Italian arrest over 'toxic wheat'

[DoYouEverWonder]

11 January 2006

The head of Europe's biggest pasta mill has been arrested in the Italian city of Bari on food adulterating charges.

He is alleged to have attempted to sell 58,000 tonnes of durum wheat containing a powerful cancer-producing toxin.

Francesco Casillo, the 39-year-old head of a family-run group of wheat millers and grain importers, was arrested by customs police in Bari.

He has been charged with offering for sale adulterated food for both human and animal consumption.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4600870.stm

[acmavm]

1. Gee, Italians have republicans too???? n/t

[stepnw1f]

2. How's Our FDA Doing? Especially Under George Bush's Influence?

Yes Freepers... there is a reason for regulation and oversight. Now are you feeling safer with Bush?

Oh yes... he's wiretapping Quakers! I guess we have nothing to worry about after all.

Insert "Leave it to Beaver" plastic smile here!

[DBoon]

3. The same toxin that's been killing dogs in the US?

Aflatoxin?

[fed-up]

4. Straight out of "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner Sci Fi 1972

reviews from amazon.com

Ian Watson
"A complex tragic masterpiece. John Brunner is the Rachel Carson of science fiction."

John Grant, Joint Editor, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
" is, in my opinion and for all kinds of reasons, unquestionably the best SF novel ever written."

In particular he forecast increasing solipsism and isolationism in American politics and cultural life; he predicted a decline in the quality of political life, to the point where the American presidency would be occupied by a semi-literate figurehead whose job is to recite comforting and irrelevant platitudes into a microphone on his way from one glamorous gig to the next. His "Prexy" character seemed like a good fit for Reagan a while back, but the current Bush (the 2nd of that name) is an even closer match.

Brunner forecast the dumbing down of media, the intrusion of advertising into the most intimate spaces of daily life. He forecast the sidelining of "healthy lifestyle" products and choices into a yuppie trend (organic food becoming a boutique item) and the demonisation of environmentalists as "terrorists" and criminals. He forecast a degradation of community life, the rise of private security forces, and an increasing gap between (very) rich and (powerless) poor people.

He forecast the multiplication of resistant strains of pathogens, though he did not specifically call out the abuse of antibiotics in agriculture as a prime cause. He did not foresee the consequences of synthetic estrogens; and his view of genetic engineering is by and large more positive than it would have been if he had been writing today with the legal shenanigans of Monsanto, Syngenta and their ilk in view (Brunner would have loved the story of Percy Schmeiser -- he might almost have written it himself). He forecast the ubiquitous use of tranquilizers in daily life, but he did not foresee the current fad for pathologizing ordinary behaviours (particularly in childhood) and administering psychotropics to children. The rise to enormous power of the pharmaceutical companies was not on his radar (Mike McQuay, however, took notice of that trend in his own grimly dystopian future private-eye novels).

When I first read _Zanzibar_ and _Sheep_ I was just a kid. Now, almost half a lifetime later, I find that the concerns, the anger and grief and bitterness that Brunner articulated so fluently in the 1970's are far from dated. If anything, his work seems fresher and more poignant now than it did then -- I have witnessed 30 additional years of the indiscriminate damage and vandalism we call "growth" in the interim.reviews from amazon

[anotherdrew]

5. Brunner was billiant

We don't seem to be getting any such science fiction authors anymore, or at least I'm not aware of it.

[Karenina]

6. Prolly cuz

the truth these days is so much stranger...

[ochazuke]

7. It's Canadian wheat!

Snip:

Police allege Mr Casillo's company imported a shipload of Canadian-grown durum wheat seized by authorities in Bari last year after laboratory tests showed toxic adulteration three times above the level permitted under EU rules.

Police said a chemical called ochratoxin was present in quantities likely to cause the growth of cancers in consumers of pasta made from this consignment of wheat.

[meow2u3]

8. Toxic macaroni! OMG!

Durum wheat is the main ingredient of most pastas. So those idiots were actually trying to nuke our spaghetti. :scared:

[ochazuke]

9. It comes from a fungus...

http://193.132.193.215/eman2/fsheet3.asp

[fed-up]

10. Does damage to kidneys...

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/ng.asp?n=65020&m=1FPD111&c=rtiqcdptyzdaqon

Pasta mill head arrested, wheat stocks alleged to be contaminated
By Ahmed ElAmin
11/01/2006

...Ocratoxin is produced by several fungi and occurs naturally in a variety of plant products such as cereals, coffee beans, beans, pulses and dried fruit.

It has been detected also in products such as coffee, wine, beer and grape juice.

Its presence depends on climatic conditions, abnormally long storage, transportation, wet or dry milling, roasting procedures and fermentation.

High concentrations in foods have been linked with damage to kidney function.