Category: Health

Monsanto likely wouldn’t be too happy with the “Got Milk” parody posted below. The frankencompany that wants to genetically reengineer — and then own — the world’s food supply has sued a dairy in Maine for telling customers that the dairy’s products are free of artificial growth hormones.

Monsanto, which is a major producer of artificial growth hormones used on dairy cows, believes the Oakhurst dairy’s “no hormones” labels constitute misleading and deceptive advertising.

Monsanto Sues Dairy in Maine Over Label’s Remarks on Hormones
nytimes.com (free registration required)

Monsanto, the maker of agricultural seeds and chemicals, has a reputation for responding strongly to critics of its biotech seeds and its artificial growth hormones.
The company has been pressing government officials in Maine to get Oakhurst to change its labels and tone down its marketing. On July 3, Monsanto filed its suit against Oakhurst in the United States District Court in Boston, seeking an injunction preventing Oakhurst from using the labels.
Monsanto says not only are the labels misleading to consumers but also that there is no way to distinguish between milk that comes from cows treated with artificial growth hormones and milk that comes from cows not treated.
In a statement released after the suit was filed, Monsanto said that “these misleading representations directly disparage Monsanto’s Posilac bovine somatotropin product and the milk from cows supplemented with bovine somatotropin.”

If ever a company deserves to be disparaged, it is Monsanto.

No, I don’t got milk. And why would anyone want to get milk if it’s the Hulk’s drink of choice? Who are the advertising geniuses who thought a raging, green, mutated monster was a good poster child for that mostly-unnecessary hormone cocktail called milk?

There is a natural fear that comes from proximity to disease. Rational thought becomes much more difficult in such circumstances, especially when the element of uncertainty or of the unknown is added.
That’s the case these days with SARS. And as Japan is just a short hop away from the apparent epicenter of the SARS outbreak, I can’t help but feeling a bit of anxiety about the spread of the virus.
Not that Japan is really any closer to China than any other country with an airport, tourists and business travelers. After all, Canada has had the highest SARS death toll after China and Hong Kong. And there are currently more than 150 suspected cases of SARS in the United States.
Here in Japan, the government reports that there are now 28 “probable” or “suspected” cases of SARS in this country. (UPDATE: The Japanese government is now saying that none of these 28 cases is considered to be SARS.)
One of my students returned from a trip to Southern China last week. I didn’t really think anything of it until after sitting through a lunch looking over her snapshots from the trip and realizing that the area she’d been in was in Southern China. Then, just two days ago, she mentioned that a friend from China had visited her family last weekend and that her husband was in China this week on business.
The family of another student has been planning to move to Toronto this June so her husband, a doctor, could work at a hospital there for a year. They’d planned to travel to Toronto last week for a quick visit, but had to cancel because of the SARS outbreak in that city. It turns out the hospital where her husband was to be working is connected to the facility that saw the first Toronto SARS deaths. One hospital is shut down, the other under restricted use. Her family’s plans to move to Toronto are now on hold.
I’d planned to travel to China in June, but that’s not going to happen now. Even a trip to Seoul is up in the air. At this point, any Asian travel plans will have to be made at the last minute, depending on the spread of the virus.

The next global, must-have fashion accessory? Likely to be the surgical mask There was a spread in the Japan Times today showing a collection of fashion-enhanced masks.
It’s very common to see surgical masks in Japan and in other Asian nations. People here wear them when they have a cold (to politely prevent the spread of germs) and also to protect themselves from the cedar pollen that makes so many Japanese miserable at this time of the year.
With the fear that’s spreading more quickly than the actual SARS virus, I’d say it’s only a matter of time before wearing surgical masks becomes common throughout the world.
Thanks to v-2 Organisation for the photo link.

I know or have heard about at least a half dozen people who are canceling overseas travel plans because of concern over the likely US/UK invasion of Iraq.
I’ve been planning to spend a few weeks traveling in China in early June. I’m not so worried about a war affecting those plans.
However, a dangerous virus which seems to have originated in Asia kind of freaks me out.
Warning over killer virus
itv.com

The mystery virus, which causes pneumonia, first struck China’s southern Guangdong province in November when five people died.
“This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat,” WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland said in a statement.

UPDATE: Just visited Joi Ito’s site and saw he’d posted on this, as well. One of his links was to this New York Times article on the virus.

I was recently given an interesting article that ran in The Atlantic Monthly a few years ago, discussing additives that provide flavor and scent to processed foods.
Why McDonald’s Fries Taste So Good
Most processed foods don’t actually have much flavor or taste until they are artificially added. And the difference between “natural flavors” and “artificial flavors” is found more in perception on the part of consumers than in anything related to health or safety.
I especially liked this description of a popular “natural” additive:

Cochineal extract (also known as carmine or carminic acid) is made from the desiccated bodies of female Dactylopius coccus Costa, a small insect harvested mainly in Peru and the Canary Islands. The bug feeds on red cactus berries, and color from the berries accumulates in the females and their unhatched larvae. The insects are collected, dried, and ground into a pigment. It takes about 70,000 of them to produce a pound of carmine, which is used to make processed foods look pink, red, or purple. Dannon strawberry yogurt gets its color from carmine, and so do many frozen fruit bars, candies, and fruit fillings, and Ocean Spray pink-grapefruit juice drink.

A good read. The article is an excerpt from Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser.