Scale-up of voluntary male circumcision cost-effective way to prevent HIV in S. and E. AfricaPublic release date: 29-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Clare Weaver press@plos.org 44-122-344-2834 Public Library of Science
A collection of nine new articles to be published in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE, in conjunction with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), highlights how scaling up voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention in eastern and southern Africa can help prevent HIV not only at individual but also at community and population level as well as lead to substantial cost savings for countries due to averted treatment and care costs.
The first article by Catherine Hankins of UNAIDS, Steven Forsythe of The Futures Institute, and Emmanuel Njeuhmeli of PEPFAR/USAID, offers an introduction to the cost, impact and challenges of accelerated scaling up and lays out the rationale for the series. This article, as well as the one to follow, signposts the way forward to accelerate the scaling up of VMMC service delivery safely and efficiently to reap individual-and population-level benefits.
The remaining 8 papers also focus on the various factors that go into effective program expansion of VMMC, including data for decision making, policy and programmatic frameworks, logistics, demand creation, human resources, and translating research into services.
The cost savings are clear: an initial investment of US$1.5 billion between 2011 and 2015 to achieve 80% coverage of VMMC services in 14 priority countries in southern and eastern Africa and thereafter US$0.5 billion between 2016 to 2025 to maintain that coverage of 80% would result in net savings of US$16.5 billion between 2011 and 2025. However, as the articles in the collection show, strong political leadership, country ownership, and stakeholder engagement, along with effective demand creation, community mobilisation, and human resource deployment, are essential in effectively expanding and maintaining VMMC programs.
The series publishes on 29th November 2011 in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE.
A question and answer Twitter expert session [#VMMC@USAIDGH] will be held on 19th December, 2011 from 1pm-2pm with Emmanuel Njeuhmeli, MD, MPH, MBA, Senior Biomedical Prevention Advisor of the Office of HIV/AIDS/USAID Washington, Co-Chair PEPFAR, Male Circumcision Technical Working Group, an author of the collection.
A Joint Strategic Action Framework to accelerate the scale-up of voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention in eastern and southern Africa, 2012 - 2016, will be launched on 5th December 2011 at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Addis Ababa. The Framework has been developed with WHO, UNAIDS, PEPFAR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, and national programmes.
###
CONTACTS FOR PRESS ENQUIRIES:
Kate Glantz
US State Department/ Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator
GlantzKE@state.gov
Saira Stewart
UNAIDS Geneva
StewartS@unaids.org
A full list of articles in the collection, including links to a press-only preview of each paper, is available here: www.plos.org/media/press/2011/plme-08-11-unaidsarticleslist.pdf
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Scale-up of voluntary male circumcision cost-effective way to prevent HIV in S. and E. AfricaPublic release date: 29-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Clare Weaver press@plos.org 44-122-344-2834 Public Library of Science
A collection of nine new articles to be published in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE, in conjunction with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), highlights how scaling up voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention in eastern and southern Africa can help prevent HIV not only at individual but also at community and population level as well as lead to substantial cost savings for countries due to averted treatment and care costs.
The first article by Catherine Hankins of UNAIDS, Steven Forsythe of The Futures Institute, and Emmanuel Njeuhmeli of PEPFAR/USAID, offers an introduction to the cost, impact and challenges of accelerated scaling up and lays out the rationale for the series. This article, as well as the one to follow, signposts the way forward to accelerate the scaling up of VMMC service delivery safely and efficiently to reap individual-and population-level benefits.
The remaining 8 papers also focus on the various factors that go into effective program expansion of VMMC, including data for decision making, policy and programmatic frameworks, logistics, demand creation, human resources, and translating research into services.
The cost savings are clear: an initial investment of US$1.5 billion between 2011 and 2015 to achieve 80% coverage of VMMC services in 14 priority countries in southern and eastern Africa and thereafter US$0.5 billion between 2016 to 2025 to maintain that coverage of 80% would result in net savings of US$16.5 billion between 2011 and 2025. However, as the articles in the collection show, strong political leadership, country ownership, and stakeholder engagement, along with effective demand creation, community mobilisation, and human resource deployment, are essential in effectively expanding and maintaining VMMC programs.
The series publishes on 29th November 2011 in PLoS Medicine and PLoS ONE.
A question and answer Twitter expert session [#VMMC@USAIDGH] will be held on 19th December, 2011 from 1pm-2pm with Emmanuel Njeuhmeli, MD, MPH, MBA, Senior Biomedical Prevention Advisor of the Office of HIV/AIDS/USAID Washington, Co-Chair PEPFAR, Male Circumcision Technical Working Group, an author of the collection.
A Joint Strategic Action Framework to accelerate the scale-up of voluntary medical male circumcision for HIV prevention in eastern and southern Africa, 2012 - 2016, will be launched on 5th December 2011 at the International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) in Addis Ababa. The Framework has been developed with WHO, UNAIDS, PEPFAR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, and national programmes.
###
CONTACTS FOR PRESS ENQUIRIES:
Kate Glantz
US State Department/ Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator
GlantzKE@state.gov
Saira Stewart
UNAIDS Geneva
StewartS@unaids.org
A full list of articles in the collection, including links to a press-only preview of each paper, is available here: www.plos.org/media/press/2011/plme-08-11-unaidsarticleslist.pdf
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
For most of the 240,000 passengers who fly American Airlines each day, the airline's bankruptcy filing should have little noticeable impact.
American continues to operate flights, honor tickets and take reservations. It says its frequent-flier program will be unaffected.
American Airlines files for bankruptcy reorganization
Some travelers may eventually see fewer American flights at their airport. The incoming CEO said American would probably reduce its flight schedule "modestly" while restructuring in bankruptcy court. But that would continue a strategy in place at American and other airlines in response to high jet fuel prices.
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The real risk to American's passengers is if the restructuring fails, the airline ultimately liquidates and ceases to fly. Even then, many travelers are protected if they bought tickets with a credit card.
Delta, United, Continental and US Airways have all gone through Chapter 11. Travelers continued to book tickets. Planes still took off and landed and frequent flier miles were still earned and redeemed. In fact, the bankruptcy process is usually more taxing on the airline's shareholders, who tend to get wiped out. Or on workers, who can lose pay and benefits, and even their job.
Still, some American travelers were nervous on Tuesday.
"I would definitely be less likely to book with them. I would be afraid they'd be less likely to keep their flights," Corina Fallbacher said after landing home in Chicago on an American flight from Orlando.
American is the nation's third-largest airline behind United Continental Holdings Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. It operates out of five major hubs in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, and Miami. It has major international partnerships with British Airways and Japan Airlines.
American bankruptcy long overdue, travel experts say
Steve Varraso, 39, an event planner who had flown from Boston to Chicago's O'Hare, said he was slightly concerned about his frequent-flier miles on American. But Varraso and other frequent fliers shouldn't worry. Eastern Airlines, Pan Am and Trans World Airlines all ceased flying but miles in their programs were transferred over to other airlines that bought some of their assets. TWA miles actually went into American Airlines' frequent flier program, AAdvantage.
"Miles are safe," said Gary Leff, co-founder of frequent flier site MilePoint. He said the bankruptcies of past airlines "are instructive." He even suggested there might be some promotions to keep loyal travelers.
American has prided itself on having avoided the bankruptcy process. But that left American with higher labor costs than its rivals, a major reason it continues to lose money while they are again earning profits. American spends $3,008 on salary and benefits for every hour each of its 600 planes is in the air, according to Vaughn Cordle, chief analyst with AirlineForecasts. United spends $2,801, Delta $2,587 and US Airways $1,991.
Those labor costs, along with a 40 percent jump in fuel expense, contributed to AMR's $162 million loss in the third quarter despite higher airfares. Delta and United, meanwhile, had a combined profit of $1.2 billion.
Bob Boyd was briefly a pilot for American after getting out of the military. At Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on Tuesday morning, Boyd was surprised to hear that American hadn't already solved its financial problems.
"I thought the union issues were behind the company. I had heard fares would go up to compensate for lost revenue, so this is extremely surprising," he said.
One way that American and other airlines have controlled costs is by reducing passenger-carrying capacity. That's done by cutting flights or using smaller planes on some routers. Thomas W. Horton, who was named the new CEO of American's parent company, AMR Corp., said fliers can expect some modest capacity cuts in the future. Passengers whose flight is canceled or moved because of a schedule change will be rebooked.
Many travelers are aware that American was in financial difficulty and that bankruptcy court provides a way to for it to get back on its feet.
Bob Rowberry, 59, of Salt Lake City, flew American to Chicago for business Tuesday morning. Waiting for his luggage, he said the bankruptcy filing will help American keep from going under.
"Until they do (go out of business) I'll continue to fly with them."
Carla K. Johnson in Chicago and Danny Robbins in Dallas contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Well, with source code and root firmly in hand, it was only a matter of time before someone got a custom ROM up and running on the Fire. Of course, the first contestant for your hacked Kindle dollar is the reliable, and damn-near ubiquitous CM7. XDA Developers Forum member JackpotClavin posted a pair of images showing the Gingerbread-based ROM booted up on his 7-inch Amazon tablet. He isn't offering the code for download yet, primarily because there are still a host of bugs to work out -- including a severely mixed up touch panel thats about 90-degrees out of sync with actual display. On the plus side, it does appear that WiFi is working. We suppose if you're impatient you can join the frothing masses begging Clavin to release the code, but we'll be waiting for something a little more polished before risking our shiny new slate. One more pic after the break.
By Omoh Gabriel ABUJA ? The Federation Account Allocation Committee has disclosed that it withdrew $2 billion from the excess crude account to finance several projects across the country just as the presidential task force on power said privatisation in the power sector would be concluded by second quarter of next year.
Minister of State for Finance, Mr Yerima Ngama, who disclosed this said $2 billion withdrawn from crude oil savings was for ?various projects? and distributed more money in October to the three tiers of government than the previous month.
He, however, told reporters that N615.76 billion ($3.85 billion) was distributed from the federation accounts to the three tiers of government for October, up from N611.5 billion in September.
He said: ?We also released $2 billion from the Excess Crude Account, ECA, to the various arms of government for completion of various projects.?
Meanwhile, the presidential task force on power said, yesterday, it hopes to conclude power sector privatisation by the second quarter of next year.
Nigeria holds the world?s seventh largest gas reserves and is Africa?s largest crude oil exporter but only produces enough electricity to power a medium-sized European city.
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President Goodluck Jonathan unveiled power privatisation plans 15 months ago and it was pledged that PHCN assets would be sold off this year. Jonathan has set out a ?transformation agenda? for Nigeria but plans to end fuel subsidies and reforms to the mainstay energy sector are locked in parliamentary dispute, while a sovereign wealth fund and next year?s budget are delayed.
Power ministry officials said in June that four thermal and two hydro power plants and 11 electricity distribution firms would be sold by the first quarter of next year but this has been shifted back again. ?Nigeria expects to complete privatization of power sector by Q2 2012,? Azu Obiaya, head of the regulation and transactions in the presidential task force on power, said at an industry conference in the commercial-hub Lagos.
He said Nigeria was hoping to produce 6,000 megawatts of power by the end of next year, up from the current 4,000 but still only scratching the surface of the 40,000 megawatts needed for a nation of around 150 million people. Decades of Nigerian administrations have cashed-in on crude exports rather than investing in plants to refine fuel or developing gas for domestic consumption, which means diesel has to be imported at a huge cost for private generators. Nigeria estimates it will need $10 billion a year of investment over the next decade to meet its energy needs.
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The penultimate entry in the vampire romance series pulled off an impressive haul of an estimated $62.3 million, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. The weekend brought the film's domestic total to roughly $221 million, as it survived formidable competition from "The Muppets," which earned a respectable $42 million.
But what do the upcoming weeks hold for "Breaking Dawn - Part 1"? We consulted some box-office experts to find out.
One of the biggest questions right now for "Breaking Dawn - Part 1" is whether it will continue to dominate the box office for a third week in a row. With only "Shame" — a small indie film by comparison — opening next week, the stage is set for another rematch between "Breaking Dawn" and "The Muppets." Phil Contrino from Boxoffice.com said there is some potential for growth in the case of "The Muppets."
"It'll be close between ['Breaking Dawn - Part 1'] and 'The Muppets,' because ['The Muppets'] has much better word of mouth," he said, but he indicated that it was too soon to say which would come out on top.
Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations, on the other hand, sees the weekend going to "The Muppets." The fight for second place will be between "Breaking Dawn - Part 1" and "Hugo," he said.
" 'Breaking Dawn' is performing almost identically to 'New Moon' and will likely dip another 60 to 65 percent next weekend and gross $14 million to 16 million," Bock said. "That probably won't keep it at #1, as family films hold exceptionally well during the holiday season. That means 'The Muppets' will jump to #1, and depending on how many screens 'Hugo' jumps to, it may be in a fight for second place."
Both Bock and Contrino expect "Breaking Dawn - Part 1" to finish its domestic run in the range of $300 million but say that we should expect a steep drop-off once more holiday films like "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" hit theaters.
"It's still going to fall fast," Contrino said. "By the time 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' and 'Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol' hit, the audience will have almost entirely disappeared."
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. ? Bradford Burgess couldn't take solace from the fact that VCU hung in there with No. 13 Alabama and his former coach for 36 minutes.
The final four minutes were what bothered him after the Rams fell 72-64 to the unbeaten Crimson Tide and Anthony Grant on Sunday night.
"I'm not happy because we lost," said Burgess, who was recruited to VCU by Grant. "I don't really believe much in moral victories. We had an opportunity and we let it slip away."
Not before they left an impression on Grant, who said VCU "may be the best 3-3 team in the country, just based on what they're capable of."
JaMychal Green scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half and had 14 rebounds, and Tony Mitchell scored 13 to lead the Tide. VCU coach Shaka Smart wasn't surprised by their performances.
"I tried to explain to our guys the tape doesn't really do justice to how athletic those guys are and how active they are," said Smart, who worked with both Tide players with USA Basketball over the summer. "Green was a monster tonight. He was terrific."
Green had missed the previous game with a hip bruise but helped the Crimson Tide move to 7-0 for the first time since 2006-07. Mitchell sprained his right ankle in the previous game.
The Tide trailed VCU (3-3) by as many as six points in the second half but closed the game on a 12-5 run and allowed only one basket over the final 4 minutes.
"During the last four or five minutes of the game, our guys really stepped it up on the defensive end," Grant said.
Burgess hit three 3-pointers in the second half and scored 18 points to lead VCU, which also got 10 points from both Rob Brandenburg and Juvon te Reddic.
"Alabama deserved to win tonight," Smart said. "They played really hard and caused us some issues, particularly in the second half. They blocked six shots, but they really changed a lot more shots."
Grant led VCU to 76 wins from 2006-09 before taking over at Alabama. Smart, his successor, took the Rams even farther with a Final Four run last season, but his team's stuck at .500 despite coming off wins in two straight games against Western Kentucky.
Both teams turned up the full-court pressure at times and bank on stingy defenses that keep them going even when their shots aren't falling.
"It pretty much was like looking in the mirror and playing ourselves," Green said. "They're a very disruptive team. We couldn't run our offense the first half but the second half we executed better and just had more focus.
Burgess is the only Grant recruit who saw action for the Rams. The two shared a quick hug and chat after the game.
"He just said he loved me," Burgess said. "I told him I loved him back."
Alabama made 13 of 21 shots (62 percent) in the second half after trailing at halftime for the first time this season, 33-32. The Tide outscored VCU 40-24 in the paint, which helped overcome 1-of-11 shooting from 3-point range.
The Tide took a 66-60 lead with 2:30 left on an 8-0 run finished off by two freshmen.
Trevor Lacey drove the floor for a layup after Green's blocked shot and Rodney Cooper followed with another basket for Alabama's biggest lead to that point.
Brandenburg hit two free throws to end the string. Mitchell then made 3 of 4 free throws to stretch the lead to 69-62 with 1:32 left.
The Tide went 6 of 8 from the line over the final 1:54.
Mitchell hurt his ankle early in the previous game and limped off the court 7 minutes into the game after scoring six of the Tide's first 10 points. Green, who was 8 of 12 from the field, also spent a few minutes in the locker room with a bruised left elbow in the first half.
It didn't stop them from scoring nearly half of the Tide's points.
VCU hit 40 percent from the field but still managed to score the most points of any Alabama opponent this season.
"The second half was what killed us," Reddic said. "The first half we fought, but just to fight in the first half is not good enough. You've got to fight for the entire 40 minutes."
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WINSLOW, Maine ? Carlene Shank already had a dog and a cat when her friend passed away recently and left her another dog to care for.
Making sure her friend?s dog was taken care of was an easy decision for Shank, even though she was unsure whether she would be able to afford the food. Then she noticed a flier at the Spectrum Generations Center in Waterville advertising something called AniMeals, a sort of Meals on Wheels for pets.
?It makes a big difference once you?re retired and on a fixed income,? said Shank. ?I?ve got one dog who eats you out of house and home, so [AniMeals is] a big help.?
According to Lynda Johnson, who has run AniMeals out of the Spectrum Generations Cohen Center in Hallowell for the past 8 years, there are a total of about 90 pets being served in the Hallowell and Waterville areas. The food is distributed by an already existing network of Meals on Wheels drivers who deliver sustenance to some 400 senior citizens and others who are confined to their homes by circumstance.
Earlier this month, the AniMeals program received a major boost in the form of a $5,000 grant from the Banfield Charitable Trust, which through its Seasons of Suppers program has a long history of funding for pets and humans across the country. The trust has awarded more than $350,000 in grant money to support pet food programs. The recent grant in Maine was split evenly between the 8-year-old program in Hallowell and a similar program in the Waterville area that is just a few months old but already flooded with pets to feed.
?Our clients love the AniMeals program because it helps them with their budgets,? said Johnson. ?All of this money from the Banfield Charitable Trust is going right to food, and maybe a container or two to keep it in.?
Users of the program receive about two pounds of dry dog or cat food per week, depending on the number of pets they have. The program has occasionally served other pets, such as birds, but that is rare, said Johnson. Just like Meals on Wheels, Johnson said she knows AniMeals is a resounding success because of the ease with which she collects donations. There is also no waiting list for either program, which is a point of pride for the program.
?We?re having good luck, which is a good thing because it does cost a lot of money,? said Johnson. Among the businesses who have supported the program are Pet Life, Pine Tree Veterinarians, Tractor Supply and the Riverview Psychiatric Center. Johnson said she buys pet food from a variety of local retailers, many of whom usually pitch in a little extra.
The rationale behind the program is making sure people who don?t have a lot don?t have to let go of their pets for lack of money.
?If you?re on Meals on Wheels, you?re already in a scary place anyway,? said Johnson. ?Anyone who?s on that program qualifies for AniMeals. I don?t look at how much money they make.?
Johnson said the AniMeals program in the Hallowell area was among the first of its kind in Maine, though it has been spreading.
According to Shank, the pet food distributed by the program is of just as high quality as the people food distributed by Meals on Wheels.
?Whatever kind of food they?re buying, the animals love it,? she said. ?We?re all happy here.?
To inquire about AniMeals or Meals on Wheels, or to make a donation to either program, call 800-639-1553.
Quack medicines, insect immigrants, and what eats what among secrets revealed by DNA barcodesPublic release date: 27-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Terry Collins tc@tca.tc 416-538-8712 Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL)
Global 'barcode blitz' accelerates; 450 experts converge on Adelaide Nov. 28-Dec. 3
The newfound scientific power to quickly "fingerprint" species via DNA is being deployed to unmask quack herbal medicines, reveal types of ancient Arctic life frozen in permafrost, expose what eats what in nature, and halt agricultural and forestry pests at borders, among other applications across a wide array of public interests.
The explosion of creative new uses of DNA "barcoding" -- identifying species based on a snippet of DNA -- will occupy centre stage as 450 world experts convene at Australia's the University of Adelaide Nov. 28 to Dec. 3.
DNA barcode technology has already sparked US Congressional hearings by exposing widespread "fish fraud" -- mislabelling cheap fish as more desirable and expensive species like tuna or snapper. Other studies this year revealed unlisted ingredients in herbal tea bags.
Hot new applications include:
Substitute ingredients in herbal medicines
High demand is causing regular "adulteration or substitution of herbal drugs," barcoding experts have discovered.
Indeed, notes Malaysian researcher Muhammad Sharir Abdul Rahman, one fraudster in his country treated rubber tree wood with quinine to give it a bitter taste similar to Eurycoma longifolia -- a traditional medicine for malaria, diabetes and other ailments.
A library of DNA barcodes for Malaysia's 1,200 plant species with potential medicinal value is in development, eventually offering "a quick one step detection kit" to reduce fraud in the lucrative herbal medicine industry, says Mr. Sharir.
His concerns resonate in other countries around the true contents of certain brands of ginseng and other products.
DNA barcode libraries are under construction for the medicinal plants of several other nations as well, including South Africa, India and Nigeria.
Barcoding permafrost
From the woolly rhino to plants and mushrooms, scientists using DNA are deciphering what lived in the ancient Arctic environment, creating new insights into climate change in the process.
"DNA barcoding" analyses of cylinders of sediment cored from Arctic permafrost ranging in age from 10,000 to several hundred thousand years have shed light on past animal and fungal distributions and allowed researchers to infer which plant species likely co-existed.
DNA analyses of permafrost sediment 15,000 to 30,000 years old from northeastern Siberia revealed a grassland steppe plain during the glacial period supporting a diverse mammal community, including bison, moose and the DNA of the rare woolly rhino, the first ever found in permafrost sediments.
Says University of Oslo-based researcher Eva Bellemain, who will present project BarFrost (Barcoding of Permafrost): "In the Arctic, fossils are scarce and time-consuming to find and analyze. However, DNA is one tough molecule. It had to be in order to serve its purpose the last billion years and more. Incredibly, it can linger in soil for tens of thousands of years and stay relatively intact."
What eats what
The technology can even distinguish species contained in the gut or dung of animals, revealing what eats what. University of Adelaide researcher Hugh Cross, for example, will detail his investigation into the diet of Australia's fast-growing, 1 million-strong population of wild camels, which severely impact the country's ecology.
Introduced in the 1800s as pack animals, Australia's wild camels eat an estimated 80% of available plant species in their range.
Says conference organizer David Schindel, Executive Secretary of the CBOL, based at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: "Biologists used to sit and wait and watch to learn how food webs work in Nature and what happens when they collapse. Now they can process stomach contents and dung samples to get the complete picture in a few hours."
Invasive pests
Until now, border inspection to keep agricultural pests, disease-carrying insects and invasive species from entering a country has been a hit-and-miss effort. Barcoding offers a tool to get same-day answers for accepting or rejecting imports, an issue of acute economic importance to Australia and New Zealand.
With European Union funding, a consortium of 20 universities, research institutes, and other organizations are partners in Project QBoL (Quarantine Barcode of Life, www.qbol.org), developing a library of DNA barcodes to help quickly identify common invasive organisms that authorities want to stop at national borders.
With the new DNA barcode tool, inspectors can more easily and surely identify and thus prevent the entry of invading pests including bacteria, fungi, fruit flies, other insects, nematodes, viruses, plants and other organisms. Trade of timber cut from endangered species may also be slowed with barcodes to identify wood and lumber products.
Hundreds of topics in Adelaide
"From tea to tuna, DNA identification is entering everyday life," remarked Jesse Ausubel, chair of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) initiative, a 6-year program now in midstream of a group of the most active labs building the barcode library.
Adds Dr. Schindel: "Like Google and Wikipedia, DNA barcoding scarcely existed a decade ago, and now we are a vibrant community built on 21st century scientific tools."
"DNA barcoding is the express lane to solving many of Nature's mysteries relevant to a spectrum of national interests."
He notes that scores of additional topics will be explored in Adelaide, spanning health, cultural and environmental protection, such as:
Identifying the prey of disease-carrying insects based on analysis of their meals of blood
"Barcoding Nemo" and other species of the ornamental fish trade
Identifying mushrooms and molds
Assessment of the global status of pollinators such as bees, and
Assessing water quality
The blood meals of biting insects
Resembling a common housefly, the African tsetse fly transmits Human African trypanosomiasis, AKA sleeping sickness, to people and animals. One of the world's most dangerous disease vectors, it spread the 2008 epidemic in which 48,000 Ugandans died. And the annual economic impact is estimated at US$4.5 billion, with around 3 million cattle killed every year.
Scientists are using DNA barcodes to identify tsetse fly species and their prey based on analysis of the insect's blood meals, unravelling the relationship between hosts and vectors.
By developing the barcode library, tools and ability to readily distinguish species of tsetse flies, mosquitos, ticks and other vectors of diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, Japanese encephalitis, and Lyme disease, scientists can map risk areas more efficiently and alert authorities to the spread of health threats.
Barcoders have taken up an ambitious five-year goal a comprehensive library of 10,000 insect species that damage or destroy so many human lives: 3,000 mosquito, 1,000 sandfly, 2,000 blackfly, 2,000 flea and 1,000 tick species.
Nemo and friends
According to scientists, over 1 billion ornamental fish -- comprising more than 4,000 freshwater and 1,400 marine species -- are traded internationally each year, a US $5 billion industry growing annually at 8 percent.
Researchers at work on this issue include Gulab Khedkar of India, who says: "To facilitate ornamental fish trading, and in compliance of (India's) Biodiversity Act, a universal method must validate the ornamental fish with their species names. This can help assure a sustainable ornamental fish trade."
Fungi
Fungi are a taxonomic group of many major, distinct evolutionary lineages, ranging from mushrooms to molds. Although two species of fungi can be more distantly related than a fish is related to an insect, all fungi are classified in the same group.
Researchers at the conference are expected to announce the selection of the barcode region for fungi. The standard barcode regions used for animals and plants is not effective for fungi and an international working group has been conducting comparative analyses of candidate regions for two years. The decision is expected to open the floodgates to fungal barcoding research.
A project on indoor fungi that cause human health problems will also be unveiled in Adelaide, showing the enormous potential for fungal studies.
Australian scientist Wieland Meyer argues that, given steadily increasing invasive fungal infections, inadequate identification, limited therapies and the emergence of resistant strains, "there is an urgent need to improve fungal identification" to improve the successful treatment.
Fungi also provide humanity with food and antibiotics and the services of fermentation and decay. DNA-based taxonomy promises to revolutionize understanding of fungal diversity and connect the their life stages.
Barcoders aim to create a library of at least 10,000 fungal species by 2015, especially for indoor fungi, for basidiomycetes (the "higher fungi") and for pathogens of agriculture and forestry.
Insect pollinators
The ecosystem service of plant pollination by insects has a global value estimated at more than $400 billion a year.
Facilitated by the International Barcode of Life (iBOL), barcoders are surveying long-term population trends by assembling barcode libraries for all bees and other important pollinators -- flies and beetles. In combination with campaigns to barcode moths, butterflies and birds, they will provide the database needed to assess the state of pollinator communities worldwide.
Assessing water quality
Scientists in Southern California and elsewhere are pioneering barcodes to assess freshwater marine water quality and its impact on marine life in, sand, sediment, and rocks or in mud in rivers and offshore.
Traditionally after collecting a bulk water sample, taxonomists must identify by sight several thousand invertebrates, a process requiring months and thousands of dollars. DNA barcodes enable them to analyze bulk samples in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.
Similar projects underway in Korea, Iraq, Belgium and the Baltic region will be presented in Adelaide.
DNA barcoding is emerging as the tool of choice for monitoring water quality, DNA barcode libraries of aquatic insects under construction. New technologies are being developed and tested that will allow faster and more complete analyses of entire biological communities in streamwater on 'DNA microchips' and through next-generation sequencing.
Says Dr. Schindel: "It used to take weeks or months to analyze the organisms in streams to determine water quality. Now it takes hours at a fraction the cost."
A global barcode blitz
Scientists in Adelaide will also advance progress towards an international library of barcodes for 500,000 plant, animal and fungi species within five years - "a barcode blitz" that could transform biology science. The Barcode of Life Database includes more than 167,000 reliably named and provisional species today. Butterflies and moths are the largest well-analyzed group so far, with over 60,000 named and provisional species -- much of the world's estimated total of 170,000.
Gold mines for barcoding are the world's museums and herbaria, where countless species specimens are concentrated and organized thanks to great investments of time and dollars.
A year ago, a team of five Biodiversity Institute of Ontario researchers conducted a barcode blitz in the Australian National Insect Collection. Focusing on moths and butterflies for 10 weeks, they processed over 28,000 specimens representing over 8,000 species and 65 per cent of the country's 10,000 known insect species. Meanwhile at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, another team recently barcoded over 3,000 frozen bird tissues from over 1,400 species, adding more than 500 new species to the world avian DNA library, now covering about 40% of known birds.
New techniques for DNA extraction are bringing older and older specimens in natural history museums into the age range where DNA barcoding can be effective. These breakthroughs will open up new research questions about changes in species over the past centuries of human impact on natural populations.
The Munich Botanical Garden is the latest institution with an important collection of authoritative reference specimens opening its collection to a DNA barcode blitz.
###
The ability to identify and distinguish known and unknown species ever more quickly, cheaply, easily and accurately based on snippets of DNA code grew from a research paper in 2003 to a burgeoning global enterprise today, led by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) at the Smithsonian Institution.
The International Barcode of Life Conference in Adelaide is the 4th in a series that began at the Natural History Museum, London, in February, 2005.
In 2005, there were 33,000 records covering 12,700 species in the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) at the University of Guelph, Canada. Showing a more than 40-fold increase, almost 1.4 million records are now banked, representing roughly 167,000 known and provisional species (see www.barcodinglife.org/views/taxbrowser_root.php).
The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) develops DNA barcoding as a global standard for species identification. With more than 200 member organizations from more than 50 countries, CBOL builds global participation, sets community standards, and organizes and supports working groups, workshops, networks, training opportunities, and international conferences held every two years. Free and open to all, CBOL promotes general awareness of barcoding through an information website (www.barcodeoflife.org) and information sharing through Connect (http://connect.barcodeoflife.net), the Barcode of Life social network.
The largest biodiversity genomics initiative ever launched, the International Barcode of Life (iBOL, http://ibol.org) aims to create by the end of the year 2015 a reference library of 5 million standardized DNA sequences capable of identifying 500 thousand species, more than a quarter of all known species on Earth. Headquartered in Canada, the iBOL program is the creation of more than 100 scientists from more than 20 countries. Launched in 2010 with support from Genome Canada and Ontario Genomics Institute, iBOL's participants commit resourcesfinancial support, human effort, and specimenstoward the 5M/500K goal.
Agenda in Adelaide:
www.dnabarcodes2011.org/conference/program/schedule/index.php
Major sponsors of the global barcoding movement include:
Chinese Academy of Sciences
CONABIO and CONACYT (Mexico)
Genome Canada
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
International Development Research Centre (Canada)
Richard Lounsbery Foundation
Ministry of Science and Technology (Brazil)
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada)
Ontario Genomics Institute
Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
University of Adelaide
University of Guelph
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Quack medicines, insect immigrants, and what eats what among secrets revealed by DNA barcodesPublic release date: 27-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Terry Collins tc@tca.tc 416-538-8712 Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL)
Global 'barcode blitz' accelerates; 450 experts converge on Adelaide Nov. 28-Dec. 3
The newfound scientific power to quickly "fingerprint" species via DNA is being deployed to unmask quack herbal medicines, reveal types of ancient Arctic life frozen in permafrost, expose what eats what in nature, and halt agricultural and forestry pests at borders, among other applications across a wide array of public interests.
The explosion of creative new uses of DNA "barcoding" -- identifying species based on a snippet of DNA -- will occupy centre stage as 450 world experts convene at Australia's the University of Adelaide Nov. 28 to Dec. 3.
DNA barcode technology has already sparked US Congressional hearings by exposing widespread "fish fraud" -- mislabelling cheap fish as more desirable and expensive species like tuna or snapper. Other studies this year revealed unlisted ingredients in herbal tea bags.
Hot new applications include:
Substitute ingredients in herbal medicines
High demand is causing regular "adulteration or substitution of herbal drugs," barcoding experts have discovered.
Indeed, notes Malaysian researcher Muhammad Sharir Abdul Rahman, one fraudster in his country treated rubber tree wood with quinine to give it a bitter taste similar to Eurycoma longifolia -- a traditional medicine for malaria, diabetes and other ailments.
A library of DNA barcodes for Malaysia's 1,200 plant species with potential medicinal value is in development, eventually offering "a quick one step detection kit" to reduce fraud in the lucrative herbal medicine industry, says Mr. Sharir.
His concerns resonate in other countries around the true contents of certain brands of ginseng and other products.
DNA barcode libraries are under construction for the medicinal plants of several other nations as well, including South Africa, India and Nigeria.
Barcoding permafrost
From the woolly rhino to plants and mushrooms, scientists using DNA are deciphering what lived in the ancient Arctic environment, creating new insights into climate change in the process.
"DNA barcoding" analyses of cylinders of sediment cored from Arctic permafrost ranging in age from 10,000 to several hundred thousand years have shed light on past animal and fungal distributions and allowed researchers to infer which plant species likely co-existed.
DNA analyses of permafrost sediment 15,000 to 30,000 years old from northeastern Siberia revealed a grassland steppe plain during the glacial period supporting a diverse mammal community, including bison, moose and the DNA of the rare woolly rhino, the first ever found in permafrost sediments.
Says University of Oslo-based researcher Eva Bellemain, who will present project BarFrost (Barcoding of Permafrost): "In the Arctic, fossils are scarce and time-consuming to find and analyze. However, DNA is one tough molecule. It had to be in order to serve its purpose the last billion years and more. Incredibly, it can linger in soil for tens of thousands of years and stay relatively intact."
What eats what
The technology can even distinguish species contained in the gut or dung of animals, revealing what eats what. University of Adelaide researcher Hugh Cross, for example, will detail his investigation into the diet of Australia's fast-growing, 1 million-strong population of wild camels, which severely impact the country's ecology.
Introduced in the 1800s as pack animals, Australia's wild camels eat an estimated 80% of available plant species in their range.
Says conference organizer David Schindel, Executive Secretary of the CBOL, based at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: "Biologists used to sit and wait and watch to learn how food webs work in Nature and what happens when they collapse. Now they can process stomach contents and dung samples to get the complete picture in a few hours."
Invasive pests
Until now, border inspection to keep agricultural pests, disease-carrying insects and invasive species from entering a country has been a hit-and-miss effort. Barcoding offers a tool to get same-day answers for accepting or rejecting imports, an issue of acute economic importance to Australia and New Zealand.
With European Union funding, a consortium of 20 universities, research institutes, and other organizations are partners in Project QBoL (Quarantine Barcode of Life, www.qbol.org), developing a library of DNA barcodes to help quickly identify common invasive organisms that authorities want to stop at national borders.
With the new DNA barcode tool, inspectors can more easily and surely identify and thus prevent the entry of invading pests including bacteria, fungi, fruit flies, other insects, nematodes, viruses, plants and other organisms. Trade of timber cut from endangered species may also be slowed with barcodes to identify wood and lumber products.
Hundreds of topics in Adelaide
"From tea to tuna, DNA identification is entering everyday life," remarked Jesse Ausubel, chair of the International Barcode of Life (iBOL) initiative, a 6-year program now in midstream of a group of the most active labs building the barcode library.
Adds Dr. Schindel: "Like Google and Wikipedia, DNA barcoding scarcely existed a decade ago, and now we are a vibrant community built on 21st century scientific tools."
"DNA barcoding is the express lane to solving many of Nature's mysteries relevant to a spectrum of national interests."
He notes that scores of additional topics will be explored in Adelaide, spanning health, cultural and environmental protection, such as:
Identifying the prey of disease-carrying insects based on analysis of their meals of blood
"Barcoding Nemo" and other species of the ornamental fish trade
Identifying mushrooms and molds
Assessment of the global status of pollinators such as bees, and
Assessing water quality
The blood meals of biting insects
Resembling a common housefly, the African tsetse fly transmits Human African trypanosomiasis, AKA sleeping sickness, to people and animals. One of the world's most dangerous disease vectors, it spread the 2008 epidemic in which 48,000 Ugandans died. And the annual economic impact is estimated at US$4.5 billion, with around 3 million cattle killed every year.
Scientists are using DNA barcodes to identify tsetse fly species and their prey based on analysis of the insect's blood meals, unravelling the relationship between hosts and vectors.
By developing the barcode library, tools and ability to readily distinguish species of tsetse flies, mosquitos, ticks and other vectors of diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, Japanese encephalitis, and Lyme disease, scientists can map risk areas more efficiently and alert authorities to the spread of health threats.
Barcoders have taken up an ambitious five-year goal a comprehensive library of 10,000 insect species that damage or destroy so many human lives: 3,000 mosquito, 1,000 sandfly, 2,000 blackfly, 2,000 flea and 1,000 tick species.
Nemo and friends
According to scientists, over 1 billion ornamental fish -- comprising more than 4,000 freshwater and 1,400 marine species -- are traded internationally each year, a US $5 billion industry growing annually at 8 percent.
Researchers at work on this issue include Gulab Khedkar of India, who says: "To facilitate ornamental fish trading, and in compliance of (India's) Biodiversity Act, a universal method must validate the ornamental fish with their species names. This can help assure a sustainable ornamental fish trade."
Fungi
Fungi are a taxonomic group of many major, distinct evolutionary lineages, ranging from mushrooms to molds. Although two species of fungi can be more distantly related than a fish is related to an insect, all fungi are classified in the same group.
Researchers at the conference are expected to announce the selection of the barcode region for fungi. The standard barcode regions used for animals and plants is not effective for fungi and an international working group has been conducting comparative analyses of candidate regions for two years. The decision is expected to open the floodgates to fungal barcoding research.
A project on indoor fungi that cause human health problems will also be unveiled in Adelaide, showing the enormous potential for fungal studies.
Australian scientist Wieland Meyer argues that, given steadily increasing invasive fungal infections, inadequate identification, limited therapies and the emergence of resistant strains, "there is an urgent need to improve fungal identification" to improve the successful treatment.
Fungi also provide humanity with food and antibiotics and the services of fermentation and decay. DNA-based taxonomy promises to revolutionize understanding of fungal diversity and connect the their life stages.
Barcoders aim to create a library of at least 10,000 fungal species by 2015, especially for indoor fungi, for basidiomycetes (the "higher fungi") and for pathogens of agriculture and forestry.
Insect pollinators
The ecosystem service of plant pollination by insects has a global value estimated at more than $400 billion a year.
Facilitated by the International Barcode of Life (iBOL), barcoders are surveying long-term population trends by assembling barcode libraries for all bees and other important pollinators -- flies and beetles. In combination with campaigns to barcode moths, butterflies and birds, they will provide the database needed to assess the state of pollinator communities worldwide.
Assessing water quality
Scientists in Southern California and elsewhere are pioneering barcodes to assess freshwater marine water quality and its impact on marine life in, sand, sediment, and rocks or in mud in rivers and offshore.
Traditionally after collecting a bulk water sample, taxonomists must identify by sight several thousand invertebrates, a process requiring months and thousands of dollars. DNA barcodes enable them to analyze bulk samples in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost.
Similar projects underway in Korea, Iraq, Belgium and the Baltic region will be presented in Adelaide.
DNA barcoding is emerging as the tool of choice for monitoring water quality, DNA barcode libraries of aquatic insects under construction. New technologies are being developed and tested that will allow faster and more complete analyses of entire biological communities in streamwater on 'DNA microchips' and through next-generation sequencing.
Says Dr. Schindel: "It used to take weeks or months to analyze the organisms in streams to determine water quality. Now it takes hours at a fraction the cost."
A global barcode blitz
Scientists in Adelaide will also advance progress towards an international library of barcodes for 500,000 plant, animal and fungi species within five years - "a barcode blitz" that could transform biology science. The Barcode of Life Database includes more than 167,000 reliably named and provisional species today. Butterflies and moths are the largest well-analyzed group so far, with over 60,000 named and provisional species -- much of the world's estimated total of 170,000.
Gold mines for barcoding are the world's museums and herbaria, where countless species specimens are concentrated and organized thanks to great investments of time and dollars.
A year ago, a team of five Biodiversity Institute of Ontario researchers conducted a barcode blitz in the Australian National Insect Collection. Focusing on moths and butterflies for 10 weeks, they processed over 28,000 specimens representing over 8,000 species and 65 per cent of the country's 10,000 known insect species. Meanwhile at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, another team recently barcoded over 3,000 frozen bird tissues from over 1,400 species, adding more than 500 new species to the world avian DNA library, now covering about 40% of known birds.
New techniques for DNA extraction are bringing older and older specimens in natural history museums into the age range where DNA barcoding can be effective. These breakthroughs will open up new research questions about changes in species over the past centuries of human impact on natural populations.
The Munich Botanical Garden is the latest institution with an important collection of authoritative reference specimens opening its collection to a DNA barcode blitz.
###
The ability to identify and distinguish known and unknown species ever more quickly, cheaply, easily and accurately based on snippets of DNA code grew from a research paper in 2003 to a burgeoning global enterprise today, led by the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) at the Smithsonian Institution.
The International Barcode of Life Conference in Adelaide is the 4th in a series that began at the Natural History Museum, London, in February, 2005.
In 2005, there were 33,000 records covering 12,700 species in the Barcode of Life Data Systems (BOLD) at the University of Guelph, Canada. Showing a more than 40-fold increase, almost 1.4 million records are now banked, representing roughly 167,000 known and provisional species (see www.barcodinglife.org/views/taxbrowser_root.php).
The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) develops DNA barcoding as a global standard for species identification. With more than 200 member organizations from more than 50 countries, CBOL builds global participation, sets community standards, and organizes and supports working groups, workshops, networks, training opportunities, and international conferences held every two years. Free and open to all, CBOL promotes general awareness of barcoding through an information website (www.barcodeoflife.org) and information sharing through Connect (http://connect.barcodeoflife.net), the Barcode of Life social network.
The largest biodiversity genomics initiative ever launched, the International Barcode of Life (iBOL, http://ibol.org) aims to create by the end of the year 2015 a reference library of 5 million standardized DNA sequences capable of identifying 500 thousand species, more than a quarter of all known species on Earth. Headquartered in Canada, the iBOL program is the creation of more than 100 scientists from more than 20 countries. Launched in 2010 with support from Genome Canada and Ontario Genomics Institute, iBOL's participants commit resourcesfinancial support, human effort, and specimenstoward the 5M/500K goal.
Agenda in Adelaide:
www.dnabarcodes2011.org/conference/program/schedule/index.php
Major sponsors of the global barcoding movement include:
Chinese Academy of Sciences
CONABIO and CONACYT (Mexico)
Genome Canada
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
International Development Research Centre (Canada)
Richard Lounsbery Foundation
Ministry of Science and Technology (Brazil)
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada)
Ontario Genomics Institute
Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
University of Adelaide
University of Guelph
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Chocolate ice cream is a frequent catch-all for botched batches of other flavors, which are doled out in small amounts and mixed with the dark, rich treat in order to avoid waste and expense. Reworking food is a common practice, industry experts say.
By JoNel Aleccia
When a school lunch supplier repackaged moldy applesauce into canned goods and fruit cups, it drew a sharp warning from federal health regulators last month?-- and general disgust from almost everyone else.
?I was appalled that there were actually human beings that were OK with this,? said Kantha Shelke, a food scientist and spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists. ?This is a case of unsafe food. They are trying to salvage that to make a buck.?
But even as Food and Drug Administration officials prepare to re-inspect Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., to ensure that the applesauce maker keeps toxin-tainted fruit off store shelves, federal officials and industry experts acknowledge that Snokist is not alone in ?reworking? faulty food.
Turning imperfect, mislabeled or outright contaminated foods into edible?-- and profitable?-- goods is so common that virtually all producers do it, at least to some extent, sources say.
?Any food can be reconditioned,? said Jay Cole, a former federal inspector who now works as a senior consultant with The FDA Group, a firm that specializes in helping manufacturers comply with industry regulations.
?It?s how people do their business,? added Shelke, founder of Corvus Blue, a Chicago-based packaged goods consulting firm.
It may be something benign, such as misshapen pieces of pasta that are re-ground into semolina, or something unexpected, like a batch of mislabeled blueberry ice cream mixed in with chocolate to avoid waste.
It might be something unappetizing, such as insect parts sifted out of cocoa beans or live bugs irradiated?-- and left behind?-- in dried fruits like dates and figs.
Or it could be something alarming, such as the salmonella Tennessee bacteria detected last year in huge lots of hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP,?a flavor enhancer used in foods from gravy mix and snack foods to dairy products, spices and soups.?
Some 177 products were recalled in 2010, but bulk HVP products from Basic Food Flavors Inc. of Las Vegas, Nev., were allowed to be reconditioned by heat-treating the foods to kill the salmonella, according to the FDA. The reprocessed foods were then distributed and sold.
No question, FDA regulations do permit foods to be reconditioned, said William Correll, the agency?s acting director of compliance.? That leeway can avoid both waste and expense, he explained.
?Some things can be adulterated and fixed, and you?re not throwing out food that would otherwise be OK,? Correll said.
That?s why chocolate ice cream becomes the catch-all when other flavors aren?t quite right, said Shelke. If a producer accidentally botches a batch of blueberry, small amounts of the mistaken treat can be mixed into future bins of chocolate, where the dark color and rich flavor mask any error. ?
The key, however, is that the process must render the food safe for consumption.?
That?s why Snokist Growers drew such a strong warning. In the case of the moldy applesauce, there are a couple of problems, Correll said. Mold is tricky because when contamination is extensive, it?s not enough to simply remove the obviously tainted parts and then zap the food with heat.
Snokist officials claim that their heat process kills patulin, the most common toxin produced by mold in apples, and renders the food commercially sterile. But FDA officials counter that the firm?s thermal process is not adequate to ensure that other heat-stable mycotoxins are eradicated from the food.
?Mold is not an easily reconditionable product,? Correll said. ?It?s not OK to take moldy tomatoes and make them into tomato paste.?
Not that some food firms don?t try. It?s no secret that the FDA allows certain levels of expected contaminants to remain in foods, simply because a zero-tolerance standard would be impossible to meet, officials said.
The agency?s ?defect action levels? are used to define the point at which food becomes adulterated and subject to enforcement. Below that level, however, some unappetizing substances make it through.
The FDA allows, for instance, an average of 225 insect fragments or 4.5 rodent hairs per 8 ounces of macaroni or noodle products. An average of 20 or more maggots of any size is permitted per 3.5 ounces of drained canned mushrooms, or per half-ounce of dried mushrooms. When it comes to mold, an average count of 15 percent is OK for canned cranberry sauce.
Because such levels are permitted, some food producers propose to combine faulty and sound products to lower the overall level. An apple-juice maker might ask to mix juice with high counts of mold with a batch with low counts, for instance. But, Correll said, that?s not allowed.
?Dilution is not the solution,? he said.
Similarly, companies that propose to eliminate a serious contaminant without addressing the source are turned down. He recalled a seafood firm with faulty bathroom practices that led to canned crab contaminated with fecal E. coli bacteria. Heat-treating would have eradicated the bugs -- but not the problem, Correll said.
?If food is adulterated in an unacceptable way, reconditioning won?t fix it,? he said. ?You can?t cook the poop out of it.?
FDA officials couldn?t provide an estimate of the number of reconditioning requests received from food firms each year. But in 2009, the agency started a new Reportable Food Registry, which requires notification of hazards to human health. At least 2,240 reports were logged in the registry?s first year, including the salmonella-tainted vegetable protein.
Many producers faced with faulty food simply want to minimize their losses without harming public health, said Peter Quinter and Jennifer Diaz, lawyers with the Florida firm Becker & Poliakoff, which represents importers of foreign food.
Such firms want to avoid having product refused, so they go to great expense to salvage products such as insect-infested rice for future consumption, Diaz said. Grain products can be sifted, re-inspected, repackaged ? and sent on to grocery stores.
?Taking the ick factor away is that the product is no longer contaminated,? she added.
Related stories:
FDA: Moldy applesauce repackaged by school lunch supplier Chicken livers sicken 179 with salmonella Six new E. coli strains banned from beef supply
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Public release date: 29-Nov-2011
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