The Altus Times (Altus, Okla.), Vol. 109, No. 354, Ed. 1 Sunday, July 20, 2008 Page: 12 of 28
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4B • SUNDAY, JULY 20, 2008
Altus Times
WWW.ALTUSTIMES.CON
lomato scare ending;
fears still linger for many people
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR until the mystery of the tainted food is solved, “I feel a little bit more comfortable, a
500205 97178
Iltus. Oh
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salmonella outbreak. However, the industry is divided over
mandatory tracing technology, and Congress is running out of
time to act on any major food safety changes before the elec-
tion.
The poll found that 80 percent of Americans said they
would support new federal standards for fresh produce,
i Meat and poultry have long been subject to enforceable
I federal safeguards, but fruits and vegetables are not,
although produce increasingly is being implicated in
outbreaks.
The high level of uneasiness should not be taken light-
ly, said Michael R. Taylor, a former senior federal food
safety official who now teaches at George Washington
University.
"When you have almost half the population avoiding certain
foods because of safety concerns, that’s very significant from the stand-
One thing hasn't changed - Dr. Root and Dr. Dawod and their staff continue to
offer the same friendly, experienced care to you and your family.
Main Street Family Medical Clinic houses the expert family practices of
Dr. John Root and Dr. Abdallah Dawod. In addition to offering care for acute illnesses and
chronic conditions from pediatric to adult patients, Dr. Dawod and his nurse offer
bilingual services; both are fluent in Spanish.
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July 21-25 • 6-9 PM 1
“Living God's Unshakeable Truth" 4
For Children 3 Years and up
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580-482-3377
Pre-enroll for VBS at our church
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Pre- VBS Luau at City Pool
Sunday July 20th 8 PM
Free swimming for any child that signs up for VBS
Just a few little changes
We just wanted to tell you about a few changes at Main Street Family Medical Clinic.
Main Street Family Medical Clinic was recently acquired by Jackson County Memorial Hospital.
..Mum Smet 1 iuuih Verlicaid limit • $000)Vortl,
JACKSON COUNTY 580)1 , 450)
If the big dollars have the YMCA, which runs businesses to build parks, stop smoking.
your eyes glazing, the programs in more than 64 provide more fresh fruits U.S. spending on pre-
overall point is simple: communities that are the and vegetables and other vention programs has
Obesity - from poor type the report aims to healthy foods for area been stagnant for about
nutrition and inactivity — emulate — programs typi- markets, and increase four years.
and smoking are blamed cally begun with one-time physical activity in Programs that help peo-
point of economic impact for the people selling the food, and from the standpoint of
1 guarantee in that time frame, more than 1,000 people were injured slipping on a peace of mind for consumers,” said Taylor.
banana peel, said Madonia. In addition to the salmonella outbreak, this year has seen the largest ground beef
Although federal officials lifted the tomato warning Thursday, the cause of the out- recall in history, raising consumer concerns reflected in the poll.
break remains unknown. Hot peppers are under suspicion, and tomatoes have not been The survey found gender, racial and economic gaps on attitudes about food safety,
cleared everywhere. Women, who do most of the shopping, were more concerned than men. For exam-
While the poll found that three in four people remain confident about the overall ple,39 percent of men said they were “very confident” that the food they buy is safe,
safety of food, 46 percent said they were worried they might get sick from eating con- but only 23 percent of women said they felt that way. However, men and women
taminated products. The same percentage said that because of safety warnings, they agreed on the need for better federal oversight.
have avoided items they normally would have purchased. In Congress, a leading advocate of food safety reforms said the industry would do
Christy Taylor, a first-grade teacher from Sacramento, Calif., said she has all but well to listen to consumers on the need for tracing.
given up on supermarket produce and is buying most of her fresh fruits and vegeta- “We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana," said Sen
bles at the local farmers’ market instead. . Richard Durbin, D-III. “We’ve got to work this through with the industry and come
I see the same farmers every single week, said Taylor, 30, the mother of 2-year up with something that's reasonable. The more confidence consumers have, the more
old twin girls. "You meet the people and you see where the (produce) is coming goods they will purchase.”
from. The survey was conducted by telephone July 10-14 with 1,000 adults and had a
Her twins love tomatoes, she said, and chomp on them as if they were apples. But sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Report: Invest $10 a person for better health
ByLAURAN NEER- for much of the heart dis- government grants of schools. Estimated cost: ple slim down and stop I’m not obese and more
GAARD ease, cancer, diabetes and about $40,000. about $7 per person, smoking clearly make for mobile and don’t kill my
APMedical Writer lung diseases that are the For example, the Thursday's report found, a healthier population, but knees and therefore don’t
nation’s leading public YMCA runs various after- In Somerville, Mass., whether they save govern- need that knee replace-
WASHINGTON (AP) health problems, fueling school care programs, federal health officials ments money iscontrover- ment, I’m not living
- Investing just $10 per the $2 trillion annually Rather than just supervise funded a “Shape Up sial. A Dutch study pub- longer, but I’m a lot
person - roughly the spent on health care, students playing and Somerville" program that lished last winter, for cheaper.”
price of a six-pack of beer Yet small improve- doing homework, some slowed weight gain instance, found that the For the report, the New
and some chips — could ments can add up, sites added a program that among first- to third- obese and smokers die York Academy of
greatly fuel community Research suggests, for teaches healthy snacking graders and may have had sooner, which makes them Medicine reviewed
programs that get couch example, that walking 30 and physical activity, with some citywide impact: cheaper for health systems research on community-
potatoes moving, prevent minutes a day and drop- games to help kids exer- Steps that started with bet- than thin nonsmokers who based disease prevention
smoking and improve ping just 15 pounds can cise. Tracking 3,100 chil- ter school food and a push live longer. programs to find what
nutrition, researchers say. cut in half the risk that dren in Texas, the YMCA for safe walking and bik- But other research sug- works, and how well.
How much health does someone with pre-dia- found the program helped ing paths to school wound gests the obese may actu- Then the Urban Institute
$10 a person buy? Invest betes will get the full- youngsters eat more fruit up also touting restaurants ally live as long but with developed a model to esti-
that every year, and within blown disease. The ques- and less candy, exercise a that made their menus more diseases. mate the savings in health
five years the nation could tion is how to educate and little more each week and healthier. Estimated cost: “You’re prolonging the care costs that would
cut health care costs by persuade people to take watch less TV. $3 to $4 a person. period of healthy life,” accrue if the country
more than $16 billion such steps. The California As for tobacco, when said Jeff Levi, executive achieved various levels of
annually, concludes a new “This is pennies when Endowment has started a New Yorkers started pay- director of the Trust for health improvements -
analysis by the nonprofit you look at the long-term Healthy Eating. Active ing the nation’s highest America’s Health, such as a 5 percent drop in
Trust for America’s cost of treating diabetes or Communities program cigarette taxes this month. "Whether I need a knee diabetes and high blood
Health and a team of pub- high cholesterol,” said that partners with local officials estimated that replacement is not a life- pressure rates.
lie-health research groups. Audry Tayse Haynes of government and private 140.000 eventually would and-death question. ... If
Associated Press Writer little more safe, doing the local farmers' market.” she said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The tomato scare may be over, but it has taken a toll — Eighty-six percent in the poll said produce should be labeled so it can be tracked
it s cost the industry an estimated $100 million and left millions of people with a through layers of processors, packers and shippers, all the way back to the farm,
new wariness about the safety of everyday foods.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that nearly half of con-
sumers have changed their eating and buying habits in the past
six months because they’re afraid they could get sick by eat-
ing contaminated food.
They also overwhelmingly support setting up a better
system to trace produce in an outbreak back to the source,
the poll found.
The people who feel that way include the growers.
Virginia’s East Coast Produce, one of the largest toma-
to growers in the country, has been hammered by slump-
ing demand and falling prices, although Virginia tomatoes
were cleared early on, said sales manager Batista Madonia
III. He said he’s frustrated by the government’s inability tc
find the root cause of the outbreak despite a nearly two-month “
long investigation.
The salmonella outbreak has sickened more than 1,200 people in 42
states since the first cases were seen in April.
. The lack of such a systen frustrated disease detectives working on the
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Bush, Michael. The Altus Times (Altus, Okla.), Vol. 109, No. 354, Ed. 1 Sunday, July 20, 2008, newspaper, July 20, 2008; Altus, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2183119/m1/12/: accessed July 17, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.