GOT BOWEL DISEASE?

"Researchers believe they have found the strongest association yet between a disease commonly found in livestock and Crohn's disease, a condition of the digestive tract suffered by about one in 600 of the population." They're also postulating a link to irritable bowel syndrome. (via Vegan Porn)

VACATION TIME

See y'all at Summerfest! Those of you who don't see me there won't see much over the next couple weeks. But I'll be back at the Meat Facts desk in late August.

ANOTHER WEEK, ANOTHER RECALL

The War on E. Coli racks up more friendly-fire casualties as two people in Colorado are hospitalized and the company that made the beef they ate, Howard Beef Processors ("which does business as Ellison Meat Co."), has recalled nearly a hundred tons of ground-up dead cow on E. Coli concerns. So... the War on E.Coli is still progressing about as well as that other war...

GRILLIN' ILL

Here's one that almost fell through the cracks - Barbecued meat is even more carcinogenic than previously believed. "A typical two-hour barbecue can release the same level of dioxins as up to 220,000 cigarettes," reports the BBC, adding "The figures were based on grilling four large steaks, four turkey cuts and eight large sausages. Gosh. Where do you suppose all that dioxin came from?

ALBATROSS!...

Beginning in October, frozen pizza makers can use toppings with as little as 2 percent cooked meat or 3 percent raw meat, instead of the 12 percent cooked or 15 percent raw currently required. The American Frozen Food Institute sought the change, arguing that a less restrictive standard means they could produce pizzas with less fat and cholesterol. Note the direction of the change - "Meat" used to be a positive, so they had to meet a standard of 'enough' meat. Now the inclusion of actual meat has become a liability to be limited, even as the packaging plays up the comfortingly familiar word. AL...batross!

RINGLING MUST ANSWER ANIMAL CRUELTY CHARGES

On the ruling of a judge, Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey, or "Big Circus," has to answer charges that "circus employees routinely beat the elephants with sharp bull hooks, keep elephants in chains for long periods of time and forcibly remove baby elephants from their mothers before they are properly weaned." And that's just by the end of the matinee. I wonder how the clowns behind the Lamest Show on Earth are gonna wiggle out of this one, yet I feel sure they will. It's Big Circus. Wheeeeeeeee!

DANGEROUS ANIMALS

Two scientists who were studying the feasibility of humans living peaceably among grizzly bears got a rude and violent surprise after conjecturing that grizzlies weren't necessarily a threat to humans: "The dozens of massive Siberian grizzly bears whose lives were catalogued for the groundbreaking eight-year study have been slaughtered in their nature sanctuary as a message to the Canadian researchers. The people who killed the bears nailed the gall bladder of a baby grizzly to the research station's kitchen wall as a gruesome taunt." Now the study, obviously, is over. A fascinating and heartbreaking story that illustrates exactly who are the world's most dangerous animals and why.

USDA CAFETERIA SHUT DOWN BY HEALTH INSPECTORS

This one's priceless. Our nation's top agency guaranteeing the safety of our food was closed for multiple violations of the D.C. Health Code - including "'water leaking excessively' in the ceiling, employees not wearing hair restraints, and inadequate cleaning of the inside of ice machines, cabinets, surfaces and equipment. The biggest problem, however, seemed to be mouse droppings found everywhere ..." There's that old bugaboo - animal feces - that the USDA can't seem to get away from. According to the Government Accountability Project, "an industry-friendly USDA protected a Colorado beef processor and failed to intervene when contaminated meat was discovered at the plant two years before a massive meat recall." But at least that time it wasn't mouse feces, right?

MORE MAD COWS?

Those troublemakers at UPI are now reporting that there may be more mad cows involved in the recent Canadian case: Experts "cannot eliminate the possibility at least one other infected animal has resided within North America, its identity or fate unknown." The original mad cow, they say, "most likely had contracted the deadly disease from eating feed contaminated by the tissue from another cow carrying the illness." Contaminated feed, huh? But that would only be a problem if... say... Feed maker owns up to mad cow violation, FDA says. Uh oh. "But the prohibited feed posed a 'very, very small risk,' she says, because there have been no cases of mad cow disease in U.S. cattle." Round and round the logic goes.

WILD IN THE STREETS

In another reminder of the stupidity of bringing large unpredictable animals into town for entertainment purposes, two animals ran wild after escaping from a rodeo and a horse show. The rodeo bull was recaptured, but the horse was killed after it ran onto the highway and was hit by two cars, injuring one of the drivers. All in good fun, I guess.

ARE YOU A MAN OR A MOUSE?

The question's not that simple: Turns out even taking into account the differences between the two species, much of our mouse-based research may be wildly skewed due to the fact that the mice being studied are out of their freakin' minds from their hellish captivity. (via Vegan Porn) "Much of the research that relies on animals could be using brain-damaged subjects," says Discover Magazine, "jeopardizing the validity of the data it produces. This could mean that disease modeling, pharmaceutical research, and tests of chemical toxicity are tainted." It would also explain major errors like saccharin, thalidomide and the hundreds of chemicals whose effect on humans is out of sync with animal tests. Good thing India's premier drug research institute now says it can reduce animal testing by 80 percent through use of new computer programs. 80 percent, man. If they can, why not us?

LOWERING THE BAR?

What's the world coming to? "Hogs found wallowing in waste" yells the headline. Yeah, so what else is new? OK, I kid - the hogs were "in a putrid mix of urine, feces, and the decaying carcasses of about a dozen other hogs," but still - is our notion of animal cruelty changing? Perhaps so, since that's what the farmers involved have been charged with. On another animal farm, "filthy dogs, dying calves, starving pigs and sickly goats" have led to a similar charge. If this is the new world order, well, I'm all for it.

CREME DE LA MILK

Sometimes stories pop up and you don't know if they're related or not. All you can do is post 'em. But right as the Center for Science in the Public Interest brings out their revelation that ice cream is overstuffed with saturated fat, people in Scandinavia - Europe's biggest milk fans - are finally abandoning milk in droves and turning instead to soymilk. The nondairy surge is credited to "the rising incidence of food allergies and the perceived benefits of dairy alternatives." Yeah, one of those preceived benefits being the option of no frickin' saturated fat, jack!

THOSE STEAK-EATING VEGETARIANS

When are we gonna get a "dangerous vegan parents" story involving actual veganism? The cod-liver-oil pushers in Brooklyn, that was one thing, but now there's the Florida raw-food father - a "vegetarian" who "occasionally ate a steak and potatoes meal," sez the Miami Herald. Hmmm, no, I don't think I'd call that "parent" material, just on the grounds of logic alone.

NOPE, NO MAD COW HERE. UNLESS...

"The federal government's monitoring system for cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease could be missing tens of thousands of victims, scientists and consumer advocates have told United Press International." Citing autopsy studies showing "3 percent to 13 percent of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia actually suffered from CJD," the story says this means "120,000 or more CJD victims going undetected and not included in official statistics."

WHO'S THE TERRORIST AGAIN?

"To ensure the nation's food supply is safe from terrorists, the Food and Drug Administration has announced it will increase inspections of imported food this year." Imported, huh? Maybe they should look around and see if, you know, the calls are coming from inside the house. Not only is the USDA still pro-actively passive in dealing with the meat industry's various abuses, but the meatpackers sometimes forget which form of mass-murder they're involved in, and slaughter the meddling inspectors. How can the government-approved food supply be "safe from terrorists" if not even the USDA themselves are?

SAY NO TO DRUGS

You don't need them to lower your cholesterol if you switch to a vegetarian diet, according to a small Canadian study (and one, I should point out, was partially funded with Almond money). The preliminary but dramatic results could have "far-reaching implications for a large number of patients" by enabling them to lower their cholesterol without drugs," as one scientist was quoted. The implications, however, could reach even further: Study leader David Jenkins "believes that humans may be evolutionarily adapted to the [vegetarian] diet, which is similar to that eaten by gorillas and orangutans." Ain't that a kicker! But wait, there's one more... "The patients generally found the ape diet acceptable, with the main complaint being the large quantity of food that had to be eaten in order not to lose weight." You read that right.

AWWWWW, NUTS!

Don't get it confused with this story* but the FDA said last week that a handful of nuts a day can be heart healthy - almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts and peanuts - can make the claim. And this week more good reason to eat most of those nuts, as one of their chief benefits, Omega-3 fatty acids, are now seen to protect against Alzheimers. Amusingly, the USA Today version, like most stories of this type, focuses on fish as health food throughout, then has to add a HEALTH WARNING at the end that doesn't, of course, apply to the nuts.
UPDATE 7/23: Another warning that doesn't apply to nuts is that of flame-retardant that's now been found in fish.

[* Tip o'the hat to mr_crash_davis]

LAB ANIMALS ROUTINELY MISTREATED: SUIT

A veterinarian has fired by UM, Mount Sinai after speaking out on alleged animal cruelty, reports the Sun-Sentinel. "The staff mistreated mice, rabbits and sheep used for testing asthma drugs and other experiments. Mice were stuffed into cages so crowded that one scratched half its face off on the bars, she said in her lawsuit. In another incident, she said, a sheep was left unattended on a breathing machine that malfunctioned, preventing the animal from exhaling and blowing it up like a balloon."

"For a year I kept my mouth shut. I just tried to help. But it got worse and worse." Well... we can all rest easy in the knowledge that it's an isolated incident, right? I mean, animal testing wouldn't just be based on the routine abuse of animals, would it?

THIS JUST IN: TOMATOES!

Just one serving a day of tomato-based foods could lower your risk for heart disease by as much as 30 percent, says a new Harvard study published by the American Society for Nutritional Sciences. The tomatoes' protective power is equally strong in pasta sauces and on pizza. Now that's pretty damn strong.