May, 25 2011, 11:44am EDT
USDA Urged to Prohibit Antibiotic-Resistant Salmonella in Ground Meat and Poultry
Dangerous Strains Make Foodborne Illnesses Harder to Treat, Says CSPI
WASHINGTON
Ground meat and poultry found to contain antibiotic-resistant strains of Salmonella should be recalled from the marketplace or withheld from commerce, according to a regulatory petition filed today by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The nonprofit food safety watchdog group wants the U.S. Department of Agriculture to declare four such Salmonella strains as "adulterants" under federal law, making products that contain them illegal to sell.
CSPI is also urging testing for antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in ground meat and poultry, citing a number of major outbreaks of foodborne illnesses linked to the four strains. Those illnesses are harder for physicians to treat, resulting in longer hospitalizations and increased mortality, according to the group.
"The only thing worse than getting sick from food is being told that no drugs exist to treat your illness," said CSPI food safety staff attorney Sarah Klein. "And that's what more consumers will hear if these drug-resistant pathogens keep getting into our meat."
USDA already recalls products contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella--but only after those products have made people sick, according to CSPI. The group's petition asks the agency to establish a testing regime for these pathogens in ground meat and poultry in the same way that it has for E. coli O157:H7. USDA declared that particularly dangerous strain of E. coli an adulterant in 1994.
"USDA should take action before people get sick, and require controls and testing for these pathogens before they reach consumers," said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. "The research shows that antibiotic-resistant Salmonella in ground meat and poultry is a hazard and its time to move to a more preventive system of controlling the risks at the plant and on the farm."
The four Salmonella strains covered by the petition, Salmonella Heidelberg, Salmonella Newport, Salmonella Hadar, and Salmonella Typhimurium, have all been linked to outbreaks.
In 2009, an outbreak of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Newport linked to Cargill beef resulted in at least 40 illnesses in four states. And this year, the USDA oversaw a recall of frozen turkey burgers contaminated with antibiotic-resistant Salmonella Hadar. That outbreak sickened at least 12. But because foodborne illness is dramatically underreported the true number of illnesses is likely much higher.
"Physicians and patients are now facing pathogens that are virtually untreatable," said Dr. Stephen A. Lerner, a professor of medicine specializing in infectious disease at Wayne State University School of Medicine. "This petition would reduce human exposure to some dangerous drug-resistant Salmonella, which is crucial because our critically-important antibiotics are losing effectiveness and they aren't being replaced by new ones. We must do all that we can to reduce antibiotic-resistant infections from food."
The danger of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in the food supply is well-documented and has been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and by USDA itself. Those agencies are working together to address the issue and recently produced a document stating that "drug resistant pathogens are a growing menace to all people," and that "drug resistance threatens to reverse the medical advances of the last half century."
Antibiotic resistance is an inevitable consequence of antibiotic overuse, according to CSPI. Most antibiotics used on animal farms are not used to treat disease, but to promote growth or to prevent diseases caused by overcrowding, poor hygiene, and other problems.
CSPI has long urged the FDA to stop the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics. In fact, CSPI is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit filed today by the Natural Resources Defense Council aimed at compelling the FDA to withdraw its approval for most non-therapeutic uses of two important antibiotics, penicillin and tetracyclines, in animal feed.
Improving conditions on factory farms, thereby reducing both the need for antibiotic use and the resulting resistance, is a primary tenet of Food Day--a new grassroots mobilization CSPI is planning for October 24. Reducing overcrowding in hen houses and concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, could lead to more judicious use of antibiotics and would be beneficial for animal and human health, according to the group.
Since 1971, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science.
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Pulitzer Snubs Palestinian Journalists' Gaza Coverage
The Pulitzer Prize Board avoided "naming the brave Palestinian journalists who did the reporting and filming and died in record numbers," said one journalist.
May 06, 2024
In recent years, the Pulitzer Prize Board has given special recognition to the journalists of Ukraine and Afghanistan for reporting from war zones, honoring their "courage, endurance, and commitment to truthful reporting" and their ability to tell their communities' stories under "profoundly tragic and complicated circumstances."
On Monday, no such recognition was given to Palestinian reporters in Gaza, at least 92 of whom have been among more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in the enclave since Israel began its bombardment in October.
The annual journalism and literature awards included a special citation for "journalists and media workers covering the war in Gaza"—but didn't differentiate between those around the world who have spent the last seven months telling the story of Israel's escalation from the safety of far-off countries, and those struggling to report on the destruction of their own home under the constant threat of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacks.
"The missing word is—is always—Palestinian," said Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG). "Palestinian journalists and media workers deserve, if nothing else, this recognition; and half of them are dead."
Public health writer Abdullah Shihipar noted that in 2022, the board awarded the special citation to the "journalists of Ukraine." In 2021, it recognized "women and men of Afghanistan," saying that from "staff and freelance correspondents to interpreters to drivers to hosts, courageous Afghan residents helped produce Pulitzer-winning and Pulitzer-worthy images and stories."
This year, said Intercept journalist Jeremy Scahill, giving a special citation to "'media workers covering the war in Gaza' is a way to avoid naming the brave Palestinian journalists who did the reporting and filming and died in record numbers."
Many of those killed, Scahill added, might not have been had it not been for U.S.-made weapons sold to Israel.
The Pulitzer Prize for international reporting was awarded to The New York Times "for its wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas' lethal attack in southern Israel on October 7, Israel's intelligence failures, and the Israeli military's sweeping, deadly response in Gaza."
One of the Times' most explosive articles about Israel and Gaza, "Screams Without Words," about the alleged sexual assaults of Israeli victims of the October 7 attack, was not among those submitted for consideration. The article has come under scrutiny because of the anti-Palestinian bias expressed by one of the freelance reporters who worked on it, and questions about its veracity.
WAWOG, which has started a website titledThe New York War Crimes, posted on social media that the Times should have instead been awarded the Pulitzer for "manufacturing consent."
By honoring the Times for its international reporting this year, said City University of New York sociology professor Heba Gowayed, the Pulitzer Prize "lost any credibility it ever had."
The prize is administered by Columbia University, where students have been protesting for weeks against U.S. support for the IDF and against the school's investment in companies that contract with Israel.
Last week, the university called on the New York Police Department to forcibly remove student protesters from a school building; police told student journalists they would be arrested if they left Pulitzer Hall to report on the incident. Student journalists are reportedly still being barred from campus.
Columbia, said Jack Mirkinson of The Nation, announced the Pulitzers "at the exact same time it is clamping down on the press freedom of its own students. You couldn't make it up."
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Sanders Says US Must 'End All Offensive Military Aid' as Israel Targets Rafah
The Vermont independent condemned the United States' support of Israel in a speech announcing his Senate reelection campaign.
May 06, 2024
As Israel rejected a cease-fire deal that Hamas had accepted Monday, dashing the hopes of civilianstrapped in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that an invasion could be averted, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders called on the Biden administration to stop the looming attack that humanitarian and rights organizations have been warning against for months.
The Vermont independent senator said President Joe Biden must follow through on his call for Israel to protect civilian lives by forgoing a ground invasion of Rafah. In March Biden said the attack would be a "red line" unless Israel developed a credible plan to evacuate civilians, who include an estimated 600,000 children in the city.
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"Now an assault is imminent," said Sanders. "It will kill countless civilians. President Biden must back his words with action."
The senator made his latest demand for an end to Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza hours after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initiated a forced evacuation of about 100,000 people in eastern Rafah, dropping leaflets that ordered displaced families to move to a strip of land along Gaza's coast. An estimated 600,000 children are among the city's current population.
Israel has killed scores of people in Rafah in recent weeks with airstrikes on residential areas. Last week, dozens of U.S. House Democrats called on Biden to ensure a full-scale ground assault would not go forward, days before Israeli officials briefed the U.S.—the world's largest funder of the IDF—about its plan to forcibly expel people from the city.
Late last month Biden signed a foreign aid package that included $17 billion for Israel's military—legislation that Sanders voted against.
Sanders reiterated his demand for Biden to end his support for the IDF as he announced his 2024 reelection campaign.
Along with the climate crisis, healthcare and prescription drug costs, and protecting U.S. democracy, said Sanders, Israel's assault on Gaza is "very much on the minds of Vermonters," whom he has represented in the Senate since 2007.
While Israel had the right to defend itself against Hamas for its October 7 attack, said Sanders, "it did not and does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, which is exactly what it is doing."
"Thirty-four thousand Palestinians have already been killed and 77,000 have been wounded—70% of whom are women and children," he added. "According to humanitarian organizations, famine and starvation are now imminent. In my view, U.S. tax dollars should not be going to the extremist Netanyahu government to continue its devastating war against the Palestinian people."
Top Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have pushed back against a potential cease-fire deal in recent days, with Smotrich saying last week that Israel must see to the "total annihilation" of cities in Gaza, including Rafah.
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GOP Senators Threaten ICC: 'Target Israel and We Will Target You'
"You have been warned," wrote 12 Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
May 06, 2024
Just over a week before the International Criminal Court issued a statement condemning threats against the institution, a dozen Republicans in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the ICC's prosecutor warning him against pursuing charges against Israeli officials over war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.
The letter, dated April 24 and reported exclusively by Zeteo on Monday, explicitly threatens U.S. retaliation against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top Israeli officials.
"Target Israel and we will target you," reads the letter, which was led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a notorious war hawk, and signed by 11 others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
The letter specifically threatens to sanction ICC employees and associates and bar them and their families from entering the United States, which is not a party to the ICC.
"You have been warned," states the letter, which invokes the American Service-Members’ Protection Act—a 2002 law informally known as "The Hague Invasion Act."
As Zeteo explained, the law "authorizes the U.S. president 'to use all means necessary and appropriate' to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC."
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who delivered the infamous GOP response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address earlier this year, told Zeteo that the letter is "not a threat," but "a promise."
Read the letter from 12 Republican senators threatening ICC chief prosecutor @KarimKhanQC with "severe" consequences for him, his family & staff if he goes ahead with an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. "You have been warned."
Oh and subscribe to Zeteo too: https://t.co/pVvXi4IB6CÂ pic.twitter.com/aXfKH03T16
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 6, 2024
The 12 Republicans sent their letter days before the office of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan released a statement warning that its "independence and impartiality are undermined... when individuals threaten to retaliate against the court or against court personnel" as they conduct their investigations.
"Such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offense against the administration of justice under [Article] 70 of the Rome Statute," the statement added. "The office insists that all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence its officials cease immediately."
While the ICC statement did not mention any individuals or governments by name, it is apparent that its message was directed at least in part at Republican lawmakers in the U.S.
The Biden White House and Netanyahu have also spoken out against the ICC amid reports that it is considering arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and other senior officials.
"We've been really clear about the ICC investigation," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters late last month. "We do not support it. We don't believe that they have the jurisdiction. And I'm just gonna leave it there for now."
Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed more than 34,600 people in Gaza—a death toll that could surge if Israel moves ahead with its planned ground invasion of Rafah. Women and children account for up to 70% of those killed by Israel's military thus far.
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