Category: 07 Health

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SmartPlanet: Half of All Food Wasted

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy

smartplanet logoHalf of all food wasted

By | January 10, 2013

The world throws away up to half of its food according to an alarming report that blames consumers’ fussy preference for cosmetically appealing produce, supermarket promotions that encourage overbuying, and deficient storage, transportation and agricultural practices.

Between 1.2 billion and 2 billion metric tons of food – out of the 4 billion produced annually – never reaches a human stomach, the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers says in Waste Not Want Not – Global Food Waste: Feeding the 9 billion.

“The amount of food wasted and lost around the world is staggering,” says Tim Fox, IME’s head of energy and environment. “This is food that could be used to feed the world’s growing population – as well as those in hunger today. It is also an unnecessary waste of the land, water and energy resources that were used in the production, processing and distribution of this food.

“The reasons for this situation range from poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate transport and storage infrastructure through to supermarkets demanding cosmetically perfect foodstuffs and encouraging consumers to overbuy through buy-one-get-one-free offers.”

Continue reading “SmartPlanet: Half of All Food Wasted”

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SchwartzReport: Canadian Oil Sands Destroying Nearby Lakes

05 Energy, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, Earth Intelligence

schwartz reportCanadian oil sands pollute nearby lakes. Report is blow to Keystone pipeline.

Oil sands production in Canada has contaminated surrounding lakes with substances linked to cancer, according to a new study. The scientific findings may help the case against building Keystone XL, a pipeline that would connect Canadian oil sands with American refineries.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Production at the world's third largest source of oil has polluted surrounding waters with toxic substances, according to a new study. The findings add fuel to a fiery debate over a proposed pipeline connecting Canadian oil sands with US refineries.

Lakes as far as 56 miles away from production facilities near Fort McMurray, Alberta, show unnaturally high levels of substances linked to cancer. Researchers say they are the result of roughly half a century of development at the Athabasca oil sands.

While concentrations of carcinogens remain low compared with those found in urban lakes, scientists at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, called the findings, released Monday, “worrying” and warned of future effects from the spread of oil sands contaminants.

Read full article.

 

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Worth a Look: HealthyPeople.gov

07 Health, Worth A Look

healthypeopleAbout Healthy People

Healthy People provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans. For 3 decades, Healthy People has established benchmarks and monitored progress over time in order to:

  • Encourage collaborations across communities and sectors.
  • Empower individuals toward making informed health decisions.
  • Measure the impact of prevention activities.

Leading Health Indicators

Healthy People 2020 provides a comprehensive set of 10-year, national goals and objectives for improving the health of all Americans. Healthy People 2020 contains 42 topic areas with nearly 600 objectives (with others still evolving), which encompass 1,200 measures. A smaller set of Healthy People 2020 objectives, called Leading Health Indicators, has been selected to communicate high-priority health issues and actions that can be taken to address them. Continue reading “Worth a Look: HealthyPeople.gov”

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SchwartzReport: Black-Market Abortions — When Legislators Let Ideological Money Ignore the Reality of Poor Women

07 Health, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government

schwartz reportBlack-Market Abortion Drug Sales Appear To Be Rising

The New Republic‘s cover headline this month is a topic that pro-choice activists speak about occasionally amongst themselves, but rarely address in public: “The Rise of DIY Abortions.” The reason that it's not much discussed in public forums is that reproductive health advocates are data-driven people, and one thing that's nearly impossible to get data on is the prevalence of women quietly buying an ulcer medication named Cytotec from sleazy online dealers and using that to terminate pregnacies at home, far out of the reach of doctors and agencies like the CDC or the Guttmacher Institute that compile statistics on abortions. The writer of the piece, Ada Calhoun, admits that there's no way to know how common these black-market abortions are, but points out that the rise in websites peddling Cytotec specifically to terminate pregnancy (instead for its on-label use to treat ulcers) makes it hard to deny that this is a growing trend:

Read full article in Slate.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Black-Market Abortions — When Legislators Let Ideological Money Ignore the Reality of Poor Women”

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SchwartzReport: Obesity Bigger Health Problem than Hunger

07 Health

schwartz reportGlobal report: Obesity bigger health crisis than hunger

By Danielle Dellorto, CNN

updated 5:41 AM EST, Fri December 14, 2012

Obesity is a bigger health crisis globally than hunger, and the leading cause of disabilities around the world, according to a new report published Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Nearly 500 researchers from 50 countries compared health data from 1990 through 2010 for the Global Burden of Disease report, revealing what they call a massive shift in global health trends.

“We discovered that there's been a huge shift in mortality. Kids who used to die from infectious disease are now doing extremely well with immunization,” said Ali Mokdad, co-author of the study and professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, which led the collaborative project.

“However, the world is now obese and we're seeing the impact of that.”

The report revealed that every country, with the exception of those in sub-Saharan Africa, faces alarming obesity rates — an increase of 82% globally in the past two decades. Middle Eastern countries are more obese than ever, seeing a 100% increase since 1990.

“The so-called ‘Western lifestyle' is being adapted all around the world, and the impacts are all the same,” Mokdad said.

The health burden from high body mass indexes now exceeds that due to hunger, according to the report.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  Counter-intuitive and therefore all the more interesting.  This is a classic example of “true cost” being recognized.  The Industrial Era approach to food is not only very expensive in terms of water, fuel, and toxins into ground water and the atmosphere, but now also clearly impacting in a most negative way on humanity at large.  This is why true cost economics and whole systems thinking is so vital to the future of our children and their children on into eternity.  Self-discipline can only do so much.

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SchwartzReport: Food-Borne Illness Epidemic in USA (48 Million) FDA on Sidelines

07 Health

Why Isn't the FDA Stopping the Epidemic of Foodborne Illness?

The agency charged with overseeing the safety of our food is out to lunch. Here's why.

Barry Estabrook

Mother Jones, 5 December 2012

EXTRACT:

The 2011 listeria outbreak was not an isolated case. The United States is experiencing what amounts to an epidemic of foodborne illnesses. According to the CDC, there are about 48 million cases of food poisoning a year, leading to more than 128,000 hospitalizations and more than 3,000 deaths. E. coli in spinach and fruit juice, salmonella in eggs and jalapeño peppers, listeria not only in cantaloupes but in cheese and bagged lettuce-the toll from foodborne bacteria is mind-numbing.

Read full article.

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