Food

Highly Pathogenic A (H5N1) Avian Influenza (AI) is killing birds and occasionally infecting and killing humans. This story continues to develop as both breaking news and a continuing story involving commercial poultry industry, ethnic differences, rural life, Third World poverty, and global and domestic preparedness for a disease pandemic.

 By CHERYL DORSCHNER

Attendees at SEJ's 16th Annual Conference in Burlington, Vt., Oct. 25-29, will have a chance to witness a basic, but littleexplored issue for most environment writers: food.

A number of other issues will be explored, of course. But in Vermont, SEJ conference attendees will be able to grapple with the environmental issues of food.

SEJers will address "Eating as an Environmental Act" in a panel discussion Friday, Oct. 27 from 11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Areas lacking easy access to affordable staple foods can signal larger long-term problems, including environmental ones. Simple interactive maps can play a key role in engaging your community.

Atrazine, one of the most commonly used pesticides on crops ranging from corn to trees, may not be as dangerous to humans as previously thought.

Although the US food supply remains among the safest in the world, it also remains a point of vulnerability to terrorist attack.

Amid the torrent of terrorism news, one angle that's been overlooked is agroterrorism -- using biological agents as weapons against crops or livestock.

During the week of Sept. 24, 2001, EPA is scheduled to issue a final decision on whether to reregister Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) plant pesticide applications for cotton.

In spite of one of its own scientists co-authoring a 2005 study finding toxic mercury in high fructose corn syrup, the Food and Drug Administration gave a green light to the corn industry's campaign advertising corn syrup as "natural."

A freelance journalist is challenging in court the US Department of Agriculture's efforts to keep secret its data on who owns the feedlots Americans can see and smell, but whose pollution the food industry does not want USDA to regulate.

Under industry pressure, the U.S. Agriculture Department is considering hiding from consumers information about which retailers might be selling the tainted meat recalled because of health and safety risks.