Pope Benedict XVI signs Africae Munus, the Apostolic Exhortation about the future of the Church in Africa
It is encouraging to see that the Pope’s visit to Africa has elicited some balanced and appreciative comment in the Guardian from Andrew Brown, who highlights what the Pope has to say about Muslims in his post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Africae Munus.
The full text of the Pope’s words about Islam in Africa are to be found at paragraph 94, and they are worth quoting in full.
The Synod Fathers highlighted the complexity of the Muslim presence on the African continent. In some countries, good relations exist between Christians and Muslims; in others, the local Christians are merely second-class citizens, and Catholics from abroad, religious and lay, have difficulty obtaining visas and residence permits; in some, there is insufficient distinction between the religious and political spheres, while in others, finally, there is a climate of hostility. I call upon the Church, in every situation, to persist in esteem for Muslims, who “worship God who is one, living and subsistent; merciful and almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to humanity.” If all of us who believe in God desire to promote reconciliation, justice and peace, we must work together to banish every form of discrimination, intolerance and religious fundamentalism. In her social apostolate, the Church does not make religious distinctions. She comes to the help of those in need, be they Christian, Muslim or animist. In this way she bears witness to the love of God, creator of all, and she invites the followers of other religions to demonstrate respect and to practise reciprocity in a spirit of esteem. I ask the whole Church, through patient dialogue with Muslims, to seek juridical and practical recognition of religious freedom, so that every citizen in Africa may enjoy not only the right to choose his religion freely and to engage in worship, but also the right to freedom of conscience. Religious freedom is the road to peace.
It is only a short paragraph but it is full of good things. To me, it seems to be making several points, quite a few of them pretty robustly too.
Firstly, the situation is complex, that is, a mixed bag. There is no denying that Christians are persecuted by Muslims in several places and the institutional Church is subjected to legal harassment. Hence the insistence in the penultimate sentence on the reversal of institutional discrimination, through legislation and the courts, and the insistence on freedom of conscience, not just freedom of religious practice. This is of course to be done through “patient dialogue”; the adjective suggests that it will not be easy. But it is encouraging that the Church is not ignoring the situation in countries that treat Christians badly. The Pope knows what is going on, and he clearly wants the Church to respond to the situation in such a way that the situation can be righted. So, he is calling a spade a spade, and I for one am very pleased about this.
The second point to notice is that the Pope adopts an evangelical mindset based on Our Lord’s teaching about turning the other cheek. He clearly wants reciprocity between Muslims and Christians; but even where this does not exist, he urges us all “to persist in esteem for Muslims”. This is clearly going to be challenging for many of us. Our goal is that Christians in Muslim-majority countries may enjoy the same rights as Muslims do in Christian-majority countries. (As far as I am aware, there is no Christian-majority country that places Muslims under any form of legal disadvantage.) But the Pope clearly states that where this is not happening, we must continue to esteem Muslims. In other words we must love our persecutors. But this is no less than what our Lord himself said when he told us to love our enemies. The hope must be that by esteeming Muslims we will win them round to reciprocity. Is this naive – or is it a bold proclamation of the essence of the Christian gospel?
Third, the Pope quotes Nostra Aetate, the document of the Second Vatican Council on non-Christian religions, which is still our ultimate reference point and authority in inter-religious dialogue. But he goes on to say that in promoting “reconciliation, justice and peace” – three good things – we need to banish three bad things – “discrimination, intolerance and religious fundamentalism”. The first two have few friends in the world, but the last represents a bit of a bombshell. The Pope is against religious fundamentalism and wants it banished. This may come as news to some, but it ought not to. The Pope has constantly advocated the path laid out by the Blessed John Paul II in Fides et Ratio (a letter that the Pope himself may well have had a hand in writing as Cardinal Ratzinger, or so it is said). Faith and reason must go together; each one without the other is impoverished: religious fundamentalism is as deformed in its own way as the rationalism that so irrationally denies the supernatural. Indeed the Church has been condemning fundamentalism for a long time now; the first Vatican Council in 1870 condemned it in the document Dei Filius. Thus it is always offensive and simply inaccurate to label the Pope himself as a fundamentalist. He is in fact the apostle of anti-fundamentalism.
Clearly, in a paragraph about Islam, the mention of fundamentalism calls to mind one particular brand of fundamentalism. On this matter the Pope is not giving an inch, and that is good. In standing up against Islamic fundamentalism, he is in fact offering himself as an ally to all those Muslims (who must constitute the vast majority) who do not take the fundamentalist path. They can take heart from this, and so can we. Note too that the Pope talks of “insufficient distinction between the religious and political spheres”. He is also standing up for a proper secularity.
Finally, with his gift for putting things succinctly, the Pope says “Religious freedom is the road to peace”. Quite so. Please God, may people hear this not just in Africa, but all over the world.
Pope’s critique of global economic system resurfaces in Africa
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY – A few minutes after landing in Africa, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a stern warning against the “unconditional surrender to the law of the market or that of finance” in Africa and throughout the global economic system.
His words were immediately seized upon by those wondering where the German pope stood on a recent Vatican document that proposed the creation of a world political authority to regulate financial markets and rein in the “inequalities and distortions of capitalist development.”
In short, it seemed the pope was speaking the same language as the document’s authors.
In his own document unveiled during the Nov. 18-20 trip to Benin, the pope asked all members of the church to “work and speak out in favor of an economy that cares for the poor and is resolutely opposed to an unjust order which, under the pretext of reducing poverty, has often helped to aggravate it.”
He specifically denounced business groups that exploit African resources and leave local populations impoverished.
All of this seemed to echo the tone of the 41-page text on global financial reform released in late October by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Such admonitions, however, are nothing new for Pope Benedict. Those who have paid attention in recent years know that the pope has consistently taken a wary and critical view of the global economic system and the disparities it has generated.
Above all, he has taken aim at the patterns of consumption that seem to be built into the structures of modern capitalism. He has done so repeatedly, in language that leaves no doubt about where he stands.
In 2007, for example, he deplored materialistic ideologies that tell people: “Take everything we can get in this brief moment of life. Consumerism, selfishness and entertainment alone are worthwhile. This is life. This is how we must live. And once again, it seems absurd, impossible, to oppose this dominant mindset with all its media and propagandist power.”
The same year, addressing Catholic economic experts, the pope said economic models based on “irresponsible consumption of natural and environmental resources” were jeopardizing the well-being of present and future generations.
He has warned that “the consumer race and consequent waste” not only threaten supplies of resources but also tend to generate a spiritual vacuum among people in well-off countries. He views consumerism as an ideology, and he said in 2010 that the prevailing models of consumption and production are clearly unsustainable.
Visiting Brazil in 2007, the pope critiqued the false promises of Marxism and capitalism. Marxism, he said, has left a sad heritage of economic and spiritual destruction. He added: “And we can also see the same thing happening in the West, where the distance between rich and poor is growing constantly, and giving rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness.”
Visiting a homeless shelter in 2010, the pope described the global economic system as a world in which “the logic of profit and the search for self-interest seems to prevail.” That was a key point in his 2009 encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), which said financial speculation for “short-term profit” was a cause of global financial insecurity.
Last July, the pope said world hunger was also a consequence of the current economic model: “How can we be silent about the fact that even food has become the object of speculation or is tied to the course of a financial market that, lacking definite rules and poor in moral principles, appears anchored to the sole objective of profit?”
The document by the justice and peace council was more specific than papal pronouncements in proposing concrete measures to correct economic imbalances, and that’s where it drew the most criticism. In particular, its call for a “central world bank” to regulate monetary exchanges was seen by some as violating the church’s teaching about subsidiarity – the principle that a central authority should perform only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more local level.
Writing about economic and social justice in his document on Africa, Pope Benedict reiterated that principle and cited the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: “In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.”
But Pope Benedict also has expressed his view that current modes of regulating the financial system have failed, and that new structures and institutions may be needed.
Addressing the Pontifical Academy of Social Science in 2010, the pope strongly argued that the market is not a self-calibrating mechanism and that oversight may have to take new forms.
“The worldwide financial breakdown has, as we know, demonstrated the fragility of the present economic system and the institutions linked to it. It has also shown the error of the assumption that the market is capable of regulating itself, apart from public intervention and the support of internalized moral standards,” he said.
The current crisis, he added, “obliges us to re-plan our journey, to set ourselves new rules and to discover new forms of commitment.”
Pope Benedict’s language on economics is very much in keeping with Blessed John Paul II, who warned of an “idolatry of the market” and said there was a “social mortgage” on private property, which must serve the common good.
Outspoken: Don Gabriele Amorth, the Chief Exorcist for the Vatican for the past 25 years, spoke of his dislikes at a fringe event of the Umbria Film Festival
Father Gabriel Amorth has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms in his capacity as Chief Exorcist at the Vatican.
The 85-year-old can boast 25 years in the post after being appointed by the late Pope John Paul II.
At a conference today, he surprised the delegates by revealing some of his greatest dislikes - yoga and Harry Potter.
Father Amorth, a colourful and often outspoken personality, said:'Practising yoga brings evil as does reading Harry Potter. They may both seem innocuous but they both deal with magic and that leads to evil.'
He added:'Yoga is the Devil's work. You thing you are doing it for stretching your mind and body but it leads to Hinduism. All these oriental religions are based on the false belief of reincarnation.'
Father Amorth, speaking on the subject of People And Religion at a fringe event at the Umbria Film Festival in Terni, spoke of his distaste for JK Rowling's young wizard.
He said:'People think it is an innocuous book for children but it's about magic and that leads to evil. In Harry Potter the Devil is at work in a cunning and crafty way, he is using his extraordinary powers of magic and evil.
Twin terrors: Yoga turns devotees towards Hinduism, believes Father Amorth - while
'Satan is always hidden and the thing he desires more than anything is for people to believe he does not exist. He studies each and everyone of us and our tendencies towards good and evil and then he tempts us.
'My advice to young people would be to watch out for nightclubs because the path is always the same: alcohol, sex, drugs and Satanic sects.'
It is not the first time that Father Amorth has raised eyebrows with his forthright views - last year he said that the ongoing child sex scandals rocking the Catholic Church were evidence that 'the Devil was at work in the Vatican.'
While in 2006, Father Amorth, who was ordained a priest in 1954, gave an interview to Vatican Radio in which he said that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Russian dictator Josef Stalin were both possessed by the Devil.
'Satan studies each and everyone of us and our tendencies towards good and evil and then he tempts us'
According to secret Vatican documents recently released the then wartime Pope Pius XII attempted a 'long distance exorcism' of Hitler but it failed to have any effect.
It is also not the first time that Father Amorth, who is president of the International Association of Exorcists, has spoken out against Harry Potter saying in the past that it opens children's minds to dabbling with the occult and black magic.
Horrific: Satan at work in the 1973 film starring Linda Blair which is perhaps unsurprisingly Father Amorth's favourite film
Today Vanda Vanni, of the Italian Yoga Association, said:'A Satanic practice? Pardon the pun but that is an accusation that is neither in Heaven or on earth. Father Amorth's accusation is completely without foundation.
'It is an outrageous thing to say - yoga is not a religion but a spiritual discipline. It is about freedom and a search to find one's inner self. It does not touch religion and has nothing to do with Satanic sects nor does it encourage people to join them.
Giorgio Furlan, who runs the Yoga Academy in Rome, said`:'There are some paths of yoga which do lead towards Hinduism but other paths are more philosophical but their is no direct link with religion and certainly no link with Satanism.
'To say such things shows you have no idea of what you are talking about - yoga controls violent impulses of the nervous system and subconscious - to be honest with me it had the effect of bringing me closer to Christianity and in particular the Catholic Church which I had abandoned as a youngster.
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI insisted on Saturday that all of society's institutions and not just the Catholic church must be held to "exacting" standards in their response to sex abuse of children, and defended the church's efforts to confront the problem.
Benedict acknowledged in remarks to visiting U.S. bishops during an audience at the Vatican that pedophilia was a "scourge" for society, and that decades of scandals over clergy abusing children had left Catholics in the United States bewildered.
"It is my hope that the Church's conscientious efforts to confront this reality will help the broader community to recognize the causes, true extent and devastating consequences of sexual abuse, and to respond effectively to this scourge which affects every level of society," he said.
"By the same token, just as the church is rightly held to exacting standards in this regard, all other institutions, without exception, should be held to the same standards," the pope said.
He didn't address accusations by many victims and their advocates that church leaders, including at the office in the Vatican that Benedict headed before becoming pontiff, systematically tried to cover up the scandals. Investigations, often by civil authorities, revealed that church hierarchy frequently transferred pedophile priests from one parish to another.
The pedophile scandal has exploded in recent decades in the United States, but similar clergy sex abuse revelations have tainted the church in many other countries, including Mexico, Ireland, and several other European nations, including Italy.
Benedict told the bishops that his papal pilgrimage to the United States in 2008 "was intended to encourage the Catholics of America in the wake of the scandal and disorientation caused by the sexual abuse crisis of recent decades."
Echoing sentiment he has expressed in occasional meetings with victims of the abuse on trips abroad, Benedict added: "I wish to acknowledge personally the suffering inflicted on the victims and the honest efforts made to ensure both the safety of our children and to deal appropriately and transparently with allegations as they arise."
Benedict seemed to be reflecting some churchmen's contentions that the church has wrongly been singled out as villains for the abuse.
The bishops were making periodic consultations with the Vatican, scheduled for every five years.
Parents concerned children may be gifted this for Christmas
By Drew Zahn
After fielding complaints from parents about its "mature" content, the Wal-Mart-owned retailer Sam's Club has pulled a reported 10,000 copies of a "Bible" off its shelves that uses plastic LEGO blocks to depict Old Testament scenes.
Brendan Smith, creator of the LEGO scenes and author of "The Brick Bible," reported earlier this week the Sam's Club decision.
"I have just been informed that Sam's Club is pulling 'The Brick Bible' from the shelves of all of their retail locations nationwide due to the complaints of a handful of people that it is vulgar and violent," Smith reported on his Facebook page. "This despite the book containing only straightforward illustrations of Bible stories using direct quotes from Scripture."
Sam's Club explained: "After selling this specific version online and in several club locations, we received numerous concerns from members and parents about the mature content for a perceived children's book. Sam's Club made a business decision to discontinue sales of 'The Brick Bible.'"
A woman identifying herself as Tabitha Grace – who engaged in a Facebook conversation with both Smith and Sam's Club – explained on the social media site why she was among those to complain:
"When my husband and I first saw 'The Brick Bible' at Sam's Club, we thought, What a fantastic idea for our nephews to have for Christmas," she wrote. "I flipped through the book, and when I got home went straight to the website in hopes to see if there were more stories. This is where it all went downhill for me. While the website does have a content warning on it, I feel the paraphrase of the Bible stories are not age appropriate and should be identified both on the website and the book itself."
Indeed, while Smith says "The Brick Bible" has been edited and abridged to remove objectionable content, the full body of LEGO Bible work on his website is marked with warning labels for nudity, sexual content, violence and cursing.
As WND columnist Marisa Martin explains, "The Good Book has never been particularly prudish about sex, covering rape, marital relations, incest, prostitution and endless begetting. However, Smith may be the only one who has illustrated them with LEGOs."
Martin also points out, however, that "the majority of Smith's illustrations are straight, true to the text, biblical depictions that should give no offense to anyone. They are extraordinarily inventive and fun to look at."
She explains that though Smith is a self-described atheist, he also insists he is not mocking the Bible and Judeo-Christianity, but questioning and exploring. His explanation for his choice of subjects and story commentaries was to create something "new, compelling and fun, and yet remained true to how the Bible itself told them."
The result is often a depiction of biblical events stripped of the usual Sunday school imagery, depicting instead a picture that may be closer to reality. For instance, Smith's version of Noah's flood has heads, body parts and LEGO debris laying parallel to a flat blue base, which Martin describes as "oddly believable as a deluge. Who would have thought?"
"Flood Genesis 7" – by Brandon Powell Smith
"My website and 'The Brick Bible' book have won tens of thousands of fans from every walk of life who appreciate that I illustrate the Bible in a very straightforward way," Smith wrote in response to Grace's objection. "On a daily basis I receive e-mails from ministers, Sunday School teachers and other religious educators offering praise for my work and asking permission to use my illustrations for classes, sermons and activities."
He continued, "I know that 'The Brick Bible' book will not be right for everyone, but it saddens me to think that a ban at Sam's Club will prevent thousands of people from coming across 'The Brick Bible' and being allowed to make up their own minds about it."
As CNET reports, Smith claimed his publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, had told him that Sam's Club had originally ordered 12,000 copies of "The Brick Bible" and that in just its first two weeks on the shelves, the book had sold 2,000 copies. He also reportedly claimed that "it was reps from Walmart/Sam's Club who had seen an advance version of the book and said they were very interested to place a large order of the book for their stores, but only if we were willing to remove or replace a dozen of the Old Testament illustrations – out of 1,400 total – that showed LEGO people in sexual poses. So there are no illustrations of the Bible's sex content in the book."
CNET also reports, however, that a Sam's Club spokesperson said that the company had never been involved in any pre-publication discussions about the content of the book.
"The truth of the matter is the Bible does have accounts that are violent and intense, but those teaching the stories usually teach them on an age appropriate level," Grace wrote. "When I decided to contact Sam's Club, my concerns were first, the book was being presented as a Bible, which it is not. [Second], the book was being geared for children, [though] it is not age appropriate for all children, and [third], that there was no content warning regarding the website. As a technology driven generation, children will be immediately drawn to visit the website, which does have vulgar content.
"I commend Sam's Club for looking further into this and their decision to pull the book off the shelves," she continued. "I feel like the inaccurate portrayal of a Bible is something worth taking a stand for. I do not find the Word of God offensive, I find the inaccuracy of 'The Brick Bible' as a 'Bible' offensive. It is a paraphrase of Bible accounts and should be titled as such and marked for appropriate age groups."
Science Fiction: Ancestors to modern honeybees most likely performed excitatory movements to encourage other nestmates to forage. These excitatory movements include shaking, zig-zagging, buzzing and crashing into nestmates. Similar behavior is observed in other Hymenoptera including stingless bees, wasps, bumblebees and ants.[11] The waggle dance is thought to have evolved to aid in communicating information about a new nest site, rather than spatial information about foraging sites.[11]
Interestingly, Menzel found that most of the cells he studied had secondary sensitivities that corresponded to wavelength regions at which the other two receptor types were maximally active.[6] He used spectral efficiency experiments to show that such corresponding wavelength receptivity is the result of electric coupling.[6]
John 1:10 "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not."
Scientists have, for the first time, successfully communicated with honeybees in their own language! Scientists have for some time known how to interpret many of the elements of the bees' so-called "waggle dance." This dance is used by scouts to communicate the location of food sources to the food gatherers in the hive.
A couple decades ago, researchers decided to see if they could confirm their understanding of bee communication. But how do you talk to a bee and get confirmation that she understood what you said? Scientists decided that the only way to do this was to build a robot bee through which they could communicate. The first attempts at building a robot bee acceptable to real bees did not work well. Early models were viciously attacked.
Scientists finally perfected a computer-controlled robot bee that real honeybees accepted. These scientists describe honeybee language as elegant and precise. Yet they found they had learned enough bee language to communicate successfully a food source and its location to real bees. They also discovered that they have much more to learn about bee language. As a result, it may someday be possible for farmers to direct bees to crops that need pollination.
Just as bees can best understand other bees, we humans can best understand other humans. That explains why, when God our Creator wished to communicate with us, He became a human being. That human, Jesus Christ, taught us about God; and He also made peace with God for us, making possible the forgiveness of our sins.
Prayer: I thank You, Lord, that You became a human being so that I might have my sins forgiven. I also thank You that in becoming human, You helped us understand our Creator's loving intentions toward us. Help me to communicate this to others. Amen.
Notes: Weiss, Rick. 1989. "New dancer in the hive." Science News, v. 136, Oct. p. 282.
WASHINGTON — Large and small companies have told Republican-led congressional committees what the party wants to hear: dire predictions of plant closings and layoffs if the Obama administration succeeds with plans to further curb air and water pollution.
But their message to financial regulators and investors conveys less gloom and certainty.
The administration itself has clouded the picture by withdrawing or postponing some of the environmental initiatives that industry labeled as being among the most onerous.
Still, Republicans plan to make what they say is regulatory overreach a 2012 campaign issue, taking aim at President Barack Obama, congressional Democrats and an aggressive Environmental Protection Agency.
"Republicans will be talking to voters this campaign season about how to keep Washington out of the way, so that job creators can feel confident again to create jobs for Americans," said Joanna Burgos, a spokeswoman for the House Republican campaign organization.
The Associated Press compared the companies' congressional testimony to company reports submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The reports to the SEC consistently said the impact of environmental proposals is unknown or would not cause serious financial harm to a firm's finances.
Companies can legitimately argue that their less gloomy SEC filings are correct, since most of the tougher anti-pollution proposals have not been finalized. And their officials' testimony before congressional committees was sometimes on behalf of – and written by – trade associations, a perspective that can differ from an individual company's view.
But the disparity in the messages shows that in a political environment, business has no misgivings about describing potential economic horror stories to lawmakers.
"As an industry, we have said this before, we face a potential regulatory train wreck," Anthony Earley Jr., then the executive chairman of DTE Energy in Michigan, told a House committee on April 15. "Without the right policy, we could be headed for disaster."
The severe economic consequences, he said, would be devastating to the electric utility's customers, especially Detroit residents who "simply cannot afford" higher rates.
Earley, who is now chairman and CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., said if the EPA had its way, coal-fired plants would be replaced with natural gas – leading to a spike in gas prices. He said he was testifying for the electric industry, not just his company.
But in its quarterly report to the SEC, Detroit-based DTE, which serves 3 million utility customers in Michigan, said that it was "reviewing potential impacts of the proposed and recently finalized rules, but is not able to quantify the financial impact ... at this time."
Skiles Boyd, a DTE vice president for environmental issues, said in an interview that the testimony was meant to convey the potential economic hardship on ratepayers – while the SEC report focused on the company's financial condition.
"It's two different subjects," he said.
Another congressional witness, Jim Pearce of chemical company FMC Corp., told a House hearing last Feb. 9: "The current U.S. approach to regulating greenhouse gases ... will lead U.S. natural soda ash producers to lose significant business to our offshore rivals...." Soda ash is used to produce glass, and is a major component of the company's business..
But in its annual report covering 2010 and submitted to the SEC 13 days after the testimony, the company said it was "premature to make any estimate of the costs of complying with un-enacted federal climate change legislation, or as yet un-implemented federal regulations in the United States." The Philadelphia-based company did not respond to a request for comment..
California Rep. Henry Waxman, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the SEC filings "show that the anti-regulation rhetoric in Washington is political hot air with little or no connection to reality."
House Republicans have conducted dozens of hearings, and passed more than a dozen bills to stop proposed environmental rules. So far, all the GOP bills have gone nowhere in the Democratic-run Senate.
"I will see to it, to the best of my ability, to try to stop everything," California Sen . Barbara Boxer, the Democratic chairman of the Senate's environment committee, vowed in reference to GOP legislation aimed at reining in the EPA. She predicted Republicans "will lose seats over this."
The Obama administration has reconsidered some of the environmental proposals in response to the drumbeat from business groups. In September, the president scrubbed a clean-air regulation that aimed to reduce health-threatening smog. Last May, EPA delayed indefinitely regulations to reduce toxic pollution from boilers and incinerators.
James Rubright, CEO of Rock-Tenn Co., a Norcross, Ga.-based producer of corrugated-and-consumer packaging, told a House panel in September that a variety of EPA, job safety and chemical security regulations would require "significant capital investment" – money that "otherwise go to growth in manufacturing capacity and the attendant production of jobs."
Rubright conveyed a consulting firm's conclusion that EPA's original boiler proposal before the Obama administration withdrew it in May would have cost the forest products industry about $7 billion, and the packaging industry $6.8 billion.
Another industry study, he said, warned that original boiler rule would have placed 36 mills at risk and would have jeopardized more than 20,000 jobs in the pulp and paper industries – about 18 percent of the work force.
But a month before his testimony_ and three months after EPA withdrew its boiler proposal – Rock-Tenn told the SEC that "future compliance with these environmental laws and regulations will not have a material adverse effect on our results or operations, financial condition or cash flows." The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Drugged-Up Turkey: Antibiotic Use On Farms Linked To Rising Rates Of Drug-Resistant Infections
As families across America adorn their dinner tables with plump, juicy turkeys this Thursday, they've likely given little thought to what their future food previously consumed.
By the end of this year, an estimated 248 million turkeys will have been raised in the U.S., approximately 83 percent on farms that produce more than 60,000 turkeys each and most eating a diet that includes low doses of antibiotics. This common agricultural practice results not only in more meaty birds, according to experts, but also in greater risks to public health.
"Antibiotic use in animals comes back to haunt people," said Stuart Levy, a Tufts University microbiology professor who focuses on antibiotic resistance. He recently co-authored a review of the evidence showing how animal antibiotics affect human health -- via direct contact and indirectly via food, water, air and anywhere manure goes.
Levy and other experts warn that the widespread use of antibiotics to treat sick livestock, prevent the spread of disease in cramped conditions or simply promote animal growth has fueled the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is making many infections in humans harder to treat. As The Huffington Post reported in August, some human infections now resist multiple antibiotics.
Livestock receive an estimated 80 percent of the nation's antibiotics. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, about 90 percent of those antibiotics are consumed by the animals in their feed or water -- usually at very low doses. What doesn't kill bacteria, however, often makes them stronger and more likely to defeat medicine's current range of weaponry.
"Turkey is one of the most frequently contaminated meats," said Ellen Silbergeld, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. She highlighted a study from earlier this year that found 77 percent of turkey samples collected from U.S. supermarkets tested positive for the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. Of those, approximately 96 percent were resistant to at least one antimicrobial agent. A few of other recent studies hint at the growing problem of multidrug-resistant infections, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), in meats sold to consumers, including turkey.
Still, members of the agricultural industry dispute the role that drugs for livestock play in developing antibiotic resistance.
"It is not surprising to find Staphylococcus bacteria anywhere you want to look," said Richard Carnevale, vice president for regulatory, scientific and international affairs at the Animal Health Institute, which represents pharmaceutical companies. "It is a ubiquitous organism."
"A turkey farmer's number one priority is to ensure the health and well-being of their flocks," noted Sherrie Rosenblatt, a spokesperson for the National Turkey Federation. While she suggested that the industry supports any efforts to improve safety for consumers, she added that "there is no conclusive evidence that antibiotic use in animals is affecting human health."
Turkey growers use only approved antibiotics, said Rosenblatt. And Carnevale noted that about 40 percent of these compounds are not used in human medicine.
Complicating that math, however, is the recently recognized ability of bacteria to share. Bacteria in meat can pass on their resistance to other bacteria in a person's gut, for example, creating bacteria that are resistant to drugs that may never have been used on the farm.
Ground turkey is a common culprit, as evidenced by food producer Cargill's pair of recalls earlier this year. Salmonella and other bacteria that tend to make people sick -- but not necessarily turkeys -- live inside the bird's intestinal tract. "When they are ground up, essentially everything becomes the outside of the bird," said Gail Hansen, senior officer with the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming.
But this doesn't mean consumers should throw up their hands and stop taking steps to protect themselves as they roast whole turkeys. Silbergeld stressed the importance of thoroughly cooking the meat and preferably preparing the stuffing separately. And look for a turkey with an organic or antibiotic-free label, said Hansen.
The latter action could affect more than the consumer's own dinner table, Hansen suggested. "The market isn't going to change unless they know they are going to sell" the antibiotic-free variety.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office recently reported that there has been "limited progress in improving data collection on antibiotic use and resistance" and that "without an approach to collecting more detailed data, [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] and [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] cannot track the effectiveness of policies they undertake to curb resistance."
"It's a shame that after all these years the U.S. is still caught flat-footed," said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the only microbiologist in Congress, in a recent statement. "We've known that this is a problem for quite some time. And we're totally unprepared to deal with the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, as was confirmed by the GAO, by not even collecting the necessary data. The American public should be outraged."
Slaughter is the author of the proposed Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act , legislation that seeks to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics for the treatment of human disease. Originally introduced in 2007 and since re-introduced, the act currently has 70 co-sponsors and hundreds of endorsing organizations -- from the American Medical Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Humane Society.
"There is no indication that the committee even plans on holding a hearing," Shurid Sen, a spokesperson for Slaughter, told HuffPost. "But we are hopeful that they will begin to take the issue seriously."
Meanwhile, the European Union continues to move forward with phasing out nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock. What's more, noted Silbergeld, the Europeans have been able to do it without any major impacts on productivity or the cost of food in the domestic market.
"This does seem to be a case where we can have our turkey and eat it too," Silbergeld said.
