PESTICIDES POSSIBLE CAUSE OF SPIKE IN ILLNESSES AND BIRTH DEFECTS IN WASHINGTON STATE

Washington state health officials are pointing the finger at pesticides as they try to explain the recent surge in illnesses in the central part of the state.  Approximately 60 people have been struck with some kind of pesticide-related illness since March – ranging from breathing difficulties and skin rashes to nausea. With health officials looking into 15 separate cases of pesticide exposure, the speculation is that the two situations are connected.

 

Meanwhile, many of the same counties affected by pesticide drift have also reported a spike in a rare and deadly birth defect that triples the average rate seen across the rest of the United States. Seven cases of anencephaly, where babies are born with parts of their brain and skull missing, were counted in 2013, raising the total count since 2010 to 30.

COCKROACHES RAINING ON SUSHI DISHES - EVEN FANCY RESTAURANTS HAVE PESTS

The idea of eating food prepared by unknown hands should be enough to keep people from restaurants.  But it isn't.  Maybe the following about really big roaches falling on a diners' plates and laps will:

 

New York Observer:  Spring has sprung — and so have the creepy critters all over Soho.  Two weeks after a mouse infestation forced the shutdown of Dominique Ansel Bakery on Spring Street (it has since bounced back with a triumphantly themed “Rocky” cronut), Blue Ribbon Sushi on Sullivan is having a cockroach crisis, the Observer has learned.  A male diner was having lunch at the maki and sashimi joint on Monday when a roach fell from the ceiling and landed on his table, followed by four others.

STUDY: ROUNDUP WEEDKILLER LINKED TO KIDNEY DISEASE EPIDEMIC

 

A new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health proposes a link between the herbicide known as Roundup (aka glyphosate) and a series of mysterious epidemics of fatal chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu) affecting several poor farming regions around the world.

The extent of the health problem is so massive that the Center for Public Integrity found that CKDu has killed more people in El Salvador and Nicaragua than diabetes, AIDS and leukemia combined, over the past 5 years on record.