星島日報 – 2011年11月30日星期三上午6:09
(綜合報道)(星島日報報道)本港衞生防護中心正密切監察美國出現來自豬隻的甲型H3N2流感病毒情況，中心指當地已發現十宗個案涉及基因重組病毒，其中三宗個案並無接觸豬隻，顯示病毒出現有限度的人傳人情況。中心表示，本港並無發現感染美國豬流感H3N2病毒個案，會密切監測情況，進行病毒分析，又提醒市民盡早接種流感疫苗。
十個案 三宗無接觸豬隻
衞生署衞生防護中心昨表示，中心自今年七月起一直密切監察在美國出現、來自豬隻的甲型流感H3N2病毒的事態發展。在美國已發現十宗個案涉及該基因重組病毒。十宗個案的患者已經康復，大部分個案的病情相對輕微，其中七宗個案曾直接或間接與豬隻接觸，而其他三宗在愛荷華州呈報的個案則沒有與豬隻接觸，顯示病毒出現有限度的人傳人情況。
發言人說，根據美國當局的流行病學調查，沒有證據顯示病毒出現持續性的人傳人情況。迄今香港沒有發現有人感染該種在美國出現來自豬隻的甲型流感H3N2病毒。衞生防護中心會密切監察美國的流行病學調查進展，「在香港，我們有一個精確的實驗室監測系統監測流感病毒，會對分離出的流感病毒株進行特性分析，包括抗原及基因分析。」
中心又提醒市民應盡早接種流感疫苗，以便在冬季流感季節來臨前作好保護。截至十一月二十七日為止，已有超過二十一萬七千人通過「政府防疫注射計畫」及「疫苗資助計畫」接種流感疫苗。
另外，荃灣浸信會幼稚園爆發流行性感冒，二十九名學童受感染，年齡介乎三至五歲，其中一人入院，情況穩定。衞生防護中心已派人到幼稚園視察，校方已採取預防感染措施。
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/港關注美新流感疑人傳人-220935061.html
15.12.11
元朗一中學女員工曾徒手接觸染禽流感死雀
漁護署從一隻在元朗檢走的紅嘴鷗，初步驗出對H5禽流感呈陽性反應，正作進一步測試。染病的紅嘴鷗是本港常見的冬候鳥，前日在元朗體育路七號趙聿修紀念中學籃球場旁邊的走廊被發現，一名四十八歲學校女員工，在無戴手套及口罩下，徒手將紅嘴鷗放在盒內，野鳥翌日死亡。女員工昨日起發燒、喉痛及腹痛，向私家醫生求診，毋須入院。她的六至八名同住家人中，十一歲兒子前日起有上呼吸道感染徵狀，現已接近康復。衛生防護中心總監曾浩輝表示，會將兩人送入瑪嘉烈醫院，盡快安排測試，最快明早前知道是否感染H5禽流感。他說，沒有學生接觸過死雀，但為安全計，學校明日暫停上課一日。學校方圓三公里內有四個雞場，漁護署人員巡查後，未有發現雞隻異常死亡或有禽流感症狀。
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/%E5%85%83%E6%9C%97-%E4%B8%AD%E5%AD%B8%E5%A5%B3%E5%93%A1%E5%B7%A5%E6%9B%BE%E5%BE%92%E6%89%8B%E6%8E%A5%E8%A7%B8%E6%9F%93%E7%A6%BD%E6%B5%81%E6%84%9F%E6%AD%BB%E9%9B%80-103200822.html
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/%E5%85%83%E6%9C%97-%E4%B8%AD%E5%AD%B8%E5%A5%B3%E5%93%A1%E5%B7%A5%E6%9B%BE%E5%BE%92%E6%89%8B%E6%8E%A5%E8%A7%B8%E6%9F%93%E7%A6%BD%E6%B5%81%E6%84%9F%E6%AD%BB%E9%9B%80-103200822.html
日發現大量未報告核物質
日政府對全國262個可能用到核物質的設施進行調查後，發現了大量未計量、未報告的濃縮鈾等核物質。
共同社報道，這些設施是國際原子能機構要求的核查對象。為了免遭國際社會的批評，日本政府己緊急向國際原子能機構報告，並進行非正式協商。
這些核物質是從核廢棄物中發現的，包括在政府所屬研究所發現的約2.8公斤高濃縮鈾，在核燃料製造企業發現的約4噸低濃縮鈾等。
另外，中部電力、北陸電力等3家電力公司和多家與核相關的廠家也有未計量的核物質被發現，目前正在進行相關確認。
日本接受國際原子能機構核查並簽署的保障監督協定於1977年生效。日本由此承擔了計量管理核物質以避免轉用於核武器，並向國際原子能機構報告的義務。
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/日發現大量未報告核物質-073227165.html
共同社報道，這些設施是國際原子能機構要求的核查對象。為了免遭國際社會的批評，日本政府己緊急向國際原子能機構報告，並進行非正式協商。
這些核物質是從核廢棄物中發現的，包括在政府所屬研究所發現的約2.8公斤高濃縮鈾，在核燃料製造企業發現的約4噸低濃縮鈾等。
另外，中部電力、北陸電力等3家電力公司和多家與核相關的廠家也有未計量的核物質被發現，目前正在進行相關確認。
日本接受國際原子能機構核查並簽署的保障監督協定於1977年生效。日本由此承擔了計量管理核物質以避免轉用於核武器，並向國際原子能機構報告的義務。
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/日發現大量未報告核物質-073227165.html
日擬遣千猴探福島輻射
(綜合報道)(星島日報報道)日本研究人員計畫在明年春天出動一千隻野生猴子，探測福島核電廠核災現場附近森林的核輻射水平。猴子會裝上核輻射水平測量儀和全球定位系統（GPS），藉牠們在森林的活動，監察核輻射水平和擴散速度。率領是項計畫的是福島大學教授高橋鷹幸，他說，猴子可在不易到達的地區取得較準確的核輻射水平讀數。 英國《每日郵報》
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/日擬遣千猴探福島輻射-220932266.html
http://hk.news.yahoo.com/日擬遣千猴探福島輻射-220932266.html
你有吃喝和呼吸過孟山都公司的新橙劑嗎？
Are You Eating, Drinking and Breathing Monsanto's New Agent Orange?
Dees Illustration
Sayer Ji, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
In a groundbreaking study published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry last month, researchers found that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide “Roundup,” is flowing freely into the groundwater in areas where it is being applied.
The researchers found that 41% of the 140 groundwater samples taken from Catalonia Spain, had levels beyond the limit of quantification – indicating that, despite manufacturer’s claims, it does not break down rapidly in the environment, and is accumulating there in concerning quantities.
Why Is Groundwater Contamination An Important Finding?
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface, that supplies aquifers, wells and springs. If a chemical like glyphosate is mobile enough to get into the groundwater and is intrinsically resistant to being biodegraded (after all, it is being used to kill/degrade living things – not the other way around), significant environmental exposures to humans using the water are inevitable.
Keep in mind that glyphosate is considered by the EPA as a Class III toxic substance, fatal to an adult at 30 grams, and has been linked to over 20 adverse health effects in the peer-reviewed, biomedical literature.
This groundwater contamination study adds to another highly concerning finding from March, published in the journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, where researchers found the chemical in 60-100% of all air and rain samples tested, indicating that glyphosate pollution and exposure is now omnipresent in the US. When simply breathing makes you susceptible to glyphosate exposure, we know we are dealing with a problem of unprecedented scale.
Who Is Responsible For The Groundwater Contamination?
Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation, presently dominating the global genetically engineered seed market, with 90% market share in the US alone. It is also the world’s largest producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as “Roundup,” among other brand names. If you are eating corn and soy, or any of their ten thousand plus byproducts – and it does not have a USDA organic logo – you are getting the Monsanto “double whammy”: the genetic modification (GM) of your health (and gene expression) that follows the consumption of GM food (because we are – literally – what we eat), and ceaseless chemical exposure to glyphosate, as all Monsanto-engineered foods have been designed to be glyphosate-resistant, and therefore are saturated with it.
Is Monsanto's Herbicide A New Agent Orange?
Roundup is not Monsanto's first entry into the systemic herbicide market. Monsanto admits it manufactured the herbicide/defoliant Agent Orange from 1965 to 1969, which Vietnam estimated killed and maimed 400,000 people and resulted in the 500,000 children being born with birth defects.
Non GMO Heirloom Seed Bank
The true devastation caused by Agent Orange was covered up for many years. We may find that Monsanto's Roundup, and its primary active ingredient glyphosate, may be causing a similar degree of devastation to both environmental and human health under the lidless, though not very watchful eye (as far as business interests are concerned), of our regulatory agencies.
Indeed, glyphosate is a powerful endocrine disrupter. Exceedingly small amounts are capable of mimicking and/or disrupting hormonal pathways, cell receptor sites and signaling. Research culled from The National Library of Medicine links it to 17 adverse pharmacological actions, including carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, neurotoxicty, hepatoxicity, and nephrotoxicity.
But what is most disturbing, and which may make its comparison to Agent Orange all the more appropriate, is its teratrogenicity, i.e. ability to cause fetal malformations.
As recently as 2004, glyphosate was revealed to exhibit endocrine-disruptive and embryotoxic effects, indicating that it may contribute to birth defects and abnormal fetal development.
Now that glyphosate has been found in the majority of air and rain samples tested in the US, and is now likely contaminating our wells, springs and aquifers, exposure is not only likely, its inevitable -- the difference being only a matter of degree.
Eating, Breathing, Drinking ... Dying
The precautionary principle, which is not employed here in the US, would require that if a company produces a novel chemical compound like glyphosate, and would like to use it commercially, it would have to prove its safety to humans before it is released into the environment.
Animal and cell research clearly shows glyphosate is harmful, but because we use a "weight of evidence standard" in this country, the burden of proof that it is harmful to humans is actually on those being harmed by it.
Had Monsanto been required to prove its safety in humans, it is doubtful they would have been able to. There was already enough damning animal research available, and proving a toxic chemical in human studies would require harming them, which is unethical.
This is why the precautionary principle is so powerful and necessary to protect us from corporations like Monsanto. We would not be eating, drinking and breathing glyphosate today, if it had been employed earlier. Instead, chemical companies use animal experiences to determine a LD50 (the dose at which 50% of the animals die), from which an "acceptable level of harm" is extrapolated and applied to human toxicological risk assessments.
An acceptable level of harm? This way of thinking is abusive, especially when applied to the unborn and infants.
Will it take additional decades of cumulative "acceptable" exposures, and thousands of "mysterious" miscarriages, birth defects, and developmental problems for us to how serious the problem is? Or, should we listen to Monsanto, their scientists, and the governmental regulatory agencies that they populate with elected and unelected officials on their payroll?
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/are-you-eating-drinking-breathing.html
Dees Illustration
Sayer Ji, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
In a groundbreaking study published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry last month, researchers found that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide “Roundup,” is flowing freely into the groundwater in areas where it is being applied.
The researchers found that 41% of the 140 groundwater samples taken from Catalonia Spain, had levels beyond the limit of quantification – indicating that, despite manufacturer’s claims, it does not break down rapidly in the environment, and is accumulating there in concerning quantities.
Why Is Groundwater Contamination An Important Finding?
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface, that supplies aquifers, wells and springs. If a chemical like glyphosate is mobile enough to get into the groundwater and is intrinsically resistant to being biodegraded (after all, it is being used to kill/degrade living things – not the other way around), significant environmental exposures to humans using the water are inevitable.
Keep in mind that glyphosate is considered by the EPA as a Class III toxic substance, fatal to an adult at 30 grams, and has been linked to over 20 adverse health effects in the peer-reviewed, biomedical literature.
This groundwater contamination study adds to another highly concerning finding from March, published in the journal of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, where researchers found the chemical in 60-100% of all air and rain samples tested, indicating that glyphosate pollution and exposure is now omnipresent in the US. When simply breathing makes you susceptible to glyphosate exposure, we know we are dealing with a problem of unprecedented scale.
Who Is Responsible For The Groundwater Contamination?
Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation, presently dominating the global genetically engineered seed market, with 90% market share in the US alone. It is also the world’s largest producer of the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as “Roundup,” among other brand names. If you are eating corn and soy, or any of their ten thousand plus byproducts – and it does not have a USDA organic logo – you are getting the Monsanto “double whammy”: the genetic modification (GM) of your health (and gene expression) that follows the consumption of GM food (because we are – literally – what we eat), and ceaseless chemical exposure to glyphosate, as all Monsanto-engineered foods have been designed to be glyphosate-resistant, and therefore are saturated with it.
Is Monsanto's Herbicide A New Agent Orange?
Roundup is not Monsanto's first entry into the systemic herbicide market. Monsanto admits it manufactured the herbicide/defoliant Agent Orange from 1965 to 1969, which Vietnam estimated killed and maimed 400,000 people and resulted in the 500,000 children being born with birth defects.
Non GMO Heirloom Seed Bank
The true devastation caused by Agent Orange was covered up for many years. We may find that Monsanto's Roundup, and its primary active ingredient glyphosate, may be causing a similar degree of devastation to both environmental and human health under the lidless, though not very watchful eye (as far as business interests are concerned), of our regulatory agencies.
Indeed, glyphosate is a powerful endocrine disrupter. Exceedingly small amounts are capable of mimicking and/or disrupting hormonal pathways, cell receptor sites and signaling. Research culled from The National Library of Medicine links it to 17 adverse pharmacological actions, including carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, neurotoxicty, hepatoxicity, and nephrotoxicity.
But what is most disturbing, and which may make its comparison to Agent Orange all the more appropriate, is its teratrogenicity, i.e. ability to cause fetal malformations.
As recently as 2004, glyphosate was revealed to exhibit endocrine-disruptive and embryotoxic effects, indicating that it may contribute to birth defects and abnormal fetal development.
Now that glyphosate has been found in the majority of air and rain samples tested in the US, and is now likely contaminating our wells, springs and aquifers, exposure is not only likely, its inevitable -- the difference being only a matter of degree.
Eating, Breathing, Drinking ... Dying
The precautionary principle, which is not employed here in the US, would require that if a company produces a novel chemical compound like glyphosate, and would like to use it commercially, it would have to prove its safety to humans before it is released into the environment.
Animal and cell research clearly shows glyphosate is harmful, but because we use a "weight of evidence standard" in this country, the burden of proof that it is harmful to humans is actually on those being harmed by it.
Had Monsanto been required to prove its safety in humans, it is doubtful they would have been able to. There was already enough damning animal research available, and proving a toxic chemical in human studies would require harming them, which is unethical.
This is why the precautionary principle is so powerful and necessary to protect us from corporations like Monsanto. We would not be eating, drinking and breathing glyphosate today, if it had been employed earlier. Instead, chemical companies use animal experiences to determine a LD50 (the dose at which 50% of the animals die), from which an "acceptable level of harm" is extrapolated and applied to human toxicological risk assessments.
An acceptable level of harm? This way of thinking is abusive, especially when applied to the unborn and infants.
Will it take additional decades of cumulative "acceptable" exposures, and thousands of "mysterious" miscarriages, birth defects, and developmental problems for us to how serious the problem is? Or, should we listen to Monsanto, their scientists, and the governmental regulatory agencies that they populate with elected and unelected officials on their payroll?
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/are-you-eating-drinking-breathing.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)