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Did you also know that 80% of the chickens responsible for producing the Salmonella contaminated eggs for Hillandale Farms, one of the two farms responsible for the largest egg recall in history were vaccinated to prevent Salmonella?  Did you know that our friends (pun intended) at Monsanto hold a patent for poultry vaccine?  Are you worried yet?

I think officials at the FDA and USDA must be stockholders in a hazmat suit company; it has to be the reason this madness continues.   Salmonella recalls have become a daily event; the USDA openly admits all USDA approved meat is assumed to be contaminated with Salmonella.  The next step seems to be heading towards, instead of bacteria killing hand wipes offered at the grocery entrance, will be consumer hazmat suits.  Instead of consumers casually shopping and preparing their family's food, it looks like the next step will be to dress in our hazmat suits, shop for our food, come home, cook the daylights out of it, remove the hazmat suit and hope for the best.

Is there non-biased science that proves the poultry salmonella preventing vaccine is safe long term?  Safe for humans and animals to consume animals that have been vaccinated?  There is science that says the vaccine is safe, there is also science that says the vaccine is effective.  But...

Associated Press journalist Michael J. Crumb discovered that 80% of the hens from the Hillandale Farm were vaccinated.  "Julie DeYoung, a spokeswoman for Hillandale Farms, said the company began purchasing vaccinated laying hens in September 2009.  The company didn't vaccinate older hends but replaced them with vaccinated ones as they went out of productions, she said.  'So about 80 percent of the hens have been vaccinated,' DeYoung said."

Farmwars.com, a website advocating for safe farming, provided a startling quote from ThePoultrySite.com.  "Professor Poss and her Penn State colleagues Yee Ling Chong, graduate student in biology; Abinash Padhi, post-doctoral fellow and Peter J. Hudson, Willaman professor of biology, found that one vaccine strain recombined – exchanged genetic material – with at least three wild strains, creating new viruses."
http://farmwars.info/?p=3798
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/poultrynews/20003/biologists-warn-of-dangers-of-live-newcastle-vaccines

And we still don't really know what the long term effect of this Salmonella vaccine has on humans or pets consuming chickens.  It is of the most concern to pets.  While humans don't consume chicken or eggs every day of their life, many/most pets do.  The majority of pet foods include chicken meat (of some variety) and eggs.  

Guess where the recalled eggs will go?  Guess where euthanized chicken bodies of Salmonella producing eggs will end up?  Pet Food.

MSNBC.com told readers (8/25/10) "The producers responsible for a recall of some 550 million potentially tainted eggs have found another outlet for the inventory that just keeps coming: They'll turn them into liquid eggs used in everything from cookies and cakes to egg substitutes and pet food."  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38851155/ns/health-food_safety/

Don't worry (pun intended again), the MSNBC.com article also states the FDA says the eggs will be pasteurized.

The huge gripe I have with this egg issue is multifold.   

One...USA Today reported that "Businessman Austin "Jack" DeCoster owns Wright County Egg and Quality Egg. Wright County Egg recalled 380 million eggs Aug. 13 after it was linked to more than 1,000 cases of salmonella poisoning. A week later, Hillandale Farms recalled 170 million eggs.
DeCoster is no stranger to controversy in his food and farm operations:
—In 1994, the state of Iowa assessed at least four separate penalties against DeCoster Farms for environmental violations, many of them involving hog waste.
—In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster's farm in Turner, Maine. The nation's labor secretary at the time, Robert Reich, said conditions were "as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop." Reich's successor, Alexis Herman, called the state of the farms "simply atrocious," citing unguarded machinery, electrical hazards, exposure to harmful bacteria and other unsanitary conditions.
—In 2000, Iowa designated DeCoster a "habitual violator" of environmental regulations for problems that included hog manure runoff into waterways. The label made him subject to increased penalties and prohibited him from building new farms.
—In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a more than $1.5 million settlement of an employment discrimination lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by some supervisory workers at DeCoster's Wright County plants.
—In 2007, 51 workers were arrested during an immigration raid at six DeCoster egg farms. His farms had been the subject of at least three previous raids.
—In June 2010, Maine Contract Farming, the successor company to DeCoster Egg Farms, agreed in state court to pay $25,000 in penalties and to make a one-time payment of $100,000 to the Maine Department of Agriculture over animal cruelty allegations that were spurred by a hidden-camera investigation by an animal welfare organization."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-22-supplier-violations-egg-recall_N.htm

How can a business person be allowed to operate after years of recorded criminal misgivings?

Two - Why in the world does pet food continue to be the dumping ground of anything and everything waste?  Yet sold (and profited from) as Premium and Optimal and Healthy.  

I personally don't care if some pet foods use (continue to use) inferior waste ingredients, but doing so without Petsumer knowledge is a crime.  Quality minded pet food manufacturers that spend countless hours visiting and questioning ingredient suppliers (assuring their foods only contain the best) are not provided with the means to separate themselves from the profit minded pet food manufacturers that could care less to grade or quality of ingredient.  Existing pet food regulations, compliments of AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials) allow the profit minded pet food manufacturers to hide the truth of their quality behind fancy labels and biased regulations.  

AAFCO Regulation PF5 (d) (3) "A reference to quality or grade of the ingredient does not appear in the ingredient statement."

Until someone of integrity steps forward at AAFCO and FDA, get your hazmat suit ready.  It looks like we're going to need it.

Monsanto patent: http://www.google.com/patents?tbs=bks%3A1&tbo=1&q=Monsanto+salmonella+vaccine&btnG=Search+Patents

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Truth about Pet Food
Petsumer Report
www.TruthaboutPetFood.com

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