Governor McDonnell Praises Collaboration, Innovation, Research and Entrepreneurs for Creating Jobs in Southwest Virginia

English: Governor of Virginia at CPAC in . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“This Commonwealth of Opportunity” Tour Visit to WireTough Showcases Growth of Technology Economy in Region

BRISTOL - During a tour of WireTough Cylinders in Bristol’s industrial area, Governor Bob McDonnell discussed the results of his administration’s economic development initiatives that have focused on growing innovation and entrepreneurship all across Virginia, including in Southwest Virginia by companies and organizations advancing energy-efficient and clean technologies.

            Speaking about the visit, Governor McDonnell remarked, “All across the world, innovation is recognized as the premier path to economic expansion and job creation. And the drivers of innovation in our economy are entrepreneurs and workers at emerging, high-growth technology companies – individuals like Amit Prakash and the dedicated employees of his company, WireTough. These companies produce up to 33% of the new jobs being created today. That is why, as part of our economic development efforts, we pushed reforms and investments in seed-stage funding and research commercialization – two areas of innovation that are crucial for entrepreneurship to flourish. Additionally, instead of re-creating new programs, we have leveraged existing resources, such as the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center Foundation and Clean Energy R&D Center, the Secretary of Technology and the Center for Innovative Technology to create a collaborative ecosystem that is fueling innovation and company and job creation in Southwest Virginia.”

            “In addition to recognizing the new technologies and companies, the region is helping create and take advantage of new market opportunities,” Secretary of Technology Jim Duffey said.  “What we are seeing today is that when we unleash the entrepreneurial spirit, we are successful at creating opportunities to support the expansion of private-sector businesses and create new jobs here in the Commonwealth.”

            Working with the General Assembly, Governor McDonnell advanced reforms and additional funding for the CIT GAP Funds and the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund (CRCF).The CIT GAP Funds make seed-stage equity investments in emerging technology companies with high growth potential.  The Funds rely on an Investment Advisory Board to approve the investment, and then to attract additional private sector investments, sometimes with a leverage of 13:1, depending on the stage of the company.  Since 2010, the Funds have helped 50 companies reach new growth levels, and Virginia saw significant growth in early-stage investments and new startups.

            One of those companies was WireTough, which in 2012 and again this year, received investments from the CIT GAP Funds’ Commonwealth Energy Fund for its proprietary technology that manufactures compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinders that are lighter, safer and increase fuel-efficiency for vehicles.

            Amit Prakash, WireTough CEO, said, “WireTough’s economical and safe tanks accelerate acceptance of natural gas vehicles while reducing a dependence on foreign oil. I am grateful to the McDonnell Administration’s focus on emerging technology companies like mine, and for the CIT GAP Funds’ investment that gives the opportunity to generate these unique technologies and to grow our company. ”

            Governor McDonnell noted that in addition to making seed-stage investments, “innovation requires commercialization. Although Virginia has been fortunate over the years to receive billions of federal dollars, including research investments, the investments in accelerating the commercialization of that research has been episodic and uncertain. That is why we also worked to reform and invest in the Commonwealth Research Commercialization Fund.”

The CRCF is administered by CIT to facilitate research commercialization to build new companies and create jobs.  To prioritize those investments, the McDonnell administration and General Assembly created the Research and Technology Strategic Roadmap (the R&T Roadmap), a strategic planning tool aligned with the CRCF that links investments to regional industry sector priorities with commercial promise that are worthy of institutional focus and economic development. Lastly, they also established the Commonwealth Research and Technology Investment Advisory Committee (RTIAC), a body of public and private sector research experts, that advises the Board of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority (IEIA) on CRCF investments.  Altogether, these programs outline a strategic direction that aligns the Commonwealth’s strengths with short- and long-term goals; drives smart investment decisions and innovation; and creates future job and company creation, and higher wages.

            Since FY2012, the first fiscal year the reforms took place, 89 awards have been executed totaling $8.8 million in investment from the CRCF. The projects varied, from cybersecurity to modeling and simulation applications for homeland security to biolife technologies and therapies for the early detection and treatment of cancer.   The Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center Foundation and the Clean Energy R&D Center received a $100,000 CRCF award, the first for Southwest Virginia for a project entitled “Tazewell County Renewable Natural Gas.” 

            Governor McDonnell further remarked, “These investments show that innovation and entrepreneurship are strong, and alive and well in Southwest Virginia, and we need to make sure that we have the tools in place to help companies like WireTough and research at the Clean Energy R&D Center and the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center Foundation, which will bring new economic opportunities to the people who live and work here, and who are trying to create a better life and future for their families.”

Silver by the Grey Havens, Free MP3 Song of the day.

Royalty-free music for professional licensing

The Grey Havens from their album, Where Eye's Don't Go comes this song, "Silver".  Pop rock with a nice beat.  It's a song that grows on you.  Slow to start out but picks up pretty well.  Check it out.  If you like it, feel free to download a free copy for yourself.  Free music everyday here on GVLN.  Check out our free coupons as we have pages and pages to help you save a great deal of money in these tough economic times.  It's like printing your own money.

Silver Springs (song) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Botanical Tree Tulip - Art of the day

Our art of the day is this botanical tree tulip.

PLease feel free to grab a copy for yourself.

Right click and save as to add it to your computer files.

Enjoy.

The Source of Fatigue and Disease?

Hippocrates: a conventionalized image in a Roman "portrait" bust (19th century engraving) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Dr. Mercola

This is my second interview with Dr. Daniel Kalish, who is an expert on hormone balance as a foundation for optimal health. In this interview, he shares some fascinating information about how you can balance the chemicals in your brain using functional medicine laboratory testing.

Dr. Kalish is successfully using this method, which he calls the “Kalish Method,” to treat five common health problems:

1. Overweight
2. Fatigue
3. Depression
4. Female hormone imbalance
5. Gastrointestinal problems

I first met Dr. Kalish in California in the mid-1990s while attending a Functional Medicine seminar. It was immediately clear to me that he was one of the brightest individuals at the meeting.

The area of hormone testing can be a bit confusing. The information presented here helps to clarify how hormone testing can be used to detect and correct imbalances in your brain’s chemistry that underlie many of the symptoms commonly experienced today. For a more comprehensive review of his work, you may want to check out his new book, entitled The Kalish Method: Healing the Body, Mapping the Mind.

Functional Medicine: The Kalish Method

Functional medicine is a relatively new approach to health that looks at the underlying causes of disease and attempts to correct them before disease sets in. It focuses on determining the root causes by looking at your entire body and environment. Dr. Kalish’s particular approach zeroes in on three systems of your body:

1. Brain/endocrine system, which govern your body’s processes through hormones, neurotransmitters, and other biochemical messengers (control center)
2. Digestive system and nutrition (intake)
3. Detoxification system (elimination)

He addresses each of these systems with specific laboratory tests, including saliva and urine. It’s a kind of “mind mapping” — essentially, taking a snapshot of the mind by measuring things such as the quantity of serotonin and dopamine going in and out of your neurons. This is just one of the many the tests that can be performed, and this particular urine test is cutting edge technology offered by only one lab in the United States.

The Kalish approach to health offers enormous advantages, one of which is a very rapid cessation of symptoms. Patients report improvement in how they feel usually within the first month — like a “switch has been flipped.” Even for those who have struggled with lifelong depression, dramatic results are usually seen within the first couple of months. This is largely because the precise cause of the problem has been nailed down through laboratory testing.

Another major advantage is that children can be helped very easily and quickly with functional medicine, which eliminates the need for medications about 95 percent of the time.

Picking Up Ball That Conventional Medicine Has Dropped

There are profound differences between functional medicine and conventional medicine. Conventional medicine aims at identifying life-threatening diseases, but ignores the realm of more subtle issues. For example, endocrinologists look for rare and unusual disorders like Addison’s disease — things that could kill you in a week or two if left untreated. If you don’t have one of the major diseases, their interest and expertise generally wanes.

By contrast, functional medicine looks at identifying and correcting imbalances and lifestyle issues that are eroding your health over time, reducing your quality of life, and predisposing you to the development of serious health problems down the road. In other words, functional medicine aims at preventing you from ever developing those major diseases in the first place.

According to Dr. Kalish:

“There is a predictable way that the body breaks down. It doesn’t happen in different ways in different people. We have hormone and brain problems, digestive problems, and toxicity problems. There’s a methodical way you can test and correct all these issues, if you get hooked up with the right group of doctors that know how to do all this. This technology is available. It’s not a question of whether it works or not. It’s just a matter of accessing it.”

Through various carefully selected laboratory tests, your body’s chemical and hormonal imbalances are identified. Problems with your gastrointestinal function may be detected, or with how your body cleanses and rids itself of toxins. With this information, then, specific strategies can be prescribed, such as diet and lifestyle modifications, supplements, or perhaps a different approach to managing your stress. Supplements are designed to be used short-term, therapeutically, in order to accomplish a specific goal.

Interventions Used in the Kalish Method

Based on what imbalances are identified by the laboratory analyses, Dr. Kalish may prescribe a variety of natural supplements, short-term. For example, low doses of the hormones cortisol, DHEA, and pregnenolone may be prescribed to replace what’s missing in your body — just enough to balance out your system. Sometimes, amino acids, vitamins and minerals, and herbs may be used — everything from B vitamins to magnesium, to tryptophan or 5-HTP.

These agents are used to temporarily assist your body’s natural hormone producing capacity and can be discontinued when your normal endocrine function has returned. It’s typical for adrenal function to be restored within six months to a year — and sometimes in just a few months. Dr. Kalish cautions against self-prescribing these supplement because you can easily make imbalances worse, if you don’t have all of the necessary information.

A key part of Dr. Kalish’s approach is helping his patients return to a more biologically appropriate diet rich in organic, biodynamically grown foods, similar to how your ancestors ate. He also recommends occasionally exposing yourself to cold, because it produces an environmental “shock” to stress the body (in a good way), similar to exercise, which stresses your body to make it stronger.

Poor Adrenal Function May Be the Cause of Chronic Fatigue

Your adrenal glands are each no bigger than a walnut and weigh less than a grape, yet are responsible for one of the most important functions in your body: managing your stress. When your adrenal glands are overtaxed, a condition known as adrenal fatigue or adrenal exhaustion sets in, which in turn can set a cascade of disease processes into motion. One tell-tale sign of adrenal burnout is feeling chronically fatigued.

Conventionally, you’d see an endocrinologist who would evaluate your adrenal glands, or perhaps a doctor of internal medicine. Unfortunately, they tend to primarily test for specific diseases like Addison’s disease or Cushing’s disease, both of which are relatively rare.

The Kalish Method calls for testing your adrenal function by taking four saliva (or urine) samples over the course of a day. This maps out your circadian rhythm, showing how your cortisol levels rise and fall throughout your day. Saliva is collected at approximately four-hour intervals: first thing in the morning upon waking, then at noon, late afternoon, and again at night before going to bed. The Kalish Method is aimed at normalizing dysfunctional adrenals and restoring normal adrenal function. It’s a clinically validated method that’s been used for a long time, yet most physicians are still not aware of it.

“What we find is that if we just restore what’s missing in the person for a period of six months or maybe at the most 12 months, the adrenal glands and the internal production of these hormones comes back,” Dr. Kalish explains. “So, we’re actually restoring the normal production of these hormones in the body. The treatments, therefore, are relatively short-term; six months to a year. The only way we’ve found to do this real repair process is to use these really low dosages of DHEA and pregnenolone over a period of time.”

Another common hormonal cause of adrenal fatigue is hypothyroidism or underactive thyroid. Thyroid function is diagnosed by a blood test, but there’s some controversy over what is normal and what’s not. Many alternative doctors feel the conventional reference ranges are far too broad, and opt to treat people exhibiting sub-clinical thyroid symptoms.

“What’s interesting about the thyroid and the adrenals is that as the cortisol levels go up, one of the normal body mechanisms is to downregulate thyroid,” Dr. Kalish says. “So, most everybody with high cortisol is going to have lower than ideal thyroid hormone levels. At that point, it becomes a decision as to if you want to work on the adrenals, work on thyroid, or work on both together...

More than 90 percent of the time, the adrenal program is enough to restore thyroid function. The biggest reason [for doing] the adrenals first is that when you start taking thyroid hormones your internal production of thyroid hormones drop. With the adrenal glands, it’s the opposite. When you start to take these adrenal-support products, your internal production of adrenal hormones comes back. If you can restore adrenal function, you can save the person from having to be on thyroid medications potentially for the rest of their life.”

For more specifics on Dr. Kalish’s treatment protocol for adrenal fatigue, please see my previous interview with Dr. Kalish on this topic.

How Functional Medicine Can Help You Lose Weight

Besides fatigue, weight gain  and depression are the most common issues Dr. Kalish sees, and all three respond very well to his approach. For example, one of the interesting things in terms of diet and weight loss is that, as soon as he gets people’s adrenal hormones and brain chemicals back in check, he notices them gravitating toward more healthful diets.

Why is this?

Many food cravings stem from inappropriate blood sugar responses and imbalanced serotonin and dopamine levels — which control how your neurons fire. Once these are corrected, cravings go away — usually within the first month or two. Your cravings come from brain chemicals. When those chemicals are shifted, the cravings just disappear — like hitting the Reset button. Then people begin making better food choices, start to lose weight, and have more energy because insulin sensitivity and normalleptin signaling are being restored.

The key lies in reversing the distortion in your appetite center and reestablishing your normal fat burning metabolism. Of course, the mechanism for reestablishing normal fat burning is diet and exercise, but if your brain chemistry perpetually prompts you toward making bad decisions, it will be a frustrating uphill battle. Functional medicine doesn’t take the place of diet and exercise — it augments it, making it easier for you to implement the changes needed without as much emotional stress.

Are Toxins Making You Depressed?

There is very little scientific evidence for the widespread notion that depression is caused by an imbalance of your neurotransmitters. In fact, there is no correlation between serotonin level and depression. Many people with low serotonin are not depressed, and many depressed people have normal levels of serotonin. The same is true of dopamine.

However, there is good scientific evidence for a relationship between depression and environmental toxins. Toxins make their way to your brain, where they damage cells and change how your neurons fire. Being that toxins are commonplace in today’s world, part of functional medicine involves identifying environmental toxins that could be damaging your brain and contributing to mood problems, Parkinson’s, dementia, and a multitude of other diseases. We’re all exposed to these chemicals to some degree because they’re pervasive in our environment — in your air, food and water.

According to Dr. Kalish, some of the most significant environmental toxins are heavy metals, such as mercury, arsenic andaluminum. Also problematic are chemicals like benzene and toluene.

It is estimated that the average American now has between 300 and 400 different neurotoxins circulating in his or her body at any one time. Even newborn babies are now born with some level of neurotoxic chemicals on board. Your body isn’t equipped to break these down, so they tend to accumulate over time and dysregulate your biochemistry. Making matters worse, many if not most people have dysbiosis, or imbalanced gut flora, and some of these microorganisms are responsible for breaking down the toxins in your GI tract, so you can eliminate them. All of these problems contribute to today’s toxic overload.

Functional Medicine — A Valuable Tool to Help Restore Your Health

The Kalish Method is a proven method of treating problems such as overweight, fatigue, depression, hormonal imbalance and gastrointestinal dysfunction using the principles of functional medicine. A treatment is most effective when the root cause of your problem is directly addressed.

Dr. Kalish starts with specific laboratory tests that pin down the underlying cause. These tests help to determine whether your problem stems from your brain, adrenal glands or your gut, or if it’s a malfunction in your body’s detoxification process. Whatever the cause, the problem can be effectively addressed using targeted dietary changes, supplements, sleep hygiene, stress management tools and other natural interventions.

Functional medicine can be a valuable tool to help you restore your natural physiological balance. Dr. Kalish has worked with more than 8,000 patients, and every day, he sees “magical” health improvements by applying the same fundamental principles. For more information, you can visit his website, KalishInstitute.com, which details his innovative approach to functional medicine.

 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/11/kalish-method.aspx

Visit the above link for more from Dr Mercola and more on this story.

Superior Recipe for Ice Cream - Recipe of the day

Vanilla ice cream cone I bought at Camp Manitoulin for a $1 donation. It was sort of icey. For Macro Mondays Drips Drops Splashes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One gallon of cream, two pounds rolled loaf-sugar, one tea-spoonful of oil of lemon. If for vanilla cream; use a table-spoonful of tincture of vanilla, two eggs beaten; mix well and freeze in the usual way. The seasoning should be well mixed with the sugar, before it is added to the cream; by this means, it will be all flavored alike. This has been much admired.

Coloring for ice cream, may be made in this way: take of powdered cochineal, cream of tartar and powdered alum, each two drachms; of salts of tartar, ten grains; pour upon the powders half a pint of boiling water; let it stand for two hours to settle, or filter through paper. Use as much of this infusion as will give the desired shade. This produces a brilliant pink color.

Make something extraordinary.

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We The People - Liberty's Kids, John Adams and E-books

The final episode of Liberty's Kids, number 40, We The People.  We have posted the entire series on here now along with a large number of history books, stories, pictures and artwork.  Though this is the end of the series for Liberty's Kids here, it is not the end of our Liberty Education Series by any means and we want to thank everyone for the continued and outstanding support you have shown us on these posts.

Thomas Jefferson" target="_blank">Declaration of Independence in Draft - Thomas Jefferson from Chuck Thompson

As part of our farewell to Liberty's Kids for now, we have created this very special and very rare view of the Declaration of Independence.  The first 4 pages are in draft mode as written by Thomas Jefferson.  This version was not destroyed but instead preserved.  The 5th page is the final document with all the signatures.  We just published this for the first time.



From the mini series, John Adams.  This is a great cut and fits perfectly here.  It gives a really good idea of just how difficult it was for our forefathers to make the decisions they did.

Federalist Papers Number 1 - Hamilton from Chuck Thompson

So our forefathers moved on to create a more perfect union.  Now begins the Federalist papers in that march.

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson writing the Declaration of independence (1776) were all of British descent. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Protecting Your Rights

Open Letter to the Citizens of Gloucester County Virginia

“For the Common Good. “

Since it appears that Gloucester County intends to continue the Reign of Terror with Animal Control we will look to the Constitution of the United States on what you need to do to protect yourself.  When dealing with county officials remember to be a gentleman or gentle lady being polite at all times.  If they are anything but polite that is grounds for you to file a complaint against them with the county for violating the County Employment Guide.

The Constitution of the United States with the Bill of Rights was written for us to limit the government intrusion into our lives.  Have you ever read the Constitution of the United States?  How about the Constitution of Virginia?

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The first thing you need to do is to post no trespassing signs around your property.  You are not required to let anyone on your property without a proper search warrant.  When they knock at the door be polite and ask them to leave.  This includes the person that is performing the reassessment for property taxes.  Your home is your home and it's your choice who you open the door and allow in to visit.  Be polite they are trying to do a job to search your house for whatever reason be it property assessment, animal control, etc. Tell them no they may not come in and they may not look around, the property is posted you would need them to leave.  At this point if they do not leave they are breaking the law, if it was me I would then call the State Police and explain you are in fear, you have asked the person or persons to leave and they will not, and need the State Police to respond because it appears someone is impersonating a county official (do not make a false report when making the call).

The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution;

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Animal Control in the past carried pocket recorders and  recorded everything  said and based on what has been reported on Mr Thompsons web site they have altered the recordings to use against people.  Based on past procedures we can only assume they will continue to do the same.  Tell them you do not consent to be recorded, be polite but firm (it is best to make your own recording to protect yourself).  Tell them you will not talk to them without your lawyer present and ask them to leave.

To protect yourself you need to be polite to them, call a neighbor to have a witness, go outside and lock the door behind you so they cannot push their way inside or do not answer the door.

These protections were put in the Constitution of the United States because our founding fathers were abused by the British Authorities and they did not want it to happen to us.  These rights are also in the Virginia Constitution and will be covered in the future; however, they are better known from the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States and that does supersede the Constitution of Virginia and the Virginia Code.

I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice.  Our founding fathers were not lawyers either they were men of all walks of life and used common sense in their laws. 

“For the Common Good. “

Sincerely,

Alexander James Jay

P.S. If the county is not willing to respect the rule of law we need to ensure we are knowledgeable of our rights to protect ourselves.

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Gunsmoke, Hot Spell - Classic TV

Gunsmoke, Hot Spell.  Classic TV here on GVLN.  Wednesday's is our day for another episode of Gunsmoke.  These days it's getting harder to find anything decent to watch.  This is why we have launched and have been following a weekly schedule of bringing you good old quality TV and movies.  Bringing back real entertainment and without the commercials.  Enjoy.

Gunsmoke (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Good News - More Bad News About Farmed Shrimp

Pandalus borealis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Dr. Mercola

For the past several years, I’ve increasingly recommended avoiding most seafood due to widespread contamination, primarily by mercury, PCBs and other environmental pollutants.

Shrimp, however, due to their small size, have generally been considered to be one of the safer kinds of seafood. But a recent article1 may make you think twice about eating shrimp, unless you know it’s wild-caught from a clean source.

A major part of the problem is farmed shrimp which, like farmed fish, tends to be far more contaminated than its wild-caught counterparts. Aquatic farms of all kinds also pose grave dangers to ecological systems. Another problem is lack of inspection and oversight of imported seafood.

According to the featured article:

“90 percent of the shrimp we eat has been imported, but less than two percent of that gets inspected by US regulatory agencies. What's the big deal?

Imported shrimp, more than any other seafood, has been found to be contaminated with banned chemicals, pesticides... and it skirts food-safety authorities only to wind up on your plate. The number one reason for all that: the dirty conditions in which farmed shrimp are raised.”

What You Need to Know About Farmed Shrimp

As a result of declining seafood stocks of all types, aquatic farms of various kinds have become big business. Unfortunately, aquatic farming has turned loose all sorts of environmental hazards, all of which ultimately threaten your health.

The featured article highlights several disturbing facts about farmed shrimp:

1. Contamination is rampant. Farmed shrimp can contain a wide variety of contaminants, including chemical residues from cleaning agents, pathogens like Salmonella and E.coli, along with other contaminants like mouse and rat hair. According to Food and Water Watch, imported shrimp “accounts for 26 to 35 percent of all shipments of imported seafood that get rejected due to filth.”
Another concern relates to chemicals purposefully used on shrimp. Back in 2009, scientists discovered that 4-hexylresorcinol, a preservative used to prevent discoloration in shrimp and other shellfish, acts as a xenoestrogens and can increase the risk of breast cancer in women and reduce sperm counts in men. Xenoestrogens have been associated to a number of human health effects.
A toxicology study2 by the University of Surrey School of Biological Sciences showed that 260 mg/kg of 4-hexylresorcinol was lethal to all cats used in the study, and they also found it was carcinogenic in both the 13-week and two-year long studies. It also caused a high incidence of nephropathy (an autoimmune disease that affects your kidneys) in mice.
While astaxanthin is one of the most profoundly effective antioxidants, farmed shrimp have very little to no astaxanthin and are given syntheticastaxanthin,3 to provide the right color because astaxanthin-deficiency in shrimp produces specimens that look blue rather than pink.

In fact, so-called “blue shrimp syndrome” was a persistent and alarming problem of earlier shrimp farms. It is important to know that synthetic astaxanthin is made from petrochemicals that are not approved for human consumption.
2. Shrimp-packing plants are filthy. As reported by Rodale:

“A report published in the November 2012 issue of Bloombergmagazine4 revealed some truly disgusting facts about the conditions in which shrimp are packaged and shipped.

At one particular facility in Vietnam, the magazine's reporters found processing-plant floors littered with garbage, flies buzzing around, and shrimp that wasn't being stored at proper temperatures.

The shrimp itself was packed in ice made from local tap water, which public health authorities warned should be boiled before using due to microbial contamination, potentially exposing the shrimp (and eaters) to more bacterial contamination.

According to Bloomberg, FDA inspectors have rejected 1,380 loads of seafood from Vietnam since 2007 for filth and salmonella, including 81 from the plant the reporters visited.”

3. Imported shrimp may contain hazardous antibiotics. Scientists from Texas Tech University's Institute of Environmental and Human Health recently tested 30 shrimp samples for the presence of three classes of antibiotics. The shrimp were obtained from US grocery stores. Two samples of farm-raised shrimp imported from India and Thailand tested positive for nitrofuranzone.5
This drug can promote overgrowth of fungi, and has been found to cause breast cancer in female rats when given orally in high doses. Disturbingly, the shrimp were found to contain levels 28 and 29 times higher than allowable limits set by the FDA.
The antibiotic chloramphenical was also detected in some shrimp samples. Chloramephenical is banned in food production in the US due to potentially severe side effects, including aplastic anemia and leukemia. Shrimp may also be contaminated with penicillin, which can trigger allergic reactions in susceptible individuals who might never suspect shrimp as a potential source.
4. Domestic shrimp may be tainted with oil and/or Corexit. The 2010 BP oil spill temporarily closed down shrimp fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, but the fact that shrimp fishing has resumed does not mean the shrimp are 100 percent safe to eat. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now oversees the Gulf seafood testing program,6 along with the FDA and Gulf states, to prevent tainted seafood from reaching the marketplace. NOAA and FDA developed a chemical test to detect oil and the oil dispersant Corexit in seafood, and claim that over 99 percent of samples have no detectable residue.
However, as reported by the featured article, scientists from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have raised concerns about the residue limits used, warning that they’re not low enough to protect pregnant women and their unborn children.
5. Non-native shrimp farms contribute to climate change. How’s that, you might ask? When farmed in non-native waters, shrimp are raised in underwater pens built along the coastlines, where native mangrove forests are frequently sacrificed to make room for them.
Mangroves serve many important functions in the environment, including providing a buffer against hurricanes and flooding, absorbing carbon dioxide (mangroves absorb more carbon dioxide than rainforests), and serve as the native habitat for a variety of fish, including snapper, tilapia, sea bass, oysters and crab. According to the featured article, as much as 80 percent of mangroves in the top five shrimp-farm areas (Thailand, Ecuador, Indonesia, China, Mexico and Vietnam) have been destroyed as a result of non-native shrimp farming.

If from a Clean Source, Shrimp Are an Excellent Food

Barring contamination, shrimp, just like fish, can be an excellent nutritious food. The trick is finding wild shrimp harvested from the cleanest cold-water sources possible. For example, shrimp7 are a good source of:

Tryptophan (an essential amino acid)	Vitamin B12	Healthful fats, including omega-3, saturated fat and cholesterol
Selenium	Protein	Astaxanthin

Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch8 rates various seafood sources based on sustainability and other parameters. While some of their “Best Choice” shrimp9 include farmed shrimp, which I cannot in good conscience recommend, some of the wild-caught shrimp on their good-to-best list include:10

• Northern shrimp, caught in US/Canadian Atlantic
• Pink shrimp from Oregon
• Wild-caught rock shrimp from the US
• Spot prawns from British Columbia (Canadian Pacific)
• California coonstripe shrimp (caught using submerged pots. To determine this, talk to your fishmonger or the fishery in question)

Buying Local Increases Food Safety and Food Security

Ideally, you’ll want to buy wild-caught seafood. However, with environmental tragedies like the BP oil spill in the Gulf, and the still-leaking nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan,11 not to mention the general pollution in waterways across the globe, merely being “wild-caught” is certainly not a guarantee of safety. If you want to eat seafood, I strongly suggest taking the extra step or two to determine how, and from where it was procured. If at all possible, get your seafood from a source that can guarantee its purity through independent lab testing.

I believe that if you choose wisely, the health benefits of fish and other seafood can still outweigh the potential risks from contamination.

Disease in farm animals is one of the biggest sources of epidemics in humans, and fish farms are the aquatic version of a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO), which is why I simply cannot recommend farmed seafood of any kind. Just like their land-based cattle and chicken farms, aquatic CAFOs are a breeding ground for disease and toxic waste, and produce food animals of inferior quality. Due to the dramatically increased disease risk—a natural side effect of crowding—these animals are further contaminated with drugs.

Remember that farmed shrimp are also given synthetic astaxanthin12 made from petrochemicals. When you eat wild shrimp, you get the benefit of natural astaxanthin, but not so with farmed shrimp... In the latter case, you end up eating a chemical that is not even approved for human consumption!

In all, the ramifications of our large-scale, mass-producing, chemical-dependent food system are incredibly vast, which is why I urge you to become more curious about your food: Where, and how was it raised, grown, or manufactured? These things do matter; for your health, and the health and future of our planet. When it comes to seafood, whether we’re talking about fish or shrimp, there’s no doubt that aquatic farms are responsible for environmental damage of massive proportions while simultaneously producing inferior food animals, which is why, as a general rule, I recommend avoiding them.

 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/14/farmed-shrimp.aspx
Link back to Mercola.com where the story originated.

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