A FEW YEARS AGO A REPORT CAME OUT FROM RESEARCHERS IN THE US TO THE EFFECT THAT CHOLESTEROL WAS NO LONGER TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH HEART DISEASES.
HOWEVER A REPORT Y THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER HAS FAULTED THE CLAIM. PLEASE READ ON
Eat fat, stay healthy, say dissident scientists. Illustration: Guardian Design Team
Health & wellbeing
Go eat more Butter : the rise of the cholesterol deniers
A group of scientists has been challenging everything we know about cholesterol, saying we should eat fat and stop taking statins. This is not just bad science – it will cost lives, say experts
Sarah Bosele
Butter is back. Saturated fat is good for you. Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. Claims along these lines keep finding their way into newspapers and mainstream websites – even though they contradict decades of medical advice. There is a battle going on for our hearts and minds.
According to a small group of dissident scientists, whose work usually first appears in minor medical journals, by far the greatest threat to our hearts and vascular systems comes from sugar, while saturated fat has been wrongly demonised. And because cholesterol levels don’t matter, they argue, we don’t need the statins that millions have been prescribed to lower them. A high-fat diet is the secret to a healthy life, they say. Enjoy your butter and other animal fats. Cheese is great. Meat is back on the menu.
This is more than bad science, according to leading scientists and medical authorities. It will cost lives. “Encouraging people to eat more saturated fat is dangerous and irresponsible,” is a typical verdict, in this case from Prof Louis Levy, the head of nutrition science at Public Health England (PHE). “There is good evidence that a high intake of saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease. We need to think about where the sources of saturated fat are and how we can reduce them. The largest contributions are dairy products, including butter, and meat and meat products.”
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The advice from PHE, the World Health Organization, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Heart UK and other institutions and top academics is consistent. Butter and cheese may be fine in modest amounts in a balanced diet, but the saturated fat that they contain is potentially risky. Too much of it causes the liver to overproduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, which is implicated in heart disease.
Mainstream scientists usually keep their disquiet to themselves. But last week, some broke cover over what they see as one medical journal’s support for advocates of a high-fat diet. More than 170 academics signed a letter accusing the British Journal of Sports Medicine of bias, triggered by an opinion piece that it ran in April 2017 calling for changes to the public messaging on saturated fat and heart disease. Saturated fat “does not clog the arteries”, said the piece, which was not prompted by original research. “Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food,” wrote the cardiologist Aseem Malhotra and colleagues. The BHF criticised the claims as “misleading and wrong”.
David Nunan, from Oxford University’s centre for evidence-based medicine, and three colleagues wrote a rebuttal that the journal at first did not use and then, more than a year later, put behind a paywall, while the original article was free. Last week’s letter of complaint asked Dr Fiona Godlee, the editor-in-chief of the BMJ, which publishes the British Journal of Sports Medicine, to intervene, saying the journal had run 10 pieces advocating low-carb diets and criticising statins in the past three years and that the reluctance to run the rebuttal showed a bias and lack of transparency. She replied defending the journal’s right to challenge “the status quo in some settings”, but allowed free access to the rebuttal.
Every time a new review or opinion is published in an obscure or unlikely journal – sports medicine is, after all, primarily about helping the fit get even fitter – it is picked up by newspapers that know statin scares sell. Very often in the UK they quote Malhotra, a charming and telegenic young cardiologist in private practice whose website describes him as “one of the most influential and effective campaigning doctors in the world on issues that affect obesity, heart disease and population health”. He is, it says, “not just a cardiologist. This is a man who wants to change the world one meal at a time by not just rocking the system but by rebuilding it.”
Malhotra urges a low-carb, high-fat diet. His book, The Pioppi Diet, has the distinction of being named by the British Dietetic Association as one of the five worst “celeb” diet books in Britain – celebrities who have tried it include MPs Keith Vaz and Andy Burnham. It includes lots of fruit and vegetables, olive oil and fish, but otherwise “hijacks” the Mediterranean diet, says the BDA.
“The authors may well be the only people in the history of the planet who have been to Italy and come back with a diet named after an Italian village that excludes pasta, rice and bread – but includes coconuts – perhaps because they have a low-carb agenda,” says the BDA. “The suggestion that this Italian village should be associated with recipes for cauliflower-base pizza and rice substitute made from grated cauliflower or anything made using coconut oil is ridiculous. It also uses potentially dangerous expressions like ‘clean meat’ and encourages people to starve themselves for 24 hours at a time every week.”
Malhotra was appointed as the first medical director of Action on Sugar, formed in 2014 by Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine. Two years later, the group agreed to go their separate ways. By that time, Malhotra was expressing strong views about statins, claiming in a BMJ article that was later partially retracted that they caused side-effects in 20% of patients. On BBC radio, he went further. “It was actually probably an underestimate,” he said, and questioned the benefits of the drug for any patient, citing the cholesterol sceptic Michel de Lorgeril.
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He was accused by Prof Rory Collins at Oxford University of endangering lives. Collins said scare stories about statins could do as much harm as Andrew Wakefield did when he claimed that vaccines caused autism.
When it comes to statins, there is a huge database of research. Since 1994, the Nuffield department of population health at Oxford University, led by two eminent epidemiologists, Collins and Prof Richard Peto, has been amassing and analysing the data in order to figure out how well they work in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
They have published many papers. In 2016, in a major review in the Lancet, they concluded that lowering cholesterol over five years with a cheap daily statin would prevent 1,000 heart attacks, strokes and coronary artery bypasses among 10,000 people who had already had one. It would also prevent 500 in people who were at increased risk, for instance because of high blood pressure or diabetes.
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“Our review shows that the numbers of people who avoid heart attacks and strokes by taking statin therapy are very much larger than the numbers who have side-effects with it,” Collins said at the time. Most side-effects can be reversed by stopping the statin, he pointed out – but heart attacks cause permanent damage. “Consequently,” he said, “there is a serious cost to public health from making misleading claims about high side-effect rates that inappropriately dissuade people from taking statin therapy despite the proven benefits.”
But the cholesterol sceptics and statins critics reject the evidence on the basis that the trial data is from big pharma and that the raw data is not in the public domain. Maryanne Demasi, a journalist in Australia whose TV programmes questioning statins were pulled from the ABC network because of concerns over impartiality, wrote in January – again in the British Journal of Sports Medicine – of a “crisis of confidence” in the public because “the raw data on the efficacy and safety of statins are being kept secret and have not been subjected to scrutiny by other scientists … Doctors and patients are being misled.”
There were cholesterol sceptics before statins existed, doubting the hypothesis that high cholesterol in the blood, particularly in the form of LDL, furs up the arteries, leading in the worst cases to a blood clot that can trigger a heart attack or stroke. Yet, says Dermot Neely, a consultant in clinical biochemistry and metabolic medicine and a founder trustee of the Heart UK charity: “The cholesterol hypothesis is supported by a vast amount of scientific data.” Recently, an expert paper was published by the European Atherosclerosis Society summarising all the evidence, to try to silence the sceptics.
But they won’t be silenced. A website called Thincs – The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics – links to published and unpublished papers as well as the various books its members have written, including a joint one entitled Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks. And Statins Are Not the Solution.”
The director and author of many dissident papers is Uffe Ravnskov, a Danish doctor living in Sweden who has been an independent researcher, not part of any university, since 1979. His most recent review, with 15 others who are mostly members of Thincs, was published last month in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology – an obscure source for newspaper stories that has been brought to the attention of media in the US and the UK, including the Daily Express, which has run many anti-statins pieces. “There is no evidence that high levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol cause heart disease and the widespread use of statins is ‘of doubtful benefit’, according to a study by 17 [sic] international physicians,” said the newspaper.
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That is flat-earthism, says Collins. “The claims that blood LDL cholesterol levels are not causally related to cardiovascular disease (which is really in the same realm as claiming that smoking does not cause cancer) are factually false,” he maintains. He believes there is an argument for refusing to give cholesterol-deniers a platform, just as some will no longer debate with climate change sceptics.
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Neely says a lot of people ring the nurses and dieticians staffing the Heart UK helpline after reading such stories or hearing about them from family and friends. “We’re very concerned whenever these messages result in people stopping a statin that they were prescribed after their heart attack. Every time there has been a statin scare story in the papers, there is a wave of people who just stop picking up their prescriptions. And as a result of that, many will probably be readmitted with another heart attack down the line,” he says. Some of those are young people who have high cholesterol from birth because of a mutated gene. One of Neely’s patients is a young man whose grandfather and father died of heart attacks at 50. He is on a statin and will be the first in three generations to escape that fate, says Neely.
Asked how he can be sure of his position when the vast majority of top research scientists disagree, Ravnskov says: “Because I am right. The reason why the so-called experts say that I am mistaken is that the vast majority are paid generously by the drug companies.” Asked to elaborate, since statins are out of patent and therefore no longer make money for the companies that originally put them on the market, he expounds on the corruption, illegal practices and wealth of pharmaceutical companies.
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The Oxford researchers, including Collins, have published their funding. The unit has research funds from pharmaceutical companies, but the individuals do not take money from them. Ironically, say the researchers, if people refuse statins because of concerns over side-effects, they may be put on expensive newer drugs to lower their cholesterol – and this will make money for big pharma.
A furore was triggered by the recommendation by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2014 that millions more people should be offered statins. Anybody who has a 10% chance of a heart attack in the next 10 years – judged on factors including weight, age and blood pressure – should consider taking a statin, it said. Anybody who has already had a heart attack or stroke is strongly advised to take one. Because the patents had expired, the pills had become highly cost-effective.
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That means statins are given to healthy people to prevent disease and side-effects have become a major issue. The stories are so widespread that people repeat them as if they are incontrovertible, yet the evidence from trials is that even the much-discussed muscle pain is rare. The sceptics dismiss that evidence. Those trials were funded by big pharma, they say, which had a vested interest in hiding any problems with the drugs.
Some side-effects may be caused by interactions with other drugs people are on, such as antibiotics. But there is also evidence that some people get muscle pain because they expect to after everything they have heard. It is called the nocebo effect.
The dissidents’ arguments are attractively simple. Eat fat, avoid carbs and don’t take the tablets, says Malhotra – who declined to answer questions for this article. We would probably all agree that we should ditch junk food and eat well instead of taking pills. But, realistically, telling people to “eat good food” isn’t going to cut it. The majority of people in the UK and the US are now overweight or obese, with all the heart and vascular problems that brings, and the trend is ever upwards.
One thing is for sure – the dissidents are not going to shut up shop. “My belief about the cholesterol sceptics is that they are a bit like religious fundamentalists,” said Neely. “They are not open to argument. Whatever argument you present, they will find another argument because this basically defines who they are.” He cites a cardiologist in the 1980s, Prof Michael Oliver, who was a sceptic of the cholesterol hypothesis that more LDL increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Oliver did a U-turn as more evidence accumulated, saying: “When the facts change, I change my mind.” But, says Neely, “unfortunately the cholesterol sceptics we know currently don’t do that”.
Comment==More empirical evidence ad conclusion are urgently needed to prevent unnecessary diseases ad death
Source https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/30/butter-nonsense-the-rise-of-the-cholesterol-deniers
For more Food safety tips, visit bit.ly/3HxNW5b
All comments should directed to the Source above
Dele Fapohunda
2 Sept 2023
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dele Fapohunda
20 Sept 2023
IS CHOLESTEROL STILL A SOURCE OF WORRY ??
A FEW YEARS AGO A REPORT CAME OUT FROM RESEARCHERS IN THE US TO THE EFFECT THAT CHOLESTEROL WAS NO LONGER TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH HEART DISEASES.
HOWEVER A REPORT Y THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER HAS FAULTED THE CLAIM. PLEASE READ ON
Eat fat, stay healthy, say dissident scientists. Illustration: Guardian Design Team
Health & wellbeing
Go eat more Butter : the rise of the cholesterol deniers
A group of scientists has been challenging everything we know about cholesterol, saying we should eat fat and stop taking statins. This is not just bad science – it will cost lives, say experts
Sarah Bosele
Butter is back. Saturated fat is good for you. Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. Claims along these lines keep finding their way into newspapers and mainstream websites – even though they contradict decades of medical advice. There is a battle going on for our hearts and minds.
According to a small group of dissident scientists, whose work usually first appears in minor medical journals, by far the greatest threat to our hearts and vascular systems comes from sugar, while saturated fat has been wrongly demonised. And because cholesterol levels don’t matter, they argue, we don’t need the statins that millions have been prescribed to lower them. A high-fat diet is the secret to a healthy life, they say. Enjoy your butter and other animal fats. Cheese is great. Meat is back on the menu.
This is more than bad science, according to leading scientists and medical authorities. It will cost lives. “Encouraging people to eat more saturated fat is dangerous and irresponsible,” is a typical verdict, in this case from Prof Louis Levy, the head of nutrition science at Public Health England (PHE). “There is good evidence that a high intake of saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease. We need to think about where the sources of saturated fat are and how we can reduce them. The largest contributions are dairy products, including butter, and meat and meat products.”
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The advice from PHE, the World Health Organization, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Heart UK and other institutions and top academics is consistent. Butter and cheese may be fine in modest amounts in a balanced diet, but the saturated fat that they contain is potentially risky. Too much of it causes the liver to overproduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, which is implicated in heart disease.
Mainstream scientists usually keep their disquiet to themselves. But last week, some broke cover over what they see as one medical journal’s support for advocates of a high-fat diet. More than 170 academics signed a letter accusing the British Journal of Sports Medicine of bias, triggered by an opinion piece that it ran in April 2017 calling for changes to the public messaging on saturated fat and heart disease. Saturated fat “does not clog the arteries”, said the piece, which was not prompted by original research. “Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food,” wrote the cardiologist Aseem Malhotra and colleagues. The BHF criticised the claims as “misleading and wrong”.
David Nunan, from Oxford University’s centre for evidence-based medicine, and three colleagues wrote a rebuttal that the journal at first did not use and then, more than a year later, put behind a paywall, while the original article was free. Last week’s letter of complaint asked Dr Fiona Godlee, the editor-in-chief of the BMJ, which publishes the British Journal of Sports Medicine, to intervene, saying the journal had run 10 pieces advocating low-carb diets and criticising statins in the past three years and that the reluctance to run the rebuttal showed a bias and lack of transparency. She replied defending the journal’s right to challenge “the status quo in some settings”, but allowed free access to the rebuttal.
Every time a new review or opinion is published in an obscure or unlikely journal – sports medicine is, after all, primarily about helping the fit get even fitter – it is picked up by newspapers that know statin scares sell. Very often in the UK they quote Malhotra, a charming and telegenic young cardiologist in private practice whose website describes him as “one of the most influential and effective campaigning doctors in the world on issues that affect obesity, heart disease and population health”. He is, it says, “not just a cardiologist. This is a man who wants to change the world one meal at a time by not just rocking the system but by rebuilding it.”
Malhotra urges a low-carb, high-fat diet. His book, The Pioppi Diet, has the distinction of being named by the British Dietetic Association as one of the five worst “celeb” diet books in Britain – celebrities who have tried it include MPs Keith Vaz and Andy Burnham. It includes lots of fruit and vegetables, olive oil and fish, but otherwise “hijacks” the Mediterranean diet, says the BDA.
“The authors may well be the only people in the history of the planet who have been to Italy and come back with a diet named after an Italian village that excludes pasta, rice and bread – but includes coconuts – perhaps because they have a low-carb agenda,” says the BDA. “The suggestion that this Italian village should be associated with recipes for cauliflower-base pizza and rice substitute made from grated cauliflower or anything made using coconut oil is ridiculous. It also uses potentially dangerous expressions like ‘clean meat’ and encourages people to starve themselves for 24 hours at a time every week.”
Malhotra was appointed as the first medical director of Action on Sugar, formed in 2014 by Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine. Two years later, the group agreed to go their separate ways. By that time, Malhotra was expressing strong views about statins, claiming in a BMJ article that was later partially retracted that they caused side-effects in 20% of patients. On BBC radio, he went further. “It was actually probably an underestimate,” he said, and questioned the benefits of the drug for any patient, citing the cholesterol sceptic Michel de Lorgeril.
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He was accused by Prof Rory Collins at Oxford University of endangering lives. Collins said scare stories about statins could do as much harm as Andrew Wakefield did when he claimed that vaccines caused autism.
When it comes to statins, there is a huge database of research. Since 1994, the Nuffield department of population health at Oxford University, led by two eminent epidemiologists, Collins and Prof Richard Peto, has been amassing and analysing the data in order to figure out how well they work in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
They have published many papers. In 2016, in a major review in the Lancet, they concluded that lowering cholesterol over five years with a cheap daily statin would prevent 1,000 heart attacks, strokes and coronary artery bypasses among 10,000 people who had already had one. It would also prevent 500 in people who were at increased risk, for instance because of high blood pressure or diabetes.
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“Our review shows that the numbers of people who avoid heart attacks and strokes by taking statin therapy are very much larger than the numbers who have side-effects with it,” Collins said at the time. Most side-effects can be reversed by stopping the statin, he pointed out – but heart attacks cause permanent damage. “Consequently,” he said, “there is a serious cost to public health from making misleading claims about high side-effect rates that inappropriately dissuade people from taking statin therapy despite the proven benefits.”
But the cholesterol sceptics and statins critics reject the evidence on the basis that the trial data is from big pharma and that the raw data is not in the public domain. Maryanne Demasi, a journalist in Australia whose TV programmes questioning statins were pulled from the ABC network because of concerns over impartiality, wrote in January – again in the British Journal of Sports Medicine – of a “crisis of confidence” in the public because “the raw data on the efficacy and safety of statins are being kept secret and have not been subjected to scrutiny by other scientists … Doctors and patients are being misled.”
There were cholesterol sceptics before statins existed, doubting the hypothesis that high cholesterol in the blood, particularly in the form of LDL, furs up the arteries, leading in the worst cases to a blood clot that can trigger a heart attack or stroke. Yet, says Dermot Neely, a consultant in clinical biochemistry and metabolic medicine and a founder trustee of the Heart UK charity: “The cholesterol hypothesis is supported by a vast amount of scientific data.” Recently, an expert paper was published by the European Atherosclerosis Society summarising all the evidence, to try to silence the sceptics.
But they won’t be silenced. A website called Thincs – The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics – links to published and unpublished papers as well as the various books its members have written, including a joint one entitled Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks. And Statins Are Not the Solution.”
The director and author of many dissident papers is Uffe Ravnskov, a Danish doctor living in Sweden who has been an independent researcher, not part of any university, since 1979. His most recent review, with 15 others who are mostly members of Thincs, was published last month in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology – an obscure source for newspaper stories that has been brought to the attention of media in the US and the UK, including the Daily Express, which has run many anti-statins pieces. “There is no evidence that high levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol cause heart disease and the widespread use of statins is ‘of doubtful benefit’, according to a study by 17 [sic] international physicians,” said the newspaper.
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That is flat-earthism, says Collins. “The claims that blood LDL cholesterol levels are not causally related to cardiovascular disease (which is really in the same realm as claiming that smoking does not cause cancer) are factually false,” he maintains. He believes there is an argument for refusing to give cholesterol-deniers a platform, just as some will no longer debate with climate change sceptics.
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Neely says a lot of people ring the nurses and dieticians staffing the Heart UK helpline after reading such stories or hearing about them from family and friends. “We’re very concerned whenever these messages result in people stopping a statin that they were prescribed after their heart attack. Every time there has been a statin scare story in the papers, there is a wave of people who just stop picking up their prescriptions. And as a result of that, many will probably be readmitted with another heart attack down the line,” he says. Some of those are young people who have high cholesterol from birth because of a mutated gene. One of Neely’s patients is a young man whose grandfather and father died of heart attacks at 50. He is on a statin and will be the first in three generations to escape that fate, says Neely.
Asked how he can be sure of his position when the vast majority of top research scientists disagree, Ravnskov says: “Because I am right. The reason why the so-called experts say that I am mistaken is that the vast majority are paid generously by the drug companies.” Asked to elaborate, since statins are out of patent and therefore no longer make money for the companies that originally put them on the market, he expounds on the corruption, illegal practices and wealth of pharmaceutical companies.
For consultancies on higher education please visit https://tinyurl.com/3dvy7dvs
The Oxford researchers, including Collins, have published their funding. The unit has research funds from pharmaceutical companies, but the individuals do not take money from them. Ironically, say the researchers, if people refuse statins because of concerns over side-effects, they may be put on expensive newer drugs to lower their cholesterol – and this will make money for big pharma.
A furore was triggered by the recommendation by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2014 that millions more people should be offered statins. Anybody who has a 10% chance of a heart attack in the next 10 years – judged on factors including weight, age and blood pressure – should consider taking a statin, it said. Anybody who has already had a heart attack or stroke is strongly advised to take one. Because the patents had expired, the pills had become highly cost-effective.
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That means statins are given to healthy people to prevent disease and side-effects have become a major issue. The stories are so widespread that people repeat them as if they are incontrovertible, yet the evidence from trials is that even the much-discussed muscle pain is rare. The sceptics dismiss that evidence. Those trials were funded by big pharma, they say, which had a vested interest in hiding any problems with the drugs.
Some side-effects may be caused by interactions with other drugs people are on, such as antibiotics. But there is also evidence that some people get muscle pain because they expect to after everything they have heard. It is called the nocebo effect.
The dissidents’ arguments are attractively simple. Eat fat, avoid carbs and don’t take the tablets, says Malhotra – who declined to answer questions for this article. We would probably all agree that we should ditch junk food and eat well instead of taking pills. But, realistically, telling people to “eat good food” isn’t going to cut it. The majority of people in the UK and the US are now overweight or obese, with all the heart and vascular problems that brings, and the trend is ever upwards.
One thing is for sure – the dissidents are not going to shut up shop. “My belief about the cholesterol sceptics is that they are a bit like religious fundamentalists,” said Neely. “They are not open to argument. Whatever argument you present, they will find another argument because this basically defines who they are.” He cites a cardiologist in the 1980s, Prof Michael Oliver, who was a sceptic of the cholesterol hypothesis that more LDL increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Oliver did a U-turn as more evidence accumulated, saying: “When the facts change, I change my mind.” But, says Neely, “unfortunately the cholesterol sceptics we know currently don’t do that”.
Comment==More empirical evidence ad conclusion are urgently needed to prevent unnecessary diseases ad death
Source https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/30/butter-nonsense-the-rise-of-the-cholesterol-deniers
For more Food safety tips, visit bit.ly/3HxNW5b
All comments should directed to the Source above
Dele Fapohunda
2 Sept 2023
FOUR STEPS TO FOOD SAFETY—-CDC
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Posted August 29 2023
PESTICIDE SCARE IN SOUTH AFRICA- CALL FOR AN URGENT ACTION
A report yesterday talked about the need to take an urge urgent action on the scandalous pesticide alarm and scare in South Africa. But are other African countries not a victim of dsame, as they wallow in self imposed poverty ?
Please take the REPORT directly from Afsafrica, through
Haidee Swanby <haidee@polka.co.za>
Happy reading.
Press Release: UnPoison Publishes South Africa’s List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides and Calls on South African Government to Take Urgent Action
Monday 21 August 2023
UnPoison, a South African non-profit organization and civil society network working to protect public health from the harms of highly hazardous pesticides commonly used in South Africa while promoting the development of a biological solutions sector for agriculture, has just published the first publicly available list of Highly Hazardous Pesticides. Information like this is not freely available to the public because the national database of registered agrochemicals is housed and maintained privately by the pesticide industry. There is a lot for South Africans to be concerned about!
Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) are pesticides that have been identified as posing a high and unacceptable risk to human health or the environment. They are typically characterized by their acute toxicity, their potential to cause chronic health effects, or their persistence in the environment and are commonly highly restricted or banned in other regions for this reason.
Unpoison’s list, developed and categorised in accordance with the 8 criteria developed by the FAO/WHO Joint Meeting on Pesticide Management (a UN advisory body on the lifecycle management of pesticides in agriculture and public health) shows that there are 192 Highly Hazardous Pesticides registered and legally in use – only 16 of which have partial bans or restrictions. Of these over a third (57/192) are banned in the EU (because of unacceptable human health and environmental risks), and 36 of which belong to the most hazardous class, a class known as WHO Group 1a and 1b which are substances known to have carcinogenic potential for humans, based on human health evidence, and in acute poisonings can cause death. .
Examples of highly hazardous pesticides in this class still legally registered and used in South Africa include:
Carbofuran – is a pesticide used on many crops and is toxic by inhalation, or dermal absorption. Farmers and farmworkers are most at risk as it is an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) and reproductive and developmental toxicant. It is also highly toxic to aquatic organisms.
Mevinphos – exposure can result in long term neurological effects, it is also a ground water contaminant and farmworkers and farmers are at great exposure risk as it is also a endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC).
Terbufos – is an agricultural insecticide with neurotoxic effects that is often sold as a street pesticide in South Africa, (a pesticide that is decanted and sold for use in informal markets without the correct label or warnings).Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable group and high incidences of poisonings are recorded every year.
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As early as2008 the WHO and FAO recommended that this class of highly hazardous chemicals be eliminated from use world wide, yet fifteen years later, South Africa is still legally using these chemicals on our food and in our environment.
In April 2022, UnPoison welcomed a notice by the Registrar of Act 36 who regulates the use and registration of agrochemicals in South Africa, stating his intention to phase out this group of highly hazardous chemicals (WHO 1a and 1b) by June 2024. However, UnPoison found the vagueness of this notice problematic as it did not include the list of chemicals nor a detailed plan with a timeframe to phase the chemicals out.
Subsequently, the list of highly hazardous chemicals circulated by the Registrar (proposed for banning) is worryingly deficient as it is a very different list to the 36 chemicals that actually are classified as WHO group 1a and 1b chemicals registered and in use in South Africa. Of the 29 chemicals on the Registrar’s list, only 4 actually fall into criteria 1 WHO group 1a & 1b, which means that 32 of the 36 WHO 1a and 1b highly hazardous pesticides are not included in his proposed ban list. This is contrary to the intention of his notice (to safeguard human health and the environment) and South Africans should be questioning how this list was developed and who was involved in the process.
This topic is especially relevant in light of the candid media briefing last Friday 12 August to the South African government by the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights and Toxics, Marcos Orellana who brought urgent issues to light, after meeting extensively with members of the UnPoison Network and others.
“During my visit to the Western Cape province, I heard from women farm workers who were routinely exposed to hazardous pesticides and who denounced serious adverse health impacts in their communities,” said Orellana, “ I also learned that pesticides meant for agricultural use are illegally sold and used to combat rampant rat and cockroach pest infestations that spread in the absence of sanitation services in informal settlements. I was appalled to learn of the many children who were poisoned or died from eating, drinking or handling hazardous pesticides.”
“Despite the scientific evidence on their harms and the fact that they cannot be safely used, many highly hazardous pesticides are still legal and in use in South Africa,”….. “Accordingly, South Africa should ban the import of all highly hazardous pesticides, including those that have been banned for use in their country of origin, without delay.”
Additional Highly Hazardous Pesticides used widely in South Africa from other hazard categories that have many groups concerned include:
Paraquat: Mentioned by the Special Rapporteur in his media briefing, is a herbicide used to control weeds, it is highly toxic to humans and can cause death even with limited exposures. There are a number of organizations that are calling for a ban on the use of paraquat, including Women on Farms Project whose members as women farm-workers are frequently exposed and many poisonings have resulted.
Atrazine: An herbicide used to control weeds in crops. It has contaminated most water sources in South Africa, is a suspected carcinogen and can also cause reproductive problems.
2,4D which the African Centre For Biodiversity has long been campaigning against is used to grow GMO corn which makes up more than 80% of South Africa’s maize. According to their 2017 report “it is a war chemical that has long been linked to wide-ranging serious illnesses including cancers, birth defects, reproductive toxicity and disruption of endocrine systems.”
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The issue of Highly Hazardous pesticides was just one of the many “toxics and human rights” issues that members of UnPoison brought before the Special Rapporteur in a full day of consultation, and the network welcomed the inclusion of these issues in his preliminary report which included:
South Africa’s weak, outdated, and fragmented legal framework, specifically the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act 36 of 1947, an apartheid era law. The 2010 Pesticide Management Policy has not been implemented and would go a long way to address the issues that cause harm to countless South Africans, contaminate our scarce water sources and fragile environment.
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Double Standards for EU Export – chemicals manufactured by countries in the EU but banned for use on their own soil and food, yet exported to South Africa and permitted on our local produce.
There is no publicly available database of registered chemicals in South Africa. The national registry is housed privately by Agri-intel, a subsidiary of Croplife, and can only be accessed on approval, for a fee, and by members who have to pay a percentage of their annual turnover in fees. Unpoison calls on DALRRD to make the database and un-sensitive details of the chemical registrations publicly accessible.
Pesticide poisonings which are grossly under-reported due to fear of job loss or loss of income by farm-workers as well as an inadequate reporting process for poisonings or knowledge thereof by health practitioners and the general public. Woman on Farms released a chilling video sharing the stories of victims which you can watch here.
Pesticide spraying on farms and how this is regulated, including spray drift into surrounding areas and non-target zones.
A hindered and unnecessary process for the registration of biological solutions which has scuppered the sector from growing.
Lack of support for alternative farming and pest control methods by DALRRD. The department has no expertise to support farmers wanting to farm with alternative methods and has not implemented many excellent agro ecology policies in its department that have been gathering dust for more than 10 years. These include the draft Agroecology Strategy and the Organic Policy.
There is a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests that we have crossed a tipping point for chemical contamination of Earth’s natural systems. This means that the levels of chemicals in the environment have reached a point where they are causing irreversible damage to ecosystems and human health.
The UnPoison network made up of nearly 60 organisations and experts including academic institutions, NGOs, lawyers, doctors, toxicologists, scientists, farmers, farmworkers associations, industry bodies, agronomists, activists, and community representatives from affected farm town residents, call on the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural development to urgently address the issues being raised. The network has extended and continues to extend offers of support to work with the South African government and other stakeholders to help develop an alternative food system, phase out the use of toxic chemicals starting with Highly Hazardous Pesticides, and to promote the emergence of a new local biological solutions manufacturing sector that could radically boost the agricultural sector’s economy and ensure its resilience in the face of climate change and unsustainable, imported fossil fuel based chemicals, with their associated rising costs and risks.
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UnPoison is an NPO that does advocacy, research, and public awareness, as well as coordinate a national multisector network of almost 60 organisations and experts including academic institutions, NGOs, lawyers, doctors, toxicologists, scientists, farmers, farmworkers and their associations, agronomists, activists, and affected farm town residents.
For more information contact Anna Shevel, Network Coordinator on 0828208735 – unpoisonsa@gmail.com
sion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/AgroecologySouthAfrica/CACdYB2aZ-K757MVHxrD_KbpNf15mTZAd81iHfHAvVbWvU%2BuGnw%40mail.gmail.com.
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FOOD LABELS MAY STILL MISLEAD YOU!!!
According to a Report by Grace Hussain most food labels may be misleading after all . She cited many ways this may occur. ad gave some tips o playing safe Pls read on .1 Label Says “Sugar-Free” The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provides guidelines for a variety of common food labels, including sugar-free. While the […]
FOOD SAFETY WORRIES AS CHOLESTEROL DEBATE GOES ON
A FEW YEARS AGO A REPORT CAME OUT FROM RESEARCHERS IN THE US TO THE EFFECT THAT CHOLESTEROL WAS NO LONGER TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH HEART DISEASES.
HOWEVER A REPORT Y THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER HAS FAULTED THE CLAIM. PLEASE READ ON
Butter nonsense: the rise of the cholesterol deniers
A group of scientists has been challenging everything we know about cholesterol, saying we should eat fat and stop taking statins. This is not just bad science – it will cost lives, say experts
Butter is back. Saturated fat is good for you. Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease. Claims along these lines keep finding their way into newspapers and mainstream websites – even though they contradict decades of medical advice. There is a battle going on for our hearts and minds.
According to a small group of dissident scientists, whose work usually first appears in minor medical journals, by far the greatest threat to our hearts and vascular systems comes from sugar, while saturated fat has been wrongly demonised. And because cholesterol levels don’t matter, they argue, we don’t need the statins that millions have been prescribed to lower them. A high-fat diet is the secret to a healthy life, they say. Enjoy your butter and other animal fats. Cheese is great. Meat is back on the menu.
This is more than bad science, according to leading scientists and medical authorities. It will cost lives. “Encouraging people to eat more saturated fat is dangerous and irresponsible,” is a typical verdict, in this case from Prof Louis Levy, the head of nutrition science at Public Health England (PHE). “There is good evidence that a high intake of saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease. We need to think about where the sources of saturated fat are and how we can reduce them. The largest contributions are dairy products, including butter, and meat and meat products.”
The advice from PHE, the World Health Organization, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Heart UK and other institutions and top academics is consistent. Butter and cheese may be fine in modest amounts in a balanced diet, but the saturated fat that they contain is potentially risky. Too much of it causes the liver to overproduce “bad” LDL cholesterol, which is implicated in heart disease.
Mainstream scientists usually keep their disquiet to themselves. But last week, some broke cover over what they see as one medical journal’s support for advocates of a high-fat diet. More than 170 academics signed a letter accusing the British Journal of Sports Medicine of bias, triggered by an opinion piece that it ran in April 2017 calling for changes to the public messaging on saturated fat and heart disease. Saturated fat “does not clog the arteries”, said the piece, which was not prompted by original research. “Coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 minutes a day and eating real food,” wrote the cardiologist Aseem Malhotra and colleagues. The BHF criticised the claims as “misleading and wrong”.
David Nunan, from Oxford University’s centre for evidence-based medicine, and three colleagues wrote a rebuttal that the journal at first did not use and then, more than a year later, put behind a paywall, while the original article was free. Last week’s letter of complaint asked Dr Fiona Godlee, the editor-in-chief of the BMJ, which publishes the British Journal of Sports Medicine, to intervene, saying the journal had run 10 pieces advocating low-carb diets and criticising statins in the past three years and that the reluctance to run the rebuttal showed a bias and lack of transparency. She replied defending the journal’s right to challenge “the status quo in some settings”, but allowed free access to the rebuttal.
Every time a new review or opinion is published in an obscure or unlikely journal – sports medicine is, after all, primarily about helping the fit get even fitter – it is picked up by newspapers that know statin scares sell. Very often in the UK they quote Malhotra, a charming and telegenic young cardiologist in private practice whose website describes him as “one of the most influential and effective campaigning doctors in the world on issues that affect obesity, heart disease and population health”. He is, it says, “not just a cardiologist. This is a man who wants to change the world one meal at a time by not just rocking the system but by rebuilding it.”
Malhotra urges a low-carb, high-fat diet. His book, The Pioppi Diet, has the distinction of being named by the British Dietetic Association as one of the five worst “celeb” diet books in Britain – celebrities who have tried it include MPs Keith Vaz and Andy Burnham. It includes lots of fruit and vegetables, olive oil and fish, but otherwise “hijacks” the Mediterranean diet, says the BDA.
“The authors may well be the only people in the history of the planet who have been to Italy and come back with a diet named after an Italian village that excludes pasta, rice and bread – but includes coconuts – perhaps because they have a low-carb agenda,” says the BDA. “The suggestion that this Italian village should be associated with recipes for cauliflower-base pizza and rice substitute made from grated cauliflower or anything made using coconut oil is ridiculous. It also uses potentially dangerous expressions like ‘clean meat’ and encourages people to starve themselves for 24 hours at a time every week.”
Malhotra was appointed as the first medical director of Action on Sugar, formed in 2014 by Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine. Two years later, the group agreed to go their separate ways. By that time, Malhotra was expressing strong views about statins, claiming in a BMJ article that was later partially retracted that they caused side-effects in 20% of patients. On BBC radio, he went further. “It was actually probably an underestimate,” he said, and questioned the benefits of the drug for any patient, citing the cholesterol sceptic Michel de Lorgeril.
He was accused by Prof Rory Collins at Oxford University of endangering lives. Collins said scare stories about statins could do as much harm as Andrew Wakefield did when he claimed that vaccines caused autism.
When it comes to statins, there is a huge database of research. Since 1994, the Nuffield department of population health at Oxford University, led by two eminent epidemiologists, Collins and Prof Richard Peto, has been amassing and analysing the data in order to figure out how well they work in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
They have published many papers. In 2016, in a major review in the Lancet, they concluded that lowering cholesterol over five years with a cheap daily statin would prevent 1,000 heart attacks, strokes and coronary artery bypasses among 10,000 people who had already had one. It would also prevent 500 in people who were at increased risk, for instance because of high blood pressure or diabetes.
“Our review shows that the numbers of people who avoid heart attacks and strokes by taking statin therapy are very much larger than the numbers who have side-effects with it,” Collins said at the time. Most side-effects can be reversed by stopping the statin, he pointed out – but heart attacks cause permanent damage. “Consequently,” he said, “there is a serious cost to public health from making misleading claims about high side-effect rates that inappropriately dissuade people from taking statin therapy despite the proven benefits.”
But the cholesterol sceptics and statins critics reject the evidence on the basis that the trial data is from big pharma and that the raw data is not in the public domain. Maryanne Demasi, a journalist in Australia whose TV programmes questioning statins were pulled from the ABC network because of concerns over impartiality, wrote in January – again in the British Journal of Sports Medicine – of a “crisis of confidence” in the public because “the raw data on the efficacy and safety of statins are being kept secret and have not been subjected to scrutiny by other scientists … Doctors and patients are being misled.”
There were cholesterol sceptics before statins existed, doubting the hypothesis that high cholesterol in the blood, particularly in the form of LDL, furs up the arteries, leading in the worst cases to a blood clot that can trigger a heart attack or stroke. Yet, says Dermot Neely, a consultant in clinical biochemistry and metabolic medicine and a founder trustee of the Heart UK charity: “The cholesterol hypothesis is supported by a vast amount of scientific data.” Recently, an expert paper was published by the European Atherosclerosis Society summarising all the evidence, to try to silence the sceptics.
But they won’t be silenced. A website called Thincs – The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics – links to published and unpublished papers as well as the various books its members have written, including a joint one entitled Fat and Cholesterol Don’t Cause Heart Attacks. And Statins Are Not the Solution.”
The director and author of many dissident papers is Uffe Ravnskov, a Danish doctor living in Sweden who has been an independent researcher, not part of any university, since 1979. His most recent review, with 15 others who are mostly members of Thincs, was published last month in the Expert Review of Clinical Pharmacology – an obscure source for newspaper stories that has been brought to the attention of media in the US and the UK, including the Daily Express, which has run many anti-statins pieces. “There is no evidence that high levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol cause heart disease and the widespread use of statins is ‘of doubtful benefit’, according to a study by 17 [sic] international physicians,” said the newspaper.
That is flat-earthism, says Collins. “The claims that blood LDL cholesterol levels are not causally related to cardiovascular disease (which is really in the same realm as claiming that smoking does not cause cancer) are factually false,” he maintains. He believes there is an argument for refusing to give cholesterol-deniers a platform, just as some will no longer debate with climate change sceptics.
Neely says a lot of people ring the nurses and dieticians staffing the Heart UK helpline after reading such stories or hearing about them from family and friends. “We’re very concerned whenever these messages result in people stopping a statin that they were prescribed after their heart attack. Every time there has been a statin scare story in the papers, there is a wave of people who just stop picking up their prescriptions. And as a result of that, many will probably be readmitted with another heart attack down the line,” he says. Some of those are young people who have high cholesterol from birth because of a mutated gene. One of Neely’s patients is a young man whose grandfather and father died of heart attacks at 50. He is on a statin and will be the first in three generations to escape that fate, says Neely.
Asked how he can be sure of his position when the vast majority of top research scientists disagree, Ravnskov says: “Because I am right. The reason why the so-called experts say that I am mistaken is that the vast majority are paid generously by the drug companies.” Asked to elaborate, since statins are out of patent and therefore no longer make money for the companies that originally put them on the market, he expounds on the corruption, illegal practices and wealth of pharmaceutical companies.
The Oxford researchers, including Collins, have published their funding. The unit has research funds from pharmaceutical companies, but the individuals do not take money from them. Ironically, say the researchers, if people refuse statins because of concerns over side-effects, they may be put on expensive newer drugs to lower their cholesterol – and this will make money for big pharma.
A furore was triggered by the recommendation by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in 2014 that millions more people should be offered statins. Anybody who has a 10% chance of a heart attack in the next 10 years – judged on factors including weight, age and blood pressure – should consider taking a statin, it said. Anybody who has already had a heart attack or stroke is strongly advised to take one. Because the patents had expired, the pills had become highly cost-effective.
That means statins are given to healthy people to prevent disease and side-effects have become a major issue. The stories are so widespread that people repeat them as if they are incontrovertible, yet the evidence from trials is that even the much-discussed muscle pain is rare. The sceptics dismiss that evidence. Those trials were funded by big pharma, they say, which had a vested interest in hiding any problems with the drugs.
Some side-effects may be caused by interactions with other drugs people are on, such as antibiotics. But there is also evidence that some people get muscle pain because they expect to after everything they have heard. It is called the nocebo effect.
The dissidents’ arguments are attractively simple. Eat fat, avoid carbs and don’t take the tablets, says Malhotra – who declined to answer questions for this article. We would probably all agree that we should ditch junk food and eat well instead of taking pills. But, realistically, telling people to “eat good food” isn’t going to cut it. The majority of people in the UK and the US are now overweight or obese, with all the heart and vascular problems that brings, and the trend is ever upwards.
One thing is for sure – the dissidents are not going to shut up shop. “My belief about the cholesterol sceptics is that they are a bit like religious fundamentalists,” said Neely. “They are not open to argument. Whatever argument you present, they will find another argument because this basically defines who they are.” He cites a cardiologist in the 1980s, Prof Michael Oliver, who was a sceptic of the cholesterol hypothesis that more LDL increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Oliver did a U-turn as more evidence accumulated, saying: “When the facts change, I change my mind.” But, says Neely, “unfortunately the cholesterol sceptics we know currently don’t do that”.
Source https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/30/butter-nonsense-the-rise-of-the-cholesterol-deniers
FEED SAFETY AND THE POULTRY INDUSTRY
Food safety is a key issue when it comes to commercial poultry production and over recent years this has become quite an important for discussion. Food borne infections are posing quite a threat to the consumers, due to inadequate health and biosafety measures. As poultry producers are searching for tools to combat Salmonella infection in their birds and manage food safety risks. Campylobacter species is also in its way causing a massive destruction to the poultry production and leads to severe health problems in humans. . The complete eradication of Salmonella from poultry production is an incredibly difficult task. Implementation of combination of strategies including proper management, bio security, vaccination protocols, nutritional feed additives are proving useful steps in this direction. Moreover, due to drug resistance to both Salmonella and Campylobacter species, researchers and scientists are actively finding additional tools & measures to assist in managing food safety risks.
STRICT BIOSECURITY MEASURES TO BE IMPLEMENTED
The most common species that are found mainly in chicken & turkey are Salmonella Gallinarum and Salmonella Pullorum. Good biosecurity is key in preventing the infections from outside getting into the farm. Humans are the main carrier and source of typhoid infection. So, in order to prevent such infections, the following steps should be taken:
The main challenge is the fact that Avian diseases can be hard to properly diagnose. Thus, in order to monitor the flock, there should be proper data of water and feed intake, the mortality and production on the daily basis.
ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE
For several decades, the contribution of the food animal as a reservoir of antimicrobial resistance with impacts on human health has been a controversial topic. Mainly nontyphoidal Salmonella is considered to be the most dangerous when it comes to human health.
Regular use of antibiotics with modern intensives food-animal/poultry production has been considered the main driver for the development of antibiotic resistance in Zoonotic bacteria like Salmonella and Campylobacter.
Fluoroquinolones like Ciprofloxacin and Enrofloxacin is mainly used to combat these infections. Resistance to fluoroquinolones requires only one-point mutations in gyrA gene and resistance has increased rapidly among chicken and human Campylobacter isolates. Since, resistance to older drugs like ampicillin, chloramphenicol has been increasing, so treatment options for Salmonellosis & Campylobacteriosis are switched to fluoroquinolones. However, this is also showing resistance leading to increased severity, morbidity and mortality. So, to prevent further indiscriminate use of antibiotics, we should be more focused on the biosecurity measures and farm management. As “Prevention is better than Cure”
CONCLUSION
It is evident that majority of infections can be attributed to poultry. Human Campylobacteriosis and Salmonellosis has been increasing in the past decades and poultry has been identified as the major contributor. Colonization of poultry occurs at farm levels where it is necessary to focus on enhancing the biosecurity and implementing it properly as whole world has come to realize the importance of biosecurity and quarantine during COVID-19 pandemic. And main area of concern is antibiotic resistance to the infection. So, the time has come to implement it strictly in farms to avoid any chance of outbreak of zoonotic diseases and thus, proper managemental and biosecurity measures play a beneficial role for healthy ad safe meat production that will promote better health & overall the better growth of poultry industry.
by Himani Ravi, G.B. Pant university of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, India
Source=https://benisonmedia.com/strategies-to-mitigate-food-safety-risks-in-poultry-production/
FOOD SAFETY TIPS FOR YOUR BABIES
Food Safety for Babies and Toddlers
What to know about feeding your baby and toddler safely
Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable to foodborne illness because their immune systems are not yet fully developed.1 Because of this, it can be harder for your baby to fight off an infection and it may even take them longer to get well. To help reduce their risk of getting sick, it is imperative to follow proper food safety techniques.
Read on to learn the best food safety practices to help keep your baby and toddler safe while eating.
Helping prevent foodborne illness
There are many ways to help prevent foodborne illness in babies and toddlers including:
Good hygiene: Hand washing, as well as adequate washing of all utensils and surfaces, is the most effective measure you can take in preventing foodborne illness in your baby or toddler.1
This includes proper cleaning and sterilization of bottles, sippy cups, breast pump parts, and other baby feeding supplies.
Avoiding higher-risk foods: Certain foods are more susceptible to bacterial growth and should not be given to your child. These include:
Appropriate handing and storing of breastmilk and formula. Proper handling, storage and reheating of breastmilk, as well as proper handling and preparation of formula are critical to help prevent bacterial growth.5,6,7
Read more:
Safe Storage of Pumped Breastmilk
Everything You Need to Know about How to Prepare and Store Infant Formula
Other Food Safety Considerations
Choking
Babies and toddlers are at an increased risk of choking, so it’s important to provide age-appropriate textures and suitably sized foods.8
Depending on what stage of eating your child is at, make sure that any food you provide is either pureed, mashed, or a pea-sized (or thin strip) soft solid that is ‘smushable’ between your fingers.9 Once your toddler gets a little older and better at chewing and swallowing, firmer textures may be handled.
Learn about:
Preventing Choking in Infants and Toddlers
Introducing Solids: First Foods and Textures
Mercury
Fish is a great source of lean protein, and many fattier fish also have beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. However, certain types of seafood have a high mercury content, which may affect your child’s developing nervous system.10
Higher mercury fish include: Canned albacore tuna, bigeye tuna, swordfish, King mackerel, shark, and tilefish.11
Lower mercury fish include: Salmon, cod, anchovy, sardines, haddock, scallop, freshwater trout, canned chunk light tuna, pollock, tilapia, and catfish.11
For families who eat meat, the US Food and Drug Administration recommends eating low mercury fish 2 to 3 times per week as part of a balanced diet. For more information on mercury in seafood, please see these FDA recommended guidelines.11
Tips on safely feeding your infant and toddler
Cook foods thoroughly
Cook foods, such as meats, poultry, and fish, to recommended internal temperatures to ensure harmful bacteria are killed.
Safe minimum cooking temperatures:
Learn about: How Can I Make my own Pureed Baby Food?
Don’t “double dip”
Feeding your baby straight from the jar can introduce bacteria from your baby’s mouth from the spoon into the food. Instead, spoon a small amount into a bowl and feed your baby from there. Throw out any food from the bowl that your baby did not eat.3
If using a pouch, squeeze the amount you’d like to feed your baby into a bowl, or squeeze a small amount onto a spoon. Feed from the bowl or spoon, making sure not to touch the tip of the pouch spout to the spoon, which would introduce bacteria to the pouch.
You can place whatever is left in the jar or pouch (that did not come into contact with your baby’s saliva) back in the refrigerator for later use.3 Most manufacturers say these leftovers can be kept for 1 to 2 days in the refrigerator before needing to be thrown out.
Read more: How to Store Baby Food
Timing is key
Be familiar with the recommended “safe times” for opened jarred and pouch baby food:
Clean and sterilize
Be sure to wash bottles, sippy cups, feeding utensils, breast pump parts and other feeding supplies in hot, soapy water then rinse thoroughly.
Learn about: How to Properly Clean your Breast Pump
Follow proper handling and preparation of infant formula
Read more:
Formula Preparation: What Type of Water Should I Use?
Everything You Need to Know About How to Prepare and Store Infant Formula
Help prevent choking
Take these precautions to minimize the risk of your child choking:
When in doubt, throw it out
If you can’t remember whether the leftovers are from two days ago or last week, throw it out.
Let’s Chat!
We know parenting often means sleepless nights, stressful days, and countless questions and confusion, and we want to support you in your feeding journey and beyond.
Our Happy Baby Experts are a team of lactation consultants and registered dietitian nutritionists certified in infant and maternal nutrition – and they’re all moms, too! They’re here to offer personalized support on our free, one-on-one, live chat platform Monday – Friday 8am-6pm (ET).
For more, please contact happy baby Experts who are mothers who care for their babies in matters of safe food. Visit
https://www.happyfamilyorganics.com/learning-center/article/food-safety-for-babies-and-toddlers/
Dele Fapohunda
4 July 2023
FOOD SAFETY AND THE ELDERLY
The Australian Institute of Food Safety attaches strategic importance to the Elderly when Food safety is being addressed. In this report, a few issues are highlighted. Happy reading
If your organisation is charged with providing food on a regular basis to elderly people receiving aged care, you owe it to them to make sure that you are doing everything possible to keep them safe from food-borne illnesses. To that end, prudent managers of facilities that provide nutrition to the aged will want to arrange for their employees to take food safety supervisor training. A Food Safety Supervisor course will go a long way toward helping your organisation remain in compliance with food safety standards.
You need to know the proper techniques and methods of food procurement, storage, preparation and how and when to serve it so that it is always safe to eat. Failure to do so puts your organisation at risk of sickening or even killing the aged people to whom you serve food. You also need to know how to comply with national food safety standards, which are covered by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)’s Standard 3.3.1.
FSANZ’s Standard 3.3.1
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)’s Standard 3.3.1 is part of the national food safety standards as noted in the third chapter of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. It covers the responsibilities borne by food businesses to ensure safety in the food they prepare for the most vulnerable members of our society, including people who are immunocompromised because of treatments they are receiving or because of their illness, as well as the aged and the very young.
FSANZ’s Standard 3.3.1 applies to all business that works in food processing and provides food service to people who are considered vulnerable. The standard defines a vulnerable person as being someone who receives care in a facility listed in the standard, or a person who receives food through a meal delivery program, according to the Food Standards Code.
Examples of facilities that must comply with the standard include:
Whether food businesses must comply with the standard depends on a number of criteria including which Australian state or territory they are located in. For example, a facility in Queensland that serves six or more elderly people must be in compliance. Not every business that serves food will need to be in compliance.
Organisations that process or serve food that is not considered potentially hazardous, such as tea and coffee with biscuits, for instance, do not need to comply with the standard.
An organisation that only delivers food is exempt, as is a business that provides only ingredients for foods or foods that must still be processed (such as by cooking). If your organisation chiefly prepares food for the general population but also may sometimes prepare food for members of the vulnerable population, you are exempt from adhering to the standard.
Why Elderly People Are More at Risk for Food-Borne Illness
People’s immune systems tend to grow weaker as they grow older, leaving them more vulnerable to food-borne illnesses. What’s more, the digestive system of an elderly person typically produces less acid, which enables germs to survive the passage through the digestive system and cause an illness.
Food poisoning in the elderly results in far more serious consequences, including dehydration, improper functioning on the neuromuscular system and death. The elderly also require more time to recover from a bout of food poisoning when compared to the younger members of the population.
What Foods Are Considered Risky
According to the Food Safety Information Council, a number of types of food pose a higher risk, including:
Why Aged Care Centres Need A Food Safety Supervisor
Because many elderly people are at a higher risk for food-borne illness, all aged care centres need to have a food safety supervisor on hand to make sure that the facility purchases safe, healthy food, prepares and stores it properly and cooks it according to food safety regulations. Having a trained supervisor on hand ensures that the most vulnerable population within the facility will not be needlessly exposed to food risk because of inexperienced or improperly trained staff. With proper training, you can better understand food safety principles and regulations and ensure the lowest possible risk to this vulnerable population.
Source=https://blog.foodsafety.com.au/food-safety-for-aged-care#:~:text=Because%20many%20elderly%20people%20are,according%20to%20food%20safety%20regulations.
Dele Fapohunda
4 July 2023
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