Posts by Heather Gehlert

Heather Gehlert is a managing editor at AlterNet.

Mystery Meat Macrophotography: An Up-Close Look Processed Meat
Posted by Heather Gehlert, AlterNet on April 17, 2008 at 2:00 PM.

"Mystery meat" gets its name for good reason. To get a sickeningly close look at the makeup of processed meats, check out this photo tour by Mike Adams. All products were purchased from Wal-Mart, and all images are untouched (except to correct brightness and contrast). A list of ingredients accompanies each "food" item. Yum!

Romney: I'm pro-choice; no wait, I'm pro-life
Posted by Heather Gehlert on May 4, 2007 at 3:56 PM.

There is something hilarious to me about seeing 10 aging white men in suits stumble over their own words as they try but fail to eek out even one intelligent thought about abortion. No, make that hilarious and sad.

Last night as I watched the "values" portion of the Republican presidential debate in California, I laughed and cringed in equal amounts -- struggling to take the candidates' comments seriously.

Asked if the day that Roe v. Wade is repealed would be a good day for America, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said, "It would be a glorious day of human liberty and freedom." Perhaps Sen. Brownback is not aware that women are -- wait for it -- people too.

Not to be outdone, Rep. Rom Tancredo (R-Col.) said it would "the greatest day in this country's history."

I'm sure Tancredo must have forgotten about other important events like, say, ending slavery.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

A call to put presidential debates on YouTube
Posted by Heather Gehlert on April 26, 2007 at 2:15 PM.

Eleven years ago, presidential candidates began relaying campaign messages on the Web. Four years later, in 2000, they started accepting campaign contributions online. And now, thanks to a recent bipartisan alliance, video footage of campaign speeches could become widely available on the Internet.

Large numbers of organizations and grassroots activists released letters this week to the Republican and Democratic National Committees, asking them to urge debate sponsors to make all debate video footage available for any member of the public to access, share, reuse and blog about freely.

C-SPAN has already announced that it will allow expanded use of its video, and now progressives and conservatives alike are hoping others will follow their lead.

"This is about the Internet empowering the little guy in our democracy," Adam Green, of MoveOn.org Civic Action, said in a statement. "The big TV networks should not be the only ones determining which sound bites are newsworthy after a debate -- everyday people should be able to put candidates positions on YouTube and share them with others without fear of breaking the law."

Right now, television networks retain exclusive rights to debate footage. In years past, this didn't matter because, even if people wanted to share video content, they did not have a forum to do so. But now, with highly trafficked Internet sites like YouTube, it simply doesn't make sense to keep that footage out of the public domain.

For anyone who wants to see the Web become more democratic, you can show your support for the proposal by calling the DNC (202-863-8000) or the RNC (202-863-8500).

MySpace to enter news business
Posted by Heather Gehlert on April 20, 2007 at 11:14 AM.

Without further commentary, here's the AP story from Internet Writer Anick Jesdanun:

The popular online hangout MySpace is entering the news business with a feature that lets its users determine what items other members see.

MySpace News brings to a much larger audience the user-recommendation capabilities already available through Digg and Time Warner Inc.'s Netscape. It also marks the site's further inroads into becoming an Internet portal akin to Yahoo Inc. and others.

Unlike Digg and Netscape, which rely heavily on user submissions, MySpace will also scan thousands of Web journals and news sites and group results by categories such as sports and politics. MySpace will go further than Google Inc.'s news offering by letting users vote on items, helping to determine what makes the front or section pages.

As part of the service, MySpace will pull and display headlines from the outside news sites, a practice that contributed to legal challenges against Google. The search engine leader recently reached a settlement with Agence France-Presse and earlier with The Associated Press, although no lawsuit had been filed by the AP.

MySpace, like Google, would let publishers exclude their items from the site, said Dan Strauss, whose group helped develop the news service. He also said MySpace would be helping to drive traffic to the news sites, bringing MySpace readers who might not otherwise be visiting.

The feature, which was expected to debut Thursday as a "beta" test, uses technology developed by Newroo, which MySpace parent News Corp. bought last year. Strauss said items from News Corp., which owns the Fox network and other media outlets, won't get special treatment.

Eating too much red meat could increase breast cancer risk
Posted by Heather Gehlert on March 28, 2007 at 1:05 PM.

If animal cruelty, environmental degradation and a growing Type II diabetes epidemic aren't enough reasons to be cautious about eating red meat, here's another: A study published in the November 2006 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine has found a correlation between red meat consumption and hormone-fueled breast cancer.

The results, part of the Nurses Health Study II conducted by Harvard University researchers, were based on an analysis of 90,000 premenopausal women between ages 26 and 46. Researchers followed the women for 12 years, tracking their red meat intake, and found that as red meat consumption increased, so did the risk of breast cancers fueled by the hormones estrogen and progesterone.

According to an article published in Kansas City infoZine, "After adjusting for established risk factors, including weight, alcohol, and consumption of fruit, vegetables and dairy foods, the researchers found that women who reported eating more than one and a half servings of red meat per day had almost twice the risk of developing hormone receptorpositive cancer compared with women who reported eating three servings or less of red meat per week."

The study researchers note that the use of hormones in cattle production could be at least partly responsible for the link between meat-eating and hormone-driven breast cancers. About two-thirds of cattle raised in the U.S. today are injected with growth hormones.

The correlation between red meat and breast cancer might also to do with the way the meat is cooked.

"Studies suggest one reason for the increased cancer risk relates to the heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that form when red meat is cooked at high temperatures (like frying and grilling), especially well-done," writes Karen Collins in the infoZine article. "In laboratory studies, HCAs bond to estrogen receptors and create estrogen-like effects. In earlier research with women past menopause, those who consistently ate hamburger, beef steak and bacon very well done -- thus getting high levels of HCAs -- had more than four times the breast cancer risk of women who consumed these meats rare or medium done. ...

"Although red and white meat both form HCAs when cooked at high temperatures, red meat is higher in a particular kind of easily absorbed iron, called heme iron. Laboratory studies suggest that heme iron may increase colon cancer risk by damaging the colon lining and increasing the growth of precancerous cells. Several population studies link higher heme consumption with greater colon cancer risk. Scientists say that heme iron may interact with estrogen in enhancing initial development of breast tumors."

The meat's fat content could be another culprit: "Several studies link higher fat intake with higher levels of estrogen and a substance the body can convert to estrogen," Collins writes. "Higher saturated fat consumption seems to raise levels of insulin, a hormone that may promote development of breast cancer regardless of estrogen sensitivity.

More research needs to be done to determine which risk factors -- meat type, cooking method, fat content, bovine growth hormones -- relate most closely to breast cancer. Although this study leaves some questions unanswered, for now, it's probably a smart idea for women to limit how much red meat is in their diet. A little prevention can go a long way.

E. Coli, Salmonella and Rat Poop -- Oh, My!
Posted by Heather Gehlert on March 16, 2007 at 4:31 PM.

Congress requires twice-yearly health inspections of school cafeterias to help prevent outbreaks of food poisoning, but recent data from the Dept. of Agriculture shows that this isn't always happening.

The data, obtained by the Associated Press, revealed that one in 10 schools didn't get inspected at all last year, and 30 percent only received one inspection.

Although that doesn't necessarily mean there will be more cases of food poisoning, the inspections are an important preventative public health measure. Inspectors are supposed to enforce temperature regulations, ensuring that hot foods are kept hot enough and cold foods are kept cold enough. They are also supposed to monitor employee hand-washing and keep the yuck factor under control, making sure things like rat pellets aren't finding their way into the food.

Here's the data from the Dept. of Agriculture, as reported by the AP:

94,132 schools reporting in the 2005-2006 school year:

• Ten percent, or 9,498 schools, were not inspected at all.
• Twenty-nine percent, or 27,184 schools, were inspected once.
• Sixty-one percent, or 57,450 schools, were inspected at least twice.

No data was reported by 7,309 schools.

The missed visits mirror a drop-off in food safety inspections by the Food and Drug Administration. A recent AP analysis found FDA inspections fell by nearly half between 2003 and 2006.

When inspections don't happen in cafeterias, it's not the school's fault. Cafeteria workers don't inspect themselves. It's up to state and local health authorities to schedule inspections, and many health departments are severely understaffed, particularly those in small towns and rural areas.

Congress changed the required number of inspections from one to two during the 2005-2006 school year, and the regulation applies to all schools that participate in the federal school lunch program, which provides free and reduced-price meals to low-income children. That's essentially all public schools, and about half of the nation's 60 million students eat lunches prepared at school.

What does your doctor sell out for?
Posted by Heather Gehlert on March 1, 2007 at 1:17 PM.

How much influence could a free pen have over what medication your doctor prescribes for you? What about a cup of coffee? A couple of baseball tickets? A couple of baseball tickets from a 20-something woman wearing a short skirt and Rembrandt smile?

Think about it because the drug industry is. And they're convinced these gifts work otherwise they probably wouldn't have approximately four drug sales representatives for every doctor. Or spend twice as much on marketing as they do on research and development. Or have two drug lobbyists for every legislator in Washington.

None of this would be a problem if the drugs worked well, were safe and didn't cost much. But a new documentary from Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau called Money Talks: Profits Before Patient Safety shows that's far from the case.

After all, there's no need to heavily market a cheap drug with known benefits (e.g. Aspirin), and, I'm guessing a cure for cancer would sell itself.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Healthy Crisco?
Posted by Heather Gehlert on February 16, 2007 at 4:32 PM.

Smuckers, the manufacturer of Crisco, announced last month that it will be eliminating nearly all trans fat from its shortening.

According to an article in Consumer Reports, each 1-tablespoon serving of Crisco shortening "will contain less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, instead of its original 1.5 grams."

This is big news considering Crisco pioneered the development of industrially created trans fat. Although some trans fat occurs naturally (in cow milk, for example), most of today's trans fats are the byproduct of partially hydrogenating plant oils -- a process that, according to Wikipedia, was developed in the early 20th century and became commercialized in 1911 with the introduction of Crisco.

Before they became linked to coronary heart disease, partially hydrogenated oils were wildly popular because they are handy for baking and can help increase a product's shelf life.

The Consumer Reports article states that the new Crisco is still just as effective for baking and tastes pretty much the same:

To see just how well the new shortening stacked up against the older one, Consumer Reports' testers baked two blueberry pies, using both formulations. Crumb for crumb, they found the two desserts to be practically interchangeable: Both formulations produced crusts that were flaky, had a mild flavor, and were relatively easy to work with.

But, trans fat or not, the reformulated Crisco is not exactly healthy. Each serving still contains 3 grams of saturated fat.

And Crisco's new labels may be misleading to consumers. Although the reformulated Crisco still has small amounts of artery-clogging trans fat, the company can now claim zero grams of trans fat on its product labels because the FDA only requires manufacturers to disclose trans fat if the amount exceeds 0.5 grams per serving.

A new option makes DSL and cable look like chopped liver
Posted by Heather Gehlert on February 4, 2007 at 2:53 PM.

A new option in Internet service -- fiber-optic broadband -- is making cable look about as antiquated as dial-up. Called FiOS, the service is much faster and, perhaps more important, offers consumers more choice in a not-so-competitive marketplace.

According to an article in the February 2007 issue of Consumer Reports Magazine, fiber-optic broadband outperforms cable, DSL, satellite broadband and dial-up in speed, reliability and tech support. But the most notable difference is in speed.

For example, a 5-megabyte MP3 file takes about 33 seconds to download using low-cost DSL. That same file takes 10 seconds to download with cable and only 1 second with fiber. A 50-megabyte file containing digital photos takes 5.5 minutes with DSL, 1.7 minutes with cable and 10 seconds with fiber.

The larger the file, the bigger the difference. A 5-gigabyte high-definition movie takes 9 hours to download with low-cost DSL, 2.8 hours with cable and only 17 minutes with fiber.

Most users probably don't need that kind of speed right now, but it's something to consider if you often download large video or sound files. And fast Internet will likely only increase in demand as the Web houses more downloadable files.

The fiber service is offered only by Verizon and is pricier than its competitors. However, the very threat of competition to cable and phone companies could help drive down costs. Already, cable has lowered the price of its broadband in markets where Verizon has moved in.

It's probably too soon to tell exactly what kind of effect fiber will have. Right now, it's only available in approximately 6 million homes in the United States.

More choice in broadband will probably take years before becoming available to the masses. Besides fiber, Consumer Reports says future possibilities include "Internet service over power lines and independent wireless systems that can beam the signal across cities."

To find out what services and providers are in your area, check out www.dslreports.com/prequal.

What happens to your emails when you die?
Posted by Heather Gehlert on January 26, 2007 at 1:38 PM.

According to articles in Forbes and Foreign Policy magazine, estate planners are advising their clients to include emails and online passwords in their wills. Without these provisions, online service providers will not grant family or friends access to digital property, some of which could be valuable.

The Foreign Policy article states that, more and more, these cases are landing in court:

In 2005, a Michigan judge ordered Yahoo! to release the emails of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq to his family after they filed suit. Chris Sprigman, a University of Virginia law professor, says that's just the beginning. "There will be a flood of these cases cropping up," he says.

These cases can be sticky because unlike traditional assets, digital property does not have laws to point to, only agreements.

Forbes lists these basic differences between traditional and digital assets:

• Digital assets can be created and defined by contract.
• Some digital assets are subject to intellectual property law.
• Many digital assets can be endlessly duplicated.
• Digital assets may be stored in a tangible asset such as a computer and therefore may affect the value of the machine.
• In general, digital assets are licensed, not sold, and rights usually aren't transferable.

New laws are emerging to govern digital property, but they lag behind the breakneck speed of technology.

In the meantime, here are some tips from Forbes to help you protect your digital assets:

Separate personal and business e-mail accounts, even if this means opening up several Yahoo! Mail, Microsoft Hotmail or Google Gmail accounts. Make the addresses and passwords known to your executor or anyone who will need the information after your death. If a file contains sensitive information you wish to keep confidential, make arrangements to have your executor delete it after your death.

Make plans in advance for joint access to vital e-mail accounts and information stored online or protected by a password in a computer. Leave a list of the locations of such information with your executor. This can be as simple as writing things down, sealing it in an envelope and marking it "To Be Opened Upon My Death."

Save all contracts covering the handling of your digital assets. This will help your lawyer sort things out if things get sticky.

In financial matters, balance personal security with the needs of your heirs. Protect your encrypted information, but make sure a trusted person can locate it and handle it as you wished after your death.

Make provisions to renew key URLs after your death because you don't want to lose www.familybiz.com simply because a family member didn't know it was time to re-up. It's unclear that a URL is property that a secured creditor can seize, but in the meantime be sure all fees are paid after your death.

American Education: "No Child Left Behind?"
Posted by Heather Gehlert on December 15, 2006 at 3:56 PM.

Imagine you're a teacher. It's 2 p.m. on a Friday, and in spite of the weekend calling, your teenage students are behaving like adults -- stifling their restlessness and giving you their full attention.

This is your last English class of the day, and you want to discuss an excerpt from The Great Gatsby.

"OK everyone, open your books and turn to page 19."

You call on Jarod, your front-row overachiever, and ask him to begin reading.

"I can't," he says, looking bewildered.

"What?"

"I can't," Jarod says again. "I don't have a page 19."

"Why don't you have a page 19?" you ask.

"My book starts on page 24."

Jarod holds up his copy and, sure enough, the first two dozen pages are missing.

Concerned about the material you have yet to cover, you tell him to listen as Leslie, the girl to his left, reads aloud.

"But my book is falling apart," Leslie says. She holds the book up and a chunk from the middle falls out.

"Mine too," says Nadia. "Mind too," says Amy.

The books are so old they're rotting. As it is, you only have 20 books for the 35 students in your class, and making copies is out of the question because you used up your 3,000-page-per-year copying budget in October. The first 600 copies went toward your four-page syllabus, and last month you shelled out $200 of your own dollars for copies, but you can't keep that up on a teacher's salary.

You shake your head and try to hide your frustration from your students. They have so many other problems, which you know from reading their weekly journal assignments. Javion is working two after-school jobs to help his single mom, Elise is hoping her older brother will get out of prison this year, and Claudia watches her father beat her mother almost every night, wondering when she will be next.

At least this bunch is better behaved than the last. This class doesn't have rival gang members in it. This class doesn't make you fear for your own safety.

Welcome to urban high schools.

I admit it, I'm not a teacher, but I have many friends and family members who are educators, and I live in Oakland -- home to arguably one of the most problem-ridden urban school districts in the nation. It's a school district that was taken over by the state of California in 2003 after it went bankrupt, a district where just two months ago an elementary school child found a dead body in the schoolyard, a district where many Bay Area upper class residents probably would not dare send their children.

Even though I’m not an educator, someone has to bring attention to this because it doesn't seem to be on many legislators' radars even though the No Child Left Behind Act is up for reauthorization next year. This legislation had bipartisan support when President Bush signed it into law in 2002, but five years later, it's becoming more and more clear that NCLB hasn't delivered what it promised. NCLB is an example of what happens when legislators make education policy decisions based on recommendations from advisers who must be out of touch with real classroom experiences: We get great goals but lack the resources to make them happen.

NCLB oversimplifies education, ignoring the socio-economic realities that influence education quality. And, it imposes benchmarks that are supposed to hold schools and teachers accountable for student performance without offering any real support to help make it happen. This piece of legislation seems to suggest that all students, even those who just moved to the United States or don't even know English, should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and be performing proficiently within just a couple of years.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Excuse me, are those nanoparticles in your pants?
Posted by Heather Gehlert on December 6, 2006 at 3:19 PM.

Most people probably don't stop to think about nanotechnology when they purchase a new pair of pants or a bottle of sunscreen. But, more and more, consumer products like this hit the shelves touting a promise of making our lives easier. Who wouldn't want a pair of stain-resistant pants that even the darkest Merlot can't penetrate? Who wouldn't want sunscreen with all of the protection and none of the annoying white spackle?

Beyond offering consumer conveniences, nanotechnology holds the possibility of life-saving medical advances in a world overwhelmed by deadly diseases; it hints at clean energy alternatives that give us hope in the face of melting polar ice caps.

But -- and this is a really large but -- nanotech is a science in its infancy. For all we know, its costs could someday be as significant as its benefits. The fact is, sometimes the experts are wrong. And sometimes they just don't know.

That's not just the case with nanotech, but nanotech is unique because it's the science that governs the ultra small. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter -- small enough to pass the blood-brain barrier. Particles behave differently at such small sizes. There is, no doubt, risk in that. The question is, who's monitoring it?

Unfortunately, hardly anyone. And why should they be? The public isn't making a fuss or even noticing because the public isn't in on the conversation. Until now.

Former NY Times technology columnist Denise Caruso has just finished a new book called Intervention: Confronting the Real Risks of Genetic Engineering and Life on a Biotech Planet, which makes the technical world accessible and understandable to the average non-scientific person. Her book doesn't talk only about nanotech; and it isn't a rant either. Denise isn't telling people what food to eat or what products to buy. She is, however, pointing out a reality.

Already more than half of the planet's biomass has been engineered with recombinant DNA. Living organisms are having their genes manipulated and then reproducing -- all in the near absence of regulations or oversight.

Intervention exposes this serious shortfall in the regulation of new technologies such as genomics and nanotech and offers suggestions about how to improve oversight and make the risk assessment process more democratic and transparent to the public. It acknowledges the risks inherent in technology and innovation, and good thing, because I don't see many other people doing that. The current administration certainly isn't because that could be bad for business. After all, scientific uncertainty and public skepticism tie up capital.