MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2006
Monday Edition: Deadly Dog Food
Cornell University scientists say that at least 100 dogs have died nationally in the past few weeks from tainted dog food.
Some 19 brands of
Diamond, Country Value and Professional dog foods have been recalled.
But many pet owners are not aware of the recall, the Cornell researchers said Friday. (See the Diamond Pet Food Web site.)
States affected by the Diamond recall:
- Alabama
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Kentucky
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New York
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Vermont
- Virginia
- West Virginia
A LiveScience.com article said:
Dogs have refused to
eat the food and, in some cases, their owners have enticed them with
gravy and other lures without knowing they were killing the animals.
"Entire kennels have
been wiped out, and because of the holiday these past few weeks, the
dispersal of recall information was disrupted," said Sharon Center, a professor of veterinary medicine who specializes in liver function and disease at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell.
The dog food is
tainted with deadly aflatoxins that waste the liver away. The bad food
could be present in a dozen other countries, too, the researchers say.
About two-thirds of dogs that show symptoms from the toxin have died.
The dogs seemed to know their food was deadly.
"Some dogs were
stealing food from the kitchen counter," Center said. "Others just
stopped eating the food and begged for treats. Unfortunately, some
owners used gravy and other mixers to entice their dogs to consume what
they thought was safe, quality dog food."
Only about two dozen
deaths have been firmly linked to the tainted pet food. But Center and
her colleagues know the toll is far higher.
"Every day, we're
hearing reports from veterinarians in the East and Southeast who have
treated dogs that have died from liver damage this past month or so,"
Center said. "We're also concerned about the long-term health of dogs
that survive as well as dogs that have eaten the tainted food but show
no clinical signs."
Kids and Power Windows
A child-safety advocacy group, called "Kids and Cars," is pointing to the death of a Colorado child last week
as another example of why carmakers should change the way they build
power windows. I have touched on this issue previously, as far back as
2004. (See previous story.) The 3-year-old
Colorado Springs
girl was choked to death when her head was caught in a car's power window.
Kids and Cars lobbied
Congress and had legislation passed that will force carmakers to install a new
kind of switch in car doors. It's designed to make it more difficult for children to
accidentally activate power windows. The group also wants sensors in
power windows that would stop the windows from rising when they hit an
obstruction, like a child's head or neck. Congress recently passed
legislation requiring the safer switches, but the bill did not include
a hard deadline for automakers to comply. The Denver Post explained:
(The child's
death)…comes five months after Congress passed new requirements for
automakers regarding electric windows. Provisions in the 2005
transportation bill mandate lever switches, said Janette Fennell of
Kids and Cars.
"There is still no
date-certain when this will go into effect," said Fennell, who launched
a national campaign against rocker and toggle switches in 2003. "The
automakers come back and say ladies with long fingernails in their
focus groups don't like lever switches."
Fennell said lever
switches and auto-reverse mechanisms -- in which closing windows stop
and retract on contact with hard objects -- are standard in
Europe and Japan. While the top U.S. automakers include these safety features in cars bound for Europe, they typically are not options in domestic models, she said.
The group estimates
that power-accessory strangulation accounted for 3 percent of the 700
nontraffic auto fatalities involving children 15 and younger in the U.S. from 2000 to 2004.
The Denver Post included this graphic:
The Kids and Cars Web site says:
A 1997 study by the National Center
for Statistics and Analysis at the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) estimated that each year 500 people are treated
in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to power windows; and
half of those are children.
A couple of months ago, Consumer Reports tested
a number of window switches to see which ones were the safest. The
magazine said the riskiest designs for the switches were the
"horizontal" ones that you just need to push down to operate.
The safer switches are the ones you have to pull UP on to make the
window move. The article said:
Two types of switches are inherently riskier than others if they're mounted horizontally on the door's armrest:
Rocker switches move the glass up when you press one end of the switch, down when you press the other.
Toggle switches work when pushed forward or pulled back.
A third type, the lever
switch, is safer because it makes it harder to raise the window
accidentally. Lever switches must be pulled up to raise the glass. They
generally have not been implicated in fatal injuries, according to Kids
and Cars. Switches of any design mounted vertically or on an upswept
armrest are harder to activate by accident.
Lever switches and autoreverse sensors are common in Europe. But autoreverse is required in the U.S. only in vehicles with auto/one-touch-up windows and remotely controlled windows. (BMW is recalling some vehicles because of problems with the autoreverse mechanism.)
Clarence
Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety (and a member of
Consumers Union's board of directors), says, "If garage doors can have
a reversing sensor, power windows should." His organization has
petitioned the government for upgraded safety standards.
The
Big Three automakers say they abide by the safety standards in place
wherever their cars are sold. For example, Kristen Kinley, a
spokeswoman for Ford Motor Co., says its power windows meet and in some
cases exceed federal standards.
The article offered this advice:
Never
leave children alone in a car or the keys in the car when kids are
nearby. Pay close attention to the design and location of window
switches when shopping for a new car.
What People Earn
The average wage paid to sewage-treatment facility workers in
America
is $42,477, according to the annual Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004 wage survey
that just came out. The survey tries to figure out how much Americans
earn in hundreds of job categories. If you are, for example, a sewage treatment plant worker in
Kentucky [PDF], you would earn $28,492 a year.
These charts are
useful when you are reporting stories, such as the coal mine disaster
story last week, and you want to say how much workers in a certain state
earn.
Radio folks should
not read this report unless they want to get depressed. The report says
people working in "radio broadcasting" still earn an average of $21,000
less than the TV folks. (See pages 11 and 12 of the report [PDF].)
A Corporate-Blogging Blog
Here is a blog that collects blogs maintained by people who work inside big corporations.
As the collection
grows, these sites could become valuable to journalists who are trying
to gain insights into the people who work for these Fortune-500 companies. The New York Times mentions the collection in a weekend story.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited
story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well
as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible.
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