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Toxic Garlic Should Have Prompted EPA to Warn Against Gardening Near Ohio Derailment, Watchdog Says
The Environmental Protection Agency should conduct additional soil studies near the site of a toxic train derailment in Ohio and warn people it might not be safe to garden there after independent testing showed high levels of chemicals in locally grown garlic, a watchdog group said Thursday.
In a petition filed with the federal agency, the nonprofit Government Accountability Project argues that the EPA should have already followed up on the tests of gardens and crops in the city where the Norfolk Southern derailment took place.
“It is unconscionable that the EPA has not conducted its own testing on garden crops in East Palestine, nor have they sampled for dioxins in the home produce,” the nonprofit group’s senior environmental officer, Lesley Pacey, told The Associated Press in advance of the petition filing. “Yet, the EPA has told residents to garden and eat home produce as usual.”
Marilyn Figley didn’t dare plant a garden last year after the derailment even though she and her husband do everything they can to be self-sufficient, including gardening and raising chickens for meat and eggs. She did harvest some garlic after the derailment that she had planted previously, however. Some of it had levels of dioxins more than 500 times higher than a sample of garlic grown and harvested from someone else’s yard the year before the derailment, according to Smith’s tests.
Dioxins have been a key concern for East Palestine residents ever since officials decided to blow open five tank cars of the derailed train and burn the vinyl chloride contained within them. The chemical is used to make a variety of plastic products, including pipes, wire and packaging materials, and is found in polyvinyl chloride plastic, better known as PVC. Thousands of residents had to evacuate their homes temporarily after the derailment and during the venting and burning of the vinyl chloride, which sent an enormous toxic plume of black smoke over the town.
Pasteurization May Not Clear Bird Flu Virus From Heavily Infected Milk
In raw milk samples spiked with high amounts of bird flu virus, small amounts of infectious virus were still detectable after treatment with a standard pasteurization method, researchers said on Friday.
The findings reflect experimental conditions in a laboratory and should not be used to draw any conclusions about the safety of the U.S. milk supply, according to the authors of the study from the U.S. government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Rocky Mountain Laboratories.
The virus used in the experiments had been isolated from the lungs of a dead mountain lion, mixed with raw, unpasteurized cow milk samples, and heat-treated at 63 degrees C (145.4 degrees F)and 72 degrees C (161.6 degrees F) for different periods of time.
After treatment at 72 degrees C for 20 seconds — five seconds longer than the industry standard for pasteurization at that temperature — very small amounts of infectious virus were detected in one of three samples, the study found. Within 2.5 minutes, treatment at 63 degrees C caused a marked decrease in infectious H5N1 virus levels, indicating that standard industry pasteurization of 30 minutes at that temperature would eliminate the infectious virus, the researchers said.
It remains unknown whether ingesting active H5N1 virus in milk could cause illness in people, the researchers added.
FDA Took Months to React to Complaint About Abbott Infant Formula Factory, Audit Finds
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration took more than 15 months to act on a whistleblower complaint it received about conditions at an Abbott Nutrition factory that was at the center of a nationwide shortage of infant formula, a new audit shows.
The Department of Labor received the email and three days later forwarded it to an FDA address specifically for such complaints. But one of several staff members charged with managing the FDA inbox at the time “inadvertently archived” the email in February 2021, and it wasn’t found until a reporter requested it in June 2022.
The episode is one of several that led the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General to conclude in a report Thursday that the FDA’s policies and procedures to address the issues at the Abbott plant were inadequate.
The FDA took some actions and did follow-up inspections but “more could have been done leading up to the Abbott powdered infant formula recall,” the auditors wrote. The FDA needs better policies for reporting the status of complaints to senior leaders and to make sure that inspections are done quickly, the report concluded.
Two Dozen Companies Working to Find Bird Flu Vaccine for Cows, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Says
Twenty-four companies are working to develop an avian flu vaccine for cattle, as the virus spreads among U.S. dairy herds, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Reuters on Wednesday.
Bird flu has infected 90 dairy herds across 12 states since late March, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Three dairy farm workers also have been infected with the virus, two in Michigan and one in Texas.
A vaccine could curb the risk of bird flu spreading to new species and lessen potential economic losses for dairy farmers but may take years to develop. Animal healthcare company Zoetis (ZTS.N) said it started the development of a vaccine for dairy cattle this spring. Merck (MRK.N) Animal Health said it is evaluating technologies and strategies that would allow for timely responses to emerging diseases, including bird flu in cattle.
In addition to the two dozen companies working at varying stages of vaccine development, the USDA is conducting its own preliminary research into a vaccine at its laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Vilsack said in an interview. The agency is looking for a vaccine candidate to test for efficacy, he said. “That could happen tomorrow, or it could take six months, or it could take a year,” Vilsack said.
USDA Reports Reveal Biosecurity Risks at H5N1-Affected Dairy Farms
Shared equipment and shared personnel working on multiple dairy farms are some of the main risk factors for ongoing spread of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in dairy cows, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said today in a pair of new epidemiologic reports.
One of the reports is an overview based on the results of questionnaires from affected dairy herds, and the other is a deep dive into the dairy cow and poultry outbreaks in Michigan, the state hit hardest by outbreaks in dairy cows, which now number at least 94.
Both suggest three key factors for transmission between farms: shared equipment and vehicles, shared personnel who may inadvertently carry the virus between farms on their clothes or boots, and animal movements. “The bigger picture is that enhanced biosecurity is really critical,” she said.
Regarding vaccines, David Boucher, Ph.D., director of infectious disease preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Strategic Preparedness, said federal health officials are still on track to produce 4.8 million vaccine doses from bulk antigen on a 3- to 4-month timeline, with manufacturing starting in the middle of July.
Global Health Leader Critiques ‘Ineptitude’ of U.S. Response to Bird Flu Outbreak Among Cows
Seth Berkley, a longtime and widely respected global health leader, said Thursday that it has been “shocking to watch the ineptitude” of the U.S. response to the avian influenza outbreak among dairy cattle, adding his voice to a chorus of critics.
In a presentation in London about vaccine development, Berkley, the former CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, raised the issue of H5N1 bird flu when discussing whether the world was ready for another pandemic following its experience with COVID-19.
“Are we better prepared?” he said. “We could have a long discussion about this, but I would make an argument that H5N1 has suggested that we’re not. I live in Switzerland, but in my home country of the United States, it’s been shocking to watch the ineptitude of just doing the surveillance, being able to talk about it, tracking the infections, understanding where we are. Do we have vaccines? Are they the right vaccines? It is really a challenge. So I’m not sure we have learned anything.”
The U.K. May Ban Sales of Energy Drinks to Kids Under 16. Many Want the U.S. to Do the Same.
The United Kingdom’s Labour Party this week released an action plan that it says will create “the healthiest generation of children ever.” Included in the 10-point plan is something public health advocates have long wanted in the United States: a ban on sales of highly caffeinated energy drinks to children under 16.
If the U.K. passes a mandatory ban, it will join a number of countries that regulate energy drink sales, including Poland and Latvia. The U.S., meanwhile, has no such federal regulations — and has struggled to pass restrictions at the state level, too.
The failed legislative attempts come as the energy drink market has exploded, with annual U.S. sales surging to nearly $22 billion as of mid-May, up from about $13.5 billion at the end of 2019, according to Circana, a Chicago-based market research firm.
Meanwhile, highly caffeinated beverages have made headlines for the safety concerns around them. Last month, bakery-cafe chain Panera Bread announced it was going to phase out its Charged Lemonade, a beverage with guarana extract that amounted to up to 390 milligrams of caffeine when served without ice. Lawsuits referred to the Charged Lemonade as a “dangerous energy drink” and blamed it for two deaths and at least two permanent cardiac injuries; Panera has denied wrongdoing and said it removed the beverage as part of a larger “menu transformation.”
