The USDA is at it again.  And this time your ability to procure local fresh leafy greens is at stake.  According to the San Francisco Chronical's article, How Safe Is Your Salad? -

"New industry rules for leafy greens aim to protect consumers from E. coli.  Farmers and conservationists question the science behind the standards.

The consequences of the crisis fell heavily on California's Central Coast farmers, who are now being pressed by buyers to comply with a con{fllig}icting array of new food-safety measures, some of which, according to the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory agencies, are costly, scientifically unproven and environmentally harmful. Some violate state regulations, and may even be counterproductive to food safety. But the growers must follow these measures in order to market their crops to the larger contractors or handlers.

The new set of rules is jeopardizing the future of sustainable agriculture and of the habitat and clean water it supports, according to the Nature Conservancy's Monterey Project Director Chris Fischer: "Farmers and conservationists in California have been working together for more than 20 years to develop practices that help protect water quality and wildlife habitat, but since last fall, farmers have been under enormous pressure from their buyers to go the other direction. To stay in business, they are being forced to build miles of fences along streams, cut down trees and bulldoze ponds. Some actions, like creating bare-earth buffers along waterways, may actually increase the risk of contamination downstream." "

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/16/CMMQSSF81.DTL

see also:  http://www.caff.org/foodsafety/

"While all growers should use safe farming practices, the “one size fits all” approach of the rules does not work for family farms." 

Last weekend's CFSA Conference on Sustainable Agriculture heard a lot about this issue, as reported by the Organic Consumers Association:

"BOYCOTT THE SHAMELESS SEVEN--ORGANIC OUTLAWS LABELING FACTORY FARM MILK AS 'USDA ORGANIC'

While USDA bureaucrats drag their feet on closing key loopholes in national organic organic standards, retailers, wholesalers and major “organic” brands are continuing to sell milk and dairy products labeled as "USDA Organic, even though most or all of their milk is coming from factory farm feedlots where the animals have been brought in from conventional farms and are kept in intensive confinement, with little or no access to pasture.

The Organic Consumers Association is expanding its boycott of Horizon and Aurora organic dairy products to include five national "private label" organic milk brands supplied by Aurora, as well as two leading organic soy products, Silk and White Wave, owned by Horizon's parent company, Dean Foods. Its time to turn up the heat on the "Shameless Seven.

While thousands of organic consumers and a number of natural food stores and cooperatives have joined the boycott, major national large grocery retailers have ignored the boycott. "

Patch Adams with his "love platform" has some interesting ideas for Iraq:

"As a doctor—and a clown—I’ve seen the tremendous healing power of love. The number one factor for surviving a heart attack is having a loving community. A study of 4,000 women with breast cancer found that with a little love—six hour-long support sessions—their survival rate increased five-fold. With the situation in Iraq imploding, tensions increasing with Iran and North Korea, and our government’s policies leading more and more people to hate Americans, it’s time to take the healing power of love to the global level. It’s time for a love platform.

What’s a love platform? It’s a set of policies that shows compassion for the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless, the poor. It’s a platform that treats the environment with the loving respect it deserves.

A love platform would call for kissing, not killing. You switch two little letters and you get a whole new outlook on life. Kissing, not killing.

A love platform would put women in charge—women with loving instincts who would treat the world the way my mother treated my friends when they came to my house. She fed them, she wiped their noses, she was nice. That’s it. We’d have a policy called “Be Nice.” If everyone treated people like my mother did, we’d put an end to violence."

Christian Northrup recently commented on the HPV scare tactics we've seen in recent TV ads:

"...the first Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has just been released along with a barrage of information from Merck and the FDA promoting the vaccination of young women ages 9–26. The recent media attention about the vaccine has raised concern in millions of women unnecessarily ...you’ll want to think long and hard about immunizing your daughter for HPV."

This looks like a case of "viral marketing".  Have you ever received an email warning of some dire situation (email tax, various supposed viruses and scams)?  Invariably, the email urgently instructs you to "forward this email to everyone in your address book"...   Same thing, only now they're applying it to TV!

Maybe we should "tell someone" to think twice about this vaccine. 

USA Today weighs in on THE RAW MILK DEBATE:

"Advocates of raw milk are behind legislative efforts in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky and Nebraska to legalize selling raw milk. Moves to introduce legislation have begun in North Carolina and Maryland.

Raw milk appeals to consumers who seek natural and unprocessed foods, to those with health concerns who believe it has curative powers...  But this is a dangerous game, public health officials say."

sounds like unbiased and objective journalism, yes?  read on...

"For those who are convinced that pasteurized milk is unhealthy, there's little that health workers can do to change their minds, says Michael Lynch, a food-borne-illness expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"But we want to get the word out to people who may not understand," he says. "If you explained the dangers to them, they would probably not want to drink the raw milk. They're confusing it with organic, and organic has positive connotations.""

Take a look at the Weston A. Price Foundation's campaign for real milk and see for yourself if the proponents of real milk sound like they are "confused" and fail to "understand".