Free Republic

The FDA continues its habit of making mountains out of mole hills. The discovery of a single jalapeño with Salmonella Saintpaul at the warehouse of a tiny distributor named Agricola Zaragoza on the McAllen Produce Terminal Market simply doesn’t mean very much. ...Once again, needlessly and with reckless disregard for the rights of innocent people, the FDA has destroyed an industry. ...Dr. Acheson thinks that it is within his authority to destroy the fortunes of innocents. ...Repeating the words “public health” as a mantra, though, does not make it true. The bottom line is that the risk for healthy people...

WASHINGTON - Investigators are seeing more signs that the salmonella outbreak blamed on tomatoes might have been caused by tainted jalapeno peppers and have begun collecting samples from restaurants and from the homes of those who have been sickened, according to health officials involved in the probe. New interviews with those who became infected found that many had eaten jalapeno peppers, often in salsa served with Mexican food, according to two state health officials. So far, none of the jalapenos taken from restaurants and from the homes of those who became ill have tested positive for Salmonella saintpaul. Echoing federal...

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Department of Water and Power are expected to announce on May 15 a revised water use and management plan for this city that includes using recycled wastewater to recharge drinking water aquifers, according to a May 15 Los Angeles Times article. The new plan allocates about $1 billion for the proposed reclamation system, also known as “toilet-to-tap” or “sewer-to-spigot.” The city would recycle about 4.9 billion gallons of treated wastewater to drinking standards by 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported on May 15. Villaraigosa, who less than a decade ago opposed such...

WASHINGTON—In March, inspectors checking Chinese seafood arriving at U.S. ports made some unsettling discoveries: fish infected with salmonella in Baltimore and Seattle, and shrimp with banned veterinary drugs in Florida. Meanwhile, a shipment intercepted in Los Angeles on March 19 and labeled "channel catfish" wasn't catfish at all, though records don't say what it was. "A lot of those products coming in from overseas, you have no clue as to what is in them," said Paul Hitchens, an aquaculture specialist in Southern Illinois, where cut-rate Chinese catfish are threatening the livelihood of fish farmers. China rapidly has become the leading...

Dr. Mom Was Right -- And Wrong -- About Washing Fruits And VegetablesA new study shows that irradiation could be key to removing hard-to-reach pathogens inside fruits and vegetables. (Credit: Courtesy of USDA-Agricultural Research Service, photo by Stephen Ausmus) ScienceDaily (Apr. 13, 2008) — Washing fresh fruits and vegetables before eating may reduce the risk of food poisoning and those awful episodes of vomiting and diarrhea. But according to new research, described recently at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, washing alone -- even with chlorine disinfectants -- may not be enough. Studies show that certain disease-causing...

Food safety an issue within China as well Commentary: International and domestic brands will benefit By Bruce McLaughlin Last update: 6:17 a.m. EDT April 14, 2008 SHANGHAI (MarketWatch) -- Chinese food safety scares are to the business press what movie starlets going into rehab are to the tabloid press. Late last month, Chinese consumers faced yet another food-safety scandal. This time, officials in Guangdong Province seized more than 4,000 boxes of milk from Zhuhai Weiwei Deheng Dairy Co after over 100 kindergarten students who had drunk the milk reportedly became sick. Food scares have become worryingly regular here, and consumer...

When ordering seafood, many of Russell Hohnerlein's customers have the same question: Where did it come from? Hohnerlein, manager of The 4th of May at 444 Ocean Blvd, St. Simons Island, never has to check a daily serve list to answer. "All our seafood is local. Always," he said. Should Sen. Ronnie Chance, R- Fayette, have his way, Hohnerlein won't have to field this question much longer. The answer will be visible to the eye – right there on the menu. Senate Bill 533, introduced by Chance Wednesday, would require restaurant menus to carry a label on all seafood items...

It's fairly common for restaurant staffers to place a lemon slice on the rim of a beverage glass as a flavor enhancer or decorative garnish. But who knows whether these lemons have been handled using sanitary procedures? Anne LaGrange Loving, a professor of science at Passaic County Community College, decided to find out. Loving began her investigation after she saw a waitress’ fingertips dip into her soda as the drink was being brought to her table. Although lemon juice is known to kill germs, Loving devised a study to determine whether lemon slices contain germs when they are served to...

Food at Olympics is safe: Officials By Zhu Zhe (China Daily) Updated: 2008-02-22 06:51 Beijing Thursday reaffirmed the safety of food at the Olympic Games after media reports that the US contingent plans to prepare its own meals at the Games due to safety concerns. "We've made great efforts to ensure safe supplies for the Games and we hope athletes dine together," Kang Yi, chief of the food division of the Games services department, told a press conference. "If the US delegation is not at these gatherings, I would personally regret it," she said. Some foreign media including The New...

China "regrets" U.S. decision on food supplies By Lindsay Beck Thu Feb 21, 2:03 AM ET China expressed regret on Thursday at reports the U.S. Olympic team would bring its own meat for the Beijing Games over concerns of drugs tainted food, and said it could guarantee safe supplies. The New York Times has reported that the U.S. Olympic Committee has arranged with sponsors to ship 25,000 pounds of lean protein to Beijing for the Games, in response to concerns about the potential impact of veterinary drugs and insecticides on athletes. "I personally feel rather regretful," Kang Yi, head of...

Pesticide dichlorvos found in frozen fish 02/20/2008 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN TAKAMATSU--The pesticide dichlorvos, which had contaminated gyoza dumplings imported from China, was detected in sliced frozen mackerel processed in an area of China that handles a large volume of farm produce. The fish was sold in Japan by Kouzai Bussan Co., based in Sanuki city, east of here, company officials said. They said 0.14 parts per million (ppm) of the organophosphorus pesticide was found in the product called Aburi Toro Shimesaba Suraisu, a package of 20 slices weighing about 200 grams. A Kagawa prefectural government official said, "The detected amount...

BREAKING NEWS updated 9 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Sunday recalled 143 million pounds of frozen beef from a Southern California slaughterhouse that is being investigated for mistreating cattle. Officials said it was the largest beef recall in the United States, surpassing a 1999 ban of 35 million pounds of ready-to-eat meats. The federal agency said the recall will affect beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, that came from Chino-based Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., which supplies meat to the federal school lunch program and to some major fast-food chains.This breaking news story will be...

Government plans clampdown on vandalism after lobbying from biotech firms Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology, the Guardian has learned. Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop biotech companies. The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional costs of protecting fields...

It’s an invasive species problem that Alaska would love to have. Millions of snow crabs are on the march in the Barents Sea, and no one knows how they got there or what to do with them – yet. The Barents Sea, which straddles Norway and Russia, is the same source of all of that jumbo king crab – much of it caught illegally'a0– that wreaked havoc on Alaska’s market for the past couple of years. But unlike king crabs, which were purposely introduced by Russia into those waters in 1966, the opilio (snow) crab is a true invasive species....

Lollipops from China recalled Published: February 15, 2008 LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — The importer of a Valentine's Day lollipop said it was voluntarily recalling the treats after metal fragments were found in at least two lollipops sold at central Florida stores. Sherwood Brands of Maryland, which imports the candy from China, said it was recalling all of its Pokemon Valentine Cards and Pops, which have been pulled from the shelves of thousands of stores across the country. Roughly 20 lollipops were seized at Kathleen Elementary School in Lakeland. X-rays determined that only one piece definitely had metal — what appeared...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US grocery chain Trader Joe's said Monday it would stop selling food imported from China due to customers' concerns about the products' safety. "Our customers have voiced concerns about products from this region and we have listened," Trader Joe's spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki said in a statement. "All single ingredient food items sourced from mainland China are scheduled to be out of our stores by April 1," she said. "We will continue to source products from other regions until our customers feel as confident as we do about the quality and safety of Chinese products."

Dumping Debacle Spreads Fear over Chinese Food FEBRUARY 11, 2008 03:08 The debacle over pesticide-laced Chinese dumplings found in Japan has spread worry over the safety of Chinese food products, and promoted American and Japanese authorities to take preventive measures. The New York Times says U.S. athletes for the Beijing Summer Olympics will have their meals shipped from their own country. The U.S. Olympic Committee has signed contracts with major American food makers like Kellogg and Tyson Foods to deliver 25,000 pounds of meat and other foodstuffs to China two months before the opening ceremony. The committee will also make...

(COLORADO SPRINGS) — When a caterer working for the United States Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken — half of a breast — that measured 14 inches. “Enough to feed a family of eight,” said Frank Puleo, a caterer from Staten Island who has traveled to China to handle food-related issues. “We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive.” In preparing to take a delegation of more than 600 athletes to the...

Police looking into 'gyoza' food poisoning as attempted murder Tuesday, February 5, 2008 at 16:13 EST TOKYO — The National Police Agency will seek investigative cooperation from Chinese police over the recent food poisoning incidents in Japan as the Chinese-made frozen "gyoza" dumplings that caused the poisoning may have been contaminated with pesticide deliberately in China, an agency official said Tuesday. At the first joint meeting of investigators from Chiba and Hyogo prefectures, where 10 people from three families were affected, Tsuyoshi Yoneda, head of the NPA Criminal Investigation Bureau, said, "We are not prejudging the situation, but it is...

368 claim food poisoning / Victims of China-made gyoza reported in 30 prefectures The Yomiuri Shimbun Hebei Province government official answers questions from reporters in front of a factory of Hebei Foodstuffs Import and Export Group Tianyang Food Processing in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, on Thursday. The number of people who complained of sickness after eating frozen food products made in China has surged to 368 in 30 prefectures as of Thursday, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. It was revealed Wednesday that 10 people in three families in Chiba and Hyogo prefectures showed symptoms of food poisoning between Dec. 28 and...

China toxic dumplings spark food scare in Japan By George Nishiyama Thu Jan 31, 1:50 AM ET Dozens more people in Japan on Thursday said they fell sick after eating Chinese-made food, a day after Japanese food companies recalled pesticide-contaminated dumplings from China that sickened 10 people. The food scare has triggered a nationwide probe into possible additional cases of food poisoning, while Japan's top government spokesman questioned China's attitude to food safety only weeks after the country said it had improved standards. Japanese media and opposition lawmakers have also suggested Japan's initial response to the problem may have been...

(WASHINGTON) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has targeted five regions around the world where it would like to establish a greater presence to monitor the safety of exported food, drugs and other goods, the top FDA official said on Thursday. FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach told reporters at a briefing on food safety that it would like to establish offices in Asia, especially in China and India, Europe, Central and South America and the Middle East. "There are a variety of things that I envision could come from this that will be a multiplier of our ability to...

(DENVER, CO) -- Last summer DC Brands International (PINKSHEETS: DCBR) announced its intention to acquire Hard Nutrition, the Denver-based vitamin and supplement company, to develop a groundbreaking new line of products. This beverage line would compete with the likes of Vitamin Water for the health conscious consumer, while delivering more bang for the buck. To accomplish this, DC Brands addressed the fundamental flaw in such products: if you put enough of the vitamins and supplements that your body needs in the water itself, you end up with a product that tastes so bad you cannot drink it. As a result,...

Kosher certification is the new darling of health-conscious consumers who misguidedly believe that biblically blessed health standards can reign in the excesses of commercial food production. Even Chinese exporters are betting that kosher certification can convince foreign consumers that their wares are safe. To companies, certification is just a marketing tool: it lends the aura of safety without offering any actual food safety benefits. Many Chinese companies were unfamiliar with the concept: One furniture maker asked for kosher certification, drawing a polite rebuff. Another facility asked to get certified as kosher even though it was smoking eel on site, a...

One Sunday after church, Rich Miller headed to a local Chi-Chi's restaurant in Beaver, Pa., where he dipped into the house salsa that came with the meal. That simple act in 2003 changed his life forever. What Miller didn't know was that imported Mexican green onions in the salsa carried a deadly passenger: hepatitis A. A few days later, as Miller recalled recently, "I couldn't even get out of bed. It was like the worst case of flu that you could ever imagine." His health quickly deteriorating, the 57-year-old railroad superintendent was diagnosed with rare fulminant hepatitis A disease --...

Antibiotics in the meat, pesticide used as preservatives, mercury in the drinking water -- Chinese author Zhou Qing says China's food industry is poisoning the country in its greed for profit. If ordinary people knew, there would be a revolution, he adds. Chinese journalist Zhou Qing, a critic of the regime, unearthed political dynamite in his two-year investigation of China's food industry. He interviewed grocers, restaurant owners, farmers and food factory managers for an exposé for which he won a prize as part of the German "Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage" in 2006. His book is a...

(FUQING, China) — Here in southern China, beneath the looming mountains of Fujian Province, lie dozens of enormous ponds filled with murky brown water and teeming with eels, shrimp and tilapia, much of it destined for markets in Japan and the West. Fuqing is one of the centers of a booming industry that over two decades has transformed this country into the biggest producer and exporter of seafood in the world, and the fastest-growing supplier to the United States. But that growth is threatened by the two most glaring environmental weaknesses in China: acute water shortages and water supplies contaminated...

......Vietnam is currently the world's biggest pepper and cashew nut exporter, the second largest exporter of coffee, rice and seafood and among the world's leading exporters of tea, fish sauce, soy sauce, and instant noodles. ......In the first six months of 2007, a total of 240 batches of Vietnamese food goods, mainly seafood, were refused entry into the US because they failed to meet basic hygienic standards, according to the FDA. Banned substances detected included salmonella, chloramphenicol, and Aflatoxin, as well as other hazardous additives which were not named on some food's labels. ......This past summer, a soy sauce scandal...

(KUNMING) -- Forensic doctors and police have found that four pupils in southwest China's Yunnan province died Monday morning from a kind of highly toxic rat poison, sources with the provincial public security department said Saturday. The four students, three girls and a boy, were from Lehong township of Ludian county. They developed symptoms of poisoning and died after arriving at school between 8:30 to 9 a.m. Monday, according to Ma Jilin, Communist Party chief of Ludian county. Autopsy report said the four had eaten dry instant noodles and crackling which could have been put in the wrapping bags of...

One of China's best-known food companies has halted exports of all tinned food, after toxic chemicals were found in canned meat products. Food safety officials in Hong Kong have discovered a banned antibiotic, nitrofurans, in tins of Maling brand pork luncheon meat and pork ribs. It is the latest scare over the safety of Chinese exports. This year there have been massive recalls of toys, tyres and food products from the American market. The government in Beijing has come under increasing pressure to regulate the safety of Chinese-made products, following international concern. This year the American toy giant Mattel withdrew...

China blocks toxic US potato chipsArticle from: From correspondents in Beijing December 07, 2007 02:55pm CHINA has stopped the import of a batch of barbecue-flavoured Pringles potato chips from the US because they contained a carcinogenic additive. But a China-based Procter & Gamble spokesman blamed the Chinese importer and said the shipment had nothing to do with the US consumer goods giant. China has stepped up quality checks on domestic producers after a series of global scandals involving substandard food and drug exports in recent months, but has also named foreign companies that it says have failed its own quality...

China lists substandard Wal-Mart, Carrefour goods 1 hour, 8 minutes ago China has published a blacklist of substandard toy jugs and children's shoes sold at Wal-Mart stores and drawing pens from French retailer Carrefour in a quality sweep on children's goods sold at Beijing supermarkets. China has been buffeted by food, drug and other product safety scares in past months. More than 20 million toys made there have been recalled worldwide over the past four months. In response, Beijing has promised to crack down on faulty manufacturers and suppliers, but also said much responsibility lies with foreign regulators and buyers....

AP Business Writer Tyson Foods Inc. plans to revise labels that say its fresh chicken is "raised without antibiotics" after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it made a mistake in approving labels that use that term. The world's largest meat processor said it has been in discussions with the USDA since at least September about the label it introduced this summer in a major marketing campaign for its fresh chicken. According to a Nov. 6 letter from the USDA, the agency told Tyson it had mistakenly overlooked a feed additive, called ionophores, used for Tyson's chicken when it approved...

(BEIJING) - Six Chinese people, including two children, died from food poisoning after eating dumpling soup and two more remained seriously ill, local media reported on Monday, the latest example of food safety risks facing domestic consumers. Four males and four females collapsed on Sunday with severe cramps and vomiting after eating the soup for lunch in the central province of Hubei, the Changjiang Times reported. Two died on the spot. The dead included a 13-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, the report said. It said the poisoning occurred at a scrap collection business but did not given any details...

Four children became ill from E. coli bacteria last month after eating ground beef patties purchased at three Sam's Club stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the Minnesota Department of Health said Friday. All four cases were related to American Chef's Selection Angus Beef Patties that were purchased at Sam's Club stores in the Twin Cities metro area. Officials said the meat was bought in stores in August and September and people got sick between Sept. 10 - Sept. 20. All four cases were children. Two of the cases developed hemolytic uremic syndrome and were hospitalized. One case has been...

U.S. agriculture giant Cargill recalls ground beef Agricultural giant Cargill Inc. said on Saturday it is recalling over 1 million pounds of ground beef distributed in the United States because of possible E. Coli contamination. Cargill Meat Solutions said the 1.084 million pounds (491,700 kg) of ground beef was produced at the Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, facility between October 8 and October 11, and distributed to retailers across the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture returned a confirmed positive for the E. coli bacteria on a sample produced on October 8, the company said. Symptoms of E. coli 0157:H7 illness, the strain...

(TOKYO) — With Americans growing increasingly concerned about the safety of Chinese products, Washington has begun looking for solutions in Japan. The Japanese have developed tough approaches for ensuring the quality of Chinese imports, particularly food — in part by far more rigorous testing of its imported food than in the United States. But the innovation getting the most American attention is Japan’s system for screening Chinese producers even before they ship their merchandise to Japan. A report released last week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee cited Japan’s system for monitoring spinach and other Chinese food exports as...

Filipino children hospitalised after eating Chinese candy AFP - Friday, October 5MANILA, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - Twenty-three children in the Philippines were hospitalised after eating sweets made in China, officials said Friday. The pupils, aged nine and 10, were rushed to hospital on Thursday suffering from stomache aches, vomiting and dizziness after eating candy given out at a birthday party on Bantayan Island near Cebu. Romelo Mates, an adviser at an elementary school in the town of Madridejos, said that according to its wrapper, the Ube Milk Candy was made in Guandong, China. Mates told local media the children...

TRENTON, N.J. The Topps Meat Co. on Saturday expanded its recall of frozen hamburger patties that may be contaminated with the E. coli bacteria and sickened more than a dozen people in eight states. Topps said it was recalling 21.7 million pounds of ground beef products distributed to retail grocery stores and food service institutions throughout the United States, up from the 332,000 pounds it recalled on Tuesday. The recall represents all Topps products with either a "sell by date" or a "best if used by date" between Sept. 25 this year and Sept. 25, 2008. The Elizabeth-based company said...

WASHINGTON - Sept. 29, 2007 - Topps Meat Company, LLC, an Elizabeth, NJ, establishment, is voluntarily expanding its Sept. 25 recall to include a total of approximately 21.7 million pounds of frozen ground beef products because they may be contaminated with E. coli, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today. The recall is being expanded based on an additional positive product sample reported by the New York Health Department, reported illnesses and findings from a food safety assessment conducted by FSIS at the establishment. There are currently 25 illnesses under investigation in Connecticut, Florida, Indiana,...

(WASHINGTON) -- The Food and Drug Administration responded to jitters over Chinese imports recently by banning some of that country's seafood because of contaminants, but the agency has failed to apply the same standard to seafood supplied from other large exporters that use the same chemicals and fish-farming techniques. Imports from Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, for instance, have continued apace, even though fish-farming techniques in those countries are similar to those cited by the FDA when it issued an import alert in June targeting Chinese fish. "This is not just a China problem," said Bradford Ward, a Washington attorney who...

Local importers who chose to discuss their testing efforts said they are primarily boosting precautions they were already taking. Matthew Fass started getting panicked calls and e-mails from his customers early in the summer. Concerns about tainted seafood from China had surfaced even before federal regulators issued an order to hold and test all imports of five types of Chinese-raised fish. Fass, president of Maritime Products International in Newport News, has sold bay scallops, catfish and other seafood from China for more than a decade. He had to jump to alleviate customers' fears. "How do we know that your product...

(FOSHAN, China) - At first, it was just some of the piglets. The mother gave birth to 13, all of them stillborn. Within a few weeks, however, she and other adult pigs in neighboring stalls became feverish and died. By the end of the summer, all but a handful of the village's 300 pigs had succumbed to the mysterious disease. "It was quick, very quick. Before we knew something was wrong, they were all dead," said Lo Jinyuan, a 55-year-old pig farmer in the village of Shandi. Moving rapidly from one farm to the next, the virus has been devastating...

Sick! Chinese Restaurant Cited For Garlic Stomping Nanuet Worker Photographed Wallowing In Bowl Of Garlic With His Shoes On (CBS) NANUET, N.Y. A Rockland County Chinese food restaurant is in hot water after it was discovered that an employee apparently used a suspicious and far-from-delicious method to crush the garlic used in the kitchen. An official from the county's Department of Health tells CBS 2 that the Great China Buffet in Nanuet was investigated after there it received a complaint that the garlic there is not only saut?d and steamed, but allegedly stomped. Literally. John Stoughton, the senior public health...

(Some taps fail spot tests for cleanliness) Wisconsin beer lovers who belly up to the bar for an ice cold tap aren't always being served the fresh draft they're paying for and instead are getting mouthfuls of unwelcome bacteria.Brewers, both big and small, say Wisconsin bars and restaurants - including downtown hot spots - aren't cleaning their beer lines as they should, leading to a buildup of bacteria that "infects" and spoils tap beer. "They actually can be very, very dirty, to the point that you'd be shocked," said Dan Carey, the brewmaster for the New Glarus Brewing Co. in...

Sometimes a restaurant screws up a dish with too much of this or too little of that. The customer complains and maybe gets a refund. Less frequently, the cook gets jail time. That's what happened early Friday morning in Union City, a small town in the southern suburbs of Atlanta. A McDonald's worker put too much salt on a Big N' Tasty burger that was served to a Union City police officer who got sick and was briefly hospitalized. The worker, Kendra Bull, 20, was arrested, handcuffed, charged with reckless conduct at 1:30 a.m. and spent the rest of the...

China could become a major exporter of beef despite concerns over health and safety and government practices that restrict imports to China, a U.S. cattle industry spokesman told the federal International Trade Commission Thursday. Eric Nelson, representing the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund/United Stock Growers of America, testified on how Chinese government practices and policies could affect U.S. agriculture, particularly beef and cattle. Nelson is chairman of R-CALF/USA's trade committee. With reports of China using lead-based paint on toys and including deadly contaminants in pet food as a backdrop to the hearing, Nelson said China doesn't currently export much beef to...

US and Chinese officials recently met in Beijing for agricultural trade talks. However, the two parties failed to agree with issues regarding poultry trade. China's zero-tolerance for salmonella in raw poultry was discussed in length. "How can you produce poultry without traces of salmonella? It's killed when you cook it," said USDA's Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services Mark Keenum, who led the US delegation. As for China, "They simply reaffirmed their position," he stated. On the other hand, Keenum said that the USDA is working to produce rules that would allow China to export cooked chicken products to...

Why does Mattel's third recall of China-made toys in less than six weeks prove that concern over global warming is nothing but a luxury that only people in the developed world have the time and lifestyle to indulge? Well, it proves that only indirectly. But it does show how easily elites in the West miss real threats by becoming preoccupied with fashionable (and meaningless) causes. China is a mess. Its environment is one of the most hazardous in the world; not only to its own citizens, but increasingly to others as well. This summer, there have been reports that Chinese...

Certain artificial food colorings and other additives can worsen hyperactive behaviors in children aged 3 to 9, British researchers reported on Wednesday. Tests on more than 300 children showed significant differences in their behavior when they drank fruit drinks spiked with a mixture of food colorings and preservatives, Jim Stevenson and colleagues at the University of Southampton said. "These findings show that adverse effects are not just seen in children with extreme hyperactivity (such as ADHD) but can also be seen in the general population and across the range of severities of hyperactivity," the researchers wrote in their study, published...