After years of being criticized for its response to food-sickness outbreaks and contaminated imports, the Food and Drug Administration is stepping up efforts to convince the public and skeptical lawmakers that it is making progress in overhauling the nation's food defenses. The agency will release a report Monday that summarizes what officials call a "hugely ambitious" campaign to reshape its food inspection arm to root out safety hazards through things like sophisticated software and certifiers from the private sector."The goal is to radically redesign the process," said Dr. David Acheson, the agency's associate commissioner for foods. For imported food, for instance, that means trying to detect tainted products during the production process rather than waiting until they enter the country. "We cannot simply rely on picking the ball up at the point of entry," Dr. Acheson said.
After years of being criticized for its response to food-sickness outbreaks and contaminated imports, the Food and Drug Administration is stepping up efforts to convince the public and skeptical lawmakers that it is making progress in overhauling the nation's food defenses.
The agency will release a report Monday that summarizes what officials call a "hugely ambitious" campaign to reshape its food inspection arm to root out safety hazards through things like sophisticated software and certifiers from the private sector.
"The goal is to radically redesign the process," said Dr. David Acheson, the agency's associate commissioner for foods. For imported food, for instance, that means trying to detect tainted products during the production process rather than waiting until they enter the country.
"We cannot simply rely on picking the ball up at the point of entry," Dr. Acheson said.
LONDON (Reuters) - Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday. The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia. "On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement. "We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's."
LONDON (Reuters) - Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.
The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia.
"On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement.
"We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors ... can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer's."
