasn’t done so in Amazon’s case.
In other words, Amazon is not the only company that’s getting off FDA’s hook—not by a long shot. So why doesn’t the agency put more teeth into compliance violations? That’s hard to say. The FSMA legislation, which was the most sweeping reform of federal food policy in 80 years, provided the agency with increased regulatory powers—a move intended to increase enforcement of issues just like these. It gave FDA broader latitude for detaining potentially unsafe food, the ability to mandate recalls, and allowed it to suspend a facility’s registration and stop it from selling food entirely.
Why FDA has been so unwilling to use its power—in Amazon’s case, and in others—remains unclear. What is clear: Lax enforcement is the norm, and follow-ups are rare. For now, it looks like Amazon has decided to call the agency’s bluff.
Food Safety & Clean Water Technologies
Food Safety & Clean Water Technologies
Foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli are a constant concern among food producers and distributors. Raw and incompletely composted manure can transport these pathogens onto fresh produce, while handlers and animals can contaminate produce with a variety of other pathogens.
The Food and Drug Administration provides industry guidelines to meet required standards for minimizing microbial food safety. For those in the produce industry, the challenge is to easily reach these standards without expending a significant amount of time and resources.
EcoloxTech has developed a 100 percent safe and reliable no rinse produce sanitizer through the use of Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water. Cleared by the FDA for no-rinse sanitation of produce if generated from EcoloxTech systems, electrolyzed oxidizing water saves time and water use in sanitizing produce, leaving no harmful residues, alterations in taste, odors, or discolorations.
No potable water rinse is required after using electrolyzed oxidizing water. The USDA has also approved its use for organic produce handling and production.
“We can wash our product, and it doesn’t harm the product because its salt based. “ said Dinesh Ragbir, owner of Healthy Organics, a certified organic produce company in Vero Beach, Florida. “We’re happy using it. It washes and sanitizes. It’s an easy system for us to use.”
Using just table salt, water and electricity, electrolyzed oxidizing water kills bacteria, bacterial spores, and viruses 100 times more effectively than chlorine bleach. Studies have proven electrolyzed oxidizing water to be highly effective in killing E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella enteritidis, Listeria monocytogenes, and spore-forming bacteria. The electricity induces a chemical reaction in the salt water to create a powerful oxidant solution. EcoloxTech has perfected this reaction to identify optimal formulas and settings of voltage, amperage, and flow rates.
EcoloxTech is a US-based company founded by Morten Larsen, a Marine Engineer who used to advise the White House on advancing environmentally friendly technologies and previously served as an engineer for the United Nations in Africa, and Dr. Scott Hartnett, a graduate of Nova Southeastern University School of Medicine who has worked as a physician and surgeon in the Mercy Health System in Philadelphia and specialized in minimally invasive surgery at the University of Miami Hospital. Larsen currently serves as CEO of EcoloxTech, while Dr. Hartnett serves as Chief Medical Officer.
Other produce sanitizing agents, like chlorine bleach, come in concentrated form, are irritant to eyes and skin and must be prepared using personal protective gear. Electrolyzed oxidizing water is safe, non-irritant and is generated on-site with EcoloxTech systems, therefore eliminating the need for purchasing, storing, transporting, preparing, and disposing of toxic chemicals. Sanitation of produce using EcoloxTech electrolyzed oxidizing water does not require a potable water post-rinse as is required when using chlorine bleach.
Electrolyzed Oxidizing Water is a green, sustainable alternative to add to small and large-scale produce washers and can be used by greenhouse growers to safely reduce biofilm and pathogens in irrigation systems. Despite being more effective than alternative sanitizing agents, its non-toxic, non-irritant, and requires no safety or protective equipment to use.
Click this Link to see FCN 1811.
FCN 1811 is EcoloxTech FDA approval as a "No-Rinse" sanitizer, meaning, you can sanitize your produce, meats, poultry and shell eggs without the normally required post-rinse. Saving you time and water.
WORLD HEALTH DAY - Health For The People And Sustainability For The Planet
WORLD HEALTH DAY - Health For The People And Sustainability For The Planet
“The world is facing a serious food situation, but the Sustainable Development Goals offer an unprecedented opportunity to change things”, explained Gabriele Riccardi, Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases at the “Federico II” University in Naples and member of the BCFN Advisory Board. “ Still today, for every malnourished person in the world, there are two overweight or obese people. We are talking about people who face a higher likelihood to fall ill than the others, because there are diseases that are influenced by the food models we adopt: diabetes, heart disease, and chronic disease, to name but a few. However, we were to begin at the table, adopting sustainable diets, like the Mediterranean diet, we could take a significant step in the fight against these illnesses", concluded Riccardi. In fact, food and health are closely related.
According to the Food Sustainability Index, adopting a traditional diet like the Mediterranean diet can guarantee a healthy long life, because it can slow down DNA aging. It is estimated that, compared to other food models, closely following this diet can translate into circa 4.5 additional years of life expectancy. Let us not forget, furthermore, that choosing healthy lifestyles and sustainable diets is not only good for our health, but also for the health of our planet. A good tool to begin finding your way towards a healthy and sustainable food system is the double Food and Environment Pyramid created by the BCFN Foundation. The Double Pyramid shows the direct relation linking two aspects of each food: its nutritional value and the environmental impact generated by its production and consumption. The foods with the lowest environmental impact are also those recommended by nutritionists for our health, and those with a high environmental footprint should be consumed in moderation. The health of a population has an impact on many areas.
We can begin change at our tables!
Poisoning Our Children: Pesticide Residues
Poisoning Our Children: Pesticide Residues
February 9, 2018
In December 2014, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) sent out a news release to all the media outlets in the country about the results of its 2013 Pesticide Data Program (PDP). The headline: “Report confirms that U.S. food does not pose a safety concern based on pesticide residues.”
Because people consume a variety of foods, with around 77 percent containing residues of different types of agricultural chemicals, most people consume a chemical concoction.
The news release contained the following statement from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): “The newest data from the PDP confirm that pesticide residues in food do not pose a safety concern for Americans. EPA remains committed to a rigorous, science-based, and transparent regulatory program for pesticides that continues to protect people’s health and the environment.” So according to the EPA and the USDA, parents should have no concerns because the pesticides in food are safe.
Hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers by scientists and researchers challenge this assertion. So, let’s look at the science to understand why experts have serious concerns about the safety of pesticides.
What Gets Tested?
One of the greatest pesticide myths is that all agricultural poisons are scientifically tested to ensure that they are used safely. According to the United States President’s Cancer Panel (USPCP), this is simply not the case: “Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety.”
The fact is that the overwhelming majority of chemicals used worldwide have not been subjected to testing. Given that, according to the USPCP, the majority of cancers are caused by environmental exposures, especially exposure to chemicals, this oversight shows a serious level of neglect by regulatory authorities.
The USPCP 2010 report was written by eminent scientists and medical specialists in this field, and it clearly states that environmental toxins, including pesticides, are the main causes of cancers. Published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Cancer Institute, the report discusses many critical issues of chemical regulation.
Nearly 1,400 pesticides have been registered (i.e., approved) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for agricultural and non-agricultural use. Exposure to these chemicals has been linked to brain/central nervous system (CNS), breast, colon, lung, ovarian (female spouses), pancreatic, kidney, testicular, and stomach cancers, as well as Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and soft tissue sarcoma. Pesticide-exposed farmers, pesticide applicators, crop duster pilots, and manufacturers also have been found to have elevated rates of prostate cancer, melanoma, other skin cancers, and cancer of the lip.
Approximately forty chemicals classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as known, probable, or possible human carcinogens are used in EPA-registered pesticides now on the market.
Pesticides have been subjected to more testing than most chemicals. Many leading scientists regard these tests to be inadequate for determining whether pesticide residues are safe or harmful to humans, though. The USPCP report states, “Some scientists maintain that current toxicity testing and exposure limit-setting methods fail to accurately represent the nature of human exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.”
There are several key areas in which many experts and scientists believe testing has not sufficiently established that the current use of pesticides and other chemicals is safe.
Pesticide Residues: Chemical Cocktails in Food & Water
Regulatory authorities approve multiple pesticides for a crop on the basis that all of them can be used in normal production. Consequently, a mixture of several different toxic chemical products is applied during the normal course of agricultural production for most foods, including combinations of herbicide products, insecticide products, fungicide products, and synthetic fertilizer compounds. A substantial percentage of foods thus have a cocktail of small amounts of these toxic chemicals that we absorb through food, drink, dust, and the air.
According to the USPCP, “Only 23.1 percent of [food] samples had zero pesticide residues detected, 29.5 percent had one residue, and the remainder had two or more.” This means that about half the foods in the United States contain a mixture of chemical residues. Pesticide residue surveys in most other countries show similar results. Because people consume a variety of foods, with around 77 percent containing residues of different types of agricultural chemicals, most people’s normal dietary habits include consuming a chemical concoction of which they are unaware.
A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found a cocktail of toxic chemicals in the blood and urine of most Americans that were tested. In 2009, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found up to 232 chemicals in the placental cord blood of newborns in the United States. Many of these pollutants have been linked to serious health risks such as cancer and can persist for decades in the environment.
Regulatory authorities assume that because each of the active ingredients in individual commercial products is below the acceptable daily intake (ADI), the cocktail is thus also safe. They do not test these combinations of chemicals — the chemical cocktails that are ingested daily by billions of people — to ensure that they are safe. The emerging body of evidence demonstrates that many chemical cocktails can act synergistically, meaning that instead of one plus one equaling two, the joint action can exert a toxic, damaging effect that’s three, four, five, or even several hundred times higher than the sum of the two effects when the chemicals act separately.
This is an excerpt from André Leu’s 2018 book, Poisoning Our Children, which goes on sale March 1, 2018. Pre-order in February and save 10 percent.
André Leu is a founding member and director of Regeneration International. He served as president of IFOAM Organics International from 2011 to 2017. He is the author of the award-winning book, The Myths of Safe Pesticides.
Editor’s Note: References to specific reports and bibliographic information has been withheld in this article. They are sourced in the book.
Disease, Eco-Living & Health, Eco-Philosophy, glyphosate, GMOs, Opinion, Soils
CPMA Launches The Canadian Food Safety Fund to Support Food-Safety Research and Projects
CPMA Launches The Canadian Food Safety Fund to Support Food-Safety Research and Projects
2018
As the voice of the produce industry in Canada, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association has identified food safety as a top priority to ensure the ongoing viability and growth of the fresh produce sector in Canada. Understanding that a food-safety incident in one commodity group or segment could have devastating repercussions throughout the industry, CPMA is proud to launch the Canadian Food Safety Fund.
“We actively recognized the need for ongoing Canadian-focused research and education in the areas of pathogens, regulatory changes and best practices so members can stay at the forefront of food safety in Canada,” said Ron Lemaire, CPMA president. “We saw a unique opportunity to help support research projects that would typically be cost-prohibitive to many of the smaller companies that make up our membership. The fund will therefore facilitate and disseminate the important work, current and future, occurring in the produce industry.”
The CFSF’s main goals are to support vital, Canadian-focused, food-safety research; to develop educational programs and key information for CPMA members on existing and emerging food-safety challenges; and to increase government outreach, including in the U.S. and Mexico, to address food-safety issues for CPMA members.
Through the CFSF, CPMA members can be confident that their organization is committed to continuous improvement within the Canadian food-safety system. Members will be able to suggest or initiate commodity specific projects to address opportunities or challenges faced by their businesses; contribute to the overall body of scientific knowledge which, in turn, will result in the development of new, more efficient, more economical practices within the industry; and seek out the advice of CPMA’s new food-safety expert, Jeff Hall.
“CPMA is already working with academia, governments and other associations to move these goals forward,” said Hall. “A part of our mandate is to provide members with information, through education, research or other projects, on food safety and related issues. We’re committed to partnering with a broad base to ensure that we create a body of research that will contribute to the long-term sustainability of the industry.”
As a part of this renewed food-safety focus, CPMA will be hosting a series of information sessions on the upcoming Safe Food for Canadians Regulations and the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act, which is now in force. These sessions are available free to CPMA members and media and will take place in January and February 2018 in select Canadian and U.S. locations. For more information on the CFSF and the ongoing initiatives to strengthen Canadian knowledge in food safety, visit www.cpma.ca/foodsafety.