Doors Floors and More

Cited: Reuters

On August 19, a federal official stated that more cases of the food-borne illness of salmonella that has sickened hundreds of people in three states and prompted a nationwide recall of suspected eggs is expected.

State officials in California, Colorado and Minnesota have linked more than 270 illnesses to eggs from Wright County Egg in northern Iowa. The company voluntarily recalled 380 million eggs that were distributed throughout the country.

“I would anticipate we will be seeing more illnesses reported and likely as a result of this outbreak,” Christopher Braden of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said during a telephone news conference. It often takes two or three weeks for an illness to be reported to CDC.

During the teleconference, Food and Drug Administration officials said the recall was among the largest egg recalls in recent years. Fifteen investigators were working on a probe that includes tests of laying hens at the Galt, Iowa, farm for salmonella infection. No results were available yet.

Nearly 2,000 cases of salmonella were reported from May to July, Braden said, a period during which 700 cases would be usual. Many were a common subtype of the bacteria.

“We can’t say all 2,000 are related to this outbreak,” he said.

CDC said later it was using advanced molecular tests to help identify cases from the outbreak. It said a trace back by state and federal officials found eggs from Wright County Egg factored in five cases in California, Colorado and Minnesota.

Salmonella can cause fever, diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain and sometimes more serious illness or death.

Some 266 cases of salmonella in California have been linked to the eggs, according to Los Angeles County officials. Seven cases in Minnesota are linked to the Iowa eggs, say state health officials. The Colorado Department of Public Health says some of 28 salmonella cases during June and July “likely” are linked to eggs from Wright County Egg.

Salmonella investigations are underway in 13 states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas,.

The 380 million eggs in the recall are equal to nearly all the eggs consumed by Americans in two days, according to Agriculture Department figures. It says Americans will consume 247 eggs apiece this year.

Wright County Egg announced the voluntary nationwide recall of eggs produced since May 19 on Friday and expanded it on Wednesday to include eggs from two other sites. Wright County Egg is part of DeCoster Farms, a family-run agribusiness.

The eggs were sold under the brand names Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms, Kemps, James Farms, Glenview and Pacific Coast. Their cartons are stamped on the end with P-1720, P-1942 P-1026, P-1413 or P-1946 and followed by a number from 136 to 229.

An FDA egg-safety rule took effect on July 9 that requires large-scale producers to take steps such as refrigerating eggs, safeguarding feed and water supplies from contamination and testing in the poultry house for salmonella bacteria.

If the bacterium is found, producers must test eggs for it and if the eggs are contaminated, they must be treated to destroy the bacteria or divert them to non-food use.

“The risk of illness would have been reduced,” stated Associate FDA Commissioner Jeff Farrar as he spoke about the role that took effect earlier in July. Farrar also disagreed that if the rule was implemented earlier the outbreak could have been prevented or that the rule fell short in this case.

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My Take: I bet everybody who read this stop eating eggs. I am sure that the top pharmaceutical companies in the country are making money off of this incident as well as medical supply companies. The only ones not making any money are the egg farmers. If anything, they have lost a lot of money.

If you think you might have salmonella, go to your doctor and ask him or her. I believe they have got rapid test kits that might be able to tell if you do have salmonella. You just might have some kind of gastric problem and they will use one of the gastric pH test kits to determine what your problem is.

If you happen to live in New Jersey and you can’t leave your home, you might contact the visiting physicians to come to your home and check you. Yes, they will make a doctor house call and I am not joking. There are doctors who make house calls again! I wish they had that kind of service here in Arizona.

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Expansion of Coffee Locations

There are some amazing types of coffee machines out there today and people have tended to think that they can make the same sort of coffee house cup of coffee in their own home that stores and specialized coffee houses can do with their own, personal coffee supplies. This has led to some stiff competition as far as companies being able to get people to come into stores to purchase cups of coffee when they have advanced machinery at home to serve the same purpose. Modern coffee sellers have had to sweeten the deal with interesting new drinks.

Cited: Reuters

On August 5, a government report stated that the US retiree health program, Medicare, had its future brightened significantly from last year as a result of cost cuts in healthcare reform legislation. The trust fund is not projected to exhaust its funds until 2029, a full 12 years later than forecasted in 2009, according to the same annual report.

However, the deep recession ate into receipts for another major program for retired Americans, Social Security, helping push it into deficit for the first time in 27 years, the same report from the two programs’ trustees said.

In the long run, Social Security, which was benefiting 53 million Americans at the end of 2009, was due to exhaust its reserves in 2037, the report said, the same date as was projected in last year’s assessment.

The yawning U.S. budget deficit and the Obama administration’s healthcare overhaul are among politically polarizing issues in November mid-term elections.

The administration hailed Medicare’s improved finances and some smaller benefits to Social Security, as a dividend from healthcare reform, while critics cited the financial problems facing the two retiree programs as evidence of grave fiscal problems.

“The impact of healthcare reform is made clear by the trustees reports, which show some very positive developments for Social Security and especially Medicare,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, one of the trustees, said at a press conference.

The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg, said the administration should focus on cash shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security instead of how far off in the future the programs’ funds will expire.

“The crisis is upon our doorstep,” he said in a statement. “As of this year, both of these massive entitlement programs will have more going out than coming in.”

Social Security accounted for about $678 billion, or 20 percent of the U.S. budget in the 2009 fiscal year, while Medicare and its companion Medicaid healthcare program for the poor claimed $676 billion.

Although the financial difficulties facing the two programs have been apparent for years, politicians have been unable to agree on how to put them on sounder footing. Lawmakers have been reluctant to cut benefits or raise taxes or set aside enough revenue to keep them running at current levels.

HEALTH SAVINGS

The report said cost savings to the Medicare program would come through reductions in projected payment increases to hospitals and healthcare providers in coming years.

However, over the past several years, Congress has regularly blocked cuts in planned Medicare payments to physicians.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged the administration would need to strike a balance between the controversial pay adjustments, which could drive some healthcare providers away from the Medicare program, and the need to reduce costs to ensure the long-term health of the program.

The funds’ trustees urged lawmakers to address the looming financial problems of the programs soon. In addition to Sebelius and Geithner, trustees include Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

The Medicare report acknowledged the softening recovery will add an additional obstacle to the financial health of the programs. The report assumed a return to full employment will not happen until 2017, two years later than projected last year.

After a painful recession, the U.S. budget deficit is expected this year to top the record $1.41 trillion hit in 2009 and the national debt has reached $13 trillion.

The annual report is usually released in April or May but the trustees delayed publication to study how the fate of the programs would be affected by recently passed healthcare reform legislation.

December will see a blue ribbon partisan commission make recommendations on how to improve long-range state of US finances as well as thoughts on how to put the 2 programs on sounder long-term footing is expected.

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My Take: I hope I live longer than 19 years. If this report is true, I will see 20 years. Of course, I will be 73 by then but I will still need Medicare. Nevada what they do to Medicare in the form of reform, they will never cover a liposuction surgeon! Now, if a woman was to have a complete mastectomy, they might actually cover a breast augmentation surgeon because as part of her treatment and recovery.

I know many people had started senior financial planning for their future. There is actually something called a retirement calculator that can help you figure out how much you will need. Just locate a baby boomer site and you will probably find one. Many baby boomers have hobbies like a model train that they hope to continue when they retire. Some hobbies like this can get expensive. Of course they could start by getting their grandkids toy trains so that they could take over the hobby or help with it.

If you really want my opinion, people who were going to need Social Security and/or Medicare in the next 2 decades are going to have to become job seekers again when they retire. Otherwise they will not be able to afford medical care for living expenses. I doubt that they will try to get VP jobs, just something that will keep their financial stable.

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Relaxation Time

Kicking back in that over stuff recliner or snuggling down on the couch with your significant other to watch a good movie is what everybody loves to do. However, the cable may not have the movie you want to watch and the local video store either doesn’t have it or is close. Then what are you going to do? It’s simple, movie downloads! That’s right, download movies right to your computer and onto a DVD. You can choose a movie, get the movie download, burn it to a DVD and be in front of the TV in no time. And it is completely legal!