As we all probably know, a new extremely toxic strain of E. Coli has emerged in European farm produce.
Now granted, the following report comes from The New York Times where you can't apply for a job as a "journalist" if you know any science whatsoever but here's what it says about the food tragedy.
BERLIN — The unusually lethal strain of E. coli that has infected more than 1,500 people in Germany, mystified public health officials and threatened to touch off panic in Europe, is a previously unknown, “super toxic” variant, international health experts said Thursday.
With hospitals coping with seriously ill victims, sectors of European agriculture staggering and consumers weighing what foods were safe to eat, Russia extended a ban on fresh vegetable imports beyond Spain and Germany to encompass all of the European Union, drawing a sharp response from European officials who called the move “disproportionate.”
Um, um, well then...
In a statement on Thursday, a Chinese laboratory collaborating with German scientists said the contagion had been caused by a “new strain of bacteria that is highly infectious and toxic.” The lab, the Beijing Genomics Institute in the southern city of Shenzhen, referred to the strain as “entirely new” and “super toxic,” saying it was similar to one known as EAEC 55989 that is found in the Central African Republic and known to cause serious diarrhea. The Chinese laboratory has been working with scientists at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf...
...Russian news reports quoted health officials as saying that Moscow’s ban on European produce would begin immediately...
...“What Russia is doing is disproportionate,” Frederic Vincent, the spokesman for the European Union’s health commissioner, John Dalli, said Thursday. He said the commission would send a letter later Thursday to Moscow explaining why Russia should remove the restrictions. Russia relies on imports from the European Union for up to 40 percent of its fruits and vegetables
NY Times: E. Coli Strain Was Previously Unknown, Official Says
I think "they" told us our food supply was, um, "safe," didn't "they?"
I don't know who they fuck "they" are, but clearly the Russians have decided since "they" were wrong, they've decided to ban, um, food, on the grounds that food is not risk free.
Apparently, by way of contrast, not eating fruits and vegetables is risk free, where "risk free" is a determination that only those technologies that assure uninterrupted immortality are, um, "safe."
It has been reported in the popular media, by the way, that low calorie diets increase longevity.
Obviously this means that banning food is a smart idea.
Well, it is true that some Europeans have become sick, very sick, from eating European vegatables:
Holger Rohde, a bacteriologist at the same medical center, said tests conducted with the scientists in Shenzhen had shown that the new strain was a hybrid that causes the virulent complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or H.U.S., which attacks the kidneys and can be lethal.
Some 470 of the 1,500 known cases in the E. coli outbreak include H.U.S., a stunning large proportion. Generally, 5 to 10 percent of E. coli illnesses result in this complication.
Dr. Rohde said that about 80 percent of the genetic composition derived from the E. coli strain 0104, but that the other 20 percent came from another more toxic bacterium.
In recent days, the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a European Union agency based in Stockholm, and other health authorities in Europe have placed blame for the outbreak on a rare strain of E. coli called O104:H4.
Since 2008, only eight cases have been linked to the strain reported in the European Union, according to the agency, whose Web site was still reporting on Thursday that laboratory results indicated O104:H4 carried in contaminated food was “the causative agent” of the outbreak in Germany and had also been detected in Denmark.
Britain’s Health Protection Agency, confirmed that the number of cases in Britain had risen to seven from three, with the bacteria found in people who had recently traveled to Germany.
The W.H.O. said that Austria reported 2 cases, Denmark 7, France 6, the Netherlands 4, Norway 1, Spain 1, Sweden 28 and Switzerland 2.
In other news, Germany shut all of its nuclear plants and began dumping more toxic dangerous fossil fuel waste - which kills people at the rate of 5,000 people a day - into Earth's atmosphere because a Japanese nuclear facility was not, apparently, "safe" in a 9.0 earthquake followed by a 15 meter tsunami.
The number of people killed by the leak of radioactivity at the Japanese nuclear plant stands at, um, zero.
There is no word yet on German (and Russian) plans to shut buildings, ban cars, and ban standing outside because Japanese buildings, cars, sidewalks and other outdoor places were not "safe" in a 9.0 earthquake and 15 meter tsunami, leading to the death of 25,000 people.
But don't ask me about any of this. I'm a nihilist.