Contaminated Chinese produce spreads hepatitis A to nine Australians

(NaturalNews) China has a dastardly reputation for producing garbage consumer products of poor quality that may contain things like toxic heavy metals and lead paint. But the world's largest economy (by some measures) is increasingly exporting garbage food products as well, including tainted berries that reportedly infected at least nine Australians with hepatitis A.

Recent reports explain that Patties Foods, which sells both the Nanna's and Creative Gourmet brands of mixed berries in Australia, opted to recall these and two other similar products after multiple hepatitis A infections caused by the Chinese berries emerged in regions throughout the continent. Individuals in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales all reported falling ill after consuming the tainted berries.

Each of the products is commonly sold at supermarkets throughout Australia, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP), which means many more people may have been exposed to the bad berries. The infection cases are unusual, claim authorities, because hepatitis A is usually contracted from other sources, typically in conjunction with fecal contamination.

"Hepatitis A virus infection is uncommon and normally associated with travel to countries affected by endemic hepatitis A," stated Rosemary Lester, chief health officer in Victoria state where three cases of infection have been reported, to the media.

"The only common link between the cases is consumption of this product -- there is no overseas travel or common restaurant exposure."

Chinese agriculture following in footsteps of US with toxic factory food production methods

As further delineated by The Daily Sheeple, hepatitis A doesn't just magically appear on produce. It had to get there either from contaminated hands that touched it or from contaminated "compost," if you will, being sprayed on it -- we're talking about raw sewage here, which seems to be the only logical way that the berries became tainted.

"Hepatitis A is usually transmitted through water that is contaminated with human waste," wrote Joshua Krause. "That means these berries were either grown or 'cleaned' with raw sewage. How in the hell does someone let that happen?"

That's a good question, Joshua, and one for which we would also like an answer. And an even bigger question is why is Australia, given the multiple diverse climates it has for growing all sorts of different foods, even importing berries from China in the first place?

You can tack it onto the abstruse and all-encompassing phenomenon known as globalization, I suppose. But if anything suggests that First World folks should perhaps return to the ways of old in order to sustain their livelihoods, fecal-contaminated, infectious disease-ridden berries from China are probably the perfect example.

"Hepatitis A is transmitted by the so-called 'faecal-oral' route -- an infected person sheds the virus in their faeces which then contaminates food or water," stated Enzo Palombo, a food health and safety expert at the Swinburne University of Technology, to AFP.

"The virus either directly contaminates the food through a food handler not washing their hands properly or it could come from contaminated water used to wash the berries."

Avoid tainted food by growing it at home and joining the Food Rising Revolution!

Quite appetizing, isn't it? As a health-conscious subscriber to this site, this is your cue to start investing your time, efforts and money into only locally grown, clean, non-GMO foods cultivated purely without chemicals or, God forbid, disease-laden human feces.

You are also encouraged to join the Food Rising Revolution at FoodRising.org, an amazing new resource that will teach you how to grow your own clean, organic food at home, and even develop all the tools you need to grow food at home using amazing 3D-printing technology. More on this is available at FoodRising.org.

Sources:

http://www.thedailysheeple.com

http://news.yahoo.com

http://www.foodrising.org