PIPs: 7,000 more fitted pre-2001

The implants were manufactured by the French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) Over 2,800 PIP patients go to NHSImplant furore 'justifies' reform Around 7,000 more women in the UK have been fitted with banned PIP breast implants than previously thought, according to the government.

The original warnings were about breast implants fitted since 2001, however, it has since emerged that thousands were fitted before then.

It brings the total number of women affected in the UK to 47,000.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the women "will be provided with all the help they need from the NHS".

He added: "The French regulator has confirmed this week that more women may be affected by the criminal activity of the French breast implant manufacturer PIP.

"These women are the victims of a fraudulent company and I know this situation is causing a huge amount of anxiety.

The Department of Health said approximately one in five breast implants needed to be replaced within a decade, so some of the women would already have had their PIP implants removed.

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It is thought 95% of women had the operation privately, 5% on the NHS. Implants fitted by the NHS will have them removed and replaced.

Continue reading the main story“Start QuoteThese women are the victims of a fraudulent company”

End QuoteAndrew LansleyHealth Secretary The government said private clinics had a "moral duty" to remove implants. However, the health service in England is acting as a "last resort" if clinics refuse or no longer exist.

If there is a medical need, which includes distress, and the patient cannot receive an operation from their private company, the NHS will step in to remove, but not replace, the implant.

The former president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), Nigel Mercer, said: All women with PIPs - now regardless of date of implantation - should seek advice from their implanting surgeon or clinics to have these defective devices removed or replaced, preferably before rupture.

"The BAAPS have always maintained that these implants are sub-standard and have no place inside the human body."

Organic Farming as a Green Jobs Strategy? Demand for Organics to Stimulate 42,000 Jobs

By Cole Mellino
A new report released this week finds that demand for organics may create up to 42,000 jobs by 2015, up from 14,000 today.

That's only a fraction of the 980,000 farmers in the U.S. But the organization that released the report, the Organic Farming Research Foundation, is calling on Congress to consider the growing economic impact of organic farming as it reconfigures the 2012 farm bill. Due to the rapid growth in consumer demand for organics and the labor-intensity of organic farming, OFRF says that job creation in the sector can more than double the rate of the conventional sector:

As our country has been dramatically affected by the worst economic downturn in 80 years, the organic industry has remained in positive growth territory and has come out of the recession hiring employees, adding farmers, and increasing revenue. The organic industry has grown from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $29 billion in 2010, with an annual growth rate of 19 percent from 1997- 2008. The organic agriculture sector grew by 8 percent in 2010.

The latest data indicate that 96 percent of organic operations nation-wide are planning to maintain or increase employment levels in 2011. Organic farms hired an average of 61 year-round employees compared with 28 year-round employees hired on conventional farms, according to a recent survey of organic and conventional farmers in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi. 

UK Officials Believe 15,000 Britons Are Incubating Human Mad Cow Disease (CJD)

By Frank Dobson
The government's expert advisers assume that as many as 15,000 people in this country are infected with the prion infection agents that cause the lethal brain disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob (vCJD), the human form of BSE or "mad cow disease". The experts don't know if this is the right figure. It could be a lot higher but ministers are refusing to fund trials of a new test to find out.

So far just 200 of our fellow citizens have developed the disease. But the prions that cause the disease can lie dormant for decades and people who are infected pose a risk to others if they are blood or organ donors, or if surgical instruments used on them are then reused on other patients.

The Medical Research Council Prion Unit at the UCL Institute of Neurology, led by Professor John Collinge, was set up at my behest to come up with ways to treat vCJD and, better still, prevent it. They were also asked to devise a test to identify vCJD in the general population. They recently announced a new blood test that does just that. This is a great breakthrough. It should enable our doctors and scientists, for the first time, to assess accurately the incidence of vCJD infection so policy decisions on how best to protect patients can be based on evidence, not guesswork.

As health secretary, the day I became aware in 1998 that it might be possible to transmit vCJD by blood and blood products, I got the experts together. Their advice was that infection through blood and blood products was likely but not certain and that the infection, if any, would probably be carried in the white blood cells. "What should we do?" I asked.

Activists Submit 240,000 Petitions Demanding Action to Curb Food Monopolies

WASHINGTON - On the eve of the final Department of Justice/USDA public workshop examining the effects of corporate concentration in food and agriculture, a coalition of farm and food activists submitted almost a quarter of a million (nearly 240,000) petitions calling on both the Justice Department and USDA to take swift action to curb the abusive market power that a handful of corporations exert over farmers and consumers.

"While we're encouraged by the administration's year-long investigation, it's time to fulfill President Obama's 2008 election promise to end big food's antitrust abuses," said Dave Murphy of Food Democracy Now! "Hundreds of thousands of Americans from across the country stand behind this administration to reign in excessive concentration in agriculture and we expect real action to be taken to break up the biggest offenders."

"The way the current food system operates benefits big agricultural corporations, which are getting bigger all the time-at the expense of ordinary people and the environment," said Nikhil Aziz of Grassroots International. "Small farmers, farm workers and consumers alike are asserting their rights, which ultimately will ensure a more equitable food system and a cooler planet," he added. Over the past year, thousands of family farmers and consumers have packed the workshops on"Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy," hosted jointly by the two Departments. From Ankeny, Iowa, and Normal, Alabama, to Madison, Wisconsin, and Fort Collins, Colorado, ordinary people have come forward to testify on panels and speak out about the handful of companies that control our food supply. The workshops have appropriately focused on farmers and livestock producers, but they are supported by thousands of consumers, food activists, antihunger advocates, and others who want a fair and equitable food system.