therapy session for rantbeasts

(Posted for those who may be here from Singapore and reading my blog--or others following this who aren't on Dark Christianity at LJ.)

A few days ago, I wrote about an attempted steeplejack of the Singaporean women's NGO AWARE by a Joel's Army church.

I have some VERY good news to report on that front.

We won.

Let me repeat that.

We won despite the NAR steeplejackers literally trying to steer the emergency meeting into the same location as a Joel's Army revival.

The war isn't over by any means, but AWARE proved that it IS possible to not only stop a steeplejack but even to outright take control AWAY from dominionists.

Encouraging news indeed, and I hope we all can learn from it.

Just in case people thought dominionism was a problem restricted to the US or Australia:

Steeplejacking has now come to a place most people would find it unlikely--namely, Singapore.

Firstly, some backgrounder. Presently, the law in Singapore technically criminalises same-sex relationships (the law is a holdover from the British colonial period); there is an ongoing political debate in the country about revoking that law. In general, there's good public support for decriminalisation, but one major group is fighting it--dominionist groups in Singapore, which are typically linked to NAR/Joel's Army groups like Hillsong. This has included a particular church called Church Of Our Saviour, which has been especially politically active in trying to keep same-sex relationships illegal.

And apparently, dominionists in Singapore have been taking notes from the Americans and Aussies on steeplejacks of not only churches but NGOs and political parties.

The women's group AWARE (which is roughly the equivalent of the National Organisation for Women in Singapore--they do lots of activism on women's issues in general) has been essentially steeplejacked and a major purge done of the former leadership by a group connected largely to an NAR-linked "Anglican" church (in truth, it's neopentecostal--most CoE churches don't have long talks with Hillsong A/G operatives about "prophetic dance" or have extensive NAR/neopente buzzwording and discussions of "Brownsville Revival"-esque "gold dusting" in their church newsletters--nor do they have indoctrinations lists for the quarter for cell-church leaders or use Hillsong A/G recordings and other "Christian contemporary" artists in their hymnal or specific promotion of "health and wealth" gospel including sections on "maintaining your healing"). In fact, this church is literally in the "Hillsong network" of NAR churches--the sole church listed in the "Churches to attend when you're away" section is a Hillsong satellite church in Perth that is one of the most extensively and openly Joel's Army churches I've seen.

Of note, this "Joel's Army in Anglican clothing" church is very anti-LGBT; not only do they extensively promote anti-LGBT info but have official policy statements condemning LGBT people and promoting de-gaying and promote bogosities about LGBT people being inherently mentally ill.

The speed and level of the steeplejack is actually rather horrifying--from all indications, literally 80 members of the 102-member org joined between January and March of this year. In what may be a rare glimpse at the planning documents for the steeplejack, apparently the pastor himself was exhorting members and leaders of cell-church groups linked to the church to join and there is evidence from email archives that the steeplejack was planned as early as December 2008.

The reason AWARE was targeted? Because they acknowledge that there are specific women's rights issues that affect lesbians and don't deny lesbian women their services.

Even counting the LGBT issues aside, it's not likely AWARE is going to seriously protect women now--especially since the official position of COOS is that "husbands are the head of the family and women must submit to them as their husbands do to God" (and now that AWARE has been steeplejacked by COOS, you can put two and two together).

EDIT FOR FOLKS OUTSIDE OF MY USUAL CIRCLES WHERE I TALK ABOUT DOMINIONISTS:

For folks coming in new to this (particularly from ontd_political or jolantru's entry), the best I can suggest on a backgrounder of what I mean regarding the NAR groups being Bad News is an ongoing series of articles by Talk to Action regulars Bruce Wilson and Ruth (full disclosure; I have a professional working relationship with both of these folks as a part of a research team based on essentially "Joel's Army-busting") as well as my own writing on the subject (as an ex-member and researcher) at Talk to Action, NewsVine, and a certain "orange site".

(I'm planning on eventually mirroring all of this to NewsVine, incidentially; this way, I not only get the word out to people who refuse to visit the "Orange Site" but do get some financial compensation now and again out of it.)

Even shorter for readers who are in countries where it's been released: The NAR/Joel's Army folks are the subject of the movie "Jesus Camp" (specifically, an NAR group that promotes "child ministry"--in their theology, kids born after the legalisation of abortion are literally promoted as a "chosen generation" to "take the world back for God"). Yes, I pretty much grew up "Jesus Camped" (I got better, fortunately, in part because (thankfully) dominionist "homeschooling" was not yet in vogue and I did have *some* exposure to the outside world--I still live with the scars and probably always will, though).

One thing that hasn't been covered much in the media (well, outside of Australia) is the fact that the NAR does have characteristics of a coercive religious group in pretty much the same way Scientology does. In fact, NAR groups and Scientology have a disturbing number of parallels, up to and including paramilitary equivalents of the Scientologist "Sea Orgs" in the US.

NAR groups, especially those in completely-NAR-dominated neopentecostal groups, have been linked recently to some horrific hate crimes against LGBT people--up to and including assaults--as well as the promotion of literal calls to war against LGBT people and the documented use of literal Holocaust revisionism in justifying targeting LGBT people for harassment and desired extermination.

The use of cell churches (which is known to be in practice at Church Of Our Saviour) is particularly worrisome--not only are these used to infiltrate churches and political groups (and, as we've seen with AWARE, also NGOs), but are a major factor in how dominionist churches grow explosively and organise politically (as we have seen, interestingly, with AWARE's steeplejacking--in fact, this may be some of the best documentation of this tactic ever recorded) and in and of themselves are horribly coercive--to the point that Matt Taibbi (who infiltrated the NAR-linked Cornerstone Church in Texas for a segment of his book "The Great Derangement") literally documented personality changes occuring even though he knew what these groups did to rile people up.

In fact, cell-churches (as used in these groups) are well known among researchers to be one of the most documentedly abusive tactics in use in coercive religious groups in general; short-term and long-term personality changes are documented in members of cells and similar groups that are not documented in mainstream churches and religions that do not use coercive tactics. In combination with several other tactics, in fact, NAR groups can be considered as bad as the Moonies or Scientologists just on levels of sheer mind control and a good argument can be made that the really hardcore NAR groups--and COOS does appear to be one of these--are actually worse than Scientology and rank as among the most coercive groups ever documented outside of a North Korean gulag.

Another thing especially worrisome about COOS in particular is their association with the Australian Community Churches (and in particular Faith Community Church). For those unaware, the Australian Community Churches are what used to be called the Australian Assemblies of God; they had to change their name because of repeated revelations in the Australian press of highly abusive practices at their churches, particularly the "home church" of the denomination in Australia (Hillsong A/G in Sydney). In fact, the antics of the Australian A/G and Hillsong in particular became so infamous that most exit counselors in Australia consider the denomination as a whole as coercive (as well as at least one American exit-counselor who has dealt extensively with ex-NAR walkaways).

Hillsong has been particularly active in exporting NAR theology to countries in the Asian and Oceanic spheres, including Fiji and Singapore; they also have their own political party in Australia known as Family First, and have taken tactics very similar to those used by Scientology to shut up their critics--including trying to sue a walkaway for libel and intimidate their publisher into not printing a book that was particularly damning towards the group.

Hillsong has been noted for graft against its members, a sexual-abuse scandal involving multiple pastors (in fact, the founder of Hillsong is noted for having molested kids in New Zealand), and institutionalised abuse of women through a "faith-based rehab" chain funded through Gloria Jean Coffee. (Yes, Gloria Jean is--unfortunately--a major funder of this stuff.) In addition, just like Scientology and the Moonies, Hillsong runs a *lot* of "front groups"--including quite a number targeting kids.

So yeah. Bad news. Bad news all around. And now you know why I find this particularly disturbing.

EDIT: Aaaand a dedicated post on this on Newsvine--feel free to promote.

On April 1, a new version of the worm/botnet Conficker (specifically Conficker.C) is supposed to deliver its "payload" (which includes downloads of instructions from upwards of 50,000 registered domains and measures to lock down the worm against attempts at detection and removal).

Conficker is one of the "new generation" of worms--set up by large spamming firms (often connected to the Russian mafia) to set up "botnets" which hijack remote PCs and use them both as spam-generators and to do "fast flux" hosting of spamvertised sites (often including pornography, fake Viagra, and whatnot).

Anyways, there are methods to fix this. :3

1) If you are using Windows, make sure you have the latest security patches, and make sure you can access Windows Update (Conficker.C blocks Windows Update, presumably to prevent download of a Windows patch issued October 2008 that blocks Conficker.C's main method of spread).

In particular, you want to make sure your computer has had the specific update (KB958644) that blocks Conficker.C's method of spread; you can go to Windows Update (or if you're a Vista user, launch it from the "Start" menu) and click "Review Your Update History". Make sure KB958644 is listed and/or you have had updates in March (it may not show the specific update because it was included in SP3 for WinXP and the latest Vista service pack).

If for whatever reason it's not listed, you can download it here (for XP, that is; other Windows-family updates here).

2) Use reliable antivirus and anti-spyware software. I personally recommend either Avast! or Avira Antivirus for home use (AVG is good but is becoming bloatware, and both Avast! and Avira have free home versions) and Sophos or Avast! for commercial use for antivirus; Spybot S&D and AdAware are still "best of breed" as far as spyware removers go IMHO, though I've heard a lot of good things about SpywareBlaster on legit security forums as well (not surprising--it uses the AdAware engine). I also like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware as a general scanner and removal tool--the free version is surprisingly powerful.

3) Turn off "Autorun" on your PC. Older versions of Conficker are known to use "Autorun" to copy themselves from infected thumb drives/SD cards/USB storage/CD-Rs and DVD-Rs to a PC. Here are some simple instructions on how to do this.

4) If you suspect you may be infected, use legit removal tools. The Internet Security Center has a list of known legit third-party removal tools; STICK WITH THE ONES ON THIS LIST.

I emphasize this last bit because a known producer of spyware/badware (Enigma Software) has been promoting a "Conficker Removal Tool"--and Enigma has a known history of not only involvement in badware but harassing sites writing about badware makers selling bogus "spyware removal" tools and involvement in spam-farms. There are likely other badware vendors also promoting bogus tools of this sort.

If you are using Flash (and you most certainly likely are, unless possibly you are using the FlashBlock extension in Firefox--and even then you may still be at risk), you should be aware that a fairly nasty proof-of-concept exploit of ActiveScript in Flash files has been released (ActiveScript is basically a subset of JavaScript used for Flash file animations). The full details are here in the technical paper on the exploit, or here in the Adobe security advisory.

The reason this is a particularly nasty exploit:

a) It is apparently cross-OS and cross-browser (versions of Flash for IE, Firefox, and Opera are known to be vulnerable under at least Windows, and probably under Linux (include Mozilla-derived browsers like Galeon, Iceape, Iceweasel, etc. to the list as well as (probably) KMeleon) and MacOS X (include Safari in the list). There are in fact indications that this exploit may be usable with any operating system running under x86 processors (all PCs, and all Intel MacOS X boxen) with an Adobe Flash implementation.

b) This particular exploit is very similar to exploits that have been used to drop malware on systems--even worse, it can run arbitrary code at the permissions level associated with Flash. Even various "permissions levels" may not be a fine-grained enough protection (Windows Vista, which otherwise does generally require administrator access to install programs (and implements sudo in possibly the most broken manner ever devised in an operating system, but we won't get into *that* rant :D), is reportedly vulnerable).

c) There is a possibility (not yet fully explored) that some of the flash alternative programs may also have this vulnerability--and one area of research also includes FLV files. (The main programs of concern here would be FLV Player and VLC Media Player, both of which can play FLV "rips" from Youtube natively.)

So, to get patching:

Windows:
Firefox and Opera update
Incontinent Exploder, erm, Internet Explorer update

MacOS X:
Universal installer for Intel MacOS X (This is an install for Intel only--you PowerPC Mac users are officially allowed to look smug at the rest of us :D).

Linux:
Due to some known issues with packages bundled with various Linux distributions and concerns about delays (in particular, issues with Ubuntu--largely related to the fact the next version is coming out in nine days), I am recommending the instructions on how to do a manual install of Adobe Flash from tar.gz file. The instructions were originally written for Ubuntu Linux but should be applicable to any Linux distribution.

Even quicker instructions than the above:
a) Go here, download somewhere convenient
b) extract it to the desktop (or if you're an old fart like me and like the command line, throw open a shell window--you'll need to, anyways, for step 3--and type "gunzip install_flash_player_9_linux.tar.gz" followed by "tar -xvf install_flash_player_9_linux.tar")
c) open up a shell window, type "cd ./install_flash_player_9_linux", type "sudo flashplayer-installer"
d) It'll ask where Firefox's libraries live--/usr/lib/firefox should work, unless you've got it somewhere weird
e) It'll ask whether to go on with this--hit "y". Let it do its thing. It'll ask if you want to do this again. Unless you have multiple browsers in other locations (such as needing to install for Opera and Iceweasel, etc.), hit "n", otherwise, lather, rinse, repeat.

Even even quicker:
RedHat and Fedora OpenCore: RPM packages here. The adventurous may try converting these with Alien to your native distro format, but I prefer the .tar.gz format for Debian-based Linux distros (why, why, why do Debian-based distros always get the shaft? :D)
SuSE Linux: YUM packages here. You *might* be able to get the RedHat packages working with some finagling. Haven't used SuSE in years, consult your local user's group for more info. :D

Solaris:
I shall be extremely surprised to see anyone here (with the exception of maybe one or two of you) running Solaris X86 as a primary operating system, other than to fart about with it. :3 Instructions on install are pretty well identical to the Linux instructions, save that you want to go here instead and type "bunzip blah" rather than "gunzip blah". I would also *not* expect this to be a major issue for folks running Solaris on UltraSPARC systems--it *does* seem, so far, to be an x86-exclusive issue.

Other operating systems (FreeBSD, etc.):
Flash is not officially supported, and the *BSDs would be potentially the only other operating systems affected. Generally on *BSDs there would be use of open source alternatives to Adobe Flash; I would keep a close eye on security groups to see if there are releases in that regard for updates. (Fortunately, most open source software tends to be pretty good re security updates.) This includes potential updates for libflash in OpenBSD, the flash plugin for SeaMonkey in NetBSD, etc.

Support Red Hand Day.

Today, as it turns out, is Red Hand Day--a day to work for the ending of the use of children as soldiers (which is sadly something all too common--one particularly notorious recent example is the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda where kids are kidnapped and forced into being literal foot soldiers for a religious cult).

Thanks to friends of mine on LJ who pointed this out. You know who you are. :3

It would appear that our government is actively trying for frank nullification of Godwin's Law (the law that claims that in any controversial discussion that the likelihood of comparison with Nazi Germany or Hitler will tend to one; there is a corollary to Godwin's Law, rarely mentioned, that states that it does not apply if the policy being compared to Nazi Germany actually *does* bear strong resemblances).

Namely, it appears that the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that folks in Gitmo--and likely at other sites where people have been subject to "extraordinary rendition"--legally are not considered persons under US law and that torture was thus legally justified:

WASHINGTON—On the sixth anniversary of the imprisonment of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed Friday an action brought by four former British detainees against Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse.

The British detainees – Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith – spent more than two years in Guantánamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004. In a 43-page opinion, Circuit Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that applies by its terms to all “persons” did not apply to detainees at Guantánamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law. The Court also dismissed the detainees’ claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.” Finally, the Court found that, even if torture and religious abuse were illegal, defendants were immune under the Constitution because they could not have reasonably known that detainees at Guantánamo had any constitutional rights.

This is bad, folks. No matter how you may feel about the guilt or innocence of those interred at Gitmo, this is really, really fucking bad.

At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law (and if I must, hopefully I invoke its corollary here), this is pretty much legally what was done with various "undesirables" during not only Nazi Germany (including, most notably and infamously, persons of Jewish heritage but also including LGBT people (despite what Scott Lively and his dominionist-holocaust-revisionist bullshit claims), people with mental and physical handicaps, Rom and Sinti people, and others) but also during the Bad Old Days of the USSR (they even had a specific slang term for essentially making people "unpersons"), Francisco Franco's fascist government in Spain, and Augusto Pinochet's government in Chile (another notable offender rarely mentioned is Gen. Efrain Rios Montt and his neopentecostal-dominionist junta in Guatemala during the 80's).

To put this in perspective--we legally have not had "unpersons" in the United States since 1924 with the Indian Citizenship Act (yes, technically my grandfather, who was born in 1920, would have been considered an illegal alien--Native Americans and persons of Native American descent were not considered citizens--we weren't legally considered people under US law till 1879 with the Standing Bear trial--and were ineligible for citizenship by any means until 1924). People who are not being held under "extraordinary rendition" in out-of-country gulag networks (and yes, I will call it for what it is) who aren't US citizens are still in general considered persons under US law--that's pretty much been continuous court precedent since at least 1879. People in the one United States overseas possession where people are technically not US citizens (namely the folks in American Samoa) are legally considered "US Persons" as is anyone here with a green card. Corporations are in general legally recognised as persons for purposes of law.

The only things not legally recognised as "persons" under law historically in the US have fit into all of five categories: "Indians not taxed" (till 1879 and officially in 1924), slaves (given legal personhood all across the US in 1865, though the Southern states sure did their damndest to make sure freed slaves couldn't use this in practice), women (legally treated as property till the suffrage movement culminating in giving women the right to vote in 1920), kids...and animals.

Suffice it to say that I am officially Very Fucking Disturbed, Very Fucking Afraid for this country, and officially ready to cockpunch people who say "oh, the Russians were worse". At least the Russians merely tried to abuse their commitment laws rather than revoking personhood outright. (I am perhaps even more disturbed by knowing all too well--not just from my own experiences but from some rather public statements by certain neopentecostal dominionists who've been actively trying their own "Church-Hall Putsch" and have even gone to the point of not just calling for progroms against LGBT people but literally beating them to death in some cases and literally throwing shit at them and attempting to destroy their businesses in others. The same guy promoting this--who also happens to be a regional head of the denomination I am a walkaway from--has also called for LGBT people to be forcibly interned and "degayed", has literally compared Fairness supporters to anarchists (of note, anarchists were and are still one of the very few categories of people not allowed entry into the US) and has in fact called for all non-dominionists (including mainstream Christians) to be stripped of US citizenship and treated as "illegal aliens" (presumably targeting all of us who aren't actively "pleading the blood" in a manner suitable to dominionists for "extraordinary rendition"--and yes, they do talk about this sort of thing rather openly in their churches as a desirable thing) and in a followup speech to his fellow hatemongers actively stated that they were pretty much at war with anyone who wasn't a neopente dominionist flat-out.)

A possible novel suggestion for the lawyers--if they won't consider the inmates as "persons", perhaps the same tactic that the RSPCA used back in the 1800s to start up child welfare laws prohibiting 8-year-old kids from working in poorhouse sweatshops could be used? (Yes, there were more laws protecting animals than kids. The legal personhood of children wasn't yet recognised, so they used the existing statutes prohibiting animal cruelty to protect children until proper child welfare laws could be passed in Parliament.) I'm sure there are some sorts of DoD regs on animal welfare and/or federal anti-cruelty laws that could even apply to animals in areas of "extraordinary rendition", yes?

Colony Collapse Disorder in bees linked to new virus (in American bees), overwork, underfeeding.

Possible co-infection with two viruses and fungi may also be making bees sicker due to the stress of fighting off multiple infections.

In addition, Australian imports of bees may have first brought the infection to the States to our poor stressed-out bees...and could potentially be spread bee-to-bee through the royal jelly that bees feed to baby bees.

For those unaware, a lot of large commercial beekeepers have been suffering from something called Colony Collapse Disorder which is causing bees to abandon their hives en masse and die (some have had losses of up to 50-80 percent of their bees).

This is a Very Big Deal--most of the commercially sold honey in the US is from these beehives, and most of the big commercial fruit crops in the US tend to be pollinated by these bees.

About those crops--a lot of the big commercial beekeepers tend to truck bees cross-country for pollination (literally a big hive of 50-100,000 bees may be in Nebraska one day and Florida the next) and in winter bees tend to be fed high-fructose corn syrup (not particularly good for humans *or* bees, but a cheap source of sugar in the US).

The majority of the losses seem to be from the big beekeepers--persons running backyard hives or only transporting bees regionally haven't been as hard hit, so researchers have suspected bee stress may have something to do with it.

The biggie news is that a particular virus (Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus) has been found in colonies affected by CCD--and not in healthy bee colonies; bees that have been stressed (due to a recent drought in the Southwest and Southeast US) and have required supplemental feeding have been found to have higher rates of infection, indicating that stressed bees have weaker immune systems (paging Dr. Obvious). The scientists who found the link will try a followup study to prove whether IAPV is in fact the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, but the evidence looks strong so far. (One followup will involve trying to infect a healthy hive with CCD, whilst another will trace whether similar reports of CCD-like illnesses are occuring and rates of IAPV infection; partial results indicate CCD-like illnesses have occured in Israel (with additional symptoms not seen Stateside) and Australia (the source of four bees now thought to have spread IAPV to the US).)

Another strong bit of preliminary evidence pointing to IAPV is the finding that it is deposited in the royal jelly (which baby bees feed on for the first day or two of life, and queen bees feed on all their lives)--irradiating bee hives (to a point that viruses are killed) allows them to be restocked, which pointed to the role of an infectious agent, and if the royal jelly were contaminated, it would contaminate much of the hive by default. (In particular, IAPV has been found in royal jelly imported from China to feed young bees. As if you didn't need any more contaminated products from China.)

Another virus--Kashmir bee virus--was found in both healthy and sick bees, as were several fungal infections--bees with CCD and these viruses and fungi were sicker, and the role of co-infections (similar to what happens in hepatitis D in humans with the hepatitis B and delta viruses--delta virus will not cause hepatitis *unless* you have hep-B, but if you *are* hep-B positive, you will get very sick indeed if you catch delta virus) haven't been ruled out (partly because symptoms of CCD and the Israeli illnesses known from IAPV are a bit different, and partly because there are immunosuppressing diseases in bees in the US (notably, varroa mite infection) not present in Israel or Australia).

Australia's beekeeping industry, of note, is in quite a bit of a panic in regards to the study--in part because it is at risk of a potential worldwide de facto quarantine via import ban (similar to that experienced by countries with mad cow). Of particular note here, big commercial beekeepers (in particular, those in California) have been importing millions of bees from Australia since 2004--after a ban on bee imports from Oz was lifted. (Interestingly (in an epidemiological sense), this is also when the first reports of Colony Collapse Disorder started in the States--another strong connection to Oz bee "carriers" being the source of the infection.)

Lots of updates in the past few days to the pet food recall news ticker:

a) FDA is now investigating all food makers to see how far contamination has spread.
b) Up to 20 million chickens still on farms may have been fed contaminated feed. (Disturbingly, the USDA and FDA are doing a "risk assessment" to be completed on Monday as to whether to feed this stuff to people or not :P)
c) ASPCA is now formally recommending that people not buy pet food unless all ingredients are Made In The USA.
d) Condemning info comes to light re ChemNutra buying from Xuzhou Anying.
e) The quest for the bottom dollar has led to only four domestic gluten producers left in the US (the rest were run out of business by Cheap Chinese Crap) and these four are no longer enough to supply all the wheat gluten the US depends on.

(I myself am all too familiar with the quest for the bottom dollar by US companies (and to hell with the longterm consequences)--the company I work for (and which I recently gave two weeks' notice to) has been, among other things, making its workers work six-day 48-hour workweeks (often in departments other than where they are trained in or work in normally) and both of their test programs are legally considered warez (specifically a boot CD with lots of proprietary software and a test CD that is actually a trade secret of Geek Squad) in the hopes that they can earn an extra few hundred thousand dollars a month in profit. No matter that they could make more money if they'd just hire people for the department that is short (de-boxing), or much of our problems are due to us relying on our main competitor for parts (wow, just like the US and China!), and that the $200-2000 they would save by not paying for a test suite will be dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands to *millions* of dollars in fines they could well be subject to if the Business Software Association does an audit (much less if Best Buy sued them for use of their trade-secret software). Same shit, different industry. They're gonna get burned by it, just like practically the entire US food and pet food industries are getting burned by going to China to save twenty cents a pound on wheat gluten--now they're losing *millions* due to recalls, food safety is being regarded as a national security issues, etc.)

Well, the update round for the new news ticker is in:

a) Upwards of 3.1 million chickens were slaughtered--and bought, and cooked, and eaten by the likes of you and me--before it was found they were contaminated from one run of contaminated feed (meaning there are probably lots more contaminated chickens in the food chain); 100,000 chickens are now quarantined and scheduled to be destroyed.

I think next time I go out, I'll be ordering the lamb. At least New Zealand has bans on Chinese-sourced grain :P

b) More reports re the synergistic effects of cyanuric acid and melamine in cat urine (now thought to be the cause of death)--reportedly plastic crystals found in urine are 70% cyanuric acid, 30% melamine, and may contain other melamine breakdown products. Some reports from vets are horrifying (including a report from a vet at the ASPCA's main hospital in New York describing the nearly complete plasticisation from within of a cat's kidneys).

c) Reportedly the FDA is finding melamine in over half the samples they've done so far of Chinese-origin grain products (those of us who've read the news re melamine doping in China being an open secret aren't too shocked at this).

This post will now be the primary source of news re the pet food recall (and partner to the original post on the pet food recall); the original "news ticker" post has hit LJ's limits for post length and is archived here.

MAJOR UPDATE 17 APRIL, 20 APRIL, 29 APRIL, AND 1 MAY: RECALL IS NO LONGER RESTRICTED TO WHEAT OR WHEAT GLUTEN AND ALL FOOD PRODUCTS FROM CHINA SHOULD BE CONSIDERED HIGHLY SUSPECT. THERE IS ALSO THE RISK THE LIST OF POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED FOOD MAY EXPAND FURTHER. HUMAN FOOD CONTAMINATION HAS ALSO BEEN CONFIRMED IN PORK AND CHICKEN AND THERE ARE REPORTS THAT AT LEAST 45 HUMANS ARE KNOWN TO HAVE EATEN CONTAMINATED PORK. THERE IS ALSO NOW EVIDENCE THAT MELAMINE DOPING, INCLUDING IN HUMAN FOOD PRODUCTS, IS WIDESPREAD, ROUTINE IN CHINESE FOOD PRODUCTS, AND HAS BEEN OCCURING FOR YEARS. IN ADDITION, CHICKEN IS NOW KNOWN TO BE CONTAMINATED AND LIKELY CONSUMED BY HUMANS. SEE BELOW.

Casualty updates (last update 5 May):

1 May: Petconnection.com reports 4,583 dead (2,334 feline, 2,249 canine) with 14,228 animals dead or critically ill (this does not include livestock contaminated by being fed melamine-laced feed). Of livestock, over 6000 hogs are now confirmed to be contaminated and which must be destroyed as well as an unknown number of chickens.

For the first time, the FDA is giving numbers close to petconnection.com's figures (and in fact exceeding them). In an import alert issued 27 April (and only publically released 30 April), the FDA has noted it has received reports of 17,000 pets that were dead or critically ill with 4,150 fatalities in that total (1,950 feline, 2,200 canine; interestingly, most other sources are showing more feline than canine deaths).

2 May: Petconnection.com has not updated its report since 30 April, possibly because of the FDA finally announcing that deaths are in the thousands.

In regards to livestock, 6000+ pigs and at least 100,000 chickens likely to be destroyed due to contamination.

Per news reports, reportedly one in six households in the United States have been affected in some manner by the pet food recalls; the same article notes (in what is a sad commentary) that there are only four domestic producers left in the US producing wheat gluten and other grain glutens.

5 May: Per a USDA press release the FDA may have received over 8,500 reports of deaths</a> (per the press release, 17,000 complaints have been received by the FDA with "over half" being in regards to fatalities). Petconnection.com reports 4,633 dead (2,474 feline, 2,159 canine) with 14,372 dead or sick. Again, these figures do not include livestock.

News reports from Reuters indicate as many as 20 million chickens may need to be destroyed; see below.

MAJOR UPDATE WITH POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN HEALTH (most recently updated 5 May):
Note: Multiple human food products are now confirmed contaminated and it has also been confirmed that humans have eaten contaminated food product with possible serious consequences for health. There is also the very strong possibility this has been going on for years. See below.

1 May: In addition to pork products, chicken must now be considered potentially contaminated as well; per multiple sources including Cattle Network, broiler chickens in Indiana (covering at least 30 broiler farms in Indiana and eight breeder farms) were widely fed contaminated pet food as chicken feed and have since been slaughtered. It is also expected that contamination found in both swine and poultry is likely to increase to many other states and farms.

So far, this covers ten states where contaminated feed has been found, and two states alone for poultry; Indiana is also a major poultry-producing state, in particular Southern Indiana for Tyson Chicken.

In addition, South Africa (which has been dealing with its own issues with Chinese-origin corn gluten that is also doped with melamine) has also posted its own revelations re melamine doping. Per the (Johannesburg) Mail and Guardian, a Chinese company (Kaiyuan Protein Feed Company) has been melamine-doping grain for at least fifteen years running (which gives you an idea just HOW long this crap may well have been fed to animals and people :P)

Sadly, the idea of melamine doping may not have originated in China. The first case of melamine doping of grain products actually occured here in the good old USA back in 1985 and only came to light when a whistleblower employee reported Schuler Grain Co. to the FDA...after they'd already sold doped flour to Pillsbury. (The owners were ultimately ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution to Pillsbury, which had to enact a recall as a result.)

2 May: Reportedly the USDA has admitted that 3.1 million chickens fed only one batch of contaminated feed have not only been slaughtered but likely eaten by people (and probably pets as well); 100,000 chickens are now quarantined and likely to be destroyed.

Also per the USDA conference call, there may literally be hundreds of firms in China that are the source of contaminated grain products (I would probably up that to potentially all factories in China, based on what we know know re the extent of melamine doping in the Chinese food industry).

In addition, reportedly hundreds of chicken farms may have received contaminated feed and it is now estimated that millions of humans are now at risk of predator-prey poisoning.

5 May: The USDA has confirmed that over 20 million chickens have been fed contaminated feed--the really sick thing is that they are still considering putting them in the human food supply (supposedly, a "risk assessment" is underway as to whether or not they can be "processed"--aka slaughtered and put in the human food supply--which is to be completed Monday).

Recall Announcements (last updated 5 May):

2 May: Menu Foods is radically expanding its recall of US and Canadian pet foods (including, of note, two European brands) because of the likelihood of cross-contamination (even with products not containing wheat or wheat gluten in the ingredients).

As an aside, it is precisely this risk (the risk of cross-contamination) why I have--from the beginning--recommended avoidance of all pet food products from all companies that have received contaminated grain or grain protein products.

5 May: Multiple other companies, including Dr. Fosters and Smith and LiveSmart, have made recall announcements due to the risk of cross-contamination.

The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is now making the exact same advice that I have been making in my main post on the pet food recall--avoid any products from any plants that do not source all products domestically.

Enforcement action/investigation (last updated 5 May):

1 May: The big news in this involves several news media outlets (notably the New York Times and CNN) blowing the lid off of melamine doping being common in China and with the FDA finally blocking import of grain and grain products of Chinese origin. More below.

2 May: The American Veterinary Medical Association has posted a report on the University of Guelph findings (that, specifically, melamine + cyanuric acid + cat urine pH = much badness); analysis of crystals found in kidneys of dead animals indicate that the crystals consist of 70% cyanuric acid, 30% melamine, and some also have other breakdown products of melamine (ammeline and ammelide; the latter two are known breakdown products of melamine resulting from alkaline hydrolysis). It is in fact possible that all the secondary contaminants are the result of original melamine doping (ProMed, a medical mailinglist aimed at doctors, has noted that many kinds of bacteria, including Kleibsella and Pseudomonas spp. can break down melamine to cyanuric acid and other breakdown products).

Some of the reports coming in re poisoning are in fact horrifying reading. A CNN transcript of Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees has an interview with Dr. Louise Murray (of the ASPCA Bergh Memorial Hospital, New York City) that describes the almost complete plasticisation of a cat's kidneys from within:

We actually had a case recently where the cat's kidneys were completely obstructed. And when we went to surgery, to try to relieve the obstruction, there was no normal stone. Instead, the aortas were completely full of these melamine-type crystal.

(Mineralisation of the aorta is a known consequence of end-stage feline renal disease. With this level of plasticisation of the kidneys, sadly, the cat's condition would have been fatal without a kidney transplant.)

Also 2 May: Reportedly the FDA has found 330 positive tests for melamine in 750 samples of Chinese grain products so far; this is just over half the grain products from China being contaminated if the testing is accurate.

5 May: Curious what melamine-contaminated gluten looks like? The University of Guelph has posted photos of contaminated grain products (you can actually see the plastic crystals) and also pics of melamine plastic crystals found in cat urine.

Pet Food Safety Issues/The "Blame Game" (last updated 5 May):

1 May: The New York Times/International Herald-Tribune story on widespread melamine doping of grain products in China seems to have blown the lid off of a very dirty secret; CNN now is also reporting on how melamine doping of grain products is not only routine in China but actively promoted as being "healthy".

Also--in a pattern all too distressingly common to those of you who are following the news ticker--American Nutrition is now firing back at pet food companies who were (rightfully) very pissed about rice protein being added to their pet foods without notifying them. (American Nutrition seems to have been singularly ignorant on how this is a Bad Thing--not only is it illegal, it's hurting their business as well (Blue Buffalo has had to recall practically its entire product line and is now shopping for a new processor--just like Nutra is leaving Menu Foods after finding their product was adulterated). In fact, I'm willing to bet they are putting this FUD out because of threats of lawsuits by Natural Balance and Blue Buffalo (among others).)

5 May: In an amazingly damning revelation, a PDF of ChemNutra ordering wheat gluten from Xuzhou Anying has been posted by itchmo.com.

Also, Sen. Durbin has still not gotten any response to a formal request to the FDA to reveal all shippers of contaminated gluten products (in addition to Wilbur-Ellis, Binzhou Futian has apparently shipped contaminated rice protein to a second unknown importer).

Also, Forbes.com points out just how dependent we are on Chinese Cheap Crap--US gluten producers have been so undercut for so long by Chinese producers that there are only four companies left that produce gluten in the US--and these four companies cannot supply enough to meet domestic demands.

Legal Action/Governmental Action/Etc. (last updated 5 May):

1 May: Finally, the FDA takes the action that most of us following here have been screaming at them to do since early March (and which Canada and South Africa have also been considerably more proactive at)--namely, the FDA has issued a formal detention without physical examination order for practically all Chinese-origin grain or grain products.

Whilst this will not prevent companies from using stuff that has already been imported, and is (at this date) the rough equivalent of bolting the barn door after the cattle have not only escaped but started a stampede down Main Street downtown, it is still appreciated. It would possibly have been a bit more effective had it been done back in March, but at least something is being done (finally).

One has to wonder if the recent New York Times expose of widespread melamine doping in China may have been what finally spurred them into action.

2 May: Per the Washington Post, FDA investigators are having delays in entering plants due to Golden Week (Golden Week is a five-day holiday in China and many other Asian countries, and essentially the whole country is shut down).

5 May: The FDA is also now beginning an investigation of food makers to make sure "they aren't using contaminated grain products"--sadly, at this late date it's more like "seeing how far this crap is already in the pet and human food chains", but that's neither here nor there. At least some effort is being made, however late it is.