понедельник, 25 мая 2015 г.
пятница, 22 мая 2015 г.
uWalmart To Require Meat Suppliers Provide Data On Antibiotics User
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Antibiotics used on farm animals account for more than 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S., and many of these drugs are medically important to the health of human beings. The overuse of antibiotics results in the development of drug-resistant pathogens, thus making the antibiotics less effective and requiring more potent drugs. Some of the nation’s biggest buyers of meat are making the switch toward purchasing antibiotic-free meat (or meat that is only given drugs not deemed medically important to humans), and today Walmart said it will begin collecting and sharing data on the antibiotics used by its meat suppliers.
The nation’s biggest retailer is taking a three-pronged approach to this transparency effort, which will hopefully result in reduced levels of antibiotic use.
First, it is asking suppliers to adopt and implement the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Judicious Use Principles for antimicrobials.
While these principles do stress that antimicrobial use should be limited and targeted, they don’t draw a hard line against the prophylactic use of antibiotics that concerns many public health advocates. Rather, the principles state that it shouldn’t be “utilized as standard practice” and that metaphylaxis — the mass use of low-dose antibiotics — “should be actively discouraged.”
If suppliers implement these principles as written, then it should cut down on some antibiotic overuse, though some will continue to argue the necessity of prophylactic drug use.
Walmart is also asking suppliers to adopt and implement the FDA’s Voluntary Guidance for Industry #209, which includes ceasing the use of antibiotics for growth promotion.
But this just brings up the loophole of preventative prophylactic use again. Some suppliers contend that growth promotion was always just a positive result of using antibiotics for disease prevention.
“All those antibiotics-exposed animals become potential incubators for the development and spread of drug-resistant bacteria,” writes David Wallinga, MD, for the Natural Resources Defense Council, “and ultimately undercut the future effectiveness of antibiotics when actually needed to treat infections.”
The final prong of the Walmart antibiotic trident is also the one that offers the most promise: Requiring that suppliers report on their antibiotics management practices, and that these reports be made public annually.
This is the sort of transparency that advocates have been calling on the FDA to require from drug companies and farmers. The agency recently proposed a rule that would break down antibiotic use based on the type of livestock receiving the drug, but will still keep consumers in the dark about how many drugs your average cow, pig, or chicken is ingesting each day.
“In seeking transparency from their suppliers, Walmart is responding to consumer demand for knowledge in how their food is produced,” says Susan Grooters, policy analyst for Keep Antibiotics Working. “This important step forward will position Walmart to analyze the antibiotic use practices and whether medically important antibiotics are used and for what purposes.”
Grooters also calls out Walmart for not using its leverage as the country’s largest supermarket chain to demand more far-reaching changes to its suppliers’ antibiotic use practices.
“While transparency is definitely needed, continued routine use of antibiotics for disease prevention does not meet consumer expectations,” she explains. “Routine use, whether it be for growth promotion or disease prevention, creates the same public health risk, and should thus be explicitly restricted in Walmart’s policy.”
Wallinga describes the Walmart news as more business as usual.
“Walmart wants to present its announcement as a step forward on responsible antibiotic use. But it’s actually lagging behind the industry leaders,” he writes, citing more definitive antibiotics-related moves by McDonald’s, Chick fil-A, Perdue, and Tyson.
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uWatch Company Collects $1 Million On Kickstarter, Spends It All, Then Hidesr
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Kickstarter is not, and never has been, a store. Yet companies that use the platform to fund the production of a new product are eventually supposed to, um, make that product. Backers who contributed more than a million dollars to produce thin e-ink watches want answers from the company that promised these watches, and they aren’t satisfied with “we’re broke” as an answer.
Producing a completely new product is hard, especially when you’re a new company. We’ve shared other Kickstarter disasters here, including Linkwallet, a company that eventually promised its backers refunds sometime in 2015, after collecting pledges back in 2013.
Here’s what we know about Central Standard Timing. Their watch, the CST-01, looks like a slap bracelet with an e-ink display. It’s not a smartwatch, but it’s really cool-looking. The two cofounders asked Kickstarter for $200,000, and the backers contributed more than $1 million to make the watches happen. The project was funded in February 2013, and CST promised to deliver watches to backers in September of that year. They raised even more money accepting direct pre-orders on their own site after the Kickstarter campaign ended. Yet very few backers and pre-orderers report having watches in their hands now. What happened?
“We overestimated the capability of a manufacturing partner to transition a product we were able to make in our workshop to something that could be mass manufactured,” CST explained in a Kickstarter update. After years’ worth of problems with production, the founders say that the money has run out, and they were only able to make a few watches. You can read a very, very detailed summary of the company’s updates here, but it seems the final design was not as “final” as backers were promised, and drastic changes to the watch and band happened before real production could start. They managed to ship one small batch in February, and then…no more shipments. There’s a big difference between a prototype made in your workshop and making the same item in a factory.
Their local Better Business Bureau has received fifteen complaints about the company, and it has responded to none of them. Cooperating with the BBB is voluntary, of course, but what about an actual law enforcement agency? For another Kickstarter projects where backers were left empty-handed, the Washington state Attorney General stepped in and sued the company. That hasn’t happened yet here, though backers on the original Kickstarter page say that they have tried to contact the AG in Illinois. CST hasn’t responded to the agency’s queries.
In their last Kickstarter update, the company suggested that they could sell what they’ve already finished to an outside company, perhaps one that has the million and a half dollars or so needed to produce the watches that have already been paid for. Promising an item for $99 when it will cost $300 to produce is not a good business plan. That’s what one of the founders claimed to the New York Observer.
Does anyone even want an open-source CST-01? Probably not. Would anyone even pay the current pre-order price of $300 when you can get an actual smartwatch for less than that? Nope. Will the Illinois state attorney general sue and save the day? Will an investor swoop in, buy up the company, and create a happy ending?
We don’t know. All we know is that Kickstarter isn’t a store, and that you should keep that in mind when backing cool projects. Even if the people behind a really exciting product say that it’s ready to roll out of the factory as soon as they get some capital together, that does not mean that it’s true. Adjust your expectations and your budget accordingly.
Did the Creators of a $1M Kickstarter Botch Production or Blow the Cash on Mojitos? [Observer]
CST-01 – It’s just not gonna happen [Forum]
CST-01: The World’s Thinnest Watch [Kickstarter]SEE ALSO:
The Instacube: Kickstarter Success, Real-World Disaster
Kickstarter Isn’t A Store, But These People Still Want Their iPods
Do A Bit Of Research On Kickstarter Projects Before You Hand Over $100 For A $15 Watch
If A Project Funded By Online Backers Never Takes Off, Should Everyone Get A Refund?
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uUber Claims Disability Laws Don’t Apply To Technology Companiesr
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Uber’s massive fleet of cars don’t belong to the company, and its drivers aren’t employees. Does that mean that they aren’t a public service, as other transportation options are, and that they don’t have to follow federal or state laws that require buses and taxis to accommodate everyone.
You may remember cases where Uber passengers with disabilities have complained about drivers’ treatment of them: one rider complained that her service dog was forced to ride in the trunk, and others have described drivers who simply abandoned passengers at the curb after, the passengers allege, noticing their disabilities.
The Daily Beast lays out the current situation: in the last year, individuals and groups, including the National Federation for the Blind, have sued Uber under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The company has argued that since they’re a technology company that simply provides a platform to process payments and connect riders and passengers. They don’t own the fleet, and drivers aren’t their employees.
Some suggestions that advocates for people with disabilities have made have been that Uber could potentially purchase some vans that can accommodate power wheelchairs, as taxi services do. They could also require training for drivers on how to not be a jerk to people with disabilities. The problem with both of these options is that they require Uber to own vehicles and to require their independent contractors to attend training…both of which would make it seem more like an employer than a technology company that facilitates rides thanks to an invisible army of workers.
Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us [Daily Beast]
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uAT&T Will Try To Make First Amendment Case Against Net Neutralityr
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When you think of the Internet and First Amendment issues, your mind probably conjures up images of people being able to freely express themselves online through websites, videos, and social media. But if your AT&T, the First Amendment was created to give Internet service providers the authority to have some sort of editorial control over the data they carry.
AT&T is one of the many plaintiffs suing the FCC in the hope of gutting net neutrality a second time. And in a document [PDF] filed with the court last week, the company outlines the issues to be raised in its lawsuit.
And right there under item #1 is: “Whether the FCC’s reclassification of broadband Internet access service as a telecommunications service subject to common carrier regulation under Title II violates the terms of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”
AT&T also plans to raise First and Fifth Amendment issues with regard to interconnectivity (i.e., the connection of ISP networks to the backbone of the Internet) and whether wireless smartphone data should be classified as broadband.
The document sheds little light on AT&T’s actual arguments in these matters, but as Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin points out, Verizon tried something similar in its lawsuit that ultimately neutered the original net neutrality rules.
In 2012, Verizon argued [PDF] that the 2010 Open Internet Order “infringes broadband network owners’ constitutional rights. It violates the First Amendment by stripping them of control over the transmission of speech on their networks.”
The company contended that “Broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners engage in First Amendment speech.” Note that this is not a statement about broadband users exercising their First Amendment rights on the Internet; it’s about the owners of broadband networks.
Verizon likened the operation of a broadband network to running a news organization on which it has “editorial discretion.”
“Just as a newspaper is entitled to decide which content to publish and where, broadband providers may feature some content over others,” wrote the company, making the case for why ISPs should be able to decide which content gets a higher priority over the rest of the Internet traffic. “Broadband providers could also give differential pricing or priority access to their over-the-top video services or other applications they provide, or otherwise feature that content.”
Of course, this sort of paid prioritization is exactly why the net neutrality rules were put into place, so that an ISP can’t simply decide that the company that pays it the most will reach customers faster. That puts the choice of available content in the hands of a company that you pay to do nothing more than act as a neutral conduit for your Internet access.
Without net neutrality, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast & others could not only prioritize those media outlets that pay them for the best access, but which are willing to put their companies in the best light. Sites like Consumerist and countless others that depend on a neutral Internet to be able to reach as many people as possible could be hamstrung in favor of deep-pocketed content providers who are not critical of the ISPs controlling the pipes of the Internet.
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uCable Company Tech Arrested After Allegedly Grabbing, Shoving Customerr
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Cable company installation horror stories usually involve things like poorly run cords, maybe a dead gecko, gaping holes in walls, possibly having your house condemned, and the occasional tech who pees into a bag instead of in the bathroom. But a woman in Staten Island says a disagreement with her Time Warner Cable tech escalated to the point of him assaulting her in her house.
The customer tells CBS2 that when the TWC tech arrived at her home, there was confusion about whether he was supposed to service just the phone service of both phone and cable. That eventually got ironed out, but the appointment had to be rescheduled.
The woman, admittedly irritated, then asked the tech to leave and tried to read the name on his ID tag. That’s apparently when things got out of hand, according to the customer.
“He grabbed my right arm with both hands and shoved me against my front door, and he held me there for a couple seconds,” she tells CBS2. “I was screaming and yelling for him to get off me. ‘Get off me! Just get out of my house!’”
She says the incident occurred in front of her young daughter.
“I was in fear for my life and my daughter’s life,” recalls the customer. “And he’s a technician. He had his tools on him. I didn’t know if he had a weapon on him.”
The tech left after the customer said she’d call 9-1-1. She made good on this threat after he was gone and police arrested the tech only blocks from her house.
However, because the woman had no visible injuries, the tech was only charged with second-degree harassment.
Like many cable techs, the one involved in this incident is not an employee of the cable company but works for a third-party contractor hired by TWC.
TWC says the tech in question is no longer doing work for them and that the company is “working with law enforcement as they investigate what happened.”
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uMcDonald’s Now Threatening To Sneak Into Your Kitchen, Steal Your Foodr
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Five years ago, we warned you that before long, “artisanal” would become the new “organic,” and companies would adopt it in their marketing. The prediction came true, and companies like McDonald’s and Arby’s are advertising “artisan” mass-produced meat products. In advertising their artisan grilled chicken products, McDonald’s may be taking their “we use real food, honest” thing a little too far.
Reader Gayle spotted this sign at her local McDonald’s, and it reminded her of our post featuring a McDonald’s placemat that reminds customers that they used to use highly-processed beef trimmings, or “pink slime,” in their burgers.
The basic idea is good: they’re trying to get across the idea that McDonald’s uses simple ingredients like the ones people use to cook from scratch in their home kitchens, including “pantry spices.” Or they’re threatening to come to my house and steal all of my food: I’m not quite sure which.
“I guess they figure to improve the quality of the food and save money they’ll use what’s in OUR refrigerators/kitchens!” Gayle wrote. Artisan meats, pantry spices…McDonald’s is going a little too far to try to attract an American public that is more concerned about what goes in their food.
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