On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:48:40 +0000 (GMT), Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:20:11 +0000, John Williamson wrote:

A local radio story today implicated a local horse abbatoir, and said
that two of the carcasses tested and on their way out yesterday tested
positive for Bute. These were destroyed after testing, but before they
left the site. This was not a routine test. This abbatoir sells horses
to the French market as food for humans, among other customers.

I bet the relevant horse passports had no mention of phenylbutazone on
them...

But I agree the entire system seems to rely on bits of paper just saying
the X is X and everyone believing the bits of paper. An no one is
actually checking that what the bits of paper say agrees with reality.

No one cares about the veracity of the paper, only that the paper passes the
blame to others. It's like most procedures nowadays: CMA (Cover My Arse)
only, truth doesn't matter.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

geoff wrote:
In message , John Williamson
writes
A local radio story today implicated a local horse abbatoir, and said
that two of the carcasses tested and on their way out yesterday tested
positive for Bute. These were destroyed after testing, but before they
left the site. This was not a routine test. This abbatoir sells horses
to the French market as food for humans, among other customers.

Someone said on Question time last night that you would have to have
eaten 6 horses to get an effect in a human#


And Bute is used in the treatment of some conditions in humans too, but
under a different name. I've heard the "Five or six hundred burgers made
entirely of horsemeat in one day to reach the levels used in treatment
of humans" claim as well, it was one of the favourite quotes used on my
local BBC radio station yesterday.

The fact remains that it is illegal for horses treated with Bute to ever
enter the human food chain, no matter how small the residue might be, so
the abbatoir was beaking the law by selling the contaminated carcasses
as food for people. It's okay to sell it as dogfood, though...

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On 16/02/2013 09:39, John Williamson wrote:
geoff wrote:
In message , John Williamson
writes
A local radio story today implicated a local horse abbatoir, and said
that two of the carcasses tested and on their way out yesterday
tested positive for Bute. These were destroyed after testing, but
before they left the site. This was not a routine test. This abbatoir
sells horses to the French market as food for humans, among other
customers.

Someone said on Question time last night that you would have to have
eaten 6 horses to get an effect in a human#


And Bute is used in the treatment of some conditions in humans too, but
under a different name. I've heard the "Five or six hundred burgers made
entirely of horsemeat in one day to reach the levels used in treatment
of humans" claim as well, it was one of the favourite quotes used on my
local BBC radio station yesterday.

The fact remains that it is illegal for horses treated with Bute to ever
enter the human food chain, no matter how small the residue might be, so
the abbatoir was beaking the law by selling the contaminated carcasses
as food for people. It's okay to sell it as dogfood, though...

Odd that - because a while back I remember seeing person/people eating
pet food on television with the express statement that all UK pet food
must be of human food quality... And that pet food taster was a real job.

Pork pies somewhere... (If they are in fact pork?)

--
Rod

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 15, 11:08 pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message

eb.com...

On 15/02/2013 18:59, PeterC wrote:

8

Yes. Tesing for one 'contaminant' doesn't detect others. We need to
know
that it's right, not that one aspect is wrong and others aren't
detected.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Its very hard to test for the absence of something unknown.

It isnt hard to test the claim that its 100% beef.

Yes it is.

Bull**** it is. Completely routine with DNA testing.


An interesting email from the head honcho at Tesco came through this
morning. It details how they are setting up a full DNA testing programme for
all of their meat products, and making their supply chains open and
transparent to the customers. They are clearly taking the whole thing very
seriously - as they should, of course - but seem to be implying that as a
result of their testing, and new on-going monitoring processes, they *will*
be able to say with 100% certainty, exactly what is in the product. I would
agree that it should be routine to determine this from the DNA testing, as
the police forensic labs seem to manage to be able to separate the tiniest
traces of DNA from larger bulks.

Arfa

"PeterC" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:41:47 -0800 (PST), harry wrote:

On Feb 15, 11:08 pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message

eb.com...

On 15/02/2013 18:59, PeterC wrote:

8

Yes. Tesing for one 'contaminant' doesn't detect others. We need to
know
that it's right, not that one aspect is wrong and others aren't
detected.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Its very hard to test for the absence of something unknown.

It isnt hard to test the claim that its 100% beef.

Yes it is.

That is the problem. Telling if something is wrong is fairly easy - it's
not
'as it should be', but there are hundreds of ways that something can be
wrong and many different tests needed. There doesn't seem to be a test to
tell if it's right.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway


But surely, that is the point ? If it's 'wrong', it ain't 'right', and if it
ain't *right*, then it's not 100% beef or whatever. Yes, it would be nice to
know what the contaminant was, but not actually necessary to know that it's
there. More detailed testing would then no doubt, be able to determine
exactly *what* the contaminant was ?

Arfa

bert wrote:
In message , John Williamson
writes
Andy Champ wrote:
On 15/02/2013 14:35, wrote:
PCR assays for horse could be made cheap enough for widespread
surveillance,
but it's not really the right approach. If you have to figure out
after the fact
what animal it came from, you really don't know enough about the
suppliers.

What's the next yucky thing going to be that we then have to check
all meat for?
I'm not that bothered whether my beefburger turns out to be horse or
pork, so long as it is fit for human consumption. So no bute etc.

Which is the heart of the current problem. If it's not on the label,
then there is no control over what it is, or where it came from, and
you can't make an informed choice.

A local radio story today implicated a local horse abbatoir, and said
that two of the carcasses tested and on their way out yesterday tested
positive for Bute. These were destroyed after testing, but before they
left the site. This was not a routine test. This abbatoir sells horses
to the French market as food for humans, among other customers.

It is being said that the level of bute would be so minute compared to
that necessary to be harmful that it is negligible.

It's still illegal, though, even if it *is* perfectly safe.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 01:07:32 GMT, Windmill wrote:

But also do frequent widespread checks for the presence of a wide range
of noxious substances. Iodine 131 from Chernobyl (or Japan?), ...

Iodine 131 has a half life of about 8 days. There will be bugger all
Iodine 131 from Fukishima still about let alone Chernobyl.

... growth hormones, antibiotics fed to cattle, etc.

Those and pesticide residues or break down products of any of them, are
far, far greater risk.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 16/02/2013 10:31, Arfa Daily wrote:

An interesting email from the head honcho at Tesco came through this
morning. It details how they are setting up a full DNA testing programme
for all of their meat products, and making their supply chains open and
transparent to the customers. They are clearly taking the whole thing
very seriously - as they should, of course - but seem to be implying
that as a result of their testing, and new on-going monitoring
processes, they *will* be able to say with 100% certainty, exactly what
is in the product. I would agree that it should be routine to determine
this from the DNA testing, as the police forensic labs seem to manage to
be able to separate the tiniest traces of DNA from larger bulks.

Arfa

And setting up live video cameras in all suppliers? So, at least if they
look, they can see what is being done. And the suppliers (at whichever
level of the chain) never know if they are being actively watched.
Especially if available to all via the web.

The only big negative (other than cost) is that the employees should,
perhaps, be allowed some personal privacy.

--
Rod

On 16/02/13 10:35, Arfa Daily wrote:


"PeterC" wrote in message

That is the problem. Telling if something is wrong is fairly easy -
it's not
'as it should be', but there are hundreds of ways that something can be
wrong and many different tests needed. There doesn't seem to be a test to
tell if it's right.

But surely, that is the point ? If it's 'wrong', it ain't 'right', and
if it ain't *right*, then it's not 100% beef or whatever. Yes, it would
be nice to know what the contaminant was, but not actually necessary to
know that it's there. More detailed testing would then no doubt, be able
to determine exactly *what* the contaminant was ?

Confirmation and denial are asymmetric. You can test a sample for beef:
if you find beef that does not prove it is 100% beef. You can prove it
is NOT 100% beef: test for something else, it only takes a trace to
disprove the 100% beef claim. The problem is what 'something else'
should you look for? If you suspect horse, then that it what you test
for, if pork that's another test, etc


--
djc

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...


"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 15, 11:08 pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message

eb.com...

On 15/02/2013 18:59, PeterC wrote:

8

Yes. Tesing for one 'contaminant' doesn't detect others. We need to
know
that it's right, not that one aspect is wrong and others aren't
detected.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Its very hard to test for the absence of something unknown.

It isnt hard to test the claim that its 100% beef.

Yes it is.

Bull**** it is. Completely routine with DNA testing.


An interesting email from the head honcho at Tesco came through this
morning. It details how they are setting up a full DNA testing programme
for all of their meat products, and making their supply chains open and
transparent to the customers. They are clearly taking the whole thing very
seriously - as they should, of course - but seem to be implying that as a
result of their testing, and new on-going monitoring processes, they
*will* be able to say with 100% certainty, exactly what is in the product.
I would agree that it should be routine to determine this from the DNA
testing, as the police forensic labs seem to manage to be able to separate
the tiniest traces of DNA from larger bulks.

And with eaten meat all you need to do is see if there is any horse, beef,
sheep, goat etc DNA and even with the most exotic stuff like deer etc, that
stands out like dogs balls. That's the beauty of DNA, it isnt even that
expensive.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 01:07:32 GMT, Windmill wrote:

But also do frequent widespread checks for the presence of a wide range
of noxious substances. Iodine 131 from Chernobyl (or Japan?), ...

Iodine 131 has a half life of about 8 days. There will be bugger all
Iodine 131 from Fukishima still about let alone Chernobyl.

... growth hormones, antibiotics fed to cattle, etc.

Those and pesticide residues or break down products of any of them, are
far, far greater risk.

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

On 16/02/2013 01:07, Windmill wrote:

But also do frequent widespread checks for the presence of a wide range
of noxious substances. Iodine 131 from Chernobyl (or Japan?)

With a half life of 8 days you would have more chance of finding
something active in a homoeopathy remedy.

On 16/02/2013 18:37, Rod Speed wrote:

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.
the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume in the food
will lead to a resistant bacteria.

"djc" wrote in message
...
On 16/02/13 10:35, Arfa Daily wrote:


"PeterC" wrote in message

That is the problem. Telling if something is wrong is fairly easy -
it's not
'as it should be', but there are hundreds of ways that something can be
wrong and many different tests needed. There doesn't seem to be a test
to
tell if it's right.

But surely, that is the point ? If it's 'wrong', it ain't 'right', and
if it ain't *right*, then it's not 100% beef or whatever. Yes, it would
be nice to know what the contaminant was, but not actually necessary to
know that it's there. More detailed testing would then no doubt, be able
to determine exactly *what* the contaminant was ?

Confirmation and denial are asymmetric. You can test a sample for beef: if
you find beef that does not prove it is 100% beef. You can prove it is NOT
100% beef: test for something else, it only takes a trace to disprove the
100% beef claim. The problem is what 'something else' should you look for?
If you suspect horse, then that it what you test for, if pork that's
another test, etc

But its no harder to test for all the obvious meat DNA that are likely
to turn up in food. Doesnt matter what it is when its not one of those.

In message , PeterC
writes
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:41:47 -0800 (PST), harry wrote:

On Feb 15, 11:08*pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message

eb.com...

On 15/02/2013 18:59, PeterC wrote:

8

Yes. Tesing for one 'contaminant' doesn't detect others. We need to know
that it's right, not that one aspect is wrong and others aren't detected.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Its very hard to test for the absence of something unknown.

It isnt hard to test the claim that its 100% beef.

Yes it is.

That is the problem. Telling if something is wrong is fairly easy - it's not
'as it should be', but there are hundreds of ways that something can be
wrong and many different tests needed. There doesn't seem to be a test to
tell if it's right.
It's difficult to prove a negative.
--
bert

"bert" ] wrote in message
...
In message , PeterC
writes
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:41:47 -0800 (PST), harry wrote:

On Feb 15, 11:08 pm, "Rod Speed" wrote:
"dennis@home" wrote in message

eb.com...

On 15/02/2013 18:59, PeterC wrote:

8

Yes. Tesing for one 'contaminant' doesn't detect others. We need to
know
that it's right, not that one aspect is wrong and others aren't
detected.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Its very hard to test for the absence of something unknown.

It isnt hard to test the claim that its 100% beef.

Yes it is.

That is the problem. Telling if something is wrong is fairly easy - it's
not
'as it should be', but there are hundreds of ways that something can be
wrong and many different tests needed. There doesn't seem to be a test to
tell if it's right.

It's difficult to prove a negative.

Not with DNA testing of meat.

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:43:26 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

When I was a student (50+ years ago), curries tended to be called
"meat". At those prices who worried whether it was lamb or something
else.

Kept the feral moggie population under control, at least.

And the stray dogs, one restaurant was caught with a dead Alsatian (as in
dog not frog) out the back.

--
Cheers
Dave.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 16/02/2013 18:37, Rod Speed wrote:

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.
the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume in the food will
lead to a resistant bacteria.


Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them to
me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone. Apparently,
this is why they tell you that you must complete the course, even if what
you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because if you don't kill
it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to the antibiotic that
you were using, so you then have to start again with a different one ...
:-(

Arfa

"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...


"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 16/02/2013 18:37, Rod Speed wrote:

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.
the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume in the food
will lead to a resistant bacteria.


Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them
to me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone.
Apparently, this is why they tell you that you must complete the course,
even if what you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because if
you don't kill it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to the
antibiotic that you were using,

It already was to some extent because it took longer to kill
those that survived the less that full dose of the antibiotic.

so you then have to start again with a different one ... :-(

And if most don't bother to complete the course, we end up
with all of them resistant to all the antibiotics used and then
the **** really hits the fan.

dennis@home wrote
Rod Speed wrote

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic,
its what antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a
result of the use of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume
in the food will lead to a resistant bacteria.

Nope, you just don't get enough of it in the meat for that.

bert ] wrote
Rod Speed wrote
wrote
Dave Liquorice wrote

What I find rather disturbing is that no one in the whole long supply
chain, from abattoir to retail outlet, appears to have been routinely
testing that a batch of meat or product called "beef" really is 100%
beef.

PCR assays for horse could be made cheap enough for
widespread surveillance, but it's not really the right approach.

It is when you want to rub the supplier's noses in the fact that
whatever they try fraud wise will get caught very quickly.

If you have to figure out after the fact what animal it came
from, you really don't know enough about the suppliers.

That last just isnt feasible with an EU wide system.

Its never going to be feasible to have your own staff
permanently inside all your suppliers EU wide and
even that wont work because they can be bribed etc.

What's the next yucky thing going to be
that we then have to check all meat for?

Animals getting killed outside inspected abattoirs etc.

You cannot inspect absolute quality into a system.

Depends entirely on what you mean by absolute quality.

You can certainly ensure that the animals are only ever killed
in the abattoir and no dead animal ever shows up there, say
from the truck that they show up in etc or having died in the field.

And if you mean a perfect food product, nothing will guarantee
that, even total end to end control over everything involved at all.

That depends on the integrity of everyone involved in the task.

No it doesn't with some stuff like whether no animal that has
died outside the abattoir never ends up in the output of the abattoir.

That is not going to happen anywhere

Yes, its not even possible.

so when you do catch anyone out you have to come down on them HARD - to
deter les autres.

But it isnt always possible to work out who come
down on HARD. You cant just execute everyone
involved in the entire chain, or ensure that they
can never work in the industry ever again either.

And there will always be some prepared to risk
it even when you do come down HARD on any you
catch. Drug trafficking is a classic example of that.

"bert" ] wrote in message
...
In message , Rod Speed
writes


"polygonum" wrote in message
...
On 15/02/2013 14:35, wrote:
On Friday, February 8, 2013 12:46:45 PM UTC, Dave Liquorice wrote:


What I find rather disturbing is that no one in the whole long supply

chain, from abattoir to retail outlet, appears to have been routinely

testing that a batch of meat or product called "beef" really is 100%

beef.

PCR assays for horse could be made cheap enough for widespread
surveillance,
but it's not really the right approach. If you have to figure out
after the fact
what animal it came from, you really don't know enough about the
suppliers.

What's the next yucky thing going to be that we then have to check all
meat for?


Leo

Isn't that arse about face? We shouldn't be checking that beef isn't
horse - but that beef positively is beef! Anything else is not
acceptable.

Dunno, with some stuff like lasagne etc, does it really matter what
meat it is as long as its not dead rats, cats, dogs, diseased nags etc ?

2 separate issues.

Yes.

Is it fit for human consumption and will not do you physical harm.

Even that last isnt black and white.

Secondly, are you actually buying what you are being told you are buying
and so you can make a choice about what you buy.

Sure, but with some of those, you wont care. I don't care
if I chose to buy what is described as quite old beef and
end up getting younger stuff instead because they didn't
have enough of the cheap old stuff at the time etc.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 09/02/2013 23:28, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 23:32:32 +0000, dennis@home wrote:

Quorn as a veggi food, it has chicken egg in it.
It does actually say that somewhere but veggies don't read much.

I think you are confusing vegetarian and vegan. But then meat eaters are
not known for being particularly bright.

Not very vegetarian to eat eggs is it?
Not that vegetarians are picky.

A vegan is not supposed to use anything that exploits animals, not that
all/any of them do so. It must be hard if you avoid using shops, post,
manufactured goods etc. where workers wear clothing made from leather.


Quorn contains "rehydrated free range egg white". I note it doesn't say
"chicken egg" just "egg" ... B-)


Yes well I expect the mould the rest is made from outweighs the possible
sources of free range eggs.

PS quorn makes much better chicken curry than chicken does.

Bull**** it does.

"Dave Liquorice" writes:

On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 01:07:32 GMT, Windmill wrote:

But also do frequent widespread checks for the presence of a wide range
of noxious substances. Iodine 131 from Chernobyl (or Japan?), ...

Iodine 131 has a half life of about 8 days. There will be bugger all
Iodine 131 from Fukishima still about let alone Chernobyl.

But they give iodine tablets to those exposed.
What does I131 decay to? Is it also radioactive? If so, what in turn is
its half-life?

... growth hormones, antibiotics fed to cattle, etc.

Those and pesticide residues or break down products of any of them, are
far, far greater risk.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

On Feb 17, 12:46*am, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:43:26 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
When I was a *student (50+ years ago), curries tended to be called
"meat". At those prices who worried whether it was lamb or something
else.

Kept the feral moggie population under control, at least.

And the stray dogs, one restaurant was caught with a dead Alsatian (as in
dog not frog) out the back.

--
Cheers
Dave.

I remember a few years back a Chinese restaurant was found with
hundreds of empty Kit-e-Cat cans out back.

On Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:46:11 +0000 (GMT), Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:43:26 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

When I was a student (50+ years ago), curries tended to be called
"meat". At those prices who worried whether it was lamb or something
else.

Kept the feral moggie population under control, at least.

And the stray dogs, one restaurant was caught with a dead Alsatian (as in
dog not frog) out the back.

Could be worse. Bad scenario would be a butcher's shop next to a brothel and
a barber's - how do you pronounce that DNA?
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

Windmill wrote:

What does I131 decay to?

Xe 131

Is it also radioactive?

No.

On 17/02/2013 05:43, Windmill wrote:

But they give iodine tablets to those exposed.
What does I131 decay to? Is it also radioactive? If so, what in turn is
its half-life?

The whole point of iodine tablets is to provide all the iodine that the
person's thyroid needs using known non-radio-active iodine. Thus the
thyroid will not take up any radio-active iodine in the environment.

Do bear in mind that thyroid hormone is then distributed to every cell
of the body so radio-active iodine is a wonderful way of giving people a
dose of radiation to their entire body! (Whereas a modest excess
iodine/iodide can often be excreted quite readily. And hopefully the
radio-active iodine would be so excreted.)

(Technically, they often use Potassium iodide.)

Have a look he

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_iodine

--
Rod

On 17/02/13 05:43, Windmill wrote:
"Dave Liquorice" writes:

On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 01:07:32 GMT, Windmill wrote:

But also do frequent widespread checks for the presence of a wide range
of noxious substances. Iodine 131 from Chernobyl (or Japan?), ...

Iodine 131 has a half life of about 8 days. There will be bugger all
Iodine 131 from Fukishima still about let alone Chernobyl.

But they give iodine tablets to those exposed.
What does I131 decay to?
wiki should tell you. No it isn't radioactive IIRC.

Yep.99% turns into xenon 131. Stable and chemically inert.
I 131 is only dangerous for a natter of day or weeks.

It is probably the one valid* reason to evacuate around nuclear
containment breach sites after issuing with iodine tablets.




Is it also radioactive? If so, what in turn is
its half-life?

... growth hormones, antibiotics fed to cattle, etc.

Those and pesticide residues or break down products of any of them, are
far, far greater risk.


*there being lots of politically knee-jerky invalid reasons as well.

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 17/02/2013 02:41, Arfa Daily wrote:


"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 16/02/2013 18:37, Rod Speed wrote:

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.
the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume in the food
will lead to a resistant bacteria.


Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them
to me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone.
Apparently, this is why they tell you that you must complete the course,
even if what you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because
if you don't kill it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to
the antibiotic that you were using, so you then have to start again with
a different one ... :-(

Arfa

That's why we have resistant strains of TB appearing..
the symptoms disappear quite quickly but the actual course lasts
weeks/months and people stop taking it too soon.

In message , PeterC
writes
On Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:46:11 +0000 (GMT), Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:43:26 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:

When I was a student (50+ years ago), curries tended to be called
"meat". At those prices who worried whether it was lamb or something
else.

Kept the feral moggie population under control, at least.

And the stray dogs, one restaurant was caught with a dead Alsatian (as in
dog not frog) out the back.

Could be worse. Bad scenario would be a butcher's shop next to a brothel and
a barber's - how do you pronounce that DNA?


SweENA Todd?


--
geoff

On 17/02/2013 03:39, Rod Speed wrote:


But it isnt always possible to work out who come
down on HARD. You cant just execute everyone
involved in the entire chain, or ensure that they
can never work in the industry ever again either.

The Boss of Iceland has blamed _customers_ for adulterated beef products.

Perhaps if the directors of the high street retailers were prosecuted in
this case then perhaps they would be more careful where they sourced
their products.

--
mailto:news{at}admac(dot}myzen{dot}co{dot}uk

On 17/02/2013 02:41, Arfa Daily wrote:
Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them
to me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone.
Apparently, this is why they tell you that you must complete the course,
even if what you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because
if you don't kill it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to
the antibiotic that you were using, so you then have to start again with
a different one ... :-(

That's not _quite_ what happens.

If you take the course and stop early the ones that are left are the
ones most resistant to the antibiotics. Stop taking the pills, and give
the bugs a chance to breed up, then you have a collection of fairly
resistant ones. Then there's more chance of one of them mutating to be
resistant.

Andy

alan wrote
Rod Speed wrote

But it isnt always possible to work out who come
down on HARD. You cant just execute everyone
involved in the entire chain, or ensure that they
can never work in the industry ever again either.

The Boss of Iceland has blamed _customers_
for adulterated beef products.

And just looked a fool when he did that.

Perhaps if the directors of the high street retailers were
prosecuted in this case then perhaps they would be
more careful where they sourced their products.

I doubt it. Its just not feasible for the average high
street retailer to do that with everything they sell.

In message , Andy Champ
writes
On 17/02/2013 02:41, Arfa Daily wrote:
Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them
to me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone.
Apparently, this is why they tell you that you must complete the course,
even if what you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because
if you don't kill it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to
the antibiotic that you were using, so you then have to start again with
a different one ... :-(

That's not _quite_ what happens.

If you take the course and stop early the ones that are left are the
ones most resistant to the antibiotics. Stop taking the pills, and
give the bugs a chance to breed up, then you have a collection of
fairly resistant ones. Then there's more chance of one of them mutating
be resistant.


Meanwhile, what also happens is you get someone in south america, SE
Asia or wherever with his saucerfull of pills - antibiotics and others
who feel a botr off colour, so he pops a pill ... or maybe two and then
feels better, a perfect incubation medium for developing antibiotic
resistant strains of whatever you want to name

--
geoff

harry writes:

On Feb 17, 12:46=A0am, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 23:43:26 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
When I was a =A0student (50+ years ago), curries tended to be called
"meat". At those prices who worried whether it was lamb or something
else.

Kept the feral moggie population under control, at least.

And the stray dogs, one restaurant was caught with a dead Alsatian (as in
dog not frog) out the back.

--
Cheers
Dave.

I remember a few years back a Chinese restaurant was found with
hundreds of empty Kit-e-Cat cans out back.

Also in Edinburgh many decades ago.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Arfa Daily" writes:



"dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 16/02/2013 18:37, Rod Speed wrote:

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.
the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume in the food will
lead to a resistant bacteria.


Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them to
me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone. Apparently,
this is why they tell you that you must complete the course, even if what
you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because if you don't kill
it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to the antibiotic that
you were using, so you then have to start again with a different one ...
:-(

And what is worse, they're running out of 'different ones' which still
work.
They say that antibiotic resistance can even be spread from one type of
bacterium to another.

Strange thing is that they knew about resistance 50 years ago, but
didn't ensure that it was generally understood by patients.



--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

polygonum writes:

On 17/02/2013 05:43, Windmill wrote:

But they give iodine tablets to those exposed.
What does I131 decay to? Is it also radioactive? If so, what in turn is
its half-life?

The whole point of iodine tablets is to provide all the iodine that the
person's thyroid needs using known non-radio-active iodine. Thus the
thyroid will not take up any radio-active iodine in the environment.

Do bear in mind that thyroid hormone is then distributed to every cell
of the body so radio-active iodine is a wonderful way of giving people a
dose of radiation to their entire body! (Whereas a modest excess
iodine/iodide can often be excreted quite readily. And hopefully the
radio-active iodine would be so excreted.)

(Technically, they often use Potassium iodide.)

Understood, but there must be a feeling that there may still be enough
I131 around to cause trouble, even weeks or months later.
Otherwise they wouldn't bother.

Maybe my question should have been not to ask what I131 decays to, but
rather what decays to I131.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Rod Speed" writes:



"Arfa Daily" wrote in message
...


"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 16/02/2013 18:37, Rod Speed wrote:

The risk with the antibiotics isnt the residual antibiotic, its what
antibiotic resistant bacteria is in the food as a result of the use
of the antibiotics.

No it isn't.
the risk is that the small does of antibiotic you consume in the food
will lead to a resistant bacteria.


Funny old things, antibiotics. I recently had 7 weeks of the buggers to
shift an infection that got into my leg. The doc had to keep giving them
to me to ensure that every last trace of the infection had gone.
Apparently, this is why they tell you that you must complete the course,
even if what you are trying to fix appears to have cleared up, because if
you don't kill it all, what's left mutates, and becomes resistant to the
antibiotic that you were using,

It already was to some extent because it took longer to kill
those that survived the less that full dose of the antibiotic.

so you then have to start again with a different one ... :-(

And if most don't bother to complete the course, we end up
with all of them resistant to all the antibiotics used and then
the **** really hits the fan.

Which is exactly what is happening now.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Rod Speed" writes:

bert ] wrote
Rod Speed wrote
wrote
Dave Liquorice wrote

What I find rather disturbing is that no one in the whole long supply
chain, from abattoir to retail outlet, appears to have been routinely
testing that a batch of meat or product called "beef" really is 100%
beef.

PCR assays for horse could be made cheap enough for
widespread surveillance, but it's not really the right approach.

It is when you want to rub the supplier's noses in the fact that
whatever they try fraud wise will get caught very quickly.

If you have to figure out after the fact what animal it came
from, you really don't know enough about the suppliers.

That last just isnt feasible with an EU wide system.

Its never going to be feasible to have your own staff
permanently inside all your suppliers EU wide and
even that wont work because they can be bribed etc.

What's the next yucky thing going to be
that we then have to check all meat for?

Animals getting killed outside inspected abattoirs etc.

You cannot inspect absolute quality into a system.

Depends entirely on what you mean by absolute quality.

You can certainly ensure that the animals are only ever killed
in the abattoir and no dead animal ever shows up there, say
from the truck that they show up in etc or having died in the field.

And if you mean a perfect food product, nothing will guarantee
that, even total end to end control over everything involved at all.

That depends on the integrity of everyone involved in the task.

No it doesn't with some stuff like whether no animal that has
died outside the abattoir never ends up in the output of the abattoir.

Bent truck driver picks up a load from the abattoir, then makes a minor
route diversion before delivery!

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost