Oskri Corp has annouced a recall of its Oskri brand peach granola product because the granola was made with cashews that were not declared on the food's label. Oskri's press release about the recall was pushed to the FDA's website but is still not, as far as I can tell, being carried on the company's official website. (There doesn't seem to be any mention of the recall on Oskri's Facebook page but that page hasn't been updated in several weeks, it appears.)
If you have a tree nut allergy and like to snack on Oskri granolas, know that the company is recalling its peach granola over concerns that the food may be contaminated with cashews. The company says no allergic reactions have been blamed on the granola so far. Details at TodayInFoodSafety.com.
It seems as though every time we turn around "The Media"--television, magazines, you name it--is being blamed for being a bad influence on our kids. It's always, according to some folks, sending the wrong messages about healthy eating, body image and teen sexuality. But this morning I ran across something that actually made me stop and think.
In the latest Nemours Foundation KidsHealth In the Classroom handout there was a blurb about the mixed messages celebrities are sending about sun damage. In the handout, which is intended for teachers to use with high schoolers, one of the activities was titled Red Carpet, Tan Skin? and pointed out that while many celebrities are marching down the red carpet with glowing bronzed skin there are other celebrities who seem to be celebrating sun damage prevention and the pale skin that comes from strict avoidance of the sun. The piece then pointed out the hypocrisy of the obviously mixed messages:
Tanning is bad for us, but it looks good?
It looks bad, but a bunch of people do it anyway?
The activity then encouraged kids to make their own judgements about topics like: Do celebrities have an increased responsibility to spread healthy messages about sun damage and skin cancer prevention? The kids were encouraged to write their favorite celebrities a message and weigh in with their own opinions.
If you're the parent or grandparent of a teenager whom you can talk into doing this activity, let me know. I would love to hear your (and their) take on this. And if your teen does do the letter writing activity, have them send it to me, with permission to share it with my readers. I won't use your teen's name, of course, and it just might help another teen take the issue of skin cancer prevention a little more seriously.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the World Tea Expo's 2012 event. Billed as the largest tea event in the world the expo is celebrating its 10th birthday this year.
Promoters say that this year the event is expected to attract attendees from more than 50 countries but it is, really, just another way to promote tea over other beverages like coffee. In fact, this year's tea expo kicks off with a roundtable discussion titled Will Tea Ever be as Big as Coffee? staffed with panelists like Charles Cain from Starbucks and Joseph Cugine from Argo Teas. You'll also find pr-business events like the New Business Boot Camp and the Party and Networking Event.
Naturally several sessions will also focus on promoting the health benefits of tea. A session scheduled for Saturday is apparently designed to ease fears about Japanese radiation in this year's tea while another will feature Rob McCaleb, who is the founder of a group called the Herb Research Foundation.
Sunday's health topics include a debunking of popular "myths" about the health benefits of tea and another presentation built around understanding the most current scientific information about the antioxidants and caffeine in tea.
The World Tea Expo is a "professionals"-only event; it is not open to the general public.
Yesterday a new study published in the journal Heart rocked the world of "natural" medicine by declaring that people who rely on calcium supplements instead of calcium-rich foods may also be upping their chances for a heart attack. The study looked at data on 23,980 European adults who had previously not had any major cardiovascular problems and followed up on that data 11 years later. Ultimately the study's authors concluded that folks who got their calcium from supplements were much more likely to have suffered a heart attack than study participants who got their calcium from foods.
In a follow-up article, printed as an editorial in the same journal, the study's authors urged caution for people who take calcium supplements. And they stressed that pills--no matter how "natural" they may be--are not substitutes for a healthy diet. In fact, they put it this way, "It is now becoming clear that taking this micronutrient in one or two daily [doses] is not natural, in that it does not reproduce the same metabolic effects as calcium in food."
As you might expect, the criticism isn't sitting well with the companies that make calcium supplements. Almost immediately after the study hit the newswires the Council for Responsible Nutrition went ballistic and issued a press release criticizing the study and encouraging supplement users to think for themselves.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition sounds like it belongs in a university somewhere but it's actually just a trade group that represents the interests of companies which make supplements and the companies that manufacture the raw ingredients for such products. In its press release the "council" criticized the study, pointing out that the study wasn't specifically designed to look at heart attacks and stressing that calcium has long been recognized as a mineral vital to strong bones.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals announced this morning that it had agreed to buy certain "assets" from supplements maker Swiss Herbal Remedies Limited. "Swiss Herbal's strong brand awareness in Canada will be a great fit with Valeant's current operations," CEO J. Michael Pearson is quoted as saying in the Valeant's official press release. "Swiss Herbal currently holds a leading position in the Canadian consumer channel and will complement our other product offerings, such as COLD-FX, in this important market segment."
Exactly what "assets" were acquired was not revealed but the company puts their value at around C$28 million. The deal should be closed, the company says, by the end of June.
Swiss Herbal Remedies is one of Canada's best-known herbal remedies retailers. It specializes in non-allergenic products that are generally made without gluten, yeast, sugar or dairy ingredients. The company boasts of product line developed by, as the company's website puts it, an expert team of biochemists, chemists, and even a doctor of naturopathic medicine. Last fall the company announced that, in the interest of environmental responsibility, it was discontinuing its shark cartilage product.
The Men's Health Network and the Veterans Health Council are teaming up to soundly rebuke the new recommendation that men not get PSA exams to check for prostate cancer. In a statement released yesterday the two groups say that if the decision stands it will essentially make the tests unavailable to thousands of American men who need them.
Men's Health Network spokesperson Scott Williams put it this way, ""Early detection saves lives and this recommendation essentially eliminates access for patients and their healthcare providers to the only test available for early detection of prostate cancer."
The recent decision by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force gives PSA tests a "D" rating. And that means that Medicaid, Medicare and other public health programs will no longer be allowed to offer it as a routine screening tool. It also means that some insurance companies will drop coverage for it. When that happens it will set up a situation in which only if a man actually has symptoms of prostate cancer will those programs pay for the tests.
There are a lot of . . . politics . . . being played out here and lots of name-calling going on. But skeptics of the PSTF's decision say that the bottom line here is that it will take early prostate cancer screening off the table for the very men who need it most--African Americans, Vietnam-era veterans and poor men with a family history of the disease.
The government is justifying its decision by claiming, in part, that the tests are finding too many cases of early prostate cancer. Many of those cancers will never become life-threatening but by diagnosing men with the disease you cause them needless worry and clog up the healthcare system with tests and other services the men don't really need.
Readers, I would love to have you weigh in on this. Do you think that defunding PSA tests is just another way for the feds to save an extra buck here and there? Or do you think they're right and those tests often lead to men worrying about something that may never actually threaten their health? Or do you have a take on this I haven't considered? Wherever you stand I hope you'll leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
The Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, announced this morning that it has begun sending refund checks to Oreck customers. These refunds stem from the agency's settlement with Oreck Corporation over what the agency calls bogus claims made about Oreck's Halo vacuum cleaner and its ProShield air cleaner. As a result of the settlement customers who bought the vacuum cleaner will receive a refund of $25; folks who invested in the air cleaner will receive $24.65.
More than 27,000 checks are going out and if you're eligible for one you can expect to receive yours beginning this week. You'll have 60 days to cash it, says the FTC in its statement about its settlement with Oreck.
Just over a year ago the agency announced that Oreck had agreed to stop making germ-killing claims about the products and pay $750,000 in fines. Oreck had previously advertised the vacuum cleaner and air filter as its new "Flu Fighters" and promised that the units' UVC lights could destroy a variety of germs. The FTC sued the company, saying that the claims were "deceptive" and "allegedly false".
Orek bought the Halo technology from Halo Technologies back in 2008. Just prior to the sale one of Oreck's competitors, Bissell, had challenged certain claims being made at the time by Halo Technologies. Shortly after the sale Dyson got in on the act.
UVC light is widely used to kill pathogens because the light destroys DNA. The Earth's atmosphere blocks most of the natural UVC we get but UVC bulbs have been in use in hospitals, water plants and sewer treatment facilities for decades. Earlier this month a study looking at animal data was released which hinted at UVC's use as a treatment for wounds where serious bacterial infections are possible.
Hantavirus scared a lot of people when it was "discovered" back in the early 90s but then it sort of just faded back into the background and became a disease that most people just assumed belonged "out west" and only affected people living in very rural areas. The truth is that hantavirus never went away and it doesn't just occur in Arizona and New Mexico. Nearly 600 cases have been reported in 34 states since scientists began tracking the disease. And a full 36% of those cases were ultimately fatal to the victims.
That's why a growing number of US states have issued hantavirus warnings and advisories already this year. Earlier this month California's Department of Public Health issued an advisory after mice in Riverside County tested positive for the infection. A few days later Illinois issued a press release in which it revealed that medical experts in that state had confirmed its 3rd-ever case of hantavirus in a human being. (The victim survived and is now home from the hospital.) Additionally, Wyoming and New Mexico have also issued recent reminders about the importance of hantavirus prevention. Neither state has confirmed any human cases so far this year but Wyoming had a fatal case last year and New Mexico had 3--in addition to 2 other cases in which victims survived.
So how do you protect yourself when it's time to clean out that old barn or storage shed? Experts with the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, advise anyone working in an area where rodents could be nesting to let the area air out for about an hour and then clean up any dead rodents and their droppings by first saturating them with a mixture made by adding 1.5 cups of household bleach to a gallon of water. When cleaning up rodent debris always wear rubber gloves, the agency adds.
To prevent a re-infestation it's also a good idea to seal up any cracks and holes in walls, foundations and screens. You can make your home, garden shed and storage areas even less attractive to mice and rats by eliminating all water sources and storing things like grains, seeds and anything else that's edible in sealed plastic containers. Another tip--and this one comes from the National Park Service's Rodent Exclusion Manual--is to go into storage areas and move things around every now and then.
Hantavirus isn't just a disease that threatens "country folk" or people in the Southwest. Confirmed cases of the disease have been found in Florida, New York and even Maine.
Experts with the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, say that there are more than 2 million baby boomers in this country who have hepatitis C--and most don't even know it. But the CDC would like to change that and they're encouraging everyone in that age range to get tested at least once.
The CDC defines a boomer as someone born between 1945 and 1965 and says that folks in this age group account for well over 75% of all adult hepatitis cases in the US. In fact, a boomer is 5 times more likely to be affected than a Gen-Xer or a Gen-Y baby.
So how can so many boomers have hep C without even knowing it? Part of the reason is that the disease can live quietly in the liver for years before it starts to cause symptoms that require medical attention. And many boomers have never been tested because they don't think that they're at risk for something than many of them still consider to be mainly a sexually transmitted disease.
But if every boomer in the country got tested and, when appropriate, treated for hepatitis we could cure around 75% of those infected and save 120,000 lives, say experts. To help American baby boomers better understand hepatitis C (and the importance of getting tested for it) the agency has poured $6.5 million into programs designed to increase testing and treatment. It's also put resources into expanding its Know More Hepatitis website and is working with other agencies to increase awareness of the prevalence of hepatitis C among baby boomers.
On May 10th the California Department of Food and Agriculture, or CDFA, announced that it was ordering a recall and quarantine of raw milk, butter and cream produced by Organic Pastures Dairy. The Fresno-based dairy was, you'll remember, the target of a similar recall just a few months ago. This time, however, it was a bacterium known as Campylobacter that made people sick.
At that time, the CDFA said that it had logged "at least 10 cases" of campylobacter infections in people who consumed Organic Pastures raw milk products prior to becoming ill. (There were several additional cases of the illness among people who also consumed raw dairy products but those patients did not specifically remember Organic Pastures being the brand.) The apparent Organic Pastures victims ranged in age from 9 months to 38 years of age; more than half were under the age of 18.
As part of that press release CDFA confirmed that it had found Campylobacter in raw cream produced by the dairy. The agency "strongly urged" anyone with any Organic Pastures products on hand to throw them out immediately.
In yesterday's update we learned a little more. In the update about the Organic Pastures recall the CDFA agency said that it ultimately found the germ in 6 samples of cream and 4 samples of butter. It also found the bacteria in manure collected from the cows.
During the quarantine the dairy was barred from producing any raw milk products for sale to the public. And to escape the quarantine it had to meet all current food safety guidelines and sanitation requirements. The dairy did so and was cleared to resumed sales on May 18.
The dairy's owner, Mark McAfee, initially disputed the CDFA's bacteria test. In an AP story he's quoted as saying he believed the tests are "incorrect". However, as you can see in the carefully worded video McAfee issued days later he seems to have dropped that assertion and resorts to begging customers to go on the offensive for him. Raw milk proponents should, he says, "share" their "testimonials" about the health benefits of raw milk.
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