A study from Consumer Reports shows that about half the chicken breasts sold in U.S. grocery stores contain antibiotic resistant bacteria.
The study shows that if someone were to become ill because of the bacteria on the chicken, it would lead to potentially more difficult cures and possibly hospitalization.
Consumer Reports tested for six types of bacteria in 316 raw chicken breasts purchased at U.S. retailers in July. Almost all of the chicken breasts contained some kind of potentially harmful bacteria and 49.7 percent of the chicken breasts had a former of bacteria resistant to at least three different antibiotics.
The most common antibiotic resistant bacteria were forms that are associated with the antibiotics given to chickens to help increase their growth and fight disease.
The FDA announced last week they will call on meat producers to phase out the use of antibiotics in their animal breeding and growth.
The weekend after Thanksgiving was big for more than just most of the nation’s retailers.
Retail chain Target reportedly was hit by a massive identity theft attack where as many as 40 million credit and debit card accounts could have had their information taken by hackers.
Target released a statement saying that customers who used credit or debit cards between November 27th and December 15th could have compromised accounts. Information stolen included customer names, credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates and even the three digit security code included on the back of the card.
Target did not release information about how the hackers cracked their system which reportedly included installing software on card readers. The company assured customers the problem has been fixed.
The U.S. Secret Service is investigating the theft because it involves currency transactions.
A White House task force has called for the brakes to be applied to the National Security Agency.
The presidential advisory panel recommended close to four dozen changes for the NSA and their actions to collect electronically based data for investigations. While the group did not call for an outright ban on the use of phone and internet data, there was a clear signal that the NSA had gone too far.
One of the biggest recommendations is that the NSA be no longer allowed to store information related to American’s telephone records.
“The message to the NSA is now coming from every branch of government and from every corner of our nation: You have gone too far,” read a statement from Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. “The bulk collection of Americans’ data by the U.S. government must end. This momentous report from the President’s closest advisers is a vindication of the efforts of a bipartisan group of legislators that has been working for years to protect Americans’ privacy by reining in these intelligence authorities.”
The panel also recommended that a court sign off on any search of an individual’s phone or internet data.
President Obama is under no obligation to implement the changes suggested by the committee but has said he will discuss the report with members of his national security team.
The Lord woke me up again with Revelation 18 – it startled me! He said we were close to this time. We’re in a very eventful time right now. We’re in the “coming of the Lord” time. I believe the antichrist is on earth. I know this, the antichrist spirit is in the world. I believe the antichrist spirit is consuming the United States of America.
The weather has gone wild. The Lord has been dealing with me and I’ve said it for several years now; the storms are going to be out of control. They’re going to be more out of control. In the United States of America, they broke 1,000 records for temperatures last week! Is that “cold, cold, cold?’
In the last week, the temperature here has gone from 60 degrees to zero! All of these things are bringing about a warning. Rick Joyner warns that when you see strange and extreme weather (record breaking highs, lows, floods, droughts, tornadoes, storms), it is a prophetic sign that something is about to explode on the scene; the Revelation Days are upon us.
Old people can say, “there’s a storm coming”…but it’s physical and it’s spiritual (what we are feeling right now.) The Bible says the earth will groan (Romans 8:22) Continue reading →
A mysterious illness showing flu-like symptoms has killed four people in east Texas.
Montgomery County Health Officials confirmed the deaths of four out of eight patients showing signs of the mystery disease.
The patients all show signs of the flu or pneumonia but all tests for flu are negative. The patients range in age from 41 to 88 and health officials have not said the ages of the patients who have died.
Sources told KHOU-TV that two of the surviving patients at Conroe Regional Medical Center are “very sick.”
Health officials say they are waiting for more conclusive test results to determine the possible illness. They would not comment on whether the patients had pre-existing medical issues. Doctors have been advised to use extra precautions to keep the illness from spreading.
A 20-year-old Long Island man is behind bars after police say he committed at least seven “knockout game” attacks dating back to April 2013.
Darryl Mitchell is expected to be charged today with the assaults of residents from Babylon, New York to Amityville, New York.
One of the victims, Darryl Jones, said that Mitchell came at him out of nowhere and landed a single roundhouse punch to the face. The blow caused a gash above his eye that required seven stitches.
“If I wasn’t strong enough, I probably would’ve passed out,” told WABC. “He was walking on the sidewalk and I moved out of the way just to step into the street and he stood in front of me holding up his hands and hit me in the face.”
The victims ranged in age from 17 to 69.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control says that 2 million Americans have been sickened by some strain of drug-resistant bacteria and around 23,000 died because their infections could not be treated.
A deputy director for the CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion says that the overuse of antibiotics contributes heavily to the problem.
“Very recently we looked at how good antibiotic prescriptions are in this country, and about half are unnecessary or the wrong antibiotic,” Dr. Michael Bell told CNBC. “That’s a lot of room for improvement.”
Federal officials are attempting to spur drug companies into creating new antibiotics. The Generating Antibiotic Incentives Now act, or GAIN, gives companies an additional five years of market-based exclusivity for drugs if they are produced for a “qualified infectious disease.”
“If you move to the post-antibiotic era, that means all of the advances of modern medicine could be reversed,” Cubist Pharmaceuticals’ Dr. Obi Umeh told CNBC. “Patients who had that infection in which there was no treatment option, they were in the post-antibiotic era.”
The U.S. State Department has said for the first time they’re willing to hold discussions with Islamic extremist groups fighting the Syrian government.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the possibility of talks with the Islamic Front could not be ruled out.
We can engage with the Islamic Front, of course, because they’re not designated terrorists,” Harf told reporters. “We’re always open to meeting with a wide range of opposition groups. Obviously, it may make sense to do so at some point soon, and if we have something to announce, we will.”
Sources told Reuters that the U.S. is planning to meet with the commanders of the Islamic Front in an attempt to get them under a coalition with the Free Syrian Army.
The Islamic Front, while not called a terrorist group by the Obama Administration, has members with openly anti-American views and beliefs. The group has said they do not plan to bring a democracy to Syria but rather to install a state run by Sharia law.
Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul warned the administration working with the Islamic Front would be “funding allies of al-Qaeda.”
The bulk collection of phone records of Americans by the National Security Agency has been found to likely violate the Fourth Amendment.
Judge Richard Leon ruled Monday that the NSA’s mass collection of “metadata” falls under the Constitution’s prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure. The ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is viewed as a blow to the Obama administration.
Observers say the case will very likely go all the way to the Supreme Court.
“The government does not cite a single case in which analysis of the NSA’s bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack,” Judge Leon wrote in his decision. “Given the limited record before me at this point in the litigation – most notably, the utter lack of evidence that a terrorist attack has ever been prevented because searching the NSA database was faster than other investigative tactics – I have serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program as a means of conducting time-sensitive investigations in cases involving imminent threats of terrorism.”
The ruling by the judge says the lawsuit brought by a conservative lawyer and the father of a Navy soldier is likely to be successful. The judge did grant a reprieve to the NSA by placing his order to stop the NSA collection efforts on hold until the government can appeal.
A USA Today study shows that the deadly MRSA bacteria are spreading far beyond hospitals.
The bacteria were commonly found in hospitals other health care facilities but did not impact the general population. Now, reports of the bacteria are being found in schools, workout clubs and even NFL locker rooms.
Researchers say MRSA’s ability to quickly develop immunity to drugs is hampering their ability to stop its spread. Despite a 30% decline in MRSA infections in health care facilities, there is little to no decline in community-based strains of the bacteria. Infections among children have jumped 10% a year because it can spread from two students simply bumping into each other in the hallway.
“We don’t really understand the origin of these [community based] strains,” Costi Sifri, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Virginia Health System., told the USA Today. “And we don’t really know how to contain them.”
Hospitals and doctors in most states are not required to report MRSA infections so groups like the CDC have had trouble monitoring outbreaks of the disease.
Researchers say the most effective way to stop MRSA is to develop a vaccine for staph infections. However, they say that a viable vaccine for the mass market is still years into the future.