UK health officials threw away £74m of bird flu ‘wonder-drug’

from RT.com: UK’s Department of Health threw away £74m worth of Tamiflu, the antiviral drug, before its expiry date, due to unsafe storage procedures. In total the country has spent £600 million since 2006 on drugs to fight a flu pandemic that has not materialized.

The figures, revealed by the National Audit Office (NAO), demonstrate a "shocking example of incompetence", according to Public Accounts committee chairwoman Margaret Hodge.

Prompted by several public panics over possible avian flu pandemics in the mid-2000s, the UK government decided to create a national stockpile of Tamiflu (produced by Swiss company Roche) and Relenza (made by London-based GSK) – two relatively new and supposedly revolutionary drugs that neutralized the flu virus.

Between 2006 and 2013 40 million units of Tamiflu alone were purchased. A quarter of those had to be written off.

During the pandemic of swine flu (which turned out to be less deadly than the common variant) in 2009 and 2010 the Department of Health panic-bought up huge emergency supplies as governments competed with each other to secure the dwindling supply.

The war against the organic mafia

from presseurop.eu: Fraud in the organic farming sector has become a thriving international industry made up of a complex network of companies that bears all the marks of traditional organised crime.

Earlier, in the supposedly good old days, lone farmers or traders in the organic business stooped to cheating at their worst. Here, they sprayed a little pesticide on the field; there, they mixed in a handful of conventional low-cost eggs with the pricey organic eggs. Since neither the volume nor weight changed, hardly anyone twigged.

But organic fraudsters in Italy have long passed that stage. There, bands of professionals working with a whole network of companies in different countries have recently been slapping ‘organic’ labels on vast amounts of conventional products.

In April, it was announced that the public prosecutor's office in the Adriatic town of Pesaro is investigating 23 suspected members of a counterfeiting ring. Although all are from Italy, they work in Moldova, Malta and various places around western Europe and beyond. The suspects even include members of the Moldovan branch of an organic inspection agency from Italy, which should actually be on the trail of the fraudsters.

According to investigators, all of the suspects have been involved in issuing fake organic certificates for conventional foodstuffs from Moldova and Ukraine. To disguise the trail of the goods, they exploited a network of at least ten companies across different countries. The public prosecutor has already seized 1,500 tons of maize and 30 tonnes of soya in the large-scale operation tagged the Green War.

In previous cases, conventional goods were brought into the EU and relabelled there. “Now, however, the product is stamped ‘organic’ in Moldova for example, certified right on site, then exported and brought to the market,” Pesaro prosecutor Silvia Cecchi told TAZ. This ploy was meant to make it even tougher for the authorities to uncover the scam.

Monsanto Declares a Sneaky Social Media War Against Protesters

from ActivistPost.com: One of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the grass roots food freedom fight is social media. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and many more networks allow people to instantly connect and provide a platform for information to be passed on exponentially. Facebook and Google are the two biggest websites in the entire world, and their reach is nearly unlimited.

Last week, the Monsanto Company made it very clear that they were under the gun via social media, and they went on the defense, weakly claiming that those who object with their toxic seeds and deadly farming methods were “elitist,” thereby attempting to undermine us as snobbish people who don’t see the big picture and who don’t care about world hunger.

This week, they’ve upped their game. Mysterious things have been occurring on the social networks: posts have disappeared, some posts are hidden from the timelines of readers, and trolls abound on pages promoting this weekend’s March Against Monsanto, happening worldwide on May 25.

Like any cornered rat, the leviathan seed company can see the very large threat coming their way, and it appears that they are pulling out all the stops to fight as dirty as they can. But the movement against the company is so powerful, that despite paid-off politicians and billions of dollars in the war chest, Monsanto knows that they’ve been outmatched. What we’re seeing now are the last, desperate attempts to keep the general public from learning about the manmade global disaster that was created by Monsanto.

‘Like hardened criminals’: UK police sample DNA from 120,000 children in 2 years

from RT.com: British police collected the DNA of more than 120,000 children in just two years, with a thousand of them aged 10 at the time of the swab. Most of the youngsters have committed no punishable crime, but their DNA data will be stored for years.

“It is disappointing to see valuable crime-fighting resources being wasted on taking DNA samples from thousands of innocent children while serious offenses go undetected,” said Francis Crook, chief executive of the legal activists Howard League for Penal Reform.

The group was able to obtain the data for 2010 and 2011 with a Freedom of Information request. Other than the overall numbers, the biggest surprise was the age spread – showing that children aged 13 were almost as likely to be recorded in the police database as 17-year-olds.

Seven out of 10 swabbed under-18s were boys.

Most of the youngsters had been taken into police stations pending investigation, or as a caution for minor offences. The vast majority were never charged with recordable crimes.

Researcher "Mapping The Food Genome" Of What Americans Eat

from cbsnews.com: Do your kids love chocolate milk? It may have more calories on average than you thought. Same goes for soda. Until now, the only way to find out what people in the United States eat and how many calories they consume has been government data, which can lag behind the rapidly expanding and changing food marketplace. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are trying to change that by creating a gargantuan map of what foods Americans are buying and eating. Part of the uniqueness of the database is its ability to sort one product into what it really is - thousands of brands and variations.

Vermont Pushing To Be First State To Mandate GMO Labeling

from undergroundhealth.com: Vermont seemed more likely than ever to become the first US state to mandate the labeling of genetically modified food (GMO) after a bill passed the state house, though legislators worry about a lawsuit threat from biotech giant Monsanto.

Similar bills seeking to provide consumers with labels at the grocery store that highlight what products contain GMOs have recently failed. In California, a ballot initiative which bypassed Congress after receiving 850,000 signatures was defeated in 2012 after a large consortium of biotech companies including Monsanto spent some $50 million on an ad blitz against the legislation.

As RT reported in late April, a new federal bill which would mandate the labeling of GMOs, the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act, was introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Though few expect such laws to pass on a national level, the bill was notable for its inclusion of a wider base of bipartisan support, with nine Senate co-sponsors and 22 cosponsors in the House.

Other countries already require GMO labeling Though sixty-four other countries, including EU members, China, Russia, Brazil, India and Japan already have existing regulations in place to label GMOs for consumers the issue is a highly contentious one in the US, both at the federal and state level.

According to Senator Boxer, more than 90% of Americans support the labeling of genetically engineered products. Though the Food and Drug Administration requires the labeling of over 3,000 ingredients, additives and processes it does not consider GMOs to be “materially” different as they cannot be tasted, smelled or identified by consumers by other means.
 

New Buycott App Lets You Take Control Of Your Food Choices

from undergroundhealth.com: Buycott app lets you vote with your wallet in the supermarket. A new app scans grocery barcodes and more for information about the brand’s parent companies and where those companies spend their money. Know which companies support GMO and where their money is going.

The app takes knowing where your food comes from further, telling you not only what brand belongs to what company, but what that company does with your dollars.

Here’s a concrete example. If GMO labeling is an issue that is important to you, you can join two campaigns on Buycott. The first is “Demand GMO Labeling.” If you join this campaign, any time you scan a product from a company that donated more than $150,000 to oppose GMO labeling in California, the app will tell you that you’re avoiding buying products from that brand.

Currently, the government doesn’t require that any GMO information be passed on to the consumer. Big food corporations want it to stay that way. Monsanto, for example, spends millions of dollars to keep GMO information off of packaging. How much? Buycott will tell you.

Importantly, and promisingly, users can join campaigns (both for and against) issues that they care about. The app keeps track of user input, making it easy to shop for products that don’t conflict with your beliefs. And this is what it is all about: knowing where your food comes from and where the dollars that buy it go.

If initial reaction is any gauge then it would appear this is something that consumers have been waiting for. There have been some negative user reviews as Buycott has been struggling to deal with the traffic. However, it’s worth keeping an eye on, just like your grocery basket.

Venezuela President: Food Shortages Due to 'Economic Warfare'

from venezuelanalysis.com: During a speech on Saturday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed food shortages on an “economic war” from the Venezuelan private sector, and assured the government is taking measures to resolve the issue. Shortages of basic food items have been felt across the country in recent months, with Venezuela’s Central Bank reporting for the month of April the highest level of shortages since 2009.

Colorado House Unanimously Votes for Industrial Hemp

from Tenth Amendment Center tenthamendmentcenter.com: The Colorado state house today voted to approve SB13-241 , a bill that would legalize the farming and production of “industrial hemp” within the state. If signed into law, the bill would effectively nullify the unconstitutional federal ban on hemp production in Colorado. The House voted unanimously on a slightly amended version of a bill already approved by the State Senate, 34-1. The legislation will now go back to the Senate, which is widely expected to send the legislation to Governor Hickenlooper for a signature. The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to the Congressional Resource Service. Recent congressional research indicates that the hemp market consists of over 25,000 various products. The same research found that America imports over $400 million worth of hemp from other countries. At this time of economic difficulty, 13-241 would not only expand freedom and support the Constitution, it would also be a great jobs bill. With the passage of Amendment 64, which legalized small amounts of marijuana for adults, hemp was removed from the state’s controlled substances list, though a provision of the initiative states that that hemp cultivation is contingent on legislative action – this bill would be that required action necessary to legalize hemp and authorize the state to begin distributing hemp licenses.Under the proposal farmers would have the option of applying for a 10-acre plot in order to study the viability of various hemp varieties, or they could apply for a larger, full-scale hemp farm - one that wouldn’t be limited by the number of plants, but rather by the THC content in said plants.

The More Illegal Immigrants That Go On Food Stamps The More Money JP Morgan Makes

from activistpost.com: Recently uncovered documents prove that the Obama administration has been working with the Mexican government to increase the number of illegal immigrants on food stamps, and when more illegal immigrants go on food stamps JP Morgan makes more money. As you will read about below, JP Morgan has made at least 560 million dollars processing Electronic Benefits Transfer cards. Each month, JP Morgan makes between $.31 and $2.30 for every single person on food stamps (and that does not even include things like ATM fees, etc).

So JP Morgan has a vested interest in seeing poverty grow and the number of people on food stamps increase. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been aggressively seeking to expand participation in the food stamp program. Under Obama, the number of people on food stamps has grown from 32 million to more than 47 million. And even though poverty in America is absolutely exploding, that apparently is not good enough for the Obama administration.

It has now come out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided the Mexican government with literature that actively encourages illegal immigrants to enroll in food stamps. One flyer contains the following statement in Spanish: "You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children." The bold and the underlining are in the original document in case you were wondering. Overall, federal spending on food stamps increased from 18 billion dollars in 2000 to 85 billion dollars in 2012, and at this point one out of every five U.S. households in now enrolled in the food stamp program. When people illegally or fraudulently enroll in the food stamp program, it makes it harder for those that desperately need the help to be able to get it.