newsforyourfamily

OTHER ISSUES WE NEED TO TACKLE

2011-11-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

ISSUE # 1 TO MAKE MONEY, OUR GOVERNMENT IS ALLOWING THE IMPORT OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL TO BE BURNED IN OUR COUNTRY INSTEAD OF IN THE COUNTRY WHERE IT CAME FROM

Please help these folks by taking action here and letting others know about what is going on.

http://www.nonukesyall.org/action_STOPGermanRadWaste.html

Please help these folks by signing their petition. It may not affect you directly, but it is affecting someone right now. As citizens of the US, we should start taking care of each other and rebuilding our country.

ISSUE # 1B WE NEED TO BE MORE RESPONSIBLE WITH OUR OWN NUCLEAR WASTE

http://www.youtube.com/repshimkus#p/c/2/kh7VZyLrg0M

ISSUE #2 OUR GOVERNMENT WANTS TO INCREASE TRADE WITH JAPAN

Increasing imports from Japan is NOT a good idea right now. They have barely scratched the surface in terms of cleaning up after Fukushima. Check out the other entries on this blog for more details, plus the information below.

http://news.yahoo.com/japan-gives-boost-apec-free-trade-agenda-211955752.html

On the heels of learning of the rebuilding of buildings with rocks from a quarry located near the Fukushima Diiachi Nuclear Power Plant, I really wonder if we should be purchasing from Japan. Will they be mixing their radioactive material into things they make and send all over the globe? Anybody who denies the possibility of this probably would have also denied the possibility that the Japanese government would have allowed for the rebuilding of their country by mixing in waste material. It seems unbelievable, but it did happen. See below.

I'm no nuclear expert but seriously, if the folks walking around the quarry have to wear full suits with masks on as to not contaminate themselves, shouldn't that quarry have been shut down?

When things like that happen the government needs to be held accountable, whether that is the local or national government or both. That's really not right for the people of Japan and to whomever will be on the receiving end of whatever else they decide to mix it into. Are they mixing it into other things they are selling? I hope not.

2B THE IRRESPONSIBILITY OF THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT

GLOBAL PETITION "APPEAL FOR FUKUSHIMA"

http://www.appealforfukushima.com/en/

Japan probes radioactive apartment block

How on earth could a 3 story condiminum have been reconstructed with rocks from a quarry located near the Fukushima, Diacchi Nuclear Power Plant?

http://news.yahoo.com/japan-probes-radioactive-apartment-block-080312483.html

That begs two more questions: 1. Why did the Japanese government not ban usage of rocks from the quarry being in close proximity to the nuclear power plant? 2. What else was constructed using rocks from the same quarry? Surely it wasn't just this one apartment building.

And as confirmation of this, a video. Apparently the rock was delivered to around 250 companies so it is definitely going to show up in other places too.

While this video is in Japanese, you don't need to speak it to understand the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvfXTy9FmOc&feature=player_embedded

The quote below was taken from the article above.

"Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said annual radiation exposure for someone living in the building would be at around 10 millisieverts, half the government-mandated evacuation level of 20 millisieverts"

This is actually a pretty sad statement if you know anything about this situation. The rate of "acceptable" exposure that was set by the Chernobyl disaster was 1 milliservet a year. Some skeptical citizens decided to measure their children using non government issue geiger counters. The readings the parents were getting were way higher than the 1 milliservet a year on the non government issued Geiger counters.

The government's response? to set the new level of "acceptable" exposure to 20X the amount of radiation set by the disaster of Chernobyl! Then everything after, including this article, makes it sound like oh, this finding is nothing to worry about, because it is 10 times under the limit set by government whereas the reality is it is actually 10 times OVER the amount set by the previous worst nuclear disaster known to man, Chernobyl.

UPDATE: JANUARY 19, 2014

As suspected, the contaminated rock has gone to other places including to build a road outside a school and to repair an irrigation channel. Is the water running through there now contaminated too?

This article says that the contaminated water way went to supply water to agriculture so are the crops contaminated too? Who is that food going to?

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/archive/news/2012/01/17/20120117p2g00m0dm152000c.html

Picture above and writing below, taken from this link

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T120117005266.htm

"Contaminated crushed stone pieces taken from a quarry in the government's expanded evacuation zone following the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant have been used to repair an irrigation channel and a road outside a school in Nihonmatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture.

The discovery was made after authorities began tracking down the whereabouts of 5,280 tons of the material that was quarried from Namie Town, in the same prefecture, after the stones were used in the construction of a condominium building in Nihonmatsu City, which was later found to contain high levels of radiation. The material is proving difficult to track because it has been sold to more than 100 construction companies throughout the prefecture.

One company said it was part of a group of firms that bought and used about eight tons of the crushed stone pieces to pave a road in front of a primary school in the city's south in April. The work was done to repair cracks caused by the March 11 earthquake and covered a total area of about 80 square meters across three locations along the road.

In a test Monday, the primary school found radioactivity in the air around the repaired road ranged from 0.4 to 0.5 microsievert per hour, almost as same as that detected in neighboring areas. But the school has advised students to walk along the side of the road as a precautionary measure.

The city government said the crushed stone was also mixed with fresh concrete used to repair an irrigation channel in April.

It believes the repaired section of the waterway is contaminated with radioactive cesium. A test conducted this month detected 1.62 to 1.97 microsieverts of radiation per hour at the waterway, higher than the 0.7 to 1.0 microsievert of radiation per hour found in surrounding areas.

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry said all the crushed stone pieces in question were shipped from Namie Town to two ready-mix concrete companies, one in Nihonmatsu City and the other in Motomiya City, as well as to 17 construction companies in the prefecture.

The ministry said documents suggest the crushed stone was then sold by the Nihonmatsu company to more than 100 other businesses, while the Motomiya company distributed the material to dozens of firms. It is difficult to establish the exact route of the crushed stone, the ministry added.

The Yomiuri Shimbun spoke to 11 of the 17 construction firms that bought the material, and all said they used the crushed stone in Fukushima Prefecture. A senior official of a Kawamata Town company that bought more than 500 tons of the crushed stone, said the material was used to build roads and there was never any speculation that the material had been contaminated by radioactive substances.

Futaba Saiseki Kogyo Co. is responsible for operating the quarry and shipping the stone pieces. The company's president, Mitsuru Igari, 50, apologized at a press conference Monday. Igari said he feels sorry for what happened and added that he had pride in the work he was doing because he was helping to rehabilitate the area when others were abandoning it."

Japan set to burn tons and tons of nuclear waste through 2014

Surely Japan is set to become THE worst nuclear disaster with the irresponsible spreading of contamination from doing things like this and also by dealing with the nuclear waste material by deciding to burn it into the atmosphere until the year 2014.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/tokyo-starts-burning-radioactive-waste-from-other-areas-tokyo-governor-tells-residents-to-shut-up-and-stop-complaining-about-it.html

http://enenews.com/forum-about-japan-burning-radioactive-debris

PEOPLE NEED TO WAKE UP ABOUT THIS.

Both people in Japan and people in the US. There are tons, and tons, and tons, of waste material. It really should be buried but that is too costly and time consuming despite probably being the most responsible thing to do if you can call it that.

One of the most IRRESPONSIBLE acts would be to burn it. Which is what they are choosing to do. Why is it irresponsible? Because it is like March 11 over and over and over again when burning it. Toxic, cancer causing materials are blown into the air and everyone around, everything thing around, is put into jeopardy health wise.

Look at how this has affected the milk in California. It is actually WORSE now than 6 months ago. The burning needs to stop!!

http://enenews.com/over-epa-limit-cesium-levels-in-san-francisco-area-milk-now-higher-than-6-months-ago

People downwind, that's everyone on the west coast of the USA, and even beyond will be affected by this for the next 2 years and probably more as their health will be affected. Food that is supplied to Americans and other countries will be contaminated from fall out. The prevailing winds will carry the new toxic material from each burn over the ocean, most likely contaminating sea life, and will continue travelling west to then contaminate the soil, crops, water, and lungs of people breathing in the contaminated air.

The tough thing about radiation is that we cannnot see it, touch it, taste it, etc. Some of it, particles called hot particles, we can't even pick up with a geiger counter but they can still latch into a person's lungs and cause cancer.

In my book, what the government is doing is a crime against humanity. Burning radioactive material anytime, anyplace, in my book should be illegal, but as I have found out (see issue #1 above) it is not and is done with relative frequency.

But the thing we are talking about in Japan is different, a lot different. It is a magnitude thing. So even people who think burning toxic nuclear waste into the air is okay, this kind of scale that the Japanese government is really not. Its quite frankly unacceptable and is a crime against humanity all around the globe.

Furthermore, it appears that radioactive material is getting into things like building materials now as mentioned at the start of this entry. That's not right.

Last week or so, Bed Bath and Beyond recalled toilet paper roll holders, the thing you put your toilet paper on, because they had radioactive material in them. Where did the raw material to make those come from? Was it Japan? I really wonder. Maybe they are deciding that another option to get rid of it is to combine it into products for sale, then they can actually make money off the radioactive material instead of doing the more responsible, more costly thing, which would be to bury it. Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Maybe the material is from some other part of the world, but whoever is combining radioactive material into products for sale is definitely not doing the right thing.

To solve the problem with all that radioactive material in Japan, I think countries from around the world should pitch in to help defer some of the costs to bury it instead of burning it. They should have a world wide fund drive for that specific cause. We owe it to Japan to help out. I would donate to that cause.

The Japanese government really, really needs to stop sending contaminated food around the world. Stop telling other governments it is okay and other governments should stop believing the Japanese government. Seriously. We should all be gathering around them as countries and send them clean food instead.

Mothers in Japan agree.

http://newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/11/looking-for-blog-on-ingredients-from.html

Mothers in Japan have told their story from their perspective.

http://newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-should-we-not-get-ingredients-from.html

ISSUE #3 CHINA DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME SAFETY STANDARDS AS OTHER COUNTRIES

This is a horrible story. Chinese citizens also see there are problems. The government has interest in doing things as cheaply as possible. That's what counts most for them.

http://news.yahoo.com/overpacked-china-school-bus-crashes-18-kids-die-122745538.html

This also applies to our food supply. China gets over 4.9 Billion dollars from our corporate america food suppliers who want the cheapest ingredients possible so that their profit margin can be as high as possible.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34080.pdf

This is wrong for the obvious reason that they are doing it is b/c it is cheap, not b/c it is the healthy for your family to consume, and it is also wrong for some not so obvious other reasons too.

http://newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-no-food-from-china-either.html

How could this possibly be going on? This wonderfully done video from food and water watch pretty much sums it up. The flood gates to free trade with China opened wide in the 1970s. Corporate america jumped on the bandwagon fast because it was sooo much cheaper to get ingredients for our food supply from there instead of American Farmers and all they care about is how BIG their profit margin can be.

CORPORATE FAT CAT MENTALITY--So what if our consumers get cancer because we are getting cheap stuff that may be adulterated! So what if your kid develops food allergies or behavioral problems... DOESN'T MATTER TO US!! WE ARE MAKING LOTS OF $$$ HA HA!! Plus there's no way you will EVER be able to connect the events together since you won't get the cancer or have kids with problems unless you are genetically predisposed to it and it won't happen right after you eat it it will be years from now and you won't be able to trace it back to us HA HA!! Our hands are clean!!! So sickening what corporate greed has done...

Points perfectly to the need for country of origin labeling. Once we know the truth about what is going on where, we can start voting with our wallets, voting for things without China in it. Vote for feeding our families with products from American Farms the way it used to be before the flood gates of trade with China opened in the 1970s, back when there was LESS childhood cancer, LESS kids with food allergies, etc. Please sign the petition. It's a good thing for the health of our families and for our country. Corporate America should be sourcing from the HEALTHIEST places, not the cheapest.

Sourcing from american farmers are more likely to take pride in the food ingredients they produce for our families. Plus they deserve our support as anytime we can offer support to someone in America it helps our economy in one way or another.

We need to let our reps know we want country of origin labeling. Help get this done by signing and sharing the petition below. Fat cats need to be held accountable for what they are doing. Time they stop being allowed to hide behind "Made in USA" whereas the reality is the ingredients that make up the things we consume everyday are coming from all kinds of other places. http://www.change.org/petitions/mr-president-us-senate-congress-tell-us-where-our-food-is-from.

ISSUE # 4 CHINA IN GENERAL

I'd be saying the same thing if I lived in China and I found out the US were doing these things. No matter where you live, you have to have some common sense when it comes to national security. If you are in China, you would be smart not to do business with a business associated with the United States Military and if you live in the US you are smart not to do business with a company that has ties to the Chinese Military.

http://news.yahoo.com/panel-urges-us-scrutiny-china-military-firms-163048990.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/business/global/23telecom.html

Imagine a Chinese company that has ties to the Chinese Liberation Army, the company was actually started by a former member, and that company comes knocking on the door of the United States of America and says "Excuse me, but we want to do a great favor for you. We want to be the ones to provide you with the telecommunications services for your nation's first responders in the case of a national emergency. Let's get started!" You'd have to be pretty dumb to think that's a good idea. Seriously. That's like having the fox guard the chicken coop.

We'll guess what? That invitation actually came!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/11/u-s-blocks-china-telecoms-bid-to-build-wireless-network-over-spying-concerns.html

The government was smart enough to say no thank you to that deal. After all, any sports fan knows you don't give away your game plans to a competitor or a chief rival, right?

The story gets better. This same company, the one that has ties to the Chinese Military, figures those darn Americans, they won't let us in the front door, let's try the back door instead! So you know what this company does just one month later? They purchase a 49% share in Symanetic, the computer company that supposedly guards the security of our computers! Who approved that deal??? If there's a deal that needs to be rescended it would be that one!!

http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2011/04/17/chinas-silent-cyber-takeover/

http://news.yahoo.com/chinas-huawei-buy-symantec-venture-055703621.html

My hunch is Symantic probably got a good chunk of change for agreeing to that deal and I doubt they were thinking hum...wonder what the Chinese might do when they have access to the things we do.... Of course not! The money is too good for us to be thinking about something as trivial as national security! Thank you China and now let's get on with spending the $$ from our new found wealth!!

This is really wrong to be doing. Check out why here.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/11/beijings-electronic-pearl-harbor/

Meantime China has got to be thinking we are the most stupid, naive, selfish, greedy fools on the face of the earth because basically by Symantic agreeing to the deal they are doing all the things mentioned above.

This points to the root of many of our problems in America today. We are overrun by corporate greed. Corporate america is NOT thinking about how things affect us as citizens down the road, they are thinking about how good things can get for THEM, today, right now. This corporate behavior of being stupid, selfish, and greedy has got to stop. It has become the way other nations view our country which is so wrong. Our nation as a whole is not like that. Same goes for China. Their nation is not like that either. The average citizen does not believe it is right to taint foods for example to make them cheaper and unsafe but there are plenty of people in China doing it right now to make a bigger profit not only for their only their people to eat but for your family to eat too (see blog on why no food from China).

THINK ABOUT THIS FOR A MINUTE...

Think about this for a minute. China is making 40.5 Billion per month and has been doing so since July 2005.http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-china-needs-policy-course-capital-tide-turns-061310882.html

That's a lot of money! That's a lot of money to be doing whatever they want to become the world's superpower..stealing technology...building their military, etc. How the heck do they make that kind of money?? Simple. Because of us. As citizens we have been choosing year after year to by cheap China, dumping our hard earned money over there. If we care anything about the future of the United States, its got to stop.

Buying Made in China is not only decimating our labor force --buying Made in China supports their labor force. Ultimately it also ruins our country because while our economy continues downward because, in part, many of our jobs have been sent to China putting USA workers out of work, meaning they can't make purchases, they can't invest and buy here in the US, and less money in our economy means we have to do things like cut back our military, cut back in investments in technologies, and cut back in education for future generations. How will that ever build a strong country??

China on the other hand, thanks to our purchasing cheap things from them that ends up in our landfills, continues to get stronger, and stronger, and stronger because of our need for cheapness. Their technology improves. Their military gets stronger. Everyday they are one step closer to becoming the world's superpower. We've got to change this by each one of us voting for the USA with our wallets and stop sending so much of our money over to China. Search out USA alternatives for whatever it is you need and if none can be found, purchase from any other country besides China. We need to start balancing things out. Right now the scale has tipped very far in China's favor and we need to develop more equity across the board by not choosing China. Our money is better in the hands of USA workers if at all possible, and if not, seek out an alternative to China.

ISSUE # 4B CHINA BUYING UP AREAS IN OTHER COUNTRIES (INCLUDING OURS)

AUSTRALIA

Australia leases out mineral-rich land as China's hunger for resources grows

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/12/china-australia-mining-iron-coal

USA

From a Chinese Newspaper

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2011-07/28/content_13005190.htm

here's more

http://www.finance-ol.com/2011/06/shanghai-is-quiet-network-of-selling-the-united-states-land-a-starting-price-of-just-1/

The Chinese Government Is Buying Up Economic Assets And Huge Tracts Of Land All Over The United States

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-chinese-government-is-buying-up-economic-assets-and-huge-tracts-of-land-all-over-the-united-states

Idaho

http://www.commentsonnationalamnesia.com/2011/06/01/project-60-china-buying-idaho/

And from the horse's mouth directly: Idaho.gov website

http://project60.idaho.gov/encourage.html

Interesting it says here "Foreign Direct Investment recruitment will be successful in Idaho as we expand our reach into Canada, Europe, Latin America and Asia."(a.k.a. China) Don't they mean, "Foreign Direct Investment recruitment will be successful in China as they allow as they expand their reach into the US?

Texas

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-43042760/texas-land-and-oil-and-gas-grab-what-chinas-cnooc-will-get-for-its-216b/

ISSUE #5 MONEY HAS GOT TO GET OUT OF POLITICS

Need I say more?! Money in politics is at the root of most every problem we have an our country. Think about that. Must watch article and videos here. Our founding fathers must be turning over in their graves. This isn't how it was supposed to be. We MUST find a way to get money out of politics.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57324034/pelosi-defends-record-after-60-minutes-report/

PART II

Look, my two oldest kids are in 3rd and 4th grade. They are learning about how our gov is a representative gov, meaning they represent US.

The way things are going now, their textbooks are not giving it accurately. In order to give a more accurate account, textbooks should be rewritten to say we have a rep gov where politicians are elected to then make decisions to best represent their own self-interests.

Is this what we want for our country going forward??

Any adult in this country should be disgusted by this. Anyone who cares about the future of the United States should really be ashamed that things have gotten this bad and we should all work together to make things right. We can't have a strong healthy nation with this crap going on. A really good starting place would be to get money/favors out of politics so that honest representation can begin.

Looking for Blog on Ingredients from Japan- Look Under August

2011-11-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

Good ones to start with are FDA/Fukushima, Corporate Responses, and the 60 Minutes Video. Also, here is a great website that has links to recent events coming out of Fukushima. http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/

Here are some recent videos and articles in addition to the blogs mentioned above.

JAPANESE MOMS SAY ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! TELLING JAPANESE GOV - PROTECT CHILDREN IN OTHER COUNTRIES--DON'T SEND CONTAMINATED FOOD AROUND THE WORLD!!

TIME WE AGREE WITH THEM...SIGN THE PETITION...TELL YOUR REPS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD IS COMING FROM...FOOD COMPANIES SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SAY "MADE IN USA" WHERE THE ACTUAL INGREDIENTS ARE FROM ALL KINDS OF OTHER PLACES (see august blog on corporate responses)

December 26, 2011

The Japanese Government really messed up. Mothers of Fukushima knew it a long time ago. Now the government is finally admitting to a few mistakes. The saddest part is that exposure to this disaster could have been less, less citizens exposed, less children exposed.

But that would never do. They would have had to put their pride aside and made evacuating people their number one priority. Once again, greed, namely not wanting to admit to the failings over nuclear power, came before keeping families safe. http://news.yahoo.com/japan-probe-finds-nuclear-disaster-response-failed-084637708.html

It is time we call things like this out, both citizens calling out their governments and us calling out our government. I feel bad for the people of Japan and bad for us too. As I have found out, there is very little transparency in governments around the world and that is wrong. Power in the hands of a few for their self interests, no matter what country, is wrong because power concentrated = greed and greed leads to people only thinking about themselves and their own self-interests. We need transparency so accountability, fairness and justice can happen right away, not months or years later. In terms of Japan, it shouldn't be that they are just really starting to tell parts of the truth 9 months down the road. As far as I'm concerned, there should be transparency in all aspects of our lives. When a disaster happens, put the lives of citizens first. Don't put pride first.

Cleaning up Japan’s nuclear mess
The twilight zone
Its owner fears not just radiation leaking out of the Fukushima plant, but also bad news
Nov 5th 2011 | IWAKI | from the print edition
http://www.economist.com/node/21536625

IT IS another world beyond the roadblocks stopping unauthorised traffic from entering the 20km (12.5-mile) exclusion zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The few people inside are dressed in ghostly white protective suits. Town after town was abandoned after March 11th, and spiders have strung webs across the doorways. An old lady’s russet wig lies in the road, lost perhaps as she took flight after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Outside the “Night Friend” nightclub in Tomioka, 9km from the nuclear plant, this correspondent was confronted by an ostrich with a feral glint.

Journalists are supposedly barred from the exclusion zone, though sympathetic evacuees, many furious with the authorities about their state of limbo, help provide access. Some of the 89,000 displaced residents have been given one-day permits to go home and each collect a box of valuables. To an outsider, the size and recent prosperity of the abandoned communities is striking. As well as the rice paddies, now overrun with goldenrod, are large businesses and well-built schools for hundreds of children.

Patrol cars stop passing vehicles. The police are particularly vigilant in preventing unauthorised people getting near the stricken plant, owned by Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), Japan’s biggest utility. The air of secrecy is compounded when you try to approach workers involved in the nightmarish task of stabilising the nuclear plant. Many are not salaried Tepco staff but low-paid contract workers lodging in Iwaki, just south of the exclusion zone.

It is easy to spot them, in their nylon tracksuits. They seem to have been recruited from the poorest corners of society. One man calls home from a telephone box because he cannot afford a mobile phone. Another has a single front tooth. Both are reluctant to talk to journalists, because a condition of their employment is silence. But they do share their concerns about safety. One, who earns ¥15,000 ($190) a day clearing radioactive rubble at the plant, says he was given just half-an-hour of safety training. Almost everything he has learned about radiation risks, he says, came from the television.

A strict hierarchy exists among the workers at Fukushima. Tepco’s own salaried staff are in a minority. The firm employs a top tier of subcontractors, from the builders of reactors such as Toshiba and Hitachi. They, in turn, subcontract work to builders and engineers, who subcontract further, down to small gangs of labourers recruited by a single boss. Some lower-ranking companies may have ties to the yakuza, Japan’s mafia, and among the lowest-paid recruits are members of the burakumin minority, who have long been discriminated against.

Those on the lower rungs, say labour advocates, are particularly vulnerable. They often have no corporate health, pension or redundancy benefits. Hiroyuki Watanabe, an Iwaki councillor from the Japan Communist Party who is campaigning to protect Dai-ichi workers, has a document showing one worker’s accumulated radiation exposure. In two months it had reached almost 33 millisieverts, or a third the level normally permissible for those working on a nuclear accident in a year. Mr Watanabe reports many safety breaches. Workers wading through contaminated water complain that their boots have holes in them. Some are not instructed in when to change the filters on their safety masks.

Mr Watanabe believes Tepco is cutting corners because cash is tight. Even such basic tools as wrenches are in short supply, he claims. Tepco is shielded by a lack of media scrutiny. The councillor shows a Tepco gagging order that one local boss had to sign. Article four bans all discussion of the work with outsiders. All requests for media interviews must be rejected.

Those higher up the rungs appear to be treated better—though they, too, are sworn to secrecy. One engineer who has played a front-line role in helping cool the meltdown of Fukushima’s three reactors spoke unwittingly to The Economist. A swarthy man in his 50s, he had worked in nuclear-power stations for 25 years. Once he heard about the accident, he knew it was his duty to help, since so few people understood how to run reactor systems. He came to the Dai-ichi plant in May, despite family protests. Then, he said, the hardest work was done by the low-level labourers. They had so much rubble to clear, he says, that they often keeled over in the heat under the weight of their protective gear. Taken out in ambulances, they would usually be back the following day.

The engineer’s most stressful months, he said, were in June and July, once enough rubble was cleared to let him work on the systems. Seven-hour shifts usually involve an hour on and an hour off. Before he starts he must put on two sets of protective clothing, four pairs of gloves and a helmet with breathing apparatus, all of which is taped up so that not a particle of skin is exposed. At the end of every hour, he has to take off the protective layers and replace them with new ones before starting again. (Tepco says, with attention to finickety detail, that it has accumulated a mountain of 480,000 such suits in need of disposal.) During the busiest months, the hour-on, hour-off rule was foregone, the engineer said. “Though everyone is really trying their best, most of the Tepco guys in head office are clueless about what’s going on. No one has any idea of the conditions we’ve had to work under.” But then he added: “I’m not leaving this until I’m done. Never.”

The brink of bankruptcy

Government officials say some of the low-level safety breaches may be justified, given that Tepco is on a war footing and that its top priority is to stabilise the reactors. This week Yasuhiro Sonoda of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan drank a glass of water from the Dai-ichi plant in an attempt to play down safety concerns. On November 1st the government also said that it intended to invite journalists to Dai-ichi for the first time—though it muddied the message by discouraging women (for health reasons, it said, and because there are no women’s loos at the plant). The following day Tepco reported unexpected signs of nuclear fission in one of the stricken reactors, forcing it to inject boric acid against renewed radiation leaks. Tepco’s share price fell sharply.

The physical mess at Dai-ichi is mirrored in Tepco’s finances. A leaked plan drawn up with the government proposes to cut costs by ¥2.5 trillion over ten years. Government officials insist they will not let the utility cut corners on safety. But Tepco is already expected to lose ¥570 billion this financial year, rendering it barely solvent. The government was expected to confirm massive support of Tepco on November 4th, with a ¥1 trillion injection, mainly to help the 89,000 evacuees.

For those forced from their homes as a result of the disaster, compensation cannot come soon enough. But increasingly they are fed up with the shroud of secrecy thrown over the Fukushima plant and the abandoned towns and villages where families had lived for centuries. The less media coverage there is, the more they worry that their plight will be forgotten—and the less pressure there will be on Tepco to cough up proper compensation. That appears to be one reason some are starting to take the law into their own hands and smuggling journalists into the forbidden zone.

from the print edition | Asia

Why no food from China either?

2011-11-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

Some people have asked what’s so bad about having China mixed across our consumables without us even knowing it, in our food supply, in the sunscreen we put on our kids, in the toothpaste we brush our teeth with everyday, etc? Here is a quick summary of why 4.9 billion given to China each year to supply us with these things are of concern:

1. The former associate commissioner of the FDA sees big time issues. Very enlightening interview. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june07/foodhubbard_06-08.html

2. Unlike our president who shows up at a local hamburger joint to grab something to eat, the leaders of China don’t ever eat the same food as is giving to regular people. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/MG07Ad02.htmlThat means they never eat any foods that is given to you or me either. That says something.

3. American greedy food companies are going to China to get ingredients to get mixed across our food supply b/c it is cheap, not because it is any healthier for us than something that an american farmer can grow for you and your family. Cheap does NOT equal healthier. If it was cheap and healthier, I’d be okay with it. But it is definitely not healthier. http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/food-safety-in-china-and-the-risk-to-the-us/ I want the healthiest food for your family and mine.

4. China has no equivalent of an FDA, there is no centralized agency that monitors food safety and “bigger, cheaper, faster is the name of the game”. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/26/world/la-fg-china-food-20110627. If some type of bad food scandal happens, the government executes the person and/or closes the shops a warning to others and claims to implement food safety standards but there isn’t a central agency to enforce it.

5. There are over 200 farms in China that are sourcing organic food ingredients for the USA and products coming out of there are not necessarily truly organic. This is probably happening because it is so cheap and we don't have enough organic property to keep up here with demand in the US b/c so much has been Monsanto ed. We really need to clean up our fields here in the US so we can provide truly organic, the way we all think it to be. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-report--many-organic-soy-food- brands-importing-beans-from-china-61901012.html

6. “Last year alone, 4 billion pounds of food worth almost $5 billion were imported into the United States from China and large amounts of those shipments are rotten or pumped full of cancer-causing chemicals that violate U.S. Food and Drug Administration health standards. Between 2006 and 2010, more than 9,000 dangerous goods were stopped at the border. Chinese food imported to our country has tripled over the last decade, but less than 1 percent of imports are inspected.”
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/food-327547-chinese-china.html

7. The Chinese government has received criticism after it ruled that small amounts of potentially lethal bacterium were permissible in frozen foods. This bacterium can cause a range of mild to several infections and diseases including life-threatening pneumonia and meningitis. Watchdog groups have accused the government of "deliberately lowering food safety standards to pander to big business" http://news.yahoo.com/china-govt-under-fire-over-food-bacteria-rule-115730834.html

8.The flood gates to free trade with China opened wide in the 1970s. Corporate america jumped on the bandwagon fast because it was sooo much cheaper to get ingredients for our food supply from there instead of American Farmers and all they care about is how BIG their profit margin can be. This is soooo wrong! Corporate greed for cheap unhealthy ingredients should NEVER come before your family's health! They should be sourcing ingredients from the healthiest places, not the cheapest!!!

9. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1254746/Chinese-medicine-caused-kidney-failure-cancer-So-safe-popular-cures.html

I want to see country of origin labeling so if we want to avoid ingredients from China we can. Back in 2007 before he was influenced by big campaign contributors, Obama agreed. http://www.youtube.com/embed/zqaaB6NE1TI.

If you agree that we should not lose sight on country of origin labeling, please take a moment to sign this petition http://www.change.org/petitions/the-us-senate-tell-us-where-our-food-is-from. If you already have, please repost this message so your friends and family can become aware and do the same. Thank you.

WHEN ARE PEOPLE GOING TO GET MAD?

2011-10-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

If you are mad about the Japanese government lying like this expert points out, sign the petition. They will continue the lies b/c their government relies on exports. My question: At what price? Is sacrificing your family's health worth it?? Ingredients for our food supply are coming from there AND over the counter medicines too.

Just watch the video above. People will be getting cancer because of this. In Japan for sure, and people here too because they are shipping it our way!!

If this makes you mad, then take action. Sign the petition and share with all those you know and love. Encourage them to do the same, share and sign. It can't stop with you or me if change is going to happen.

Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens’ group to test for radiation near his son’s baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan’s central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone.

Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/asia/radioactive-hot-spots-in-tokyo-point-to-wider-problems.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Fallout forensics hike radiation toll

Global data on Fukushima challenge Japanese estimates.

Geoff Brumfiel

Published online 25 October 2011 | Nature 478, 435-436 (2011) | doi:10.1038/478435aThe Fukushima accident led to mass evacuations from nearby towns such as Minamisoma.AP Photo/S. Ponomarev

The disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March released far more radiation than the Japanese government has claimed. So concludes a study¹ that combines radioactivity data from across the globe to estimate the scale and fate of emissions from the shattered plant.

The study also suggests that, contrary to government claims, pools used to store spent nuclear fuel played a significant part in the release of the long-lived environmental contaminant caesium-137, which could have been prevented by prompt action. The analysis has been posted online for open peer review by the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Andreas Stohl, an atmospheric scientist with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research in Kjeller, who led the research, believes that the analysis is the most comprehensive effort yet to understand how much radiation was released from Fukushima Daiichi. "It's a very valuable contribution," says Lars-Erik De Geer, an atmospheric modeller with the Swedish Defense Research Agency in Stockholm, who was not involved with the study.

The reconstruction relies on data from dozens of radiation monitoring stations in Japan and around the world. Many are part of a global network to watch for tests of nuclear weapons that is run by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna. The scientists added data from independent stations in Canada, Japan and Europe, and then combined those with large European and American caches of global meteorological data.

Stohl cautions that the resulting model is far from perfect. Measurements were scarce in the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima accident, and some monitoring posts were too contaminated by radioactivity to provide reliable data. More importantly, exactly what happened inside the reactors — a crucial part of understanding what they emitted — remains a mystery that may never be solved. "If you look at the estimates for Chernobyl, you still have a large uncertainty 25 years later," says Stohl.

Nevertheless, the study provides a sweeping view of the accident. "They really took a global view and used all the data available," says De Geer.

Challenging numbers

Japanese investigators had already developed a detailed timeline of events following the 11 March earthquake that precipitated the disaster. Hours after the quake rocked the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, the tsunami arrived, knocking out crucial diesel back-up generators designed to cool the reactors in an emergency. Within days, the three reactors operating at the time of the accident overheated and released hydrogen gas, leading to massive explosions. Radioactive fuel recently removed from a fourth reactor was being held in a storage pool at the time of the quake, and on 14 March the pool overheated, possibly sparking fires in the building over the next few days.

But accounting for the radiation that came from the plants has proved much harder than reconstructing this chain of events. The latest report from the Japanese government, published in June, says that the plant released 1.5 × 10¹⁶ bequerels of caesium-137, an isotope with a 30-year half-life that is responsible for most of the long-term contamination from the plant². A far larger amount of xenon-133, 1.1 × 10¹⁹ Bq, was released, according to official government estimates.

The new study challenges those numbers. On the basis of its reconstructions, the team claims that the accident released around 1.7 × 10¹⁹ Bq of xenon-133, greater than the estimated total radioactive release of 1.4 × 10¹⁹ Bq from Chernobyl. The fact that three reactors exploded in the Fukushima accident accounts for the huge xenon tally, says De Geer.

Xenon-133 does not pose serious health risks because it is not absorbed by the body or the environment. Caesium-137 fallout, however, is a much greater concern because it will linger in the environment for decades. The new model shows that Fukushima released 3.5 × 10¹⁶ Bq caesium-137, roughly twice the official government figure, and half the release from Chernobyl. The higher number is obviously worrying, says De Geer, although ongoing ground surveys are the only way to truly establish the public-health risk.

Stohl believes that the discrepancy between the team's results and those of the Japanese government can be partly explained by the larger data set used. Japanese estimates rely primarily on data from monitoring posts inside Japan³, which never recorded the large quantities of radioactivity that blew out over the Pacific Ocean, and eventually reached North America and Europe. "Taking account of the radiation that has drifted out to the Pacific is essential for getting a real picture of the size and character of the accident," says Tomoya Yamauchi, a radiation physicist at Kobe University who has been measuring radioisotope contamination in soil around Fukushima.

Stohl adds that he is sympathetic to the Japanese teams responsible for the official estimate. "They wanted to get something out quickly," he says. The differences between the two studies may seem large, notes Yukio Hayakawa, a volcanologist at Gunma University who has also modelled the accident, but uncertainties in the models mean that the estimates are actually quite similar.

The new analysis also claims that the spent fuel being stored in the unit 4 pool emitted copious quantities of caesium-137. Japanese officials have maintained that virtually no radioactivity leaked from the pool. Yet Stohl's model clearly shows that dousing the pool with water caused the plant's caesium-137 emissions to drop markedly (see 'Radiation crisis'). The finding implies that much of the fallout could have been prevented by flooding the pool earlier.

The Japanese authorities continue to maintain that the spent fuel was not a significant source of contamination, because the pool itself did not seem to suffer major damage. "I think the release from unit 4 is not important," says Masamichi Chino, a scientist with the Japanese Atomic Energy Authority in Ibaraki, who helped to develop the Japanese official estimate. But De Geer says the new analysis implicating the fuel pool "looks convincing".

The latest analysis also presents evidence that xenon-133 began to vent from Fukushima Daiichi immediately after the quake, and before the tsunami swamped the area. This implies that even without the devastating flood, the earthquake alone was sufficient to cause damage at the plant.

The Japanese government's report has already acknowledged that the shaking at Fukushima Daiichi exceeded the plant's design specifications. Anti-nuclear activists have long been concerned that the government has failed to adequately address geological hazards when licensing nuclear plants (see Nature 448, 392–393; 2007), and the whiff of xenon could prompt a major rethink of reactor safety assessments, says Yamauchi.

The model also shows that the accident could easily have had a much more devastating impact on the people of Tokyo. In the first days after the accident the wind was blowing out to sea, but on the afternoon of 14 March it turned back towards shore, bringing clouds of radioactive caesium-137 over a huge swathe of the country (see 'Radioisotope reconstruction'). Where precipitation fell, along the country's central mountain ranges and to the northwest of the plant, higher levels of radioactivity were later recorded in the soil; thankfully, the capital and other densely populated areas had dry weather. "There was a period when quite a high concentration went over Tokyo, but it didn't rain," says Stohl. "It could have been much worse."

Additional reporting by David Cyranoski and Rina Nozawa.

References
1. Stohl, A. et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 11, 28319-28394 (2011). | Article |
2. www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/kan/topics/201106/iaeahoukokushoe.html
3. Chino, M. et al. J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 48, 1129-1134 (2011). | Article | ChemPort |

Comments

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#28970

The Stohl Report is not surprised to many scientists in Taiwan, which is one of the countries closest to Fukushima out of Japan. We visited the Sendai, Fukushima City, and area as close as 40 km from the devastated Daiichi plant at the end of August, and meters read up to 10 uS per hour on unrestricted topsoil in the public parking lots and kindergartens, as well as bustling roads, much higher than those levels in Tokyo city. In early April, radioactivity dusts from Fukushima had reached several governmental monitoring stations in Taiwan. But as early as 2 weeks after Fukushima nuclear spill, Prof. Huh, the leading geochemical scientist in Academic Sinica in Taiwan, already detected exceptional aerial radioactive dusts in several monitoring stations (submitted for publication). In cities in Japan, we met many Japanese public, housewives, quiet but anxious, reserved but with tears and angers. The shocks were totally new to them, to the towns and separated families, as well as the plant operators and the government. The Japanese majority did not enjoy the explanation from the government, though. Many in Japan have worked to recover and scientists are trying on exposure assessment, health check-ups, as well as ways of decontamination. To us, the real amounts of emissions from the plants shall be learned and shared, that we will be able to cope with potential spills from massive spent fuels stored in many ageing nuclear plants throughout the world, as well as those in Taiwanâ€™s nuclear plants. (Author a professor in the Taipei Medical University, Taiwan).

Report this comment

2011-10-29 07:48:10 AM

Posted by: Peter Chang

I Get It Now

2011-10-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Before I didn't understand why the FDA is allowing sourcing from around Fukushima, Japan, the site of the worst nuclear disaster known to man. That place is riddled with cancer causing nuclear radiated material, I just didn't get it, but now I do.

It all came together for me when someone sent me an image used by Occupy. Here is the diagram that help me put it all together in my mind. Look at what the middle piece says about what Occupy Wall Street Protesters have in common with the Tea Party in that bigger circle in the middle, "Large corporations lobby for the government to have more power, and in return the government enacts laws and regulations favorable to large corporations..."

This is exactly what the FDA does. The FDA is not an organization truly in place to protect your health as their motto claims.

I've learned through all this that the FDA is a government agency that is influenced by politicians. These politicians are influenced by lobbyist who support big food and medicine companies who push for what works out best for them, like sourcing from cancer causing nuclear radiated Japan, it is probably quite cheap to do, not necc what is in our best interest health wise.

As far as I'm concerned,

should have a FDA type agency that is an independent agency, really super far removed from politics and the bribes of the corporate world if it is to truly be looking out for our health and well-being. If they really were doing that know, there would be no way in hell they would not be allowing sourcing of our ingredients from around Fukushima, Japan. Allowing this to happen defies common sense to the max and points out that something other than protecting our health is driving the FDA. I think it is politics, trying to keep diplomacy going, and corporate america who want to keep cheap things rolling in to maximize their profits no matter what the health ramifications are on your health or mine.

Why Should We Not Get Ingredients from Fukushima? Start watching video at minute 10 Mom from Fukushima speaks. Minute 31 Kids speak..

2011-09-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

PLEASE READ THE ENTRY UNDER AUGUST CALLED

FDA and Fukushima, Japan - PLEASE READ

and Corporate Responses located under August as well.

September 24, 2011 article in the NY Times

(click on the article to make it larger or if that doesn't work you can view

the actual article here

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/world/asia/japan-testing-rice-for-radiation.html

Okay...AT THE SAME TIME, here is an actual corporate response received and posted to the blog. PEPSICO, maker of Gatorade, Quaker Products, Frito-Lay Potato Chips, etc says, " * PepsiCo has taken proactive steps to further ensure the safety of raw materials we purchase from Japan, including strict surveillance of all food and beverage ingredients produced near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. …

...Our suppliers have confirmed that despite the recent disaster, the materials we purchase are safe and suitable for consumers. * WHAT?? doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out that can't be good. They rely on these people whose livelihoods depend on keeping this whole facade going to tell them what is safe for US to eat and drink??? Come on. Cancer is all over the place there. Let's be real.

Read more corporate responses at the blog under August titled Corporate Responses.

Below are some other news stories that convinced me getting ingredients from around Fukushima, Japan is not a good idea..

Recently the Japanese government has become a little more honest about the true severity of things over there. The newly elected Trade Minister called the area around Fukushima a "town of death". He told the people he said that because he wanted people to understand the severity of this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14877244

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/reports-japans-new-trade-minister-resigns-after-remark-seen-as-insensitive-to-nuclear-crisis/2011/09/10/gIQAR64NHK_story.html

Just last week an article was published stating that the amount of cesium around that area is the eqivalent of 168 Hiroshoma bombs.

Interestingly, this article was published in JapanToday, but has been since removed. The comments are still there though and they are an interesting read.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/fukushima-cesium-leaks-equal-168-hiroshima-bombs-says-report

Here is the AP news version

http://news.yahoo.com/japan-nuke-plant-radiation-leak-exceeds-hiroshima-131930665.html

This Bloomberg article from July states,

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-25/japan-s-food-chain-threat-multiplies-as-radiation-spreads.html

"More than 2,600 cattle have been contaminated, Kyodo News reported July 23, after the Miyagi local government said 1,183 cattle at 58 farms were fed hay containing radioactive cesium before being shipped to meat markets....

.....Agriculture Minister Michihiko Kano has said officials didn’t foresee that farmers might ship contaminated hay to cattle ranchers. That highlights the government’s inability to think ahead and to act, said Mariko Sano, secretary general for Shufuren, a housewives organization in Tokyo.

......On July 22, Aeon Co., Japan’s biggest supermarket chain, said 1,614 kilograms (3,558 pounds) of beef from cattle fed contaminated feed had been unknowingly sold at stores in Tokyo and nine other prefectures

....Some areas still have high radiation dosages and if you also eat products from these areas, you’ll get a considerable amount of radiation,” said Sentaro Takahashi, a professor of radiation control at Kyoto University in western Japan. “This is why the government needs to do something fast.”

Radiation in food is measured in becquerel, a gauge of the strength of radioactivity in materials such as Iodine-131 and Cesium-137.

As much as 2,300 becquerels of cesium a kilogram was detected in the contaminated beef, according to a July 18 statement from the health ministry. The government limit is 500 becquerels per kilogram.

And here is some information from an organization staying close to the people around Fukushima, Japan. It is a shame that the government is treating them this way. Scroll down to the article titled International Expert Symposium Ignores Fukushima Residents: Citizens Group

http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/

Japan aims to bring radiation levels below 20 millisieverts annually

BTW the radiation levels mentioned here they would like to bring it down to, the 20 number, is actually 20x higher than what was allowed at the time of Chernobyl. They are trying to bring DOWN the amt of cancer stuff over there to this 20X higher than allowable during Chernobyl level. Guess who made these new levels the new acceptable level? You guessed it, the Japanese government/advocates for Nuclear Energy!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/26/japan-nuclear-idUSL4E7JQ1D620110826

* Thorough cleanup of areas frequented by children also a priority

* Group launched which will form core of new nuclear watchdog (Adds details on launch of new regulatory group)

By Shinichi Saoshiro

TOKYO, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Japan aims to halve radiation over two years in places contaminated by the Fukushima nuclear crisis, removing soil, plants and trees as well as cleaning roofs of buildings in an area spanning thousands of square kilometres.

The cleanup could cost tens of billions of dollars, and thousands of evacuees may not be able to return home for years, if ever.

Radiation in a contaminated area is estimated to fall naturally by about 40 percent over two years, and the government wants to speed up the process by another 10 percent through human efforts, according to guidelines for the cleanup unveiled on Friday.

"We aim to reduce radiation levels by half over the next two years in affected areas, and by 60 percent over the same period for places used by children," nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono told a news conference.

Another key government goal is to bring radiation below 20 millisieverts per year, the threshold level for evacuation, in areas where it is exceeded. Some places in the evacuation zone have levels that far surpass this, government data showed this week.

"Ultimately we want to achieve this goal in a shorter period. Technology is continuing to advance and with enough government funding and effort it can be done," Hosono said.

Japan has banned people from entering within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which had its reactor cooling systems knocked out by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, triggering meltdowns and a radiation crisis. Some 80,000 people have been evacuated from the area around the plant.

The guideline also calls for thorough cleanups in places frequented by children such as schools and parks, eventually pushing radiation levels in those places below 1 millisievert annually.

The total area in need of cleanup could be 1,000-4,000 square km (386-1,544 square miles), about 0.3 to 1 percent of Japan's total land area, and cost several trillion yen to more than 10 trillion yen ($130 billion), experts say.

One major problem the government faces is that removal of farmland topsoil could ruin fertile agricultural areas, and it plans to come up with guidelines to address this problem next month.

The government said it will take full responsibility for the soil and debris removed in the cleanup, but that as yet it does not have a permanent solution for storing the radioactive material and it would have to be kept within local communities for the time being.

"I reiterate that Fukushima prefecture will not become the final place of treatment for the debris," Hosono said.

NUCLEAR WATCHDOG

The disaster at Fukushima has prompted Japan to thoroughly rethink its energy policy including its enforcement of nuclear safety standards.

This month the government said it is setting up a new nuclear watchdog which will no longer be supervised by the trade ministry, which has traditionally promoted nuclear power.

Instead the organisation will be supervised by the environment ministry, seen as relatively untainted by the collusive ties with industry which plagued the existing agency.

"Crisis management, which had not been fully established before, will be embraced by the new organisation. The group gathered today includes personnel from law enforcement and national defence to achieve this purpose," said Hosono on Friday at an inauguration ceremony for a group that will form the core of the new regulatory body.

The group consists of members from various government ministries as well as the private sector and will form the basis of the new body to be launched in April. (Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Michael Watson)

Professor Chris Busby talks about some things the Japanese government is doing.

OUR FDA IS RELYING ON THIS JAPANESE GOVERNMENT TO TELL US WHAT IS SAFE FOR OUR FAMILIES TO EAT. DOES THIS BOTHER ANYONE BESIDES ME??

The Japanese government's track record with being truthful about anything has been sketchy at best. Seriously. Read the August post on the FDA and Fukushima.

Do you really think it is a good idea to leave the health of the American people in the hands of this kind of government? Why on earth are they being allowed to make these kinds of decisions for us? Why are we not using our common sense on this? It really is a no brainer. It's bad over there. We can debate all day long about how bad it is.

There's a picture of a rabbit circulating around the internet that was born with no ears near Fukushima. People there are attributing that deformity to the nuclear reactor accident. Others will say maybe that was a natural random ocurrance. That's an extreme of a reality that may or may not be connected to the accident at Fukushima, that's why I didn't post it here. One thing is for sure, it is bad.

Just stop and think for a moment, if given the choice, would you knowingly feed your children, your family, those you know and love, something from that area? Well, I am telling you the FDA is allowing it to happen so now you know. And corporate america is there sourcing food for your table right now. See corporate responses in the blog for August.

So, now you know it is being done. In essence your family is eating things from around Fukushima whether you like it or not. Now what will you do with that information? Ignore it and pray no one in your family gets cancer because of it? Or take action?

If you are a news media organization, I hope you will pick up the story. Every american deserves to know this and you have the ability to bring it to them. Please do so. It is their right to know and as a media organization that cares about the families that view your show or read your paper, it is your professional obligation to bring it to them.

If you are an individual, I would encourage you to sign the petition saying you want to know where all this food from Japan is going into our food supply so you can avoid feeding it to your family if you so choose. Seriously, I don't think you would intentionally knowingly be willing to feed your kids, your family, those you know and love things from there, would you? Take a stand on this now. Sign the petition. It takes less than one minute. Tell your representatives you want to know where your food is coming from.

Videos

2011-09-08T07:28:00.000-07:00

Better labeling laws are needed so that we can know where ingredients are coming from. That way, for example, if you don't want to consume something from Japan since the nuclear disaster happened, you could know where it is going and then leave those items on the shelf. It should be your right to decide what is in the best interest of your family.

In addition to country of origin labeling, we also need to label GMO food. The petition says we want to know where GMOs are going in our food supply as well. In the same way as the food coming from Japan, we have a right to know where genetically modified food is going. Again, that would be helpful to have on the label so we could make informed decisions when purchasing food for our families. Right now we have absolutely no clue. Some people may not want their family consuming GMOs and they should be able to avoid it if they so choose. Many European nations already require it on the labels, the US government should mandate it here as well so that people can make informed decisions for their families.

Below are some documentaries on Monsanto. They have a big footprint on our food industry and below those is a documentary that the Environmental Working Group has put together regarding how chemicals in our environment affect us. It is an interesting piece as well.

Documentary on Monsanto#1

Documentary on Monsanto#2

Shorter summary of Monsanto issues

Kid-Safe Chemicals Act | Environmental Working Group - Please watch.

Very informative. You need to know this.

The Letter - IF YOU AGREE SIGN THE PETITION -TELL BIG COMPANIES YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD IS COMING FROM- SIGN NOW

2011-08-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

It has recently come to my attention that the FDA is allowing food to be sourced from Japan, even in close proximity to the Fukushima, Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm247403.htm

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/161583.pdf

Three major corporations have stated that they are sourcing ingredients from Japan: Kellogg's, General Mills, and PepsiCo. These companies combined produce a vast proportion of the products on our store shelves today. There are probably more companies doing the same, these are just the ones I know about.

I was also surprised to learn from the report below which was prepared for Congress that as of 2008, China had become the third largest source of US agricultural and seafood imports. Additionally, as stated in the report below, these imports increased roughly fourfold from 433,000 metric tons (MT) and $1 billion in 1997 to 2.1 million MT and $4.9 billion in 2007. I was not aware of this either.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34080.pdf

Furthermore, currently labeling laws do not require companies making products that are processed, meaning where at least one ingredient is mixed with another, from lotions to sunscreens, makeup to toothpaste, from shampoos to conditioners to foods and medicines that we consume to disclose where those ingredients are sourced from. Put simply, for example, in a box of cereal, I have no idea if the ingredients in that box that make up that cereal are from the United States, China, or Fukushima, Japan or all three. I just have no idea.

Companies that market single ingredient items are required to list country of origin. For example, if I go to the store today, I can purchase a bag of peas and turn over the bag to find where those peas are sourced from. On the other hand, if I go to the store today and purchase a bag of peas mixed with carrots, this rule to let me know country of origin no longer applies. In the second case, corporations are not required to disclose the country of origin on those peas and carrots since it is processed, two ingredients mixed together. To inform consumers, both single item products and processed products should be held to the same standard. The labels of both products should list the country of origin for ingredients.

Under current law, companies that make processed items are able to simply list the ingredients on the labels and print on the labels "Distributed by... somewhere, USA" or "Manufactured in somewhere USA" or "Made in the USA" whereas in reality, in most if not all cases, one or more of the ingredients in these products are sourced from somewhere outside the United States.

Current labels of processed goods do nothing to help me make informed decisions for my family. As mentioned "Distributed by somewhere USA", or "Manufactured In somewhere, USA" or "Made in USA" gives me absolutely no information as to the country of origin of the actual ingredients that formulate that product.

As a citizen who wants to be an informed consumer, I am asking for the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) to be modified to include the The Consumer Right To Know Act whereby as a consumer I have the right to know the country(ies) of origin of the ingredients from processed goods, just as I already have the right and ability to know country of origin information with single ingredient items like frozen peas or fresh fruit.

To be clear, I am not asking for the labels on processed products to specify the country of origin for each ingredient. For example, I am not requesting labeling of the country of origin of sugar in a particular processed food, or of a particular chemical in sunscreen. I understand that some companies do not want to disclose what they consider to be proprietary information.

However, I do want to be an informed consumer whereby labeling on the packaging tells me any country that is the source of any ingredient in the product. If, for example, a certain item has ingredients sourced from three different countries, say, China, United States, and Brazil, then companies under the Consumer Right to Know Act, would be required to state on their label “Product of China, USA, and Brazil.”

If for some reason that is too difficult for companies to do--some may say our sourcing countries change too frequently to do this-- then an alternative option under The Consumer Right to Know Act is for companies of processed items to list their products on their company website under a tab called “Consumer Right to Know”. This will be presented in the form of a spreadsheet whereby one column has the product name and in the next column over, the corresponding up-to date country(ies) of origin for the ingredients composing that product. Product lists must be updated as sourcing information changes. Furthermore, under the Consumer Right to Know Act, the website information must have information as to when the website was updated last. Additionally, if companies choose the second option, to post country of origin for ingredients in a product on their website, they must state on their packaging label, “For information on the country(ies) of origin of the ingredients in this product, visit ____ and then give the website address. This will enable costumers to know exactly where they need to go to get the information they are seeking.

Lastly, another issue has come to my attention regarding product labeling. It is the issue having to do with genetic modification.

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/gmfood.shtml

http://mhadegree.com/2010/25-enlightening-studies-and-infographics-on-genetically-modified-food/

Genetically modified ingredients are making their way to our shelves in the United States and we have no idea where they are going. While genetically modifying corn might make it more disease resistant, some families may choose to not consume it. Genetically modified salmon may make for more meat, but some consumers may choose not to eat it. Some studies have suggested eating genetically modified food is not good for our health. For some people consuming a genetically modified product doesn’t make one bit of difference. Put simply, as consumers we have the right to know what items are genetically modified so that if we feel as consumers we don’t want to consume them, we can make that choice. As it stands now, we don’t always know because companies are not currently required to put it on their labels, so we don’t have a choice.

As noted on the Center for Food Safety’s website, The FDA relies on the very companies that have a financial interest in bringing these biotech crops to market to assess their safety. FDA has stated, "Ultimately, it is the food producer who is responsible for assuring safety" of gene altered foods. Congress must step up and fill the gaping regulatory hole left by the FDA to protect American consumers by requiring mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods.

The Center for Food Safety goes on to say that genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in the 15 European Union nations, Russia, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries around the world. If food makers like Kraft and Kellogg's can label the products they sell in these countries, they can certainly do it in the U.S.

I am not alone in this. According to the Center for Food Safety, a recent poll released by ABC News found that 92 percent of the American public wants the federal government to require mandatory labeling on genetically engineered foods. As ABC News stated, "Such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare." I hope you will listen to me and the other 92 percent of the American public who want mandatory labeling of all genetically engineered foods including labeling on finished meat products to indicate if the meat is genetically engineered and/or if that finished meat product was ever fed genetically engineered food.

In summary, I am asking for better labeling laws so as a consumer I can make informed choices for my family. Thank you for supporting the rights of your constituents to be informed consumers by supporting and/or co-sponsoring a revision to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) to include the enactment of The Consumer Right to Know Act. Thank you.

SIGN THE PETITION at the top of the page to the right then SHARE with all those you know and love. Takes 2 minutes tops. Let's send a message to our reps loud and clear, this needs to be changed.

PETITION -Time for Change

2011-08-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a loaf of bread. Looks good enough to eat right?

What if I told you it was Made in the USA. You'd still eat it, right?

How about if I told you it was made in the USA but there were ingredients in that bread that were sourced from somewhere within close proximity to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that is still leaking nuclear cancer causing material into the air, water, and soil today? It doesn't look so appealing anymore does it.

Here's the problem: Companies are hiding behind Made in USA or Manufactured in the USA to make us think that we are getting something nice and wholesome from the United States of America whereas in reality this tells us absolutely nothing about where the ingredients formulating the product have actually come from. I don't know where the ingredients from that bread are coming from. Your guess is as good as mine! You could be consuming something from the USA or something from around Fukushima, Japan (and big companies are actually doing this!...read blog on Corporate Responses). I just don't know.

This has got to change. You and your family have the right to know where the ingredients are coming from in everything you consume.

I've written the letter saying as citizens we want this changed. We want to know the country of origin of the ingredients that make up the products we consume. See blog titled The Letter.

I wrote the letter, now I need your help to sign it, sign the petition on the right to tell your congressperson you want this changed, and after you sign, tell all your friends and family to sign and then share with those they know and love. This can't stop with you or me. Others have a right to know too. Start by signing the petition yourself. Let congress hear you want change. It is the signatures that will get the attention of Congress so please be sure to sign. Really if we can prevent cancer causing material from entering our food supply I think all of us should take the 2 minutes to SIGN the petition and then SHARE on FB or email with all those you know and love. It's really important to take care of each other.

In addition to notifying us about countries of origin, I also included in there a piece that would require companies to let us know if a product contains any genetically modified ingredients.

SIGN THE PETITION - takes less than 2 minutes at the top of this page- then pass along to ALL those you know. It is our right to know where what we are eating is coming from and if it has been genetically modified in any way.

PLEASE keep letting everyone you know about this so we can get this changed. The more signatures the more likely it will be to become law! Don't let it stop with you!

Stay tuned...

UPDATE Thursday August 25, 2011

I just signed the petition "The U.S. Senate: Require labels on consumables to include country of origin of ingredients." Please support our efforts by adding your name.

SIGN THE PETITION on the top right hand side of this page then SHARE with all those you know and love. Takes 2 minutes tops. Let's get this done.

Chernobyl VS Fukushima - 60 Minutes Video & Interview with a Chernobyl Worker

2011-08-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

Just ran across this video. It was run on Australia's version of 60 minutes. Good to know there's somebody out there feeling like Fukushima is still worth paying attention to. Please watch this. For the health of our families, we better pay attention too, especially given the fact that the FDA is saying we can source food from around there...

(copy and paste the link below into a new window so you won't lose your place in the blog)

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8262363/fallout

Just watch below if it comes up for you. You'll need to X the commercial , then use the scroll bar on the bottom of the frame to move the frame to the middle and then move the top scroll bar a little bit down to get to a good spot to watch it.

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Watching the above video and reading the article below from the San Francisco Chronicle really solidified for me the notion that the FDA should not be giving the green light for food companies to source food for our consumption from Japan.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/11/bloomberg1376-P9OQL1Y2AMTDH34XI_NMLENF-20110811102803-5DJGFC5BT7NSG7MP3LU21HJ1V6.DTL

Some companies have the good sense to say no thank you even though the FDA has said it is okay.

Unfortunately some big companies like Kellogg's, General Mills, and PepsiCo, the big 3 that seem to own almost everything in our supermarkets, from Gatorade to Rice Krispies, from Rice-A-Roni to Cheerios, from Nature Valley Granola Bars to Betty Crocker Products to Doritos, Eggos, Progresso Soup, and many, many, more products (check out their websites for their full product lines if you are interested to know), are all currently sourcing from there. They are sourcing raw ingredients, basic ingredients, that then get mixed into our food supply.

What are these things that they are sourcing? I have no idea. They can't tell me. They have said they source raw ingredients from there, anything more they can't tell me. It's proprietary information. One company even told me that even their own managers don't know where specific ingredients are coming from. Not sure why all the secrecy? Seems to me our food supply chain should be transparent, not some highly guarded secret.

In short, you and I don't know if the raw ingredients coming out of Japan is the rice in Rice Krispies, the sugar in Gatorade, the oats in Cheerios, the flavorings in Rice-A-Roni, or the spices in Quaker apples and cinnamon hot cereal, we just don't know because they won't tell us and because our currently labeling laws don't require them to tell us (see the other blog on crazy labels).

As I side note, did you know medicines are also being produced around that area as well? I picked up some Benadryl the other day at target. It was the premeasured spoon version. I flipped over the box and it said made in Japan. I called the company and told them I was concerned about this. They told me not to worry, it was far enough away from Fukushima. I said give me the name of the city and I'll make that decision. They said they didn't know the name of the town which was interesting to me. On the one hand they said it was far enough away, on the other hand they didn't know the name of the city where it was being made.

I did end up getting a call back on that. I was told it was being made at a plant in Toyama, Japan. While on the opposite coast from Fukushima, it is only approximately 160 miles away according to my calculations. The soil and water supplies are contaminated for hundreds and hundreds of miles away according to some experts. How can it be safe to make anything at that plant only 160 miles away? In my mind there's a chance of contamination somehow in either the making of the product or even in transporting the product from one area to another. Again the question I keep asking myself over and over...why are we risking it?? How about taking that manufacturing job to another plant located somewhere else in the world? Is there something wrong with that idea?

The same company, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, owns Zertec (parent company Johnson and Johnson). Don't know if Zertec is being made there too? I think there might be other drugs being manufactured in Japan as the FDA talks about medicines in their statement, I just don't know what they are nor do I know what cities they are being processed in.

I also wonder about ingredients for shampoos, makeup, lotions, toothpaste, sunscreens, baby care products, are any of those coming from Japan? While these are all not things that we ingest directly, they are things that we put on skin (or in our mouth in the case of toothpaste) that can get absorbed into our body. I'm not an expert on cancer causing materials by any stretch of the imagination, so I have no idea if it would matter health wise if cancer causing chemicals were mixed in and then we spread it on our skin or the skin of our families. Would that potentially be cancer causing? I don't know but it did cross my mind.

To be fair to General Mills, PepsiCo, and Kellogg's, and McNeil Healthcare, there are probably other large companies that are also sourcing from Japan as well. However, the companies mentioned here are ones where I have spoken with a customer representative personally about their sourcing.

In case you are curious to know, General Mills, PepsiCo, and Kellogg's also all get ingredients from China. Again, they won't disclose where those ingredients ultimately end up. Instead they say they can't tell me, that's proprietary information (see blog on Corporate Responses).

Chernobyl cleanup survivor's message for Japan:

'Run away as quickly as possible'

Dana Kennedy, AOL News, March 22, 2011

Pictures published courtesy of Natalia Manzurova as part of this original article located at

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/22/chernobyl-cleanup-survivors-message-for-japan-run-away-as-qui/

Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the long cleanup of Chernobyl, was a 35-year-old engineer at a nuclear plant in Ozersk, Russia, in April 1986 when she and 13 other scientists were told to report to the wrecked, burning plant in the northern Ukraine.

It was just four days after the world's biggest nuclear disaster spewed enormous amounts of radiation into the atmosphere and forced the evacuation of 100,000 people.

Manzurova and her colleagues were among the roughly 800,000 "cleaners" or "liquidators" in charge of the removal and burial of all the contamination in what's still called the dead zone.

Natalia Manzurova, shown here in 1988 in the "dead zone" of the Pripyat, is one of the relatively few survivors among those directly involved in the cleanup of Chernobyl.
She spent 4 1/2 years helping clean the abandoned town of Pripyat, which was less than two miles from the Chernobyl reactors. The plant workers lived there before they were abruptly evacuated.

Manzurova, now 59 and an advocate for radiation victims worldwide, has the "Chernobyl necklace" -- a scar on her throat from the removal of her thyroid -- and myriad health problems. But unlike the rest of her team members, who she said have all died from the results of radiation poisoning, and many other liquidators, she's alive.

AOL News spoke with Manzurova about the nuclear disaster in Japan with the help of a translator on the telephone Monday from Vermont. Manzurova, who still lives in Ozersk, was beginning a one-week informational tour of the U.S. organized by the Beyond Nuclear watchdog group.

AOL News: What was your first reaction when you heard about Fukushima?
Manzurova: It felt like déjà vu. I felt so worried for the people of Japan and the children especially. I know the experience that awaits them.

But experts say Fukushima is not as bad as Chernobyl.
Every nuclear accident is different, and the impact cannot be truly measured for years. The government does not always tell the truth. Many will never return to their homes. Their lives will be divided into two parts: before and after Fukushima. They'll worry about their health and their children's health. The government will probably say there was not that much radiation and that it didn't harm them. And the government will probably not compensate them for all that they've lost. What they lost can't be calculated.

What message do you have for Japan?
Run away as quickly as possible. Don't wait. Save yourself and don't rely on the government because the government lies. They don't want you to know the truth because the nuclear industry is so powerful.

Natalia Manzurova, now 59, has suffered a variety of ailments since she worked at Chernobyl, but she says she is the only member of her team still alive.
When you were called to go to Chernobyl, did you know how bad it was there?
I had no idea and never knew the true scope until much later. It was all covered in secrecy. I went there as a professional because I was told to -- but if I was asked to liquidate such an accident today, I'd never agree. The sacrifices the Fukushima workers are making are too high because the nuclear industry was developed in such a way that the executives don't hold themselves accountable to the human beings who have to clean up a disaster. It's like nuclear slavery.

What was your first impression of Chernobyl?
It was like a war zone where a neutron bomb had gone off. I always felt I was in the middle of a war where the enemy was invisible. All the houses and buildings were intact with all the furniture, but there wasn't a single person left. Just deep silence everywhere. Sometimes I felt I was the only person alive on a strange planet. There are really no words to describe it.

What did your work as a liquidator entail?
First, we measured radiation levels and got vegetation samples to see how high the contamination was. Then bulldozers dug holes in the ground and we buried everything -- houses, animals, everything. There were some wild animals that were still alive, and we had to kill them and put them in the holes.

Were any pets left in the houses?
The people had only a few hours to leave, and they weren't allowed to take their dogs or cats with them. The radiation stays in animals' fur and they can't be cleaned, so they had to be abandoned. That's why people were crying when they left. All the animals left behind in the houses were like dried-out mummies. But we found one dog that was still alive.

Where did you find the dog and how did he survive?
We moved into a former kindergarten to use as a laboratory and we found her lying in one of the children's cots there. Her legs were all burned from the radiation and she was half blind. Her eyes were all clouded from the radiation. She was slowly dying.

Were you able to rescue her?
No. Right after we moved in, she disappeared. And this is the amazing part. A month later we found her in the children's ward of the (abandoned) hospital. She was dead. She was lying in a child's bed, the same size bed we found her in the kindergarten. Later we found out that she loved children very much and was always around them.

How did working in the dead zone begin to affect your health?
I started to feel as if I had the flu. I would get a high temperature and start to shiver. What happens during first contact with radiation is that your good flora is depleted and the bad flora starts to flourish. I suddenly wanted to sleep all the time and eat a lot. It was the organism getting all the energy out.

How much radiation were you subjected to?
We were never told. We wore dosimeters which measured radiation and we submitted them to the bosses, but they never gave us the results.

But didn't you realize the danger and want to leave?
Yes, I knew the danger. All sorts of things happened. One colleague stepped into a rainwater pool and the soles of his feet burned off inside his boots. But I felt it was my duty to stay. I was like a firefighter. Imagine if your house was burning and the firemen came and then left because they thought it was too dangerous.

When did you discover the thyroid tumor?
They found it during a routine medical inspection after I had worked there several years. It turned out to be benign. I don't know when it started to develop. I had an operation to remove half the thyroid gland. The tumor grew back, and last year I had the other half removed. I live on (thyroid) hormones now.

Why did you go back to Chernobyl after getting a thyroid tumor?
Right around the time of my operation, the government passed a law saying the liquidators had to work for exactly 4 1/2 years to get our pension and retire. If you left even one day early, you would not get any benefits.

Really? That seems beyond cruel.
It's why the nuclear industry is dangerous. They want to deny the dangers. They kept changing the law about what benefits we'd get because if they admitted how much we were affected, it would look bad for the industry. Now we hardly get any benefits.

Did your health worsen after you finally finished work at Chernobyl?
I was basically disabled at 43. I was having fits similar to epileptic fits. My blood pressure was sky high. It was hard to work for more than six months a year. The doctors didn't know what to do with me. They wanted to put me in a psychiatric ward and call me crazy. Finally they admitted it was because of the radiation.

Corporate Responses

2011-08-18T09:18:00.001-07:00

CORPORATE GREED FOR CHEAP INGREDIENTS OR YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW?

Currently food and other big manufactures like Colgate-Palmolive hide behind "Made in USA or Manufactured in USA" whereas the actual ingredients are coming from cheap places like China and cancer causing nuclear contaminated Japan. We know for sure that China plays a big role in ingredients for our food supply because a report to congress states that number being 4.9 Billion dollars a year (and that was for 2007--the trend has been more and more every year).

China had become the third largest source of US agricultural and seafood imports. Additionally, as stated in the report below, these imports increased roughly fourfold from 433,000 metric tons (MT) and $1 billion in 1997 to 2.1 million MT and $4.9 billion in 2007. I was not aware of this either.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34080.pdf

The best part? If you try to inquire if anything in a product you eat regularly has ingredients from China or Japan in it, they won't tell you!! They say its "proprietary", none of your business. So if you want to protect yourself or your family from eating ingredients from China or Japan, you can't, because they wont tell you.

This goes for other things like makeup, shampoos, toothpaste, and sunscreen too. We slather sunscreen on our kids every summer and bathe in chemicals. From where? That stuff gets absorbed into our skin. We have no clue where all that is from. Think about that for a minute. Where are all those ingredients from that we eat, that get absorbed into our skin through makeup and sunscreen? Do you know? Call your favorite company and ask them. Chances are good they won't tell you and that's not right.

It's not right that we live in a free county and we don't have access to that basic information. If you agree that this is an outrage, SIGN the petition on the right and then share with all those you know and love.

IN A NUTSHELL....

Right now corporate america has the upper hand. They don't want truth in labeling because their profit margins on anything with China in it, for example, will go way down. In fact, most people probably wouldn't buy it anymore if they knew the truth and corporate knows that. But the more signatures we get on the petition, the more likely we will be to tip the scale in our favor which is really where it should be. We need truth in labeling. The more signatures on the petition we get, the more likely our representatives will be to listen up to what WE , The People want, instead of what big corporations want in order to protect their bottom line.

CHECK OUT WHAT CORPORATE AMERICA HAS TO SAY....

Kelloggs - Contacted Early August 2011

Was informed that they do source from China. Said they get some vitamins from China but wouldn't tell me which ones. Not for sure, but my guess is they might source other things from China as well. I said if I am concerned about my child getting sick from an ingredient from China what should I do? She said I have been with the company for over 10 years and have never said this before, but if you are concerned about the possibility of your child ingesting something from China, then you should avoid Kellogg's products all together. I think that was one of the most honest answers I have ever heard.

Here's why having China in our food supply without us even knowing it is very concerning.

http://newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-no-food-from-china-either.html

Followed up on August 19,2011 to see if Kellogg's is sourcing from Japan.

Why is getting ingredients for our food supply from Japan a bad idea? Think March 11, 2011. Fukushima. One of the worst nuclear disasters known to man. Its bad. Read more at link.

http://newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/08/fda-and-fukushima-japan.html

I spoke with a different representative and was told that Kellogg's is a global company and they do source from Japan as well. He couldn't find that I had called before in his history. Not sure why that was the case? He said he would document in the current case number that I had called before but that there was no record of it.

Furthermore, in terms of knowing which products have ingredients from which countries, I was told managers don't even have access to that information. Why is this?? I feel like our food supply should be transparent. This sounds very secretive and its not just Kellogg's. They are just an example of what seems to be going on across the board.

At least in my book, everyone should have the right to know the potential countries of origins of the food they consume. To protect proprietary information, we don't need to know where the sugar comes from, where the vitamins come from, etc. just where the potential country of origins might be of the ingredients used to make the product. After all, companies make decisions as to what countries they are willing to work with.

If for whatever reason companies can't list what countries the ingredients are sourced from inside their box, then at the very least put the same information on all your boxes. Simply list the countries that your company is willing to do business with on all your packages.

Here's the kicker, because of this whole proprietary issue, I have no idea for example, where the rice in rice krispies is coming from. Is that from the USA? China? Fukushima, Japan? I have no idea.

Quaker Oats (Parent Company PepsiC0) Contacted Early August 2011

What follows is a note from PepsiCo in response to a question I had regarding sourcing information for Quaker Oats.

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to tell you where Quaker Oats products are from. We'd like you to know that our products all of our products are made in North America (United States and Canada). Also 100% of our crop grains, including oats, corn, rice and wheat are sourced in North America. However, ingredients (other than grains) such as flavoring and spice blends are purchased from many different suppliers around the world. Specific country information isn't available to us at this office. In addition, we'd like you to know that we work closely with our suppliers to ensure the safety of all the materials we use to manufacture our products. You can be assured that we use only quality ingredients that are safe and wholesome. All of our suppliers, regardless of their location/country, must: * Meet all applicable US food laws. * Have an approved audit by PepsiCo or approved audit firm which includes all quality documents. * All incoming ingredients are tested prior to use at our plants. With specific reference to you concerns about ingredients which may be sourced from Japan; * PepsiCo’s Food Safety and Regulatory Affairs team is closely monitoring any potential issues related to the safety of raw material we purchase from Japan. * PepsiCo has taken proactive steps to further ensure the safety of raw materials we purchase from Japan, including strict surveillance of all food and beverage ingredients produced near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. * Our suppliers have confirmed that despite the recent disaster, the materials we purchase are safe and suitable for consumers. * Please know that safety is of the utmost importance to us here at the PepsiCo and we will remain vigilant in ensuring that all of our products are safe for our consumers. Quaker Consumer Relations A Division of PepsiCo

Did you hear that..."Our suppliers have confirmed that despite the recent disaster, the materials we purchase are safe and suitable for consumers. * WHAT?? doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out that can't be good. They rely on these people whose livelihoods depend on keeping this whole facade going to tell them what is safe for US to eat and drink??? Come on. Cancer is all over the place there. Let's be real.

I emailed back the following note in response to the above note:

Thanks for the note. How about China? Do you source from China? If so, what is china sourcing from there? It is stated below, PepsiCo has taken proactive steps to further ensure the safety of raw materials we purchase from Japan, including strict surveillance of all food and beverage ingredients produced near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.I need a list of all the food and beverage ingredients produced in Japan, near and far from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, along with the list of all products those ingredients from Japan are eventually used in. Thank you.

To which I got this response:

Thank you for re contacting us. As we have explained in our previous email; All of our suppliers, regardless of their location/country, must: * Meet all applicable US food laws. * Have an approved audit by PepsiCo or approved audit firm which includes all quality documents. * All incoming ingredients are tested prior to use at our plants. This would include China. That said, a list such as you describe is not available. Additionally, such information is proprietary and would not provided to anyone outside the company. Quaker Consumer Relations A Division of PepsiCo

I sent a follow up note that said this:

Thanks for your response. I need your help with something. If as a considered mom, I am not comfortable with the idea of my family consuming things from in and around Fukushima and China what should I do?

After thinking about it some more I sent another note that said this:

One more item that i need your help on. I'm unclear as to how my request is proprietary information. I can see how if maybe I was saying where do you get your sugar from, where do you get your food coloring from, etc. Giving me those kind of details could be proprietary. But that's not what I am looking for and I apologize if I did not make myself more clear before. What I was looking for is simply a list of your products that contain one or more ingredients from Japan and/or China. I understand and respect the company's proprietary rights to not disclose to me where particular ingredients are sourced from.

To which I have yet to receive a response. I will update as soon as I get a response.

Here is a link to the Pepsi-Co shopping list that PepsiCo has on their website. It is a good resource to get to know what Pepsi-Co owns. I had no idea they had so many products until they responded to me when I asked about Quaker.

http://www.pepsico.com/download/USBrands_Shopping_List.pdf

General Mills Contacted Today (August 18, 2011)

Just got off the phone with GM and asked them if they source from China or Japan. They said it is a possibility. The rep went on to say they source from both China and Japan. She read a corporate statement that said they are only sourcing from Japan in areas that have been deemed safe. Wonder who deems it safe? The Japanese government??? All roads seems to lead there. Instead of listening to the Japanese government who has never been through this before and who has an incentive to keep their exports going, the FDA needs to be listening to nuclear specialists who know about the cancer causing stuff in things over there. See my other post...

The GM rep went on to tell me they couldn't tell me where the ingredients in Cheerios are sourced from. I asked if they could tell me if they source from China or Japan in Cheerios, she said no due to proprietary rights. I pressed her further and said I don't want to know if they get their sugar from Japan and vitamin E from China, I respect their proprietary information, that I am not a spy for Post Cereal, I simply want to know if there is anything in the food I'm giving to my kids from either of those countries.

She said she would ask and then get back to me.

Here's my point: we have the right to know at all times where our foods are coming from. The fukushima accident just brought to light, front and center, the flaw of our product labeling requirements (see my other blog on the subject). In essence, I shouldn't have to call GM to find out if they are sourcing ingredients from Japan or China for Cheerios. I should be able to flip over my box of Cheerios and see it right there.

I don't need to know that the sugar is from Brazil, vitamins from China, wheat from USA, etc., (corporate america would push back on that calling it proprietary information, and I'm okay with that, I can respect that).

What I am asking for is something different. All I need to know is does anything, any of the ingredients in a package (don't need to know the specific ingredient), contain an ingredient from China or Japan, or even the USA or Brazil. We should know. Some people may want to avoid food from the USA, some might want to avoid food from China, some might want to avoid food from Brazil or Japan. As concerned citizens of our health and well-being of our families, we have a right to know so that we can decide on a personal basis what is best for our families to consume and for christ sake I should be able to know if Cheerios, the very first food we give to babies in our country, has something from China or Japan in it.

Dannon Contacted Today (August 18, 2011)

Spoke with a rep. She told me that they source their dairy products from around their factories located in a couple of different states around the US and that that makes up the majority of their products (I guess saying that is supposed to make me feel good about the other stuff coming from other places, maybe for some saying that the majority of something coming from the US is good enough).

I followed up by asked about where the other ingredients are coming from. (After all, if my family or yours gets sick from something sourced from somewhere else, it doesn't matter how much of it it was, just that it was ever in there in the first place). Then she offered up that dannon sources from all around the world and was about to give me the corporate line about proprietary information, but I stopped her. I've heard that line one too many times. I said I just need to know if anything in their products are sourced from Japan or China and if so which products might have something from either of those countries. She said that information was not available to her, that she would get back to me shortly. I'll update this as soon as I hear anything.

August 19, 2011- Followed up with Dannon

Same response. Can't tell you anything about where we get anything from. Proprietary Information. The only thing they would tell me again is that the main ingredient they have is the dairy and that that comes from farms around their plants. I told them other companies have been willing to say what countries their corporations are sourcing from when I ask the question. Still nothing. I asked them to push it up the chain to get an answer. Said they would but couldn't promise that the response would be any different. Again, why the secrecy?? I don't get it and if they are going to be so secretive, why not be secretive also about the dairy farms around their plants? Why isn't that proprietary information too? What's so different about that? Maybe they own all those farms which means no one else can then go to those same farms so they don't have a problem with consumers knowing about that. I guess they think everyone who calls their consumer information line is a spy for another company trying to gain access to their secret sourcing information. Sorry to sound so sarcastic but I'm feeling like this proprietary information, can't tell you what you are eating kind of thing, is a little over the top.

September 2, 2011 - Update on Dannon

I will NEVER buy another Dannon yogurt again. This company has been the absolute WORST when it comes to telling me anything. Why the secrecy? Are they not proud of who they are choosing to do business with? I love the way they focus on the milk as the primary ingredient, that that should put warm fuzzies in our heart since that is from the USA. But what about everything else?? If the other ingredients are coming from unhealthy places, it doesn't matter if it is the majority or minority ingredient, it will still make people sick. UNREAL!! I look at their yogurt now on the grocery store shelf and have nothing but complete disdain. Check out the follow up emails over the last couple of days:

August 31, 2011  Thank you for contacting the Dannon Company, Inc. We sincerely appreciate your interest in our products. You had asked us for specific information on the country of origin of our ingredients, stating your concerns about ingredients sourced from China or Japan.  Please be assured that your comments have been shared with the appropriate individuals. At Dannon, we take great care to ensure that the highest standards are met in everything we do. In our products, packaging, marketing and advertising, we strive for excellence. When a valued consumer like you takes the time to contact us, we do take it seriously.   We would also like to reassure you that food safety and quality are our primary concerns with all of the ingredients we select and use in Dannon products, regardless of their country of origin. We purchase ingredients from various sources. Milk, which is the primary ingredient in our products, comes from local farmers that are within a few hundred miles of our plants in Minster, Ohio, Fort Worth, Texas and West Jordan, Utah. We source some of our other ingredients, such as fruit, from many regions of the world based on regional seasonality and availability. Before purchasing any ingredients, a Dannon ingredient supplier must be approved through our rigorous and comprehensive supplier approval program which is part of our food safety requirements and is managed by our corporate quality team. All ingredient suppliers meet these rigorous safety and quality standards.  We also have rigorous food safety standards and quality audits to ensure the safety and quality of all of our ingredients regardless of their country of origin. Additionally, we have strict food safety measures in place and we will continue to monitor our ingredients and suppliers on an on-going basis to ensure the quality that you have come to expect from Dannon products. We have no additional information on specific countries of origin to share at this time. Details about our ingredient suppliers are proprietary and sources are subject to change according to our Company's business needs. 

To which I wrote back:

Just to clarify, I am not asking specifically where Dannon sources their pineapple from or where Dannon gets strawberries from. That would be proprietary information. What I am asking for is not that. I am simply asking does Dannon choose to do business with China and/or Japan. Again, I am not asking specifics of what is coming from there, just asking if it is done. Dannon needs to step up to the plate and be honest with its customers in the same way that other companies have.

I know for example that PepsiCo sources from both China and Japan.

Kelloggs does the same

So does General Mills.

Now I am asking the same question to Dannon. It is a plain and simple question that deserves a plain and simple answer. Under the freedom of information act we as customers have the right to know if Dannon is doing business with China and/or Japan.

Thank you in advance for being honest with your customers,

Dannon's Response Sept. 2, 2011 Thank you following up with us. We sincerely understand your concerns, and these have been shared with the appropriate members of our Company.  However, our sources are subject to change according to our Company's business needs. Details about our ingredient suppliers are proprietary. We have no additional information on specific countries of origin to share at this time.

I got to thinking about this...why is Dannon so secretive and another yogurt company like Stonyfield so transparent?

Sarah Lee Products Contacted Today (August 18, 2011)

Spoke with a Sarah Lee representative. This must be the day for minimizing everything because she said only 3% of their ingredients come from abroad. Once again, couldn't tell me where. The problem with that 3% is that while the % seems small, if it gets spread throughout the product line as a basic ingredient, like a vitamin or a spice, then the amount of things that has a potentiality of something from Japan or China becomes much, much greater. Furthermore, if you believe that consuming something from China or Japan could make you sick, the possibility of that happening also increases as that 3% is put in across the product line. Is this happening? I don't know for sure. It's proprietary information.

I asked about my Sarah Lee bread and any other products that might have an ingredient sourced from China or Japan. Again, she didn't have access to that information. She would have to forward that on to whomever and then get back with me. I'll post any update as I get it.

MARS (September 6, 2011)

(My note here sent on 9/1/2011)

Message:
Our family has committed to not consuming items from China or Japan. Does Mars source any ingredients from either of these two countries? I am not interested to know where mars gets their sugar for example as that is propriatary information. I would just like to know simply if Mars does business with either of these two countries. Smuckers has offered a short list of products that do not contain ingredients from these countries in them. If you could provide a short list like that, that would be great. We'd like to continue eating Mars products wherever we can. Thank you.

(Mars response received 9/6/11/2011

In response to your email regarding MARS CHOCOLATE NORTH AMERICA.

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, the information you are requesting is considered confidential and proprietary; therefore, it is not available for distribution or publication.

Have a great day!

Your Friends at Mars Chocolate North America

FRIENDS?? I'm not friends with a company that can't be honest with me about whether or not my kids are consuming something from China or cancer riddled Northern Japan when they eat their products. NO MORE M&Ms,SNICKERS,Uncle Ben's Rice, or anything else in their product line for us!!!

Stonyfield Organic Contacted Today August 19, 2011

Spoke with a rep. I asked him if they source anything from China or Japan.

In terms of sourcing from China, he said that the one thing he knew off hand that they source from China is the Stevia plant. I asked what that can be found in and he said pretty much all the products that have zero percent fat in it and it does say on the label that it contains Stevia (but not that it sourced from China).

I asked him to double check to see if anything else is being sourced from China and/or if their policy on sourcing from Japan has changed. He said last time he checked they were not sourcing from Japan.

I will update this as soon as I hear back.

Update: Here is a note I received this afternoon

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding ingredients sourced | |from China or Japan. None of our ingredients are imported from Japan, and | |only organic stevia is currently imported from China. I'm also including | |some statements regarding both Japan (from the time of the Fukushima | |incident) and China, below. | | | |Japan: | |Thank you for taking the time to contact us with your question about | |radiation and milk. We care just as much as you about protecting health, | |the environment and upholding the standards of organic food, and you can | |be | |assured that we are vigilant in our watch of the impact from the recent | |events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. | | | |Stonyfield is located in New Hampshire, and the majority of the milk we | |use | |to make our organic dairy products comes from organic farms located in New| |England and the North East. Stonyfield sources 100% of its milk from | |Organic Valley, a farmer-owned cooperative with a 23-year commitment to | |providing foods that are produced without toxic pesticides, synthetic | |hormones and antibiotics. Over the years Organic Valley has built the most| |comprehensive milk quality assurance program in the country. In recent | |weeks, they have added yet another component to their extensive program: | |the ability to detect the presence of radiation in milk. Analysis is being| |conducted on milk packaged prior to the March 11, 2011 events in Japan to | |establish normal radiological baselines, and milk being produced today is | |being compared against those baselines. | | | |While there is currently no reason to believe American dairy is unsafe, | |should the situation change, these monitoring efforts will allow us and | |Organic Valley to take appropriate action. We are carefully monitoring our| |milk as a precautionary measure, and we will continue to monitor our | |products to make sure they remain safe for our consumers. | | | |******************* | | | |China: | |Due to the lack of US supply to meet our needs, in 2006 we bought some | |USDA | |certified organic strawberries from China. We took our due diligence | |beyond | |what is required by statute (and even beyond our own existing quality | |systems), and hired 3 separate inspection agencies to perform audits | |(organic compliance, labor practices and food safety) so that we could | |have | |additional assurances that we were getting a product that we could feel | |confident met our standards. We are now using the same rigorous process | |for | |sourcing our organic stevia. | | | |We are proud that we played a role in improving worker conditions as part | |of the review process; however, we do not source our strawberries or any | |other ingredient other than our organic stevia from China.

Coca-Cola (SEPTEMBER 15, 2001)

Didn't realize this but coke has over 3,500 different beverages in its production line. Here are some pictures of some of their products.

Here is the response I received from them today:

Thank you for contacting The Coca-Cola Company. We appreciate your interest and the opportunity to respond.

The Coca-Cola Company has an uncompromising commitment to product quality and safety. As the world’s largest beverage company, we source a myriad of ingredients from most of the world’s markets. We use sophisticated analytical testing methods to ensure the purity and safety of ingredients used in our products.

All of our suppliers are monitored to ensure that their operations meet our strict quality standards. In all countries in which we operate, we adhere to local government safety regulations and our own rigorous quality control standards. We are confident that when you purchase a product from The Coca-Cola Company, you are buying a safe and wholesome beverage.

We source several ingredients from China/Japan but it is our Company policy not to disclose what ingredients we source from these markets for competitive reasons.

If you have additional questions or comments, please feel free to contact us again.

To which I responded,

Thank you for your initial response. Are you sourcing from Japan? (I didn't see the part that they said they do source from Japan before I wrote my response)

Here's my concern. I have spoken to nuclear experts and they have said that there is no test to detect what is called "hot particles", tiny, cancer causing particles. While geiger counters can pick up the bigger particles, there is no test that the nuclear specialist know to detect those "hot particles" that cause cancer. Does your team know some way to detect those? Thank you.

I am awaiting their response.

Colgate Palmolive- (January 6, 2012)

Correspondence with Colgate Palmolive. Let's stop playing games. It is a simple question and deserves a simple answer (2nd attempt at getting an honest answer).

Once again:

Is it possible that Colgate Palmolive has suppliers here in the US that use ingredients from China? Or do you know your suppliers well enough here in the states to know for sure that nothing in your lines of products from suppliers here use ingredients that originated China?

In short, can Colgate Palmolive be considered a "Chinese Free" company when it comes to ingredients in their product lines?

Your previous response of "Colgate does not manufacture products in China for the U.S. Markets nor source ingredients from suppliers located in China for these products." makes it sound like China is not in the supply chain, but then when I asked

Is it possible that Colgate Palmolive has suppliers here in the US that use ingredients from China? Or do you know your suppliers well enough here in the states to know for sure that nothing in your lines of products from suppliers here use ingredients that originated China?

Your response is to direct me here
http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/Corp/LivingOurValues/CoreValues.cvsp

So what you are saying is that it is possible that there are suppliers here in the US that are sourcing ingredients from China for your product lines? I'm confused.

I'd appreciate a straightforward honest answer. Again, it is a very simple question that deserves a simple answer.

Note: When I tried to send the above respond back to the email where I was directed to that general statement I was blocked from doing so. I called them and they said they were having computer problems that they weren't intentionally trying to keep me from responding.

They told me over the phone they've said all they have to say and they won't tell us what is truly going on b/c they know people would be really mad about all they get from China. In fact, the only thing they could for sure verify that does not have China in it at this point is their toothpaste (I'm still waiting for that in writing). If that is true, my guess is it would be b/c of the outrage from the toothpaste scandal a couple of years back.

I hope people will start being outraged at the fact that these companies refuse to tell us where their ingredients that we consume are coming from. Its really our right to know what's in the things we use from soaps to makeup to toothpaste are coming from and we really don't want it to be China for this reasons. http://www.newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/11/why-no-food-from-china-either.html We shouldn't be left in the dark like this!

Right now corporate america is winning with their continued intentional deception as exhibited so clearly in this correspondence.

I hope this changes in 2012 http://www.change.org/petitions/mr-president-us-senate-congress-tell-us-where-our-food-is-from

Wonder Bread Contacted Today- Parent Company Hostess (August 22, 2011)

I didn't realize that Hostess owns wonder bread. Their rep told me that hostess products are made in USA AND all the ingredients also come from the United States. It sounds too good to be true. I hope it is true. I asked for it in writing. I will post the email when I receive it.

And here it is...

Thank you for your inquiry.

We are always happy to help our consumers with their research. All of our products are made in the U.S. All of the ingredients used in our products are also all sourced in the U.S.
Again, thank you for contacting Hostess Brands Incorporated.

I'd like to see more companies be transparent and tell us as consumers where the ingredients are coming from.

Maybe we could even reel in some of the outsourcing of our food ingredients. Seems it would be SOOOO much easier to manage.

We wouldn't need all the inspectors around the world.

There are organic farms in China right now sourcing organic food for us! Why can't those organic farms be here?? http://economyincrisis.org/content/chinas-organic-industry-called-question

We could give more USA farmers money to grow our food instead of allowing cheap and not always healthier foods from other countries to push american farmers out of work, which has been happening a lot lately.

Hire more workers here in the US to process our foods.

Don't pay for as many FDA inspectors to fly all over the world to monitor the food supply (hoping they do that now...not for sure??)

Relieve the FDA workers of having to monitor all this stuff from around the world.It is way too much! When I talked to an FDA employee about this, she said now you understand why many FDA inspectors don't sleep well at night.

As far as I am concerned we should stop outsourcing so many of our food ingredients to other countries when so much of what we eat can be produced right here at home. That would create some jobs here which is another plus. Our food might even be healthier b/c we would have a smaller area to monitor instead of being stretched out so thin all around the world.

Seems it would be good for everyone, well almost everyone... I'm sure corporate america wouldn't like this idea. They want to go wherever it's cheap.

Help take control of this. Sign the petition.

FDA and Fukushima, Japan - PLEASE READ

2011-08-14T00:14:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not, the Food and Drug Administration (aka FDA), the organization that is supposed to help monitor the safety of our food and medicines (see their tag line Protecting and Promoting Your Health with your health italicized) says it is okay for us to be sourcing food from the Fukushima area. Not quite clear how sourcing from Fukushima Japan promotes your health and the health of your family.

Below is the link stating the details of the FDA giving the green light to sourcing from Japan.

(copy in a new window so you don't lose this blog)

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm247403.htm

A couple of things I would like to bring to your attention.

Watch this video to get an idea about how things are in Fukushima right now. This is raw footage, not how the government wants things to be portrayed obviously.

1. The FDA is relying on the Japanese government to tell them what is safe and not safe. I'm not so sure that is a good idea as the Japanese government has motivation to tell us the food is safe. Namely, if they said that the food was unsafe, it would put a lot of people out of work which would not be good since their country has already suffered so much.

Watch this video to learn about the things the Japanese Nuclear Power executives have said and then restated. There are quite a few things and the Japanese government is most likely relying on these reports to determine how much contamination is around Japan.

In turn, the FDA is relying on the Japanese government that has never been through this before and who has real motivating reasons to continue to say food is safe to tell us what is safe. They need to continue to export. Their country has already suffered so much. If the Japanese government says food is safe, then we let it in. A couple of problems with this:

1. We are playing Russian roulette with people's health. We have the Japanese government saying certain foods are safe and others who say no. Since it is debatable, one question still remains: WHY ARE WE GAMBLING WITH THE HEALTH AND WELL BEING OF OUR FAMILIES??? Instead of taking food from them, we should be giving the people of Japan food like we do for others around the world who are in need. The world organizations should be helping the people of Japan too. They deserve healthy and safe food.

2. If the Japanese government has not commented on the particular product coming into our ports, then we are relying on whoever is bringing it to our shores to show us that it is safe. What?! These people want to close the deal. How on earth can we trust them to say it is safe? Do you think they would bring it all the way across the ocean then to stand in front of the USA reps at the port just to say no, sorry, these haven't been screening for cancer causing materials. Come on!!!

3. FDA is doing random sampling checks. They can't possibly screen absolutely everything coming in from Japan for radioactive materials so there are shipments, big shipments, that get in without ever being screened directly. I spoke to an FDA rep and I mentioned this to her and she said, "Now you understand why FDA inspectors lose sleep".

What they do screen they use something called a geiger counter. Here is a picture of one, not sure if this is the same one the FDA uses but it gives you an idea

They measure for certain radioactive cancer causing particles. PROBLEM: According to Arnie Gundersen, a leading nuclear analyst for over 39 years, these things screen for the bigger particles, but not for what is called hot particles, tiny, like really tiny tiny particles that still cause cancer.

The next link is to Mr. Gundersen's website that has a bunch of interviews he has done (others can be found simply by doing a search on his name.) He is pretty well respected as an expert. The problem is, legally, he can't propose legislation to make change as experts aren't allowed to do that. So, while Mr. Gundersen has lots and lots of information it is not until you and me and everyone around the country steps up to the plate that change will be made.

The first video is put together by someone else at UC Berkeley. Warning: it is pretty intense. Some spelling errors in there b/c he felt the need to get it up and running as quickly as possible. He is going to fix it as soon as possible to put a clean version up there but definitely worth a watch if you can stomach it. If you are new here, just start with scrolling down to the videos that talk about Fukushima. Again, just copy and paste this link in a new window so you won't lose your place in reading this blog.

(copy in your other window so you don't lose this blog)

http://fairewinds.com/multimedia

Assuming that the FDA is doing a 100% fantastic job at screening everything coming in, they still would not be able to screen for the super tiny cancer causing hot particles.

sooo... in summary a couple of bad things...

1. Sourcing from Japan- as far as I'm concerned, sourcing from anywhere there is a bad idea. Nobody knows for sure where all the cancer causing materials are, its been found near and far from the nuclear power plant, so let's just not source from there period. Plain and simple.

2. Trusting Japanese government to tell us what is safe

3. Relying on suppliers who want to close a deal to tell us it is safe at the ports

4. FDA testing only a small sample of things coming in from Japan for cancer causing materials

5. The device used to measure the cancer causing materials is not effective in finding the tiny tiny particles called hot particles that still cause the cancer. That's why corporate responses are so troubling...When asked where ingredients from Japan are going they say its "proprietary", none of your business http://newsforyourfamily.blogspot.com/2011/08/corporate-responses.html and/or they say we have all these safety measures in place. How can this be? There is no known way to check to see if something is contaminated with these tiny hot particles that still cause cancer. I have asked several companies to address this issue. I have asked them if they know of something that I don't know that measures for the hot particles. Not one company has returned my email on the issue.

This ties into my previous blog on country of origin labels. Our country of origin labels are pretty much non exist (see my blog on the crazy label section). There's no way for you and I to know what is coming from Japan. We can't turn the label over to see what to avoid. Same thing goes for if you want to avoid consuming things from China for example. We are getting tons and tons of stuff entering our food supply from places like China and we don't even know it. That's got to change.

The next blog will be on what I have found from major food corporations in terms of whether or not they are choosing to source from Japan. You see, even though the FDA gives the green light, it doesn't mean companies have to go there. They can choose to have their common sense rule or have their desire to make more money rule their decisions.

Crazy Labels

2011-08-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

Country of Origin Labels....Some food has it, some food doesn't. How is that determination made you ask? It is pretty simple (and dumb at the same time). If you have this

(fresh bay leaves...no that's not a picture of another kind of herb...)

Then the country of origin MUST be identified for the consumer BUT if the bay leaves look like this

all bets are off. Companies are not required to tell you were it comes from. Once it is processed in any way, like being mixed with something else or dried and then put in a bottle, the country of origin labeling rule is out the window. Unless the company elects to say Product of whatever country it is, there is no way for you to know for sure. Oh yeah, just because it says USDA Organic on the label (just noticed this picture has it) doesn't mean it is the kind of organic that you and I hoped it would be.

Interesting read below regarding some organic food. I read the other day that there's something like 266 farmers of organic food in China that grow "organic" food for us. I put the word organic in quotes because i am not sure how legitimate organic food is coming from China. Makes me want to get more from my local farmers market and less from what is being called organic in the stores.

http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/organic/usda-boots-an-organic-inspector-from-china/

The next post will be on the FDA and what it is saying about food safety around the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.

My First Day on Blogger/ Product of USA/ Mom's Musings

2011-08-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hey There,

Glad you made your way over here. :)

I wanted to create this space to inform you of any information you might want to know for your family's sake.

Right now I am focused on food and other consumables. I believe we need better country of origin labels so that as consumers we know where the products are coming from that we consume. Just seems to make sense to me. If I can turn over the label on my shirt and see where it is made, I should be able to do the same with my food, makeup, lotions etc.

Having said that, knowing where something is "made" like a shirt is not the same kind of made that I am talking about. I'm talking about the kind of made that tells me where the ingredients are from. Seriously, knowing that bread is "Made in the USA" doesn't tell me a darn thing about where the ingredients come from! Believe it or not, there are plenty of food items that might have "Made in the USA" on the label but the ingredients to make that item are actually sourced from other countries.

Here is an example

Sorry that I couldn't find a bigger picture, but on Martin's bread it says very clearly "Made in USA" and I think some of their breads even have an American Flag on it, but yet they source their ingredients from other countries! Martin's Bread is not the only one doing this, there are a lot of companies who put Made in the USA on the label. We think one thing, that all the ingredients come from the USA if it says Made in the USA on the label, and corporate thinks something else. This is their thinking... hey we really did make it here (just didn't tell you the part about the ingredients coming from other countries).

If you want to purchase something where the ingredients are coming from the USA, then you need to look for "Product of USA" on the label. That's your best chance at getting ingredients from the USA. Kettle Chips has it if you are looking for a chip alternative

and Paul Newman's Pasta Sauce has it too (at least the particular ones I bought did). What's really neat too about Paul Newman's is not only does it taste pretty darn good, they also give a good chunk of change to charity from their sales. Not sure if all their products are a product of USA, maybe someone could email me and let me know.

In short, Made In USA means zero to a person concerned with ingredients coming from other countries. What you need to look for is Product of USA instead. They are harder to come by but they are there if you look.

The next topic I will be talking about is the weird way Country of Origin labels work with food..

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Wanted to start another area for just random thoughts that come to mind. I'm calling it Mom's Musings. I needed to start this area because as I researched the area on food coming from Japan and China, which I had no idea was happening, I started running across different issues that I thought were also worth talking about.

Musing #1- GE

I found it really interesting to read that GE made a lot of the nuclear power plants that are now getting old and failing. Now what is happening? GE is investing over $1 Billion in cancer research.

http://news.yahoo.com/ge-invest-1-billion-cancer-research-133252266.html

That's interesting...
Wonder what they are going to find? That their failing nuclear plants leaking cancer causing material to contaminate the air, water, and soil around their plants are part of the reason people get cancer?

Or maybe it is their way of giving back? Let's see...a lot of people are going to get cancer b/c of what we have done, how can we help... Let's invest in cancer research to see how if we can undo the damage we've done.

Musing #2- Cloned Pig in China

Interesting story today about China cloning a very special pig. Scientists in the southern city of Shenzhen performed the experiment on Zhu Jianqiang, or "Strong-Willed Pig", and produced six offspring with DNA identical to their dad, who was hailed as a national hero. "His offspring reportedly bear a striking resemblance to their dad, including a birthmark between their eyes".

http://news.yahoo.com/china-clones-castrated-quake-hero-pig-103239052.html

Sounds almost as if they were talking about people. That got me thinking, wasn't there another time in history where another group of people wanted to set out to build a superhuman race? Pretty good read at the link below. The difference between then and now is that now there is cloning technologies available.

http://www.netlink.de/gen/Zeitung/970227a.htm

MSNBC report on Cloning- Beyond Dolly.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3076915/ns/health-special_reports/#.TnYeyxw_JEA

Not sure I understand this article, but I ran across it so I thought I would include it as well.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17514-evolution-machine-speeds-up-search-for-better-bugs.html

Musing #3- Drilling for Oil

Wonder what happens when oil is drilled out of the ground? Does something fill it to take its place? If oil is sucked out, does something like soil then collapse in to fill in the gaps? With that filling in, happening in so many places over the course of time, does that cause more earthquakes as the shifting of soil happens?

newsforyourfamily

OTHER ISSUES WE NEED TO TACKLE

GLOBAL PETITION "APPEAL FOR FUKUSHIMA"

Japan probes radioactive apartment block

Australia leases out mineral-rich land as China's hunger for resources grows

The Chinese Government Is Buying Up Economic Assets And Huge Tracts Of Land All Over The United States

Looking for Blog on Ingredients from Japan- Look Under August

Why no food from China either?

WHEN ARE PEOPLE GOING TO GET MAD?

Fallout forensics hike radiation toll

Challenging numbers

References

Comments

elsewhere on nature.com

I Get It Now

Why Should We Not Get Ingredients from Fukushima? Start watching video at minute 10 Mom from Fukushima speaks. Minute 31 Kids speak..

Videos

The Letter - IF YOU AGREE SIGN THE PETITION -TELL BIG COMPANIES YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOUR FOOD IS COMING FROM- SIGN NOW

PETITION -Time for Change

Chernobyl VS Fukushima - 60 Minutes Video & Interview with a Chernobyl Worker

Corporate Responses

FDA and Fukushima, Japan - PLEASE READ

Crazy Labels

My First Day on Blogger/ Product of USA/ Mom's Musings