Louisiana Will Eliminate Health Benefits For HIV Patients, Poor Children, And First Time Moms This Week
January 29, 2013 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Big Pharma, Economy, Health News
Last week, Louisiana’s poor and terminally ill residents won a surprising victory when Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) announced that his state would not stop providing hospice care to its Medicaid beneficiaries. Unfortunately, that’s about the only piece of good news for low-income Louisianans’ health coverage, as the state is still set to implement massive cuts for Medicaid programs that “provide behavioral health services for at-risk children, offer case management visits for low-income HIV patients and pay for at-home visits by nurses who teach poor, first-time mothers how to care for their newborns” this Friday.
Tests Say Mislabeled Fish Is a Widespread Problem
December 13, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Food Watch
Fish is frequently misidentified on menus and grocery store counters in New York City, even at expensive restaurants and specialty shops, DNA testing for a new study found. National supermarket chains had the best record for accuracy in seafood labeling, the researchers reported.
The researchers, from the conservation group Oceana, said that genetic analyses showed that 39 percent of nearly 150 samples of fresh seafood collected from 81 establishments in the city this summer were mislabeled. The study did not identify any of the restaurants or stores, although it noted that most were in Manhattan.
In some cases, cheaper types of fish were substituted for expensive species. In others, fish that consumers have been urged to avoid because stocks are depleted, putting the species or a fishery at risk, was identified as a type of fish that is not threatened. Although such mislabeling violates laws protecting consumers, it is hard to detect.
Some of the findings present public health concerns. Thirteen types of fish, including tilapia and tilefish, were falsely identified as red snapper. Tilefish contains such high mercury levels that the federal Food and Drug Administration advises women who are pregnant or nursing and young children not to eat it.
U.S. quarantines two dairies after mad cow case
May 2, 2012 by uncoverthenews
Filed under Farming
WASHINGTON – Two California dairy farms are under quarantine and a calf ranch is under investigation following discovery of the latest U.S. case of mad cow disease, but the government on Wednesday said the actions were standard procedure and there was no threat to the food supply.
Also, a calf born to the infected cow was found and tested negative for the disease.
Cattle records at the two dairies are being matched to determine if any at-risk cattle are on the farms, said the Agriculture Department.
USDA said the infected cow was a rare “atypical” case of the disease, meaning it arose spontaneously rather than through the feed supply. However, it is USDA’s standard procedure to search for other cattle, offspring or herd mates, that might be exposed to the fatal disease, even though mad cow disease is not contagious.
Known Carcinogen Spreading Through Groundwater in New Jersey, Hundreds at Risk
November 28, 2011 by Darren6688
Filed under Commentary, Disaster News, Food Watch, General News, Green Living, Health News, Survival Info
Are you concerned about having clean water to drink? As you will see from the article below, we can not always rely on the EPA and others to keep our water safe. Water filtration becomes so important in the light of this information. Read this article by Brian Merchant to learn more!
Aaaaand here’s why we need good, well-upheld environmental regulations. An investigative report carried out by a small newspaper (and that’s why we need to keep those things around, too) has revealed that hexavalent chromium is spreading through the groundwater in Garfield, New Jersey, and is putting hundreds of people’s health at risk.
If that stuff sounds familiar, it might because it’s the same known carcinogen that Erin Brokovich famously brought to light when it was seeping through folks basements in the southern California town of Hinkley.
The New York Times has the details:
Three tons of the chemical leaked from a plant in 1983, but the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection allowed the cleanup by the electroplating factory responsible to stop after just 30 percent of the toxic substance had been removed. The neighborhood of 600 homes and businesses is now New Jersey’s newest Superfund site, and residents fear that the chromium, the same pollutant whose presence in groundwater was investigated by Erin Brockovich in Hinkley, Calif., may be infiltrating their basements and endangering their health.
Cases like this should serve as blunt reminders as why we really, really need the EPA to be on the job. An electroplating company, then the NJ EPA, each dropped the ball here, and now hundreds of people are potentially facing serious health woes. As in, they could end up with life-threatening cancer because a company didn’t take proper care to clean up its toxic mess and no one forced them to.
Every time I read a story like this, it a) pisses me off. The amount of leeway we allow industry in polluting and contaminating not just the natural environment, but the communities that people live in, is unacceptable. And b) perplexes me that the modern conservative movement continues to rally against protections that work to prevent cases like this.
Remember, some Tea Party congressmen and Fox News pundits want to roll back the kind of regulations that might save chemical companies a few bucks, but that protect people from irresponsible industry practices like dumping carcinogenic materials into places where it might contaminate groundwater. That’s not an exaggeration. Some of them are calling to abolish the EPA altogether, or to drastically reduce its funding.
We get reminder after reminder that we need an active agency working to curtail industrial malfeasance — and still there are people out there who want to roll back environmental protections and give corporations free reign. It’s crazy.
