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Tonight's editor: Ellinorianne
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Kids' cereals recalled over packaging
It's not just the food we have to worry about, but as we know from such additives as BPA, it's the things we package it in that can harm us as well and now there is a recall in Cereal's because the actual packaging is making KIDS sick.
It was a rough weekend for some well-known American brands: Kellogg’s recalled 28 million boxes of children’s cereals because of a “waxy-like” taste in the liner that has caused diarrhea and vomiting in a few people.
And Kellog's isn't even being forthcoming on what exactly it is that is making people sick!
From Kellog's website:
Are the products involved in the recall safe for consumption?
These packages are being recalled because we identified a substance in the package liner that can produce an uncharacteristic waxy-like off-taste and smell. The off-tastes and smells are caused by a slightly elevated level of a substance commonly present at very low levels in the waxy resins used to make packaging materials that are approved by the FDA. These resins are also commonly used to coat foods such as cheese, raw fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers. We did not find any substances that are not commonly used in packaging materials.
We completed a thorough health-risk assessment with external experts in medicine, toxicology, public health, chemistry, and food safety. The experts agree that some consumers are particularly sensitive to these uncharacteristic off-tastes and smells and may have temporary symptoms, like nausea and diarrhea, which should subside shortly. These symptoms are a result of the off-taste and odor in the food; they are not caused by any harmful material in the food.
You should not eat the recalled product because it does not meet quality standards. If you have conerns about your health, you should consult their health care provider.
Why are these products being recalled?
These packages are being recalled because we identified a substance in the package liner that can produce an uncharacteristic waxy-like off-taste and smell. The off-tastes and smells are caused by a slightly elevated level of a substance commonly present at very low levels in the waxy resins used to make packaging materials that are approved by the FDA. These resins are also commonly used to coat foods such as cheese, raw fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers. We did not find any substances that are not commonly used in packaging materials.
We are working with our supplier of the liner to ensure that this problem does not happen again.
What is the substance that was identified in the liner of the recalled products?
The off-taste and smell is caused by a slightly elevated level of substance commonly present at very low levels in the waxy resins used to make the packaging materials that are approved by the FDA. These substances are commonly used to coat foods such as cheese, raw fruits and vegetables, such as cucumbers. They are also used in packaging materials. During our thorough testing, we did not identify any substances that are not commonly used in packaging materials.
I don't know about you, but wouldn't you like to know what's making you sick? And why it's used in the food we eat and what's sold on our shelves?
I encourage you to contact Kellogs and let them know that they should disclose more information and that as a publicly traded company and as supplier for products that are often fed to kids, this is not enough information.
And no, personally, I don't give this to my child, I wouldn't eat it myself but a lot of parents do. That is a fact in our Country, it shouldn't preclude making a lot of noise and expecting full disclosure with product safety, the things that food is packaged in as being safe for human consumption, etc.
We have a lot of issues to address when it comes to what we feed our kids, this is an environmental issue though. A comment on the article I linked to in my local paper was a parent saying they were going to take it right home and put their Fruit Loops in a Tupperware container. No seriously, like that would make it all better.
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Subsea dispersants the right call, EPA administrator believes
As more and more animals are dying in and out of our sight in the Gulf we wonder what the EPA could have been thinking in approving the widespread use of this poison in our oceans and then to follow up with this?
With the amount of oil being pumped into the Gulf, we really needed to think long and hard about adding another toxic material to the mess. When science was to be the new way of the Obama Administration, I'd like to think the term "synergy" would be an important component to the decision.
"So far the data show we haven't done any damage and actually we've helped with dispersion and used a lot less of the chemical in the process," Jackson said in her office last week. "But that was probably one of the toughest decisions I've ever made because I don't usually say, introduce any substance, even one that's less toxic, to try to fight a problem, and yet, we had to make it."
But can that really be said just 70 days out from a disaster that's going to take decades to heal from or even fully realize it's ecological damage? And to think that they EPA was strong armed by BP in using this method!
Levine said that at a May 12 meeting with state officials on BP's dispersant plans, BP Vice President David Rainey warned, "if you're going to tie our hands, then we don't own this spill."
"We will follow whatever their (EPA's) directives are on this," Bob Dudley, who this past week succeeded BP CEO Tony Hayward as the face of BP's response to the disaster in the Gulf, said Thursday. "The dispersant is intended to break the oil into small droplets and then the bacteria begin eating it, and there's lots of evidence to show that's exactly what's happening."
Love the double speak don't you, don't tell us what to do unless we agree but you're in charge. And we wonder who is running things? It's not that the Federal Government is one to blame, they have the role of forcing BP to do the right thing. The problem is this, no one wants to take the blame for doing the wrong thing after the fact.
The feeling is this, it's fine on the surface, but we just don't know how it acts in the deeper parts of the ocean.
Still many questions
Ultimately, said Mitchelmore, who co-authored the 2005 National Research Council report, "Oil Spill Dispersants: Efficacy and Effects," decision-making about dispersants is undermined by "fundamental, basic questions that have not been addressed."
"Like, is it really true that oil is more degradable by bacteria when it's in the small oil droplet form; and is dispersed oil less damaging to birds and marine mammals?" she said.
Here are the core rationales for using dispersants and yet, she said, "there's all kind of conflicting science on both of those questions."
Still many questions. Just in case you missed this...
(AFP/Getty Images/File/Joe Raedle)
Expert measures human cost of Gulf oil leak
We often talk about the environmental costs of the gulf oil gusher which ultimately will come back to human costs and vice versa, the loss of species, the loss of ecology, they all come back to hurt human life because we have an interdependence on these things, whether we want to admit it or not. And it's not just about the "circle of life", it's a cost that goes beyond dollars and cents, it's a cost that is based on our very understanding of who we are. And we cannot separate our place in this world from what we do to it with every single action we make in the name of the all might dollar.
Although we are driven to put a price on these costs, I believe it's impossible to fully understand the economic impact, it is immeasurable. But we must because our world is measured in dollar signs.
And the news is not good, the signs are alarming because they are starting sooner than they did with the Exxon-Valdez. We are looking at rough times a head, for families, for communities and for our Nation as a whole.
The following is just one question out of a handful from Professor Picou and it's a must read.
Steven Picou doesn't have the happiest of jobs. He specializes in the human toll of disasters. As a sociology professor at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, he has studied the social fallout from Hurricane Katrina, the nation's worst "natural" disaster, and from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound which, until BP's unstoppable leak, was America's largest and most destructive "technological" disaster. Picou draws a sharp distinction between natural and technological events. The drawn out recovery period and the uncertainly that comes with it make technological disasters much more threatening to the health and welfare of the affected people and communities.
...
Q. Are you seeing parallels now in the Gulf?
A. Definitely. In terms of BP representatives and agency representatives meeting with angry citizens in high school gyms, and saying, ‘we will make you whole again; we will pay all legitimate claims.' Well, that was exactly the script that Exxon used. The same words. So you see angry, frustrated people.
However, we had a suicide in Orange Beach, Alabama on the 65th day [after the leak]. It was four years before the first suicide occurred up in Prince William Sound. So we're on a fast forward in terms of impact. I certainly was not expecting such extreme social pathology this soon.
We've also gotten word from the little community of Bayou La Batre that their police calls have doubled in the last month. That's an indication that those problems with domestic violence and alcohol abuse are filtering down through these tiny communities.
There was an editorial in Sunday's New York Times about the return of the Superfund program which was cut from funding, by guess who? God forbid that Corporate taxes be paid to clean up after what corporations actually left behind, pollution left with no one to clean it up. Got to love non-point pollution.
The Return of the Superfund
Superfund — which cleans up abandoned hazardous waste sites — is one of the country’s most important environmental programs. It has been struggling since 1995, when a Republican Congress refused to renew the corporate taxes that gave it a steady source of financing. The pace of cleanups has dropped markedly.
The Environmental Protection Agency has now asked Congress to reinstate Superfund taxes. Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon, has introduced a bill that would raise about $19 billion over 10 years by imposing excise taxes on oil producers, refineries, chemical manufacturers and a few other industries.
Mr. Blumenauer’s bill stands a good chance in the House. But industry is expected to push back hard in the Senate, where Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, has offered a similar measure.
Antarctica Might Have Its Own Garbage Patch
Looks like our Garbage is spreading further and further, this time plastic islands aren't isolated to just the Pacific and the Atlantic.
In a series of surveys conducted during the austral summer of 2007-2008, researchers at the British Antarctic Survey and Greenpeace trawled the region, skimming surface waters and digging into the seabed. Even in the exceedingly remote Davis and Durmont D'Urville seas they found errant fishing buoys and a plastic cup. Plastic packaging was found floating in the Amundsen Sea. (source)
The quantity of garbage found wasn't nearly as big as in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but it still is a worrying sign that out (sic) trash is making its way to all corners of the Earth. When we throw stuff "away", that "away" often ends up being the oceans, and since it takes so long for most of this crap to break down (and even when it does, it sometime stays dangerous), it's likely that this problem will get worse before it gets better.
Dog Saves Baby Kangaroo
After its mother died, this four-month-old kangaroo fended for itself on the side of the road in Victoria, Australia -- until Rex, a 10-year-old German short-hair pointer, found the baby in its mother's pocket and rescued it.
"He obviously sensed the baby roo was still alive in the pouch and somehow had gently grabbed it by the neck, gently retrieved it and brought it to me," the owner said on Green Expander. The two animals remain friends, as you can see in this photo and others.
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(All times Eastern!)
Today's eKos diaries:
Author | Diary | Time | Tags |
---|
icebergslim | It doesn't smell like a beach. It smells like a gas station. | 06/28/10 12:26AM Eastern | Recommended, eKos, pensacola, beaches, florida |
Gulf watchers | BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 34 | 06/28/10 06:00AM Eastern | Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico, LMRP |
Bob Higgins | A Sickening in the Gulf Stream | 06/28/10 08:17AM Eastern | ekos, environmental protection agency, environment, gulf oil spill, gulf of mexico |
Something the Dog Said | Making Drilling Safer Using Magnitude Of Regret | 06/28/10 09:38AM Eastern | BP Oil Disaster, Safety, Reliability, NASA, Multiple Redundancy |
Jed Lewison | Good plan | 06/28/10 10:17AM Eastern | BP, oil, Sarah Palin, eKos |
WarrenS | Action! Tell The White House: It's Time For James Hansen! | 06/28/10 11:37AM Eastern | James Hansen, eKos, DK Greenroots, Sophie Prize, Blue Planet Prize |
newusername | Really. It IS time to Blame Canada, re climate bill. | 06/28/10 11:54AM Eastern | oil, climate legislation, free speech, ekos |
RogerShuler | Video: Dolphins and Whale Struggle to Survive in BP Oil Slick | 06/28/10 12:03PM Eastern | BP oil spill, Gulf of Mexico, dolphins, sperm whales, John Wathen |
dantilson | BP Turning Tykes Into Eco-Activists | 06/28/10 03:44PM Eastern | BP, oil spill, environment, activism, eKos |
BlueDragon | Dolphins "Basted" in Oil Are Watching Us | 06/28/10 03:58PM Eastern | bp, oilpocalypse, dolphins, John Walten, eKos |
beach babe in fl | Macca's Meatless Monday...Basil, It's You (with McCartney concert!) | 06/28/10 06:01PM Eastern | eKos, green, meat production, livestock production, climate change |
The Cunctator | Reid Calls The Bluff Of The Climate Peacocks | 06/28/10 06:03PM Eastern | Recommended, Harry Reid, climate change, global warming, Lisa Murkowski |
Yesterday's eKos diaries:
Author | Diary | Time | Tags |
---|
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse | BP Nixes Congress Talking to Key Employees (and other BP News) | 06/27/10 10:06PM Eastern | Recommended, climate change news roundup, ekos, environment, BP |
LaughingPlanet | Walk, don't run (your engine) {ECSTASY} | 06/27/10 10:55PM Eastern | walking, ECSTASY, eKos, conservation |
Neon Vincent | Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Solstice and Lunar Eclipse edition) | 06/27/10 12:13AM Eastern | Recommended, Overnight News Digest, OND, eKos, science |
Gulf watchers | BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 33 | 06/27/10 06:00AM Eastern | Recommended, Oilpocalypse, BP, Deepwater Horizon, Gulf of Mexico |
juliewolf | Dawn Chorus: Vermont's "Northeast Kingdom" | 06/27/10 08:42AM Eastern | Recommended, birds, birding, dawn chorus, personal |
billlaurelMD | News from the Arctic: 27 June 2010 | 06/27/10 11:31AM Eastern | arctic sea ice, environment, DKos GreenRoots, global warming, climate change |
matching mole | A Sense of Place and a Changing World | 06/27/10 11:53AM Eastern | solastalgia, soliphilia, nostalgia, oil, BP |
jamess | James Hansen Awarded, but NOT yet Acknowledged | 06/27/10 01:55PM Eastern | Blue Planet Prize, James Hansen, Rescued, NASA, Robert Watson |
shpilk | National Works Alternative Energy Program | 06/27/10 03:06PM Eastern | energy, jobs, ekos |
Ellinorianne | What is Behind the War - Our Real Issue and What I Can Do | 06/27/10 03:28PM Eastern | environment, war, ekos, meta, opinion |
worldforallpeopleorg | New Gulf video; Oiled & dying dolphins and whales | 06/27/10 03:56PM Eastern | BP, gusher, ekos |
PaulLoeb | Unexpected Environmental Alliances Amidst The Oil Spill: 'Jesus Will Rip Your Head Off' | 06/27/10 05:49PM Eastern | bp, Corporate Greed, environment, environmental activism, environmentalism |
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