From eggs to bacon – why food scares don’t scare us

For a while, things looked bad for bacon. After a warning last year from the World Health Organisation that processed and cured meat ranked alongside cigarettes as a cause of cancer, UK supermarkets reported a 17% drop in sales.

But it is a measure of our collective amnesia and lack of concern for saving our own bacon (and, erm, pigs) that rashers are back, thanks to a surge in popularity of the once-endangered cooked breakfast. According to consumer analysis by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, the amount of cooked food eaten in the morning has risen 30% in the past two years, including a 5% leap for bacon.

When food scares break, consumer trust can disappear as quickly as horseburgers from a supermarket shelf. But just as surely as passengers fly again after disasters, the impact of fear is brief. Get it right and markets can come back stronger. In 1998, 10 years after the start of the BSE crisis, the Meat and Livestock Commission reported that sales were back to normal and that general meat consumption had reached record levels.

But the industry doesn’t bank on consumers forgetting about risk and remembering how much they like burgers; it takes a major effort by food boards, manufacturers and retailers to manage crises. Few have pulled it off as well as the Egg Marketing Board, now the British Egg Industry Council. When Edwina Currie, then a junior health minister, said in 1998 that “most of the egg production in this country is affected with salmonella”, she almost killed an entire industry overnight.

The response, if not immediate (it came 10 years later), was the Lion scheme – a symbol of national pride added to eggs to show they come from vaccinated hens. The scheme improved safety and restored consumer confidence to the extent that food agencies found last month that runny eggs no longer pose a threat, even to pregnant women.

Which brings us back to breakfast, where a separate report by the British Egg Council (another body with a vested interest, it should be noted) found that morning egg consumption has risen 18% in two years, fuelling the cooked-breakfast boom more than bacon sales. A spike in heart disease cases may or may not follow.

From eggs to bacon – why food scares don’t scare us

Ed Miliband"s scare techniques will not cure the NHS

Judging by his line of assault in the course of Prime Minister’s Concerns yesterday, Ed Miliband intends to make the National Well being Service the centrepiece of Labour’s election campaign. Not, nonetheless, by putting forward deemed and wise policies for its reform, but by reprising the scare tactics that have been deployed at practically each and every election given that the well being service’s basis. As the Labour leader place it in the Commons yesterday: “It is this get together that produced the NHS, and every single time we have to conserve it from that good deal opposite.”

This proprietorial strategy – the notion that not only is the NHS Labour’s, but that it represents the purest manifestation of its benevolence – just does not wash. It is also one of the largest obstacles to attaining the reforms that are needed in the overall health method. Every single time modifications are advised to support the NHS withstand the massive demographic, healthcare and economic pressures it faces, Labour shouts them down.

Even now, Mr Miliband is appropriate about 1 issue: the NHS is in problems. A report published by the Royal College of Surgeons and Age United kingdom displays that rationing is being extended to cover existence-conserving operations on elderly individuals. A study discovered that in massive parts of the nation, hardly anyone above the age of 75 was receiving surgical treatment for conditions such as breast cancer and gall bladder elimination. This is wrong. There must be no automatic minimize-off age for treatment method, not least simply because the elderly have contributed sufficiently in taxes during their working lives to count on to be afforded good and correct care. The basis for this kind of decisions need to be purely physiological: are individuals fit enough to stand up to an operation? And would their lives be enhanced by surgical treatment?

The NHS is becoming forced into creating such arbitrary judgments because of the pressures elsewhere in the method. These are not able to, as Labour would have us believe, be cured simply by pouring a lot more cash in. More radical thinking about funding, insurance and charging is essential – nevertheless looks totally off limits to our political events. For illustration, they continue to be fixated on the idea of totally free therapy at the stage of delivery, even even though this notion was watered down lengthy in the past with the introduction of prescription and dental charges – rejecting, for example, the thought of top-up payments, or token costs for GP appointments. While such devotion may have seemed magnificently enlightened in 1948, it is unrealistic these days. In the forthcoming election campaign, we require all our politicians to concentrate on what will be great for the nation’s health for the following five decades – not on what will be great for them for the following five years.

Ed Miliband"s scare techniques will not cure the NHS

CDC blames anthrax scare on "breach of protocol"

A “breach of protocol” could have unintentionally exposed 84 Atlanta-primarily based employees of the US Centers for Illness Handle and Prevention (CDC) to anthrax, the company confirmed on Friday.

Final Friday, dozens of scientists and workers functioning in decrease-security clearance labs in Atlanta were notified that they may have been exposed to live bacteria, soon after bioterrorism researchers at the company mistakenly sent the probably deadly pathogen to their colleagues.

“This was merely a breach of protocol,” mentioned CDC spokesman Benjamin Haynes in an e mail on Friday. “The protocol calls for inactive anthrax to be slided and observed soon after 48 hours to see if spores produce. This certain sample was checked and sent to decrease-degree labs after 24 hours.”

The reduce-safety clearance labs are not outfitted to handle the dwell anthrax virus. And personnel, believing the samples to be harmless, had been not wearing the suitable protective gear for handling the lively virus, the CDC stated. The two workers members most closely involved with the incident obtained fast health care interest on 13 June, when the exposure was found, Haynes said.

He explained that as of Thursday afternoon, the agency’s Occupational Wellness Clinic had seen 54 of the 84 staff who had been notified. Among them, all but two of the scientists who visited the clinic had been taking oral antibiotic treatment, and roughly half had opted for the anthrax vaccine.

Anthrax is the most very likely agent to be utilised in a biological attack due to the fact it only takes a small sum to infect a massive number of folks, in accordance to the CDC internet site. All sorts of anthrax, if untreated, have the possible to spread throughout the physique and lead to significant illness and even death.

“Based on most of the possible exposure situations, the chance of infection is quite low,” the CDC’s statement mentioned.

It adds: “Out of an abundance of caution, CDC is taking aggressive actions to protect the overall health of all concerned, such as providing protective programs of antibiotics for probably exposed employees.”

All recognized workers who might have been exposed have been notified and advised to pay a visit to the agency’s clinic or their private physician. They are getting provided antibiotics, the initial line of defense against the virus, as well as anthrax vaccinations, Haynes said. Anthrax is not contagious, and therefore it is believed that other CDC staff, loved ones members and the common public are not at threat of exposure.

He explained none of the workers who have been contacted are showing indications or symptoms of obtaining anthrax, though it can take days or even months to seem.

Scientists in the CDC’s Bioterror Rapid Response and Superior Technology lab had been making an attempt out a new protocol for inactivating anthrax, making use of chemicals rather of radiation. The lab’s method, nonetheless, did not appropriately inactivate the samples, which have been then sent to the decrease labs. An investigation is in progress.

On 12 June, a day ahead of the exposure was discovered, the CDC tweeted a website link to an animated video explaining what to do in the event of an anthrax publicity – not realizing then, of course, it was their very own scientists who required the suggestions.

CDC blames anthrax scare on "breach of protocol"

Salmonella scare closes Melbourne restaurant soon after diners fall ill

More than a dozen men and women have fallen sick after consuming at a Melbourne restaurant that has been shut down after a salmonella scare.

Well being authorities closed the Hao Phong restaurant in Footscray on Tuesday after two diners have been taken to hospital for salmonella poisoning, a Victorian wellness department spokesman mentioned.

The Maribyrnong city council confirmed a quantity of men and women had fallen sick following consuming at the restaurant between December 27 and 31.

There had been up to 13 suspected circumstances involving men and women who ate at the restaurant, the council confirmed.

Maribyrnong’s mayor, Grant Miles, stated it was worrying for those who had eaten at the restaurant but that the incident was currently being effectively managed.

“Well being inspectors are functioning with the owners to carry the restaurant back up to normal for re-opening,” Miles advised AAP.

“It is totally worrying, even if it is well more than a week in the past. If you ate at the restaurant and have flu-like signs I would inspire you to go and see a physician.”

Miles stated the restaurant had in no way had an incident of this nature prior to and was popular with locals.

Food cooked at the restaurant was taken away for testing and all implements that had come into get in touch with with contaminated meals had been destroyed.

The premises were closed for a thorough clean-up but would open early up coming week. Miles stated Hao Phong would not re-open till the council was pleased it met health laws.

There were only two confirmed salmonella instances at the moment, he explained.

The investigation is ongoing and the council is presently considering what even more action need to be taken, including prosecution.

Salmonella scare closes Melbourne restaurant soon after diners fall ill