Category: No SF

How the gut microbiome may influence the severity of COVID-19

The risk of severe COVID-19 infection is more common in those with high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, conditions that are all associated with changes to the composition of the gut microbiome — the community of bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in the intestines. This raises the question of whether the gut microbiome has a role in dictating COVID-19 severity.

Republished from The Conversation

Let’s recap what we know about COVID-19. COVID-19 is a new disease caused by a very contagious virus called SARS-CoV-2.

In most infected individuals, the virus does not cause serious illness. However, it causes a very serious respiratory disease — and even death — in a minority of patients. Through many studies of people with COVID-19 over the past few months, we have learned what characteristics are more likely to be linked to mild versus severe forms of the disease.

Related: How To Heal Your Gut 

Who is predisposed to serious COVID-19?

Children and young adults are less likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19, although infection readily occurs in young people with equally high viral loads in the airway, suggesting that they can certainly infect others. In contrast, people of older age and those with pre-existing chronic conditions are highly at risk and very likely develop symptomatic, severe disease.

If we consider the gradient of severity of the disease, children are at one end, and the elderly and patients with chronic conditions are at the other end.

What conditions are linked to severe COVID-19?

The information collected by researchers from many countries all points to similar characteristics and health conditions that are more commonly seen in patients with severe disease. These include older age, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

The strength of these associations is even more prominent among younger individuals, as younger patients with obesity and diabetes are more likely to have serious disease.

In New York City, 5,279 patients tested positive for COVID-19 between March 1 and April 8, 2020. Of these, 22.6 per cent had diabetes and 35.3 per cent were obese.

Related: Americans are Fatter Now Than in the 1980s, Even with the Same Diet and Exercise

Obesity was associated with an increased rate of hospital admission and critical illness. Similar findings were provided by investigators in the United Kingdomabout the outbreak in Britain, where obese patients were twice as likely to develop severe disease.

Do these findings raise the possibility that the mechanisms underlying high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity may help explain why these conditions lead to severe COVID-19 disease? Before exploring this question, let’s zoom in on cellular and molecular mechanisms known to be involved in COVID-19 disease.

How does the body fight COVID-19 infection?

When the virus enters the body, it mostly goes to the airways and the gastrointestinal tract. The virus then binds to specific receptors present on the surface of epithelial cells to enter these cells. Viral replication within the cells leads to cell damage and cell death. This results in the release of specific signalling molecules that alert the local immune system.

Armies of immune cells are then dispatched to initiate an antiviral response. Some of these cells are specialized to locate and identify the virus, while others mount a specific immune attack. The immune response results in the release of cytokines, chemokines and antibodies, which in many cases can defeat the virus, and the patient recovers.

Sometimes the immune system is dangerously at high alert and overreacts. In this case, the immune cells mount an especially strong inflammatory response — one that goes beyond what is required to kill the virus. This extra-strong attack releases cytokines and chemokines on a massive scale throughout the body, resulting in a cytokine storm, which causes widespread inflammation and tissue damage in patients with severe COVID-19.

One of the reasons for an abnormal, overreactive immune response lies in the gastrointestinal tract. Millions of interactions are constantly occurring between the immune system and trillions of non-dangerous microbes that live within the body. These interactions educate the immune system in how to function and, importantly, in how not to overreact to infectious microbes. Could this help explain why some people are more likely to develop uncontrolled inflammation upon COVID-19 infection?

Related: Data Shows How to Protect Against Coronavirus and We Address Conspiracy Theories

Trillions of micro-organisms that call your gastrointestinal tract home

The gut microbiome is the community of micro-organisms living inside the gastrointestinal tract, mostly in the large bowel. The microbiome contains bacteria, fungi (yeast), viruses and protozoa, all of which contribute to maintaining a balanced ecosystem and human health. These microbes collectively perform many beneficial functions, including educating the immune system.

When studying the microbiome, scientists examine the composition (what is there) and function (what are they doing) of this ecosystem. We have learned that both composition and function of the gut microbiome are important features linked to human health. In certain conditions, the balance of the gut microbiome composition and function is disrupted in a way that leads to disease, a phenomenon called microbiome dysbiosis.

There is accumulating evidence from animal and human studies that gut microbiome dysbiosis has a causal role in metabolism dysregulation manifested as diabetes and obesity — the risk factors of severe COVID-19 disease.

Is gut microbiome predisposing patients to severe COVID-19?

The gut microbiome regulates host defences against viral infections including respiratory viruses, such as influenza virus. This occurs through the activation of immune antiviral mechanisms and the prevention of excessive inflammation.

Different species of the gut microbiome have pro- or anti-inflammatory properties and play different roles in regulating the immune system. In the context of COVID-19, a recent preprint study (not yet peer reviewed) showed that specific members of the gut microbiome were associated with severe disease and with immune markers known to be elevated in severe disease. The association of these gut bacteria with the immune markers was even higher than that of the known risk factors of COVID-19 severity: age and obesity.

Further work is needed to confirm that pro-inflammatory microbial species can contribute to the immune responses that make severe COVID-19 more likely, but based on what we know about the microbiome, this is certainly a possibility. This also could mean that beneficial gut microbiome species, the type that promote low inflammation, have the potential to prevent or remediate the immune alterations that lead to severe COVID-19.

Potential for treatments and prevention

The research community is working very hard to develop and test safe and effective vaccines and treatments against COVID-19. Tapping into the potential of the gut microbiome is another avenue that we can pursue to identify potential safe and affordable probiotics for prevention and treatment. This is not unprecedented in the context of viral respiratory diseases: probiotics and prebiotics can affect the immune response to the flu vaccine, and may improve outcomes in flu-like illnesses.

Until effective treatments are available, “mind your microbes” and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Poison Found in 95% of Baby Food

  • A national investigation found 95% of baby foods tested contained the heavy metals lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. Some also contained the rocket fuel component perchlorate
  • Apple and grape juice, oat ring cereal, macaroni and cheese, puff snacks and rice-based foods had the highest levels of heavy metals
  • Heavy metals are developmental neurotoxins that can harm a baby’s developing brain and nervous system
  • Organic food may still contain heavy metals due to the presence of heavy metals in soil
  • There are several ways parents can safeguard their infant’s food, including making their own or using organic or biodynamically-grown vegetables

Republished – Mercola

A national investigation commissioned by Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) recently made a disturbing finding. A shocking 95% of baby foods tested contained the heavy metals lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury.1

I have often written about how most commercial infant formulas are high in processed sugar and questionable ingredients including soy. They can contain as much sugar as a can of soda yet lack the benefits of the natural sugars found in breast milk.

Worse, most formulas also contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), synthetic vitamins, inorganic minerals, excessive protein and harmful fats while lacking vital immune-boosting nutrients found in breast milk.

Still, the new findings about poisons like heavy metals lurking in baby food add urgency to the problem and raise questions about how parents can safely feed their infants.

Related: Circumcision Linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Disturbing Findings About Baby Food

Parent volunteers working with HBBF’s partner organizations were asked to buy the most prominent baby food brands at their local stores or online.

The organizations the parents worked with were the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Campaign for Healthier Solutions, Coming Clean, Ecology Center, Environmental Justice Health Alliance, Getting Ready for Baby, Learning Disabilities Association of America, Organizacion en California de Lideres Campesinas Inc., and Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services.2

The foods selected by the parents included 61 brands and 13 food types, including infant formula, teething biscuits, cereals and fruit juices. The results were staggering. Lead was found in 94% of the baby foods; cadmium and arsenic in approximately 75% of the items; and mercury in just under 33% of the products.

Fifteen of the baby foods accounted for 55% of the heavy metal contaminants. These included apple and grape juice, oat ring cereal, macaroni and cheese, puff snacks and rice-based foods. Rice foods such as cereal and rice-based snacks account for one-fifth of the risks babies face, as these foods have high levels of arsenic, as well as the other three metals, HBBF says.3

Related: Autism Correlates with Circumcision

Contaminants Threaten Babies’ IQs

The presence of heavy metals in baby food has been known for a decade, but the HBBF’s study sheds new light on just how widespread the contamination is, and the specific risks babies and toddlers may face from such foods, especially to their IQs. An excerpt from the report reads:4

“The four heavy metals we found in baby food have a unique significance. All are developmental neurotoxins … They can harm a baby’s developing brain and nervous system, both in utero and after birth, for impacts that include the permanent loss of intellectual capacity and behavioral problems like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

All four metals are linked to IQ loss from exposures early in life. The scientific evidence spans decades and continues to build: at least 23 studies published in the past seven years confirm these four heavy metals’ impacts to a child’s healthy development …

These metals are so prevalent in foods eaten by babies and toddlers that every child could be exposed daily to all three of the most common heavy metals detected in food — lead, arsenic, and cadmium — based on an analysis of federal surveys of children’s dietary patterns and heavy metals levels in food …”

Rocket Fuel Component Also Found in Baby Food

Related: Johnson And Johnson Knew Asbestos Was In Baby Powder, More Lawsuits Are Coming

Heavy metals are not the only IQ-lowering substances found in baby food, according to HBBF. The industrial chemical perchlorate, a rocket fuel component, was also detected, and this dangerous substance adds to the cognitive risks posed by heavy metals, HBBF says:5

“Perchlorate disrupts thyroid functions crucial to brain development and has been linked to IQ loss among children born to mothers with thyroid dysfunction, who are more vulnerable to perchlorate toxicity …

It is a rocket fuel component used since the Cold War. In 2005 FDA approved its use as an antistatic in plastic food packaging, and in 2016 expanded the approval to cover dry food handling equipment.

Perchlorate is also a degradation product of hypochlorite used to disinfect food processing equipment. Levels in children’s food increased dramatically from 2005 to 2012 …”

This is not the first time perchlorates — salts derived from perchloric acid used in the ways described above — have been found in baby food. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 15 brands of powdered infant formula were contaminated with the substance 10 years ago.6

Most people are exposed to perchlorate through their diet, in the form of contaminated water and/or foods. But the exposure infants receive may be far greater than that of adults if they are fed infant formula, as the toxin may be present in both the formula and the milk or water used to prepare it.

Perchlorate blocks the thyroid gland from taking up iodine, which can have a serious effect on a developing fetus and infant whose neurodevelopment depends on access to iodine.7 The harmful impact of perchlorate is also mediated by other endocrine disruptors that affect the thyroid found which might be found in the environment.

Related: Nurses Against Circumcision

Even Organic Baby Food Poses Risks

Sadly, parents can’t “shop their way out of” the toxic heavy metal problem by buying organic products, HBBF warns. Heavy metals are everywhere — they naturally occur in the soil, but pesticides, fertilizers, factory farms and other environmental pollution greatly increase their presence.

Because heavy metals are in the soil (whether deposited there naturally or through artificial means), leafy greens and root vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes take up and retain them to a greater degree than fruits and above ground crops.

While parents may decide to buy organic foods and make their own baby food, this does not entirely solve the problem because organic standards do not set strict limits for such contaminants; both adult and baby foods may contain heavy metals.8

Parents also cannot rely on bottled water to avoid heavy metals. Bottled water is no safer than filtered tap water and generates toxic plastic waste to boot.9 In a previous article, I noted that that microplastics are also found in bottled water.

Parents Should Beware of Fruit Juices

The HBBF report recommends against giving babies and toddlers fruit juices for two reasons. First, because common juices like apple and grape contain heavy metals and secondly because parents tend to give excessive amounts of juices to their children. This means the metal levels can build up.

According to a consensus statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, “Even 100% fruit juice offers no nutritional benefits over whole fruit.”10

There are other reasons to shun juice, say child and medical experts. Fruit juices can cause weight gain and lifelong obesity to the same degree as soft drinks, and their effect on teeth is equally destructive.

Most parents probably don’t realize that giving their child apple juice is akin to giving them a Coke, but metabolically, and in terms of dental health, it is. The lack of protein and fiber in juice counteracts any nutritional benefits, add the experts.11

Over seven years ago, Dr. Oz and Consumer Reports exposed high levels of arsenic in fruit juices. A full 10% of juice tested by Consumer Reports exceeded federal drinking-water standards for arsenic in the U.S.

Low-level chronic exposure to arsenic can lead to gastrointestinal problems, skin discoloration and hyperkeratosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, high blood pressure, diabetes, reproductive problems, neurological problems, various cancers and reduced IQ, as cited in the HBBF report.

Rice Is Also a Harmful Baby Food

Though pediatricians continue to tell parents that rice cereal mixed with breast milk or formula should be a baby’s first meal, it is irresponsible advice that I have always resisted.

Acclimating infants to the taste of highly processed white rice could set them up for a lifetime of bad eating habits and put them at risk for diabetes.12 The way that white rice is processed strips away vitamins, fiber and other nutrients. The rice that is left turns to sugar and raises insulin levels.

Since rice is submersed in water to grow, it also readily absorbs inorganic arsenic, which is the most harmful kind of arsenic. “Rice cereal has six times more arsenic than other types of cereal, like oatmeal and multigrain,” says Jane Houlihan, HBBF’s national director of science and health.13

“I have not been recommending rice cereal as a first food for many years, because I prefer babies eat whole grains with more nutrition,” agrees pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann.14 So, just how can baby food be made safe? Government clearly needs to do more, says the HBBF report, pointing out that:15

“FDA can use its testing programs, recall authority, and guidance to industry, among other tools, to characterize and control heavy metal levels in food. The agency tests a fraction of imported food in their Import Program, prioritizing food likely to pose risks to consumers, including those with high heavy metals levels.

Federal law gives FDA the authority to require a recall of food it deems to be adulterated, that ‘bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health,’ including heavy metals …

Despite FDA’s many areas of authority and its recent emphasis on reducing exposures to heavy metals, for 88 percent of baby foods tested by HBBF — 148 of 168 baby foods — FDA has failed to set enforceable limits or issue guidance on maximum safe amounts. And none of the agency’s existing guidance considers the additive neurological impacts of multiple metals in baby food.”

How Can Parents Ensure Baby Food Safety?

I have often written about how parents can make sure their babies and toddlers eat the most nutritious and safest foods. For instructions on how to make your own homemade baby formula, see “The U.S. Campaign Against Breastfeeding.” Here are a few other ideas sparked by the HBBF report that appeared on CNN:

Feed your baby a variety of healthy foods — This will help children be less picky eaters and avoid future food allergies.16
Choose snacks carefully — Rice teething rusks and other teething biscuits have little nutrition.
Reduce juice — Water and milk should be the drinks of choice.
Serve carrots and sweet potatoes less frequently — When you do, peel them carefully and cook them in water that is then disposed.
Minimize the use of plastic, especially with reheating foods — Heat causes dangerous plastics to leach into the food.
Steam and puree organic or biodynamically grown vegetables — Cool them in small glass containers, then freeze and put in bigger containers.
Mercola

‘Alarming’ Explosion of Toxic Pesticide Use Causing Insect Apocalypse in United States: Study

“Insect abundance has declined 45 percent. This is a global crisis—we must ban neonics to save the bees!”

(Common Dreams) The rapid and dangerous decline of the insect population in the United States—often called an “insect apocalypse” by scientists—has largely been driven by an increase in the toxicity of U.S. agriculture caused by the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS One.

We need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it.”

—Kendra Klein, Friends of the Earth

The study found that American agriculture has become 48 times more toxic to insects over the past 25 years and pinned 92 percent of the toxicity increase on neonicotinoids, which were banned by the European Union last year due to the threat they pose to bees and other pollinators.

Kendra Klein, Ph.D., study co-author and senior staff scientist at Friends of the Earth, said the United States must follow Europe’s lead and ban the toxic pesticides before it is too late.

“It is alarming that U.S. agriculture has become so much more toxic to insect life in the past two decades,” Klein said in a statement. “We need to phase out neonicotinoid pesticides to protect bees and other insects that are critical to biodiversity and the farms that feed us.”

“Congress must pass the Saving America’s Pollinators Act to ban neonicotinoids,” Klein added. “In addition, we need to rapidly shift our food system away from dependence on harmful pesticides and toward organic farming methods that work with nature rather than against it.”

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

According to National Geographic, neonics “are used on over 140 different agricultural crops in more than 120 countries. They attack the central nervous system of insects, causing overstimulation of their nerve cells, paralysis, and death.”

With insect populations declining due to neonic use, “the numbers of insect-eating birds have plummeted in recent decades,” National Geographic reported. “There’s also been a widespread decline in nearly all bird species.”

Recommended: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut 

As Common Dreams reported in February, scientists warned in a global analysis that by decimating insect populations, widespread use of pesticides poses a serious threat to the planet’s ecosystems and ultimately to the survival of humankind.

Klein said the “good news” is that neonics are not at all necessary for food production.

“We have four decades of research and evidence that agroecological farming methods can grow our food without decimating pollinators,” said Klein.

White House Has “Monsanto’s Back on Pesticides,” Newly Revealed Document Says

(URSTK by Carey Gillam) Internal Monsanto records just filed in court show that a corporate intelligence group hired to “to take the temperature on current regulatory attitudes for glyphosate” reported that the White House could be counted on to defend the company’s Roundup herbicides.

In a report attached to a July 2018 email to Monsanto global strategy official Todd Rands, the strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt  reported to Monsanto the following:

“A domestic policy adviser at the White House said, for instance: ‘We have Monsanto’s back on pesticides regulation. We are prepared to go toe-to-toe on any disputes they may have with, for example, the EU. Monsanto need not fear any additional regulation from this administration.”

In the email accompanying the report, Hakluyt’s Nick Banner told Rands the information related to issues both for the United States and for China. The report notes that “professional” staff has “sharp” disagreement with “political” staff on some areas, but that the concerns of some of the professional staffers would not get in the way.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

“We heard a unanimous view from senior levels of the EPA (and USDA) that glyphosate is not seen as carcinogenic, and that this is highly unlikely to change under this administration – whatever the level of disconnect between political and professional staffers.”

The report said that a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lawyer and a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) official confirmed that both agencies see the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen as “flawed” and incomplete.

“There is little doubt that the EPA supports the use of glyphosate,” the report says. It quotes a current EPA lawyer as saying: “We have made a determination regarding glyphosate and feel very confident of the facts around it. Other international bodies… have reached different conclusions, but in our view the data is just not clear and their decision is mistaken.”

Related: How to Avoid GMOs – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

The report also suggests similarities between the Trump Administration’s support for glyphosate and its actions around a pesticide called chlorpyrifos that is the active ingredient in an insecticide made by Dow Chemical, now DowDupont. There is a large body of science showing that chlorpyrifos is very damaging to children’s brain development and that children are most often exposed through the food and water they consume. Chlorpyrifos was due to be banned from agricultural use in 2017 because of its dangers but the Trump administration postponed the ban at the request of Dow and continues to allow its use in food production.  The Hakluyt reports says:

“The way the EPA under the Trump administration has handled Chlorpyrifos might be instructive in how it would handle new science or new developments related to glyphosate.”

At the time the report was delivered to Monsanto last July, Monsanto had just been acquired by the German company Bayer AG and was in the midst of defending itself in the first Roundup cancer trial. That San Francisco case, brought by cancer victim Dewayne “Lee” Johnson, resulted in a unanimous jury verdict handed down in August ordering Monsanto to pay $289 million in damages to Johnson. The judge in the case later lowered the amount to $78 million. A second trial, also held in San Francisco in a separate case, resulted in an $80.2 million verdict for plaintiff Edwin Hardeman.

A third trial is underway now in Oakland, California. Closing arguments are scheduled for tomorrow in that case, brought by a husband and wife who both have non-Hodgkin lymphoma they allege is due to their decades of using Roundup.

The documents that include the Hakluyt report were filed in Alameda County Superior Court by lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the current case – Alva and Alberta Pilliod.

The filing is in response to Monsanto’s effort to tell jurors about a recently released EPA glyphosate assessment in which the agency reaffirmed its finding that glyphosate does not cause cancer. The Pilliod lawyers say the Hakluyt communications with Monsanto speak “directly to the credibility of the 2019 EPA glyphosate evaluation, issued by an administration which holds itself out as favoring Monsanto’s business interests.”

Widening rift reported between political and professional staffers in regulatory agencies

The Hakluyt report to Monsanto also notes that increasingly professional staffers inside “most” federal agencies are feeling at odds with political staffers on issues such as pesticide regulation, climate science and other matters.

“While this appears to be true of various agencies – Health and Human Services, Commerce, Education, Interior, the Food and Drug Administration, and so on- the EPA may be the leading example of this phenomenon.”

The report quotes a prominent Washington DC law firm partner who has “extensive contacts at the EPA as saying:

“In essence, the political leadership favors deregulation and dismisses the expert risk analysis. It is especially averse to theoretical risk analysis, for example, on the risks of glyphosate, about which a scientific consensus is yet to form… With regard to glyphosate, in particular, the differences between political and professional staff are sharp.” 

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

The professional staffers, those scientists and others who typically have been within an agency for many years through multiple administrations.

Within the EPA, professional staffers are said to have “doubts about glyphosate,” but those doubts “are not shared by the EPA’s leadership.”

The report also provides feedback on Monsanto’s reputation and provides a cautionary note to Bayer, which had just closed the purchase of Monsanto a few weeks before the July 2018 communications:

“Developments in California on glyphosate are striking a chord with the public… The company regularly goes to ‘DEFCON 1’ on the slightest challenge from the environmental, academic or scientific community.”

“Even within the EPA there is unease about your ‘scientific intransigence.’” 

According to the Hakluyt report, an official with the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs said: “There is growing unease in this office at what seems like scientific intransigence by Monsanto to give credibility to any evidence that doesn’t fit their view. We would agree with them that such evidence is non-conclusive, but that does not mean that it is without basis.”

For more information and updates follow @careygillam on Twitter.

You Don’t Want To Know What They Do To Oranges (And It’s About To Get Even Worse)

(Natural Blaze by Meadow Clark) Something is happening to oranges. The solution may be worse than the problem and there’s about to be a lot more solution.

Oranges are cast as the pinnacle of American wholesomeness. Orange juice is a marketing empire in its own right. The “OJ” industry has successfully made its product synonymous with life-giving vitamin C and a complete breakfast. But is that really the case?

The truth is, you don’t know what they do to oranges.

You probably think I’m talking about swaths of pesticides being sprayed on orange groves, but no, no, no. That’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Did you know that oranges are routinely sprayed with antibiotics?

Yeah, how odd, right?

The same antibiotics that are used to treat humans and animals for bacterial infections. We already ingest many antibiotics through our food if we are not careful, because of the antibiotics given to livestock, meat especially, but also eggs, farmed fish, milk, and cheese.

Now we ingest antibiotics from oranges?

Doesn’t that make the problem of antibiotic resistance much, much worse?

Yes, it does. And the problem isn’t just what we eat, it’s also the runoff of antibiotics into our waterways.

But how did that happen?

America’s orange groves have been facing a major problem with a widespread disease called citrus greening that has reportedly ripped through the citrus industry.

If you think that sounds bad, the Trump administration reportedly gave approval for an unprecedented amount of antibiotic use. Agricultural operations are allowed to spray two kinds of antibiotics on nearly a half-million acres of Florida citrus fruits.

Florida Phoenix Journal reports:

Federal officials are allowing greatly expanded use of streptomycin and oxytetracycline –  antibiotics often used on people — as a pesticide on commercially grown citrus. Agricultural operations plan to use the antibiotic sprays to combat the widespread disease called citrus greening, which has devastated the citrus industry. The antibiotics won’t cure the disease, and will have to be sprayed repeatedly over years just to keep the trees alive and producing fruit until they succumb to citrus greening.

Allowing so much antibiotic residue in Florida soils, runoff, and air is unprecedented. It’s unclear how much of the antibiotics – sprayed on leaves and taken up into the plant’s vascular system – will end up in fruit; it’s never been sprayed on this scale before. Test results the citrus industry provided to federal officials reported low antibiotic residues. (source)

The EPA expressed concerns for potential harm to the environment, people, and wildlife, but ultimately decided the economic benefits “outweighed” the risks.

The USDA reasons that the amount of antibiotics people will ingest from citrus will be far less than those ingested during prescription use.

Despite the outcry from various environmental and antibiotics interest groups, Florida’s Department of Agriculture and many citrus growers made the request to use more antibiotics.

Antibiotic resistance affects more than just humans.

The Journal continues:

…One EPA analysis notes that “uncertainty exists regarding the potential for development of resistance, or cross-resistance with other antibiotics, that could result from pesticide applications.”

Both the European Union and Brazil have banned the use of oxytetracycline and streptomycin for use as a pesticide on agricultural plants.

—

…The concern is that the antibiotics which now work on human problems like pneumonia, tuberculosis and other deadly infections will become ineffective. Another concern is that the antibiotics will affect bees, which pollinate citrus flowers, as well as small mammals like rabbits. In the environment, antibiotics can change the chemistry of soil and water, knocking ecosystems out of balance.

—

For citrus growers, the last 10 years have been a nightmare as citrus greening spread from South Florida north, affecting groves in dozens of counties. They spray pesticides to kill the imported insect that carries the disease, but it hasn’t stopped citrus greening’s forward march up the peninsula. They are also working to develop new strains of citrus that resist the disease. The antibiotics, they argued in numerous comment letters to federal officials, are the only known way to stay in business. The press office of the Florida Department of Agriculture did not respond to requests for comment. (source)

So, as you can see, farmers are in a hard place and they argue that a proposed solution of “cycling” between the two antibiotics may not work. But the short term fix may lead to either antibiotic resistance or… the development of even more genetically engineered crops.

You don’t want to know what they do to oranges

Did you know that orange juice is fake news?

In my article, “3 TOTALLY FAKE Foods in Just About Everybody’s Kitchen,” I reported on how orange juice is really made.

As Gizmodo explained a while back, OJ is anything but natural:

Once the juice is squeezed and stored in gigantic vats, they start removing oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors of oranges. Yeah, it’s all backwards. So in order to have OJ actually taste like oranges, drink companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes for Dior, to create these “flavor packs” to make juice taste like, well, juice again. (source)

This is why nearly all orange juice tastes exactly the same, no matter which carton you open. Some companies add pulp-dissolving enzymes to the mix.

Here’s an article with a photo of an orange juice factory that shows whole oranges sitting right in the juice.

If that’s a typical occurrence, then it stands to reason there are pesticides and antibiotics floating around in that glass of juice.

Don’t want the yuck that comes from conventional oranges?

Here are some ways you can mitigate some of these problems:

  • Choose organic oranges when possible
  • Reduce how often you handle citrus with your hands
  • Wash hands immediately after handling
  • If you have time, gently scrub oranges with baking soda and veggie wash before putting them in the fruit bowl
  • Only buy organic orange juice or brands from this list
  • Make your own fresh-squeezed juice.
  • Simply eat oranges instead of drinking orange juice.

Are citrus antibiotics going to cause more (genetically engineered) mosquitoes?

One more weird aspect to this news: genetically engineered mosquitoes have been released in testing trials in parts of Florida, the state that’s known for having the best oranges.

At first, the company pushing the mosquitoes argued that it would reduce scary diseases like Dengue fever and Chikungunya. But those haven’t occurred in Florida for years… Oh, look! here comes Zika, what a coincidence.

Anyway, these mosquitoes were developed by private biotech companies to mate with Florida mosquitoes so that the offspring will all die off.

But wait? Couldn’t that eventually kill off the entire mosquito population and cause a negative domino effect in the animal kingdom?

Here is something most people don’t know about these modified mosquitoes.

They can only be rescued from their genetically engineered die-off by being fed tetracycline…

Yes, the same family of antibiotics that oxytetracycline belongs!

Is this not a crazy situation, or what?

We now face a future where we must either keep feeding antibiotics to citrus groves to eat and face antibiotic resistance or use a similar antibiotic if something goes terribly wrong by the release of engineered pests into the wild…

Peachy.

You can read more from Meadow Clark at The Organic Prepper.