GM Soy - Harmful?

Recently, when searching for the pros and cons of GM foods, I came across this article from thenaturalnews.com. The interesting title of this article – GM Soy Destroying Children – attracted my attention.

In this article, it was stated that several studies was done by the American Academy of Environmental Medicines, and these researches concluded that GM foods could result in infertility, immune problem, accelerated aging, changes in the cellular structure of major organs, etc. It can also increase risk of allergies, asthma, and antibiotic resistant infections.

Upon further reading, I found out that Monsanto was the biggest company providing GMO seeds and herbicides. Apparently, they make their GMO seeds resistant to their herbicides which have very strong toxic effects, so that their crops will not be destroyed by their own herbicides.

So how strong is their herbicide? According to UK Telegraph, direct contact of the herbicides can result in severe illness and maybe death. Also, mothers that stay close to these crops has double the risk of having a fetus with birth deformity. Besides these, one of Monsanto’s herbicides also causes harmful effects to U.S soldiers and Vietnamese citizens.

After linking from one website to another, I discovered that many people are writing posts about Monsanto being ‘Evil”. Here are some interesting links to get a better understanding of this influential company:

1) http://www.walletpop.com/2010/02/04/monsanto-the-evil-corporation-in-your-refrigerator/ 

2) http://www.nafwa.org/general-nutrition/alternative-nutrition/24918-good-news-evil-monsanto-finally-reaping-its-just-desserts.html

Cindy Chan 

0902991I

Fukushima bans shipment of beef

If you've heard the radio, or watch the news, or read the newspaper, I'm sure everyone would be alarmed by the latest news on Fukushima banning the shipment of beef!

Why is it so?!

Due to the earthquake that occurred just months ago and the nuclear plant breaking down, fearing of the spread of radiation. And we were assured that food(s) from Japan were safe for consumption and there are no radioactive contamination.

BUT, now shipment of beef is banned because of the fear that the meat are all contaminated.

"More than 500 cows are thought to have eaten radiation-tainted hay and already been shipped to other parts of Japan."
Taken from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14198789


"Consumers are extremely concerned, despite the government saying that eating the contaminated beef a few times is not harmful to health at current levels. Experts say this scare could cause people to avoid eating beef completely and severely hurt the industry in the short term.
People were already wary after some vegetables, milk, seafood and tea had all been found to have higher radiation levels since the nuclear disaster. But again the government has said the radiation in these food products is not at levels harmful to human health. "
Taken from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14195987

AVA will conduct thorough checks, but do be careful of what you consume too!

Gladys Lim

0901188C

China's Food Safety - What to be done?

With regards to my earlier post on 'The Recipe of China's Food Safety Crisis by Huang Shuo', I came across this article which addresses the criticism made from Channel NewsAsia.

'Death penalty for China food safety crimes'

Read the article:
BEIJING: China's top court has ordered capital punishment for food safety crimes that result in fatalities, as the nation battles a wave of scares over tainted foodstuffs.

In a notice on Friday the Supreme People's Court urged harsher penalties for manufacturers who produce tainted foodstuffs and for food inspectors convicted of dereliction of duty.

"Those food safety crimes leading to fatalities or any other serious aftermath should be sentenced to death in accordance with the law," the notice said.

The order was issued after China eliminated capital punishment for some economic crimes in February, as it moved to curb use of the death penalty in a nation believed to execute more people than the rest of the world combined.

But a wave of food scares seems to have prompted the harsher penalties as safety problems continue despite government promises to clean up the food industry following a deadly 2008 milk scandal.

Tainted pork, toxic milk, dyed buns, melons laden with chemicals and other dodgy foods have surfaced in recent weeks, making consumers ill and highlighting the government's apparent inability to oversee China's huge and under-regulated food industry.

According to Amnesty International, China executes more people each year than the rest of the world put together, but the exact number remains a closely guarded state secret.

-AFP/wk

Taken from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1131765/1/.html 

After reading this, are we feeling a bit of consoled because we, consumers, were all in fear of consuming food products produced from China due to the various food safety issues (i.e. tainted food products) related? But on the other hand, is the penalty too harsh because it is human lives after all? But introducing this penalty may serve as an advantage because food producers would be more alert and to tighten their safety procedures. Well, controversial issue....

Gladys Lim

0901188C

Say bye to Bird FLU ?

Came across this article last week, and find it rather amusing.
How technology has improved.
Genetic Modified Food used to help in improving the stocks of the food product, and improve the nutrition of the food.
Now, it can even prevent BIRD FLU from occurring!

Here's the article!

Engineered chickens can't pass on flu

15 23 14 January 2011 by Debora MacKenzie

For similar stories, visit the Food and Drink , Bird Flu and GM Organisms Topic Guides

Flu is hard to handle in chickens. Simply vaccinating them doesn't work very well: the vaccine must be precisely matched to the type of flu that is circulating, and even then vaccinated birds still transmit some virus. That virus then evolves, which may be what produced the H5N1 bird flu that has killed at least 306 people – as well as countless birds. So it would be great if we could genetically engineer chickens to resist all flu.

Flu carries its genes in eight chunks of RNA, each of which must bind to an RNA-replicating enzyme produced by the virus to reproduce itself – and the virus – during an infection. In an attempt to thwart this process, Laurence Tiley at the University of Cambridge and colleagues equipped chickens with DNA that produces a short hairpin-shaped molecule of RNA. This matches the short sequence on each of the eight chunks of flu RNA where the replicating enzyme binds. In tests in cultured chicken cells, the hairpin RNA bound to the replicating enzyme and prevented it from reproducing flu RNA.

It wasn't so simple in whole chickens, however. When birds engineered to make the hairpin RNA were infected with H5N1, the virus replicated in them nevertheless – to lethal effect. The birds still shed the virus too. But somehow none of the birds housed with them, engineered or not, caught the flu – although they caught it readily from non-engineered birds infected with H5N1.

Obscure mechanism

"The mechanism underlying this effect is not known," the team admits. The reason why non-infected chickens stayed flu-free wasn't that the virus mutated to become less dangerous, so that the target birds caught it but just didn't get sick – they didn't even develop antibodies to H5N1, showing they didn't catch the virus in the first place. It could be that the hairpin RNA interferes with recently discovered small RNA molecules made by the flu virus that help regulate infection.

"We consider these birds to be a first step towards producing robustly resistant chickens, and clearly it is important to understand the mechanism in as much detail as possible," says Tiley. The team plans to pass flu through the modified chickens repeatedly to see how it works – and assess any effects on the virus's evolution.

Whatever the mechanism, the hairpin RNA should work against all kinds of flu, unlike current vaccines. And the researchers say flu is unlikely to evolve to evade the hairpin's effect on its replicating enzyme – that would require the enzyme and its binding sites on all eight of flu's genome segments to mutate at once, which seems unlikely.

Ways around the block

Other ways to evade the block on transmission may well evolve, however, as maximising transmission is the main selection pressure on disease organisms. The question, says Andrew Read of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, is whether this makes the virus more or less dangerous.

"You can picture this leading to a more aggressive strain that would overcome whatever is stopping transmission," he says. "But it could also select for less virulent flu, that wouldn't kill the bird so fast, giving it more time to transmit to another host."

The way to test this would be to compare how viruses with low virulence and high virulence evolve in resistant hosts, says Read. Any animal with engineered resistance should be tested for its effect on pathogen evolution, he says, as similar experiments are likely to be tried in pigs and other animals that get flu, and with other animal diseases.

Even if such tests demonstrate that the GM animals are an effective way to combat flu, people may not want to eat the flu-proof animals. "Further development will undoubtedly stimulate debate about the application of this technology in food production," the team drily concludes.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1198020

To find out more, you can read at http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19974-engineered-chickens-cant-pass-on-flu.html

Felicia Goh
0901982I

Updates!

According to the latest updates on AVA's website,

major brands that have passed the tests for phthalate contamination are:

1.    A-Gan Tea

2.    AGV

3.    Ai Zhi Wei

4.    Allswell

5.    Alo

6.    Arkon

7.    Asianstory

8.    AWON

9.    BEI CHENG

10. Bamboo House

11. Big Bear

12. Boba

13. Chen Jiah Juang

14. Chia Li Won

15. Chia Meei

16. Coca Cola

17. Comebuy

18.  COMPANION

19. Cool Sport

20. Coyaku

21. Da Hu Nong Chang

22. DEGUNXINGYE

23. Double Great

24. Drink Tea

25. Excellence

26. Famous House

27. FONEN & FONHER

28. FRESH HOUSE

29. Gino

30. Gong Cha

31. Grand Chainly

32. GREENMAX

33. Green Rose

34. GROUND

35. Hao Han

36. High Tea

37. Hiyo

38. Hong Pin

39. Hoswell

40. Huang Chi

41. Hwee Mene (Zen Q desserts)

42. Ice Cool

43. I-Mei

44. Jeter

45. Jia Na

46. JinJln

47. KAWA

48. Kang Quan

49. Kiat You Ka

50. King Kung

51. Koi Cafe

52. Konjac

53. LA KAFFA

54. Lawrence

55. Li Ki

56. LIREN

57. Lucky Six

58. MAU LIN

59. Milk Green

60. Mine Shine

61. Mr Brown

62. Natuareceutica

63. Nature Organic

64. Nice Choice

65. Oceanspray

66. OKT

67. Orginic Health

68. Pai Chia Chen

69. Plus Rigina

70. Pokka

71. Polar

72. Puree

73. QIAFENG

74. Royal Family

75. Run Zhi Quan

76. Sagiko

77. Seasons

78. Shangi

79. Share Tea

80. Shi Chen

81. Shih Chuan

82. Sportade

83. Starfresh

84. State of the Art Innovation

85. Sunford Dessert

86. Sunlife

87. Sushi Express

88. Sweet Garden

89. Sweet Talk

90. Tai Bread

91. Taisun

92. Tea Time

93. TIAN YANG

94. TIAN TSAI

95. Triko

96. Tung-I (UniPresident)

97. U-May

98.  WEIDER

99. Yangnan Foods

100. Yang Zi

101. Yeo’s

102. YILUN

103.YONGSHENG

104. Yuan Xuan

105.Yi Mei

106.3:15PM 

http://www.ava.gov.sg/status%20of%20brands%20tested%20for%20dehp.htm

P.S. Note that Koi and Gong Cha are cleared!!!! =D

E.coli's situation: limited to Germany

Food poisoning cases that consumed foods supplied by caterer, Mum's Kitchen Catering Pte Ltd.: All patients have recovered 

Stay tuned!

Gladys Lim

0901188C

Genetically Modifed Cows to Produce Human Breast Milk

While on my way to work this morning, I listened to Class 95FM as usual. Road safety, weather, jokes,etc. But today was UNUSUAL, because I heard a very very very shocking news!

I'm sure everyone has heard about genetically modified foods. Like flour, soybean, canola oil, tomatoes, strawberries. But have you heard about COWS PRODUCING HUMAN BREAST MILK?!

I understand the controversial issues related to genetically modified food products, some agrees, some don't, some are very very against the idea. Anyways, controversial issues will be post up in a later stage. So stay tuned alright! Let's get back to genetically modified cows producing human breast milk. A WOW factor!


Question marks '?????'
'Is it safe?!'
'Is it healthier?!'

Well, scientists have successfully genetically engineered the cow to produce humanized breast milk. However, a lot are against the idea. Like for example, the animal welfare group.

"The scientists inserted a human gene into the cows' genetic information, and the animals' mammary glands now imbue their milk with large quantities of lysozyme, a protein that is abundant in human milk, but not the bovine variety. Aside from giving the modified cow milk the strong, sweet taste that you may or may not remember from your infancy, the introduction of lysozyme makes the milk much healthier and more nutritious, according to Ning Li of China's Agricultural University in Beijing, who led the research

"The UC Davis group has inserted the human gene for lysozyme into goats so that they produce milk with 68 percent as much lysozyme as human milk. Because the modified milk is closer than normal goat milk to what women naturally produce and babies consume, it is very likely to be safe for humans — but this hasn't been proven." Read more @ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43356950/ns/technology_and_science-science/



Other Sources:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/19dea190-9536-11e0-a648-00144feab49a.html#axzz1P9v7MFVk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/geneticmodification/8423536/Genetically-modified-cows-produce-human-milk.html

Gladys Lim

0901188C

Escherichia coli strain in cucumbers from Germany!

I'm sure everyone has heard about this news!!!!!

The cucumbers are said to be contaminated be an unknown deadly E.coli strain! Consumption of the contaminated cucumbers can cause gastrointestinal infection, which can lead to Hemolytic-uremic Syndrome (HUS), causing kidney problems and is potentially fatal.

Something about the strain that I find it interesting is that it targets mostly adults, which is very very strange! Further testing are still in process so stay tuned to find out more!

Warnings had been given out to warn people against the consumption of raw cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce. As long as it is raw vegetable, please try to avoid consumption!

"The sickness is not directly contagious but it can be transferred between people if an infected person prepares food for others."

Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592765

Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) had widened the tests carried out on vegetables, having the suspected vegetables for further testing and withholding the sale of them.  But people, be caution anyway!

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_674476.html

Gladys Lim, 0901188C