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Why are we building a research center full of deadly diseases in the tornado capital of the world?

by HiramWhittell Posted on June 18, 2015

The United States eradicated foot-and-mouth disease from its borders in 1929. The virus, deadly to livestock, persists in more than 100 countries, though, and travels with ease. It is able to hitchhike on shoes, clothes, and tires. Airborne, it can travel almost 40 miles overland and almost 190 over open ocean. …

If the foot-and-mouth virus—or any other airborne danger—escaped from the lab, the air currents would likely carry it beyond where it could cause harm. An out-of-the-way location makes sense because no lab is risk free. In 2007, for instance, the foot-and-mouth virus escaped from Great Britain’s Pirbright Institute, one of the world’s leading laboratories studying animal disease, and set off an outbreak at a nearby farm.

So it is absolutely mind-boggling that Homeland Security has decided to move the lab, to be known as the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, to the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, Kansas, smack in the middle of cattle country and Tornado Alley. Builders recently broke ground on the brand-new $1.25 billion dollar facility, which is set to be fully operational in 2022. It will include a biosafety level 4 lab, meaning one designed to handle deadly and exotic pathogens for which no vaccines or treatments exist. …

In 2010, the National Academy of Sciences conducted a risk assessment of Homeland Security’s first proposal for the Kansas lab and found a 70 percent probability that a foot-and-mouth virus release resulting in an outbreak would occur over the facility’s 50-year life span. In 2012, the National Research Council evaluated Homeland Security’s revised proposal and found considerable improvements in lab construction design that lowered the 50-year risk to below 1 percent, but this extremely low probability of accidental viral release was based on Homeland Security’s unsupported, overly optimistic estimates of human error rates.

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Why are we building a research center full of deadly diseases in the tornado capital of the world?

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Food Activists Target Ben & Jerry’s Even Though It Supports GMO Labeling

by BrianneRNAU Posted on June 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Ben & Jerry’s pitched a tent at Tennessee music festival Bonnaroo this week, where they dished out free ice cream with a side of lobbying. Their new flavor, ‘Food Fight!’ was inspired by the debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and consumers’ right to know what they’re eating. The ice cream brand has publicly supported the fight to GMO labeling on foods since its decision a year ago to start phasing out genetically modified foods from its products. So why is it still getting boycotted by organic-food activists?

The first victory in the fight for genetically modified food transparency came in Ben & Jerry’s home state of Vermont last month, when the state passed a law requiring food and drink manufacturers to label all genetically modified foods. The Grocers’ Manufacturers Association, a trade group that represents Monsanto, Pepsi-Co, and other big food companies, has sued Vermont as of last week over the new law and hopes to destroy legislation requiring food to be labeled with GMO stickers. In response to the lawsuit filed by the GMA, the Organic Consumers’ Association, a consumer protection and organic agriculture advocacy group, has renewed a 2013 boycott against the GMA and “traitor brands” whose parent companies are members. One of those “traitor brands” is Ben & Jerry’s, whose parent company, Unilever, is part of GMA.

Despite Ben & Jerry’s support for labeling laws and plan to phase out GMOs from its ingredients, the OCA won’t be amending its boycott list. “Any company that pays dues to the GMA is by virtue of its membership in the GMA, supporting the GMA’s anti-labeling campaigns, including the campaign against Vermont,” OCA representative tells Mother Jones. “We are asking brands like Ben & Jerry’s to pressure their parent companies to withdraw from the GMA.”

Christopher Miller, a Ben & Jerry’s representative, says that the ice cream manufacturer doesn’t deserve to be one of OCA’s banned brands, but acknowledges that “there is a role for everyone to play on the issues they care about.” Unilever owns more than 1,000 brands and holds a membership in the GMA, but when it acquired acquired Ben and Jerry’s in 2000 for $326 million, it promised to keep its hands off the brand’s social causes. Miller makes it clear that Ben & Jerry’s sides with Vermont in its ongoing fight against the GMA. “Anyone’s entitled to file suit,” he says. “But we believe that the law is legally defendable and sound. We think we’re going to win.” And Ben & Jerry’s will continue to support labeling bills as they spread through the states. “Our voice is important in this debate,” Miller says. “As a business, we can bring this to the mainstream audience.”

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Food Activists Target Ben & Jerry’s Even Though It Supports GMO Labeling

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"Veep" Just Aired Its Best Episode Yet

by CallieKotter Posted on April 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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This post contains some spoilers.

When I spoke with Veep creator Armando Iannucci last year, we had some fun discussing (among other topics) how he does his research for the HBO satire and why he would never, ever, ever allow Joe Biden on the show. But what really stood out to me was when Iannucci talked about his characters’ professional and personal frustrations—and how those frustrations reflect his view of Washington’s effect on the soul:

I don’t want the characters in Veep to seem like caricatures—I want them to be viewed as real people, with their own problems, and hopes, and dreams, and frustrations…And it’s that frustration and exasperation that I look for in comedy…What I want to do is show what the system can do to you, and to have the audience sympathize with the terrible set of circumstances these characters have to deal with every single day.

Iannucci is a brilliant satirist and a clever political observer. His brand of comedy and commentary (also seen in British TV series The Day Today and The Thick of It, and the latter’s brilliant 2009 spin-off film In the Loop) is a mischievous deromanticization of political and media elites. It’s smart, wildly funny stuff that’s full of carefully constructed, linguistically acrobatic profanity.

But with many of Veep‘s episodes, that sympathy he mentions in the above quote doesn’t always come through. Your average viewer might watch a random episode and come away with the impression that it was written by someone who despised Washington, DC, and all its inhabitants. (Iannucci is actually a self-described “politics geek” who finds DC “fascinating.”) However, in Sunday’s episode, “Alicia” (directed by Chris Morris and guest-starring Tracie Thoms), Iannucci’s humanist outlook is more apparent than it ever has been before in the series. This is the reason why “Alicia” is perhaps the finest episode Veep has yet to pull off.

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"Veep" Just Aired Its Best Episode Yet

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Jenny McCarthy Issues Blistering Indictment of ABC’s Continued Employment of Jenny McCarthy

by BettyWhitefoord Posted on March 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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Why is a person famous for controversially telling parents not to vaccinate their kids co-hosting ABC’s flagship daytime talk show The View? I don’t know. Probably because she’s famous and controversial, and people like to talk about people who are famous and controversial, and TV executives think people like to watch shows hosted by people who are famous and controversial, but maybe not. I don’t know what’s in Barbara Walter’s heart. Maybe there’s some other reason. Who knows!

According to Jenny McCarthy, however, the answer is that she’s famous and controversial for telling people not to vaccinate their kids.

A Q score is a measure of brand familiarity. It essentially measures a celebrity’s marketability. What this tweet is saying is ‘your outrage makes me more famous and my fame keeps me employed.’ Jenny McCarthy is famous for telling parents not to vaccinate their kids. This is not only awful advice, it’s dangerous advice, too. (There’s an outbreak of measles in New York City at this very moment.)

Vaccinate your kids.

(The View did not respond to my requests for comment on Jenny McCarthy’s suggestion that she is employed because of the notoriety she has achieved by loudly telling parents not to vaccinate their kids.)

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Jenny McCarthy Issues Blistering Indictment of ABC’s Continued Employment of Jenny McCarthy

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Eat It to Beat It! – David Zinczenko

by Myrna Posted on January 8, 2014

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Eat It to Beat It!

Banish Belly Fat-and Take Back Your Health-While Eating the Brand-Name Foods You Love!

David Zinczenko

Genre: Health & Fitness

Price: $11.99

Publish Date: December 31, 2013

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Seller: Random House, LLC


Eat the World’s Most Delicious Foods—and Start Dropping Pounds Today! Discover thousands of shocking food truths to help flatten your belly fast—and get you on the path to better health! ABC News Nutrition and Wellness editor Dave Zinczenko, author of the multimillion-copy bestselling Eat This, Not That! series, blows the lid off the bizarre, unnecessary, and shocking ingredients in many common brands, and shows you how making smart choices about the foods you love—including burgers, pizza, and chocolate—can help you lose weight, drop blood pressure, boost your immune system, and more. Discover how you can EAT IT! to help . . . BEAT IT! WEIGHT GAIN! IHOP’s Chicken and Spinach Salad has as many calories as 6 Klondike Bars! Good news: A similar salad at another restaurant will save you more than 1,200 calories! BEAT IT! MOODINESS! Some dark chocolate brands contain polyphenols, the near-magical nutrients that improve learning and memory, boost mood, and lower stress levels. BEAT IT! HIGH BLOOD SUGAR! Can you believe there’s oatmeal on the market with as much sugar per serving as 13 Hershey’s Kisses? Change your breakfast order and start taking control of your blood sugar levels today! With Eat It to Beat It! , better living starts right now! Advance praise for Eat It to Beat It! “David Zinczenko provocatively exposes what’s in our food, so grab a fork and start indulging your way back to health with his advice.” —Mehmet Oz, M.D. “Dave Zinczenko’s investigations into the truth about our food make him one of the top nutrition experts in America. Eat It to Beat It! is an essential guidebook for anyone with an appetite for eating and living well.” —Travis Stork, M.D., co-host, The Doctors From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Eat It to Beat It! – David Zinczenko

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Monsanto is currently testing GMO wheat in two states

by Emily Collins Posted on June 4, 2013

Monsanto is currently testing GMO wheat in two states

By John Upton

John Novotny

Last week, when the USDA announced that an unauthorized strain of GMO wheat was recently discovered on an Oregon farm, it was widely reported (by us, among others) that Monsanto had stopped field-testing its genetically modified wheat in 2005.

Now Bloomberg reports that the biotech giant actually resumed field tests of GMO wheat in 2011:

The world’s largest seed company planted 150 acres of wheat in Hawaii last year that was genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate weedkiller, which the company sells under the brand name Roundup, according to a Virginia Tech database administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another 300 acres of wheat engineered with Roundup tolerance and other traits are being tested in North Dakota this year.

Were these recent field trials linked to the outbreak of unwanted GMO wheat in Oregon? We don’t know that yet. Monsanto, which you may or may not choose to trust, told Bloomberg in an email that the Roundup Ready wheat in the new trials is “an entirely different event” than the escaped crop discovered in Oregon.

It’s weird to describe wheat as an “event,” instead of, oh, I don’t know, a “crop.” Seems like somebody is playing with words.

The company didn’t say whether the GMO wheat that it’s now growing in field trials is the same strain as the GMO wheat that showed up in Oregon. “The Roundup Ready wheat project that is the subject of the USDA report was previously discontinued,” Monsanto cryptically told Bloomberg.

Monsanto abandoned its previous Roundup Ready wheat trials in 2005, without securing government approval for the crop, at least in part because U.S. wheat farmers feared that a GMO strain could hurt exports. They were right. Exports have been hurt, even though the GMO strain was never OK’d or sold. Just imagine how much damage Monsanto could do to exports if it ever actually brings GMO wheat to market.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Monsanto is currently testing GMO wheat in two states

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Safer Brand Rose & Flower Organic Insect Killing Soap 32 Ounce Spray 5130

by 0c4g78x Posted on March 15, 2013

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Hydrofarm BAASP Plug Adapter Brand S

by 0c4g78x Posted on March 15, 2013

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Safer Brand 3-in-1 24 Ounce Ready to Use Garden Spray 5460

by 0c4g78x Posted on March 15, 2013

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Safer Brand Caterpillar Killer with BT, 8 Ounce Concentrate

by 0c4g78x Posted on March 15, 2013

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