Eeyore's News and View

Officials: Toss salmonella-linked peanut butter
January 13, 2009 - 7:14am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Health officials are urging nursing homes, hospitals, schools, universities and restaurants to toss out specific containers of peanut butter linked to a salmonella outbreak in 43 states.
The recalled peanut butter _ distributed by King Nut Companies of Solon, Ohio _ was supplied only through food service providers and was not sold directly to consumers. King Nut challenged the finding, saying it could not be the source of the nationwide outbreak since it distributes to only seven states.
The outbreak has sickened more than 400 people and Minnesota health officials announced Monday they had found a match between samples from a King Nut container and the strains of salmonella bacteria making people sick across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the outbreak may have contributed to three deaths.
Officials are concerned the peanut butter is still being used, and Heidi Kassenborg of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture urged all institutions to throw it away.
State health and agriculture officials said last week they had found salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound package of King Nut peanut butter at a nursing facility in Minnesota. Officials tested the bacteria over the weekend and found a genetic match with the bacterial strain that has led to 30 illnesses in Minnesota and others across the country.
"The commonality among all of our patients was that they ate peanut butter," said Doug Schultz, a spokesman with the Minnesota Department of Health. While the brand of peanut butter couldn't be confirmed in every case, the majority of patients consumed the same brand, he said Monday.
Minnesota officials were coordinating their investigation with the CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other states.
King Nut Companies on Sunday asked its customers to stop using peanut butter under its King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands with a lot code that begins with the numeral "8."
However, company president and chief executive Martin Kanan argued that King Nut could not be the source of the nationwide salmonella outbreak because the company distributes only to Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, Arizona, Idaho and New Hampshire. No other King Nut products have been voluntarily recalled.
The peanut butter King Nut distributed was manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America, a Virginia company. In an e-mail earlier Monday, President Stewart Parnell said the company was working with federal authorities.
The peanut butter was distributed to establishments such as care facilities, hospitals, schools, universities and restaurants. King Nut says it was not distributed for retail sale to consumers.
The CDC on Monday raised the number of confirmed cases to 410, from 399 as of Friday, and Mississippi became the 43rd state to report a case. All the illnesses began between Sept. 15 and Jan. 7, but most of the people became sick after Oct. 1.
Kanan held out the possibility that the contamination came from another source, since the salmonella was found in an open container.
"That means there's a possibility of cross-contamination, somebody could have been cutting a piece of chicken and then stuck the knife into the peanut butter for a peanut butter sandwich," he said. "There have been no tests that have come back positive on a closed container."
The peanut butter contamination comes almost two years after ConAgra recalled its Peter Pan brand peanut butter, which was eventually linked to at least 625 salmonella cases in 47 states.
CDC officials say the bacteria in the current outbreak has been genetically fingerprinted as the Typhimurium type, which is among the most common sources of salmonella food poisoning.
Associated Press writers Martiga Lohn in St. Paul and Thomas J. Sheeran in Cleveland contributed to this report.
On the Net:
FDA: http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/kingnut01_09.html
King Nut: http://www.kingnut.com/site.cfm/news.cfm

Firm Press Release

FDA posts press releases and other notices of recalls and market withdrawals from the firms involved as a service to consumers, the media, and other interested parties. FDA does not endorse either the product or the company.
Kellogg Company Announces Precautionary Hold on Austin and Keebler Branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers
Contact:
Kellogg Consumer Response Center
888...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- Battle Creek, MI -- January 14, 2009 -- Kellogg Company today announced it has taken the precautionary measure of putting a hold on Austin® and Keebler® branded Toasted Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Crackers, Cheese and Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, and Peanut Butter-Chocolate Sandwich Crackers.
FDA and other regulatory agencies have indicated that Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) is the focus of their investigation concerning a recent Salmonella outbreak thought to be caused by tainted peanut butter. PCA is one of several peanut paste suppliers that the company uses in its Austin® and Keebler® branded peanut butter sandwich crackers.
Kellogg Company's investigation has not indicated any concerns, nor has the Company received any consumer illness complaints about these products.
Nonetheless, Kellogg Company is taking precautionary measures including putting a hold on any inventory in its control, removing product from retail store shelves, and encouraging customers and consumers to hold and not eat these products until regulatory officials complete their investigation of PCA and Kellogg provides further information as to the resolution of this issue.
"Consumer health and safety is our top priority," said David Mackay, president and CEO, Kellogg Company. "We are taking these voluntary actions out of an abundance of caution."
While no additional consumer action is necessary at this time, consumers with questions or who would like a product refund can call the Kellogg Consumer Response Center at 888-314-2060.
http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/kellogg01_09.html

A Little History Lesson For Rep. Walter B. Jones About Military Chaplains
Written by Chris Rodda
Monday, 12 January 2009 00:00
By Chris Rodda
Here we go again -- the new session of Congress has just begun and another bill about military chaplains praying in Jesus' name has already been introduced.
On Jan. 7, Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-NC) introduced H.R. 268, a bill "To amend title 10, United States Code, to ensure that every military chaplain has the prerogative to close a prayer outside of a religious service according to the dictates of the chaplain's own conscience." H.R. 268, a regurgitation of H.R. 6514, which was introduced in the last congress but never made it to the floor, would amend Title 10 of the U.S. Code to state, in five separate sections:
"If called upon to lead a prayer outside of a religious service, a chaplain shall have the prerogative to close the prayer according to the dictates of the chaplain's own conscience."

The State versus the Internet: Kentucky
Starts a Trade War
There's a war simmering right now, that you may not have heard about. The object of the war is control of the Internet.
In some ways, this war is similar to the deceitful "harmful tax competition" campaign that industrialized nations have been conducting against offshore jurisdictions for more than a decade. It involves the same protagonists: industrialized nations versus developing countries. And one of the opening salvos of this war is occurring, of all places, in a Kentucky courtroom.
Kentucky is trying to force 141 Internet gaming sites, none of them based in the United States (much less Kentucky) to block access to Kentucky users, or to relinquish control of their domain names. The state alleges, among other things, that online gaming drains money from horse racing, a key source of tax dollars. Following a hearing last September, a state judge ordered the domain names to be transferred to the state. That decision is now under appeal.
Many of the sites have already been transferred to the state or are barred from being transferred to another owner. Other sites have informed users based in Kentucky they will no longer be able to use the site.
Internet gambling is no doubt controversial, but that's not the point. Kentucky has fired the opening shot in a trade war against the Internet. It's been able to seize the property of dozens of non-U.S., non-Kentucky companies because many of the domain names are registered in the United States.
What's more, there's no reason to think that this trade war will be limited to Internet gambling. The Internet is the fastest growing segment of the global economy. In just the past four years, global Internet sales have exploded from US$87.5 billion (2004) to an estimated US$204 billion (2008).
Given this track record, it should come as no surprise that governments want to shut down competition to local bricks-and-mortar businesses. That's particularly true given the state of the global economy. In the United States alone, more than 75,000 major retail locations are expected to shut down in 2009. Many will never reopen - the businesses that operated there will increasingly exist only in cyberspace.
If you're an Internet entrepreneur, you've chosen to be involved with what may be the only fundamentally healthy aspect of the global economy. But if you offer a product or service that can be construed to compete with a bricks-and-mortar company in an industrialized country, expect to be attacked.
To deal with these attacks:
Register your domain name outside any major industrialized country.
Set up backup servers outside major industrialized countries.
Be prepared for court challenges from governments, such as that of Kentucky, to steal your intellectual property (IP).
Finally—if your Internet business is successful—you should take steps to transfer the ownership of your IP to a suitable offshore structure, if you haven't already done so. That way, when the Kentucky's of the world come after your Web site, you'll no longer own the most valuable part of it. That may not make bureaucrats very happy, but it will help insure that you can continue operating online.
MARK NESTMANN, Privacy Expert &
President of The Nestmann Group
http://www.nestmann.com/

Sexually spread diseases up, better testing cited
ATLANTA (AP) — Sexually spread diseases — for years on the decline — are on the rise in the United States, with reported chlamydia cases setting a record, government health officials said Tuesday.
The increase in chlamydia, a sometimes symptomless infection that can lead to infertility in women, is likely because of better screening, experts said. In 2007, there were 1.1 million cases, the most ever reported, said officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 15,000 women become infertile each year because of untreated chlamydia and gonorrhea infections, said Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., director of the CDC's Division of STD Prevention.
Syphilis cases, which number only in the thousands, also rose modestly, while the number of gonorrhea cases remained roughly the same. Syphilis can kill, if left untreated, but chlamydia and gonorrhea are not life-threatening.
Chlamydia can infect men, but rates are nearly three times higher for women. That's at least partly due to 1993 federal recommendations that emphasize testing for sexually active women age 25 and under. That focus on screening in recent years is no doubt driving the record numbers, said Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, a professor of infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
"The issue with chlamydia is the more tests, the more you'll find," Zenilman said.
The percentage of young women being tested for the infection rose by double digits from 2003 to 2007, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance, a nonprofit that monitors health care.
The latest case numbers for chlamydia translate to a rate of 370 cases per 100,000 people in 2007, up 7.5% from 2006.
The reported cases are just part of the picture. Health officials believe as many as 2.8 million Americans get chlamydia each year.
Many men and women have no symptoms from it. Some women experience pain in their lower abdomen or notice a burning sensation or a pus-like discharge when they urinate. Some men may also feel a burning during urination or have a discharge.
Gonorrhea cases appear to have plateaued and are currently at about 356,000 cases. Syphilis was on the verge of being eliminated in the United States about 10 years ago, but lately has been inching up. More than 11,000 new cases of the most contagious form of the disease were reported in 2007.
Syphilis is relatively rare but has become a growing threat, particularly for gay and bisexual men, who accounted for about 65% of the 2007 cases.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-13-std-cases_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Obama Called ''Best Gun Salesman of the Year''
by Jim Shepherd , The Outdoor Wire
posted January 14, 2009
Editorial Opinion by Jim Shepherd with ''The Outdoor Wire''
In recognition of the unprece­dented demand for firearms by nervous consumers, The Outdoor Wire has named President-elect Barack Obama its "Gun Salesman of the Year". For me, it was a simple fact of recognizing that without President-elect Obama's frightening consumers into action, the firearms industry might be suffering the same sort of business slumps that have befallen the automotive and housing industries.
It's credit where credit is due. Mr. Obama has consistently voted against individual rights to firearms, appointed a re-tread Clinton administration full of gun banners, and made it plain to anti-gun groups that despite what he might say to the contrary, he's on their side That history, along with the unquestioned support of anti-gun organizations has spooked consumers into a buying frenzy for firearms that could be outlawed in another Assault Weapons Ban.
Manufacturers are months behind on orders for semi-automatic pistols, AR-style rifles, and anything with so-called 'high-capacity magazines, buyers we've surveyed across the country seem to have a single explanation for their rush to purchase firearms - Obama.
The buying panic is not limited to people you might be described as aficionados or even 'gun nuts'. Recently, I was in a gun store when a gentleman came and said he'd never wanted to own a gun before, but wanted to get one while he still could."
Since the November Presidential election, firearms sales have been at unprecedented levels. For December 2008 the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) recorded a twenty-four percent increase in background checks for 2008 (1,523,426) over December 2007 (1,230,525).
This follows a forty-two percent (42%) increase in November 2008, the highest number of NICS checks in the system's history. Those FBI background checks are required under federal law for all individuals purchasing firearms from federally licensed firearms retailers. In other words, gun sales have never been better.
Sales are so good that on Tuesday, January 6, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued a notice to all federal firearms licensees that "an unprecedented increase in demand for ATF Form 4473 had run supplies low enough that dealers were temporarily given permission to photocopy the form until supplies caught up with demand. Completion of a form 4473 is required whenever a federal firearms licensee sells a fire­arm.
As a journalist with more than two decades of national newsgathering experience, I've never seen anything approaching what he calls the "Obama effect". In fact, gun and ammunition sales are at such frantic levels that they have surpassed the panic-buying of Y2K or anything during the Clinton years when the first Assault Weapons Ban was passed. This time, he says, concerned consumers are buying guns and ammunition in anticipation of Obama Administration actions to prohibit certain types of firearms.
In 1999, the fear was that computers would shut down, crippling the world. Those fears were unfounded. I don't think the fears of an Obama administration banning guns are unfounded. His record speaks for itself. He's never failed to support an anti-gun measure, despite saying he supports the Second Amendment.
Moves to prohibit firearms sales would drastically impact a billion-dollar industry that is not only healthy, but pours more than one hundred fifty million dollars annually into conservation programs through an eleven percent tax collected on guns and ammo.
The Pittman-Robertson Act provides the vast majority of funding for wildlife agencies at the federal, state and local levels and that money comes directly from the tax levied against gun owners. Damaging the firearms industry won't just put workers in the gun business out of work, it will severely impact wildlife and conservation efforts nationally. That damage could take decades to repair - if it can be undone."
Choosing President-elect Obama as the Gun Salesman of the Year is a lot like a good-news, bad-news joke.His election has driven gun sales into the stratosphere, but his opposition to guns and gun ownership may be the biggest threat the industry has ever faced. If he puts scoring political points with anti-gun groups ahead of economic realities, he will be deliberately putting thousands of people out of work. I don't see that as an economic stimulus plan with much of a future."
"Today, the facts are indisputable. Barack Obama has spurred gun sales in a time when the entire economy seems to be tanking. If that doesn't make him the gun salesman of the year - if not the decade - I don't know what would.
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_142480.asp