Report says stingy funding has put FDA in crisis (CIDRAP) Dec 5, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – Safety inspectors still write their reports by hand, food processing plants are inspected once every 10 years at best, only two people work full-time on pet-food safety, and critical information is locked up in piles of warehoused paper documents. [News Source]

The shock is in finding solutions to the doctrine (St. Marys Journal Argus) Stew Slater, columnist I wasn’t able to attend Naomi Klein’s recent speech at the University of Western Ontario, but I did hear her interviewed twice on radio, picked up her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, and went online to view the short film made to accompany the book. [News Source]

Letters from the Issue of December 6, 2007 (Miami New Times) Racist Washing And we're all along for the spin cycle: The Haitian refugee situation mentioned in Janine Zeitlin's November 29 article "Washed Up" is to be expected, especially in today's anti-immigrant climate in the United States. It's said this climate is created by working, poor whites who beli ... [News Source]

Minnesota investigating neurological illness among pork plant workers (Lincoln Journal Star) MINNEAPOLIS — State health officials said Monday they were investigating neurological illnesses among 11 workers at a pork processing plant, but that there was no evidence that the public was at risk. [News Source]

Scripps scientists develop faster tests on mad cow disease. Scientists at Scripps Florida have made headway in the study and testing of the infectious proteins that cause mad cow disease. [News Source]

Minn. Investigating Neurological Illness Among Workers at Processing Plant (Insurance Journal) State health officials said they were investigating neurological illnesses among 11 workers at a pork processing plant, but that there was no evidence that the public was at risk. Health Commissio [News Source]

Scripps Scientists Develop New Tests That Identify Lethal Prion Strains Quickly And Accurately (Medical News Today) One of the new in vitro tests, called the Standard Scrapie Cell Assay, measures prion infectivity levels in a highly accurate and extremely rapid way, producing results in less than two weeks. The second test, called the Cell Panel Assay, allows researchers to quickly distinguish between several prion strains in various cells lines. [click link for full article] [News Source]

Farmers face deadline on federal ID program (The Enterprise) MIDDLEBORO— Farmers have until Dec. 14 to decide if they will participate in a federal database designed to keep a lid on animal diseases. But some local farmers, such as Ron Maribett of Plympton, have been adamantly opposed to the National Animal Identification System from its inception. [News Source]

Bush appointee finds good and bad in farm bill (Casper Star-Tribune) A Bush appointee to the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds good and bad aspects in the House and Senate versions of a Farm Bill now stalled in the Senate. [News Source]

China beefs up control of meat smuggled from Japan (AlertNet) Source: Reuters BEIJING, Dec 5 (Reuters) - China has impounded more than 3,000 kg of beef found in the luggage of passengers arriving in Shanghai from Japan in recent months, the government said on Wednesday. China ... [News Source]