Safety News
As part of its ongoing investigation into the mislabeling of meat products, the FSA and police today entered two meat premises, one in West Yorkshire and the other in West Wales. The plant in West Yorkshire is Peter Boddy Licensed Slaughterhouse, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, and we believe it supplied horse carcasses to Farmbox Meats Ltd, [...]
Tesco has announced that it has found horse meat in some Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese. It carried out a number of tests following the product’s withdrawal from sale on a precautionary basis. Tesco says that of the positive results, most are at a trace level of less than 1% but three showed significant levels of [...]
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has ordered Scapadas Magicas LLC, a passenger carrier operating in the United States to immediately cease operations, and declared the carrier to be an imminent hazard to public safety. “Safety is our number one priority, and we will not tolerate unsafe bus companies on [...]
The first set of national prevalence data on intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual violence (SV), and stalking victimization by sexual orientation was released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The study found that lesbians and gay men reported IPV and SV over their lifetimes at levels equal to or higher than [...]
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has received the results of tests conducted on samples taken from the Dalepak plant by North Yorkshire Trading Standards. Dalepak is one of the plants that was named by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland as having supplied beefburgers to retailers that contained traces of horse and pork DNA. North [...]
Norwegian pregnant women who received a vaccine against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus showed no increased risk of pregnancy loss, while pregnant women who experienced influenza during pregnancy had an increased risk of miscarriages and still births, a study has found. The study suggests that influenza infection may increase the risk of fetal loss. Scientists [...]
The Food Standards Agency is investigating urgently how a number of beef products on sale in the UK and Republic of Ireland came to contain some traces of horse and pig DNA. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland reported this week that an analysis they carried out into the authenticity, or labeling accuracy, of a [...]
If you’re buying a new home, the house may need to be tested for radon, depending on local laws. Although the tests aren’t required everywhere, you should insist on it. You might not be able to see or smell radon, but it can still harm you—slowly, and in ways that you can’t detect. Radon is [...]
What We Know About Concussions
Your brain is your body’s command center. Its soft, sensitive tissues float in a cushioning fluid within the hard and sturdy skull. But a swift blow to the head or violent shaking can override these protections and lead to a mild type of brain injury known as a concussion. More than 1 million mild traumatic [...]
Flu in Pregnancy May Quadruple Risk for Bipolar Disorder in the Child
Pregnant mothers’ exposure to the flu was associated with a nearly fourfold increased risk that their child would develop bipolar disorder in adulthood, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings add to mounting evidence of possible shared underlying causes and illness processes with schizophrenia, which some studies have also linked [...]
NHS England to Tackle Shockingly Low Dementia Diagnosis Rates
NHS England is to tackle “shockingly low” dementia diagnosis rates with plans that could see 160,000 people who are unknowingly living with the condition identified and treated, Jeremy Hunt announced today. The plans, announced as the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia reached its first year, will aim to see two-thirds of people with dementia identified [...]
CDC Finds Suicide Rates Among Middle-aged Adults Increased From 1999 to 2010
Suicide deaths have surpassed deaths from motor vehicle crashes in recent years in the United States. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides. Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen substantially since 1999, according to a report in CDC journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. “Suicide is a tragedy [...]
When the Mind is At Rest Electrical Signals in the Brain Appear to Travel in Reverse
When the mind is at rest, the electrical signals by which brain cells communicate appear to travel in reverse, wiping out unimportant information in the process, but sensitizing the cells for future sensory learning, according to a study of rats conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The finding has implications not only [...]