When a school lunch supplier repackaged moldy applesauce into canned goods and fruit cups, it drew a sharp warning from federal health regulators last month -- and general disgust from almost everyone else.

"I was appalled that there were actually human beings that were OK with this," said Kantha Shelke, a food scientist and spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists. "This is a case of unsafe food. They are trying to salvage that to make a buck."

But even as Food and Drug Administration officials prepare to re-inspect Snokist Growers of Yakima, Wash., to ensure that the applesauce maker keeps toxin-tainted fruit off store shelves, federal officials and industry experts acknowledge that Snokist is not alone in "reworking" faulty food.

Turning imperfect, mislabeled or outright contaminated foods into edible -- and profitable -- goods is so common that virtually all producers do it, at least to some extent, sources say.

"Any food can be reconditioned," said Jay Cole, a former federal inspector who now works as a senior consultant with The FDA Group, a firm that specializes in helping manufacturers comply with industry regulations.

"It's how people do their business," added Shelke, founder of Corvus Blue, a Chicago-based packaged goods consulting firm.

It may be something benign, such as misshapen pieces of pasta that are re-ground into semolina, or something unexpected, like a batch of mislabeled blueberry ice cream mixed in with chocolate to avoid waste.

It might be something unappetizing, such as insect parts sifted out of cocoa beans or live bugs irradiated -- and left behind -- in dried fruits like dates and figs.

Or it could be something alarming, such as the salmonella Tennessee bacteria detected last year in huge lots of hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, a flavor enhancer used in foods from gravy mix and snack foods to dairy products, spices and soups.

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It is understood to have had comparable results to the study done by Fouchier.

Both papers are now being reviewed by the U.S National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).

NSABB does not have the power to prevent the publication but it could ask journals not to publish.

Paul Keim, chairman of NSABB, said: 'I can't think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one. I don't think anthrax is scary at all compared to this.'

Traditionally scientific research has always been open so that fellow scientists can review the work of others and repeat their methods to try and learn from them.

Ever since the global financial crisis of 2008, people everywhere have tightened their belts and cut down on spending, including slicing their food budgets.

But supermarkets employ all kinds of strategies to get you to spend more money, and food manufacturers are applying ever more sophisticated tactics to sell their wares.

First, let's take a look at the simple stuff... Daily Finance recently listed a few ways to avoid the most obvious traps, including:

• Resist the smells: Some grocers even pipes in artificial scents to inspire you to buy more.
  
  
• Forget the end caps: The spots at the ends of each aisle contain "sale items" that aren't very cheap -- but which are conveniently placed.
  
  
• Scan top and bottom shelves: The most expensive stuff is often deliberately placed at eye level. Take a moment to scan the entire shelf.
  
  
• Appreciate the plain stuff: Product packaging is usually exceptionally bright. Less-gaudy house brands may be cheaper.
  
  
• Don't fall for hyped numbers: Signs may say "10 for $10," or "2 for $5," but you'll usually get the same price if you buy only one, so do the math!

Taking just a little 'too much' Tylenol over the course of days or weeks can be even more deadly than massive overdose, according to new research. Instead of the instant effects associated with single overdose of acetaminophen (Tylenol), death from lower doses may not be recognized due to a lack of concrete side effects. The findings bring to the light the dangers of acetaminophen, one of the most commonly used drugs in the world.

If even just a little too much can kill you, what is the regular dosage doing to your body? It is important to remember that there have been more deaths from painkillers than cocaine and heroin combined.

Over 28 billion doses of acetaminophen were purchased in the United States in 2005 alone. Taking even slightly higher doses than recommend can cause liver damage that is potentially fatal. In fact, Tylenol overdose is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S., creating 26,000 hospitalizations and around 500 deaths each year, according to research provided by the Food and Drug Administration.

The World Health Organisation is warning of the potential for an untreatable form of tuberculosis to develop on Australia's doorstep.

It says infections of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) in Papua New Guinea's remote south-west have reached crisis levels.

The country's health minister says tuberculosis is now a greater health emergency than HIV/AIDS.

Dr Catharina Van Weezenbeek, from the World Health Organisation, says it is now clear the problem is in a state of emergency.

"If you just look at the numbers of MDR TB cases, it's clear that we're dealing with a crisis," she said.

"Children 14-years-old infected with MDR TB in a family with already five patients dying."

A research team from WHO found the rural health centres are rundown with very limited or no medical supplies.

Marijuana was a popular botanical medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries, common in U.S. pharmacies of the time.

Yet, in 1970, the herb was declared a Schedule 1 controlled substance and labeled as a drug with a "high potential for abuse" and "no accepted medical use."

Three years later the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was formed to enforce the newly created drug schedules, and the fight against marijuana use began.

The Huffington Post has a concise history of marijuana prohibition, and the struggle for legalization, that is well worth reading -- but the most successful movement to date, and the one that is set to produce the first legal marijuana market in decades, is the medical marijuana movement.

Unfortunately, the feds have recently announced a blatant reversal on their previous pro-medical marijuana stance -- a move that is threatening to stop the industry cold.

Young children in foster care are being given antipsychotics just as frequently as children considered to be the most mentally disabled, according to a new report.

The drugs that the foster children are being dosed up with are powerful antipsychotic drugs traditionally given to schizophrenics - the same drugs that even mainstream health officials are now speaking out against.

The report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, examined how often young children in foster care are given two antipsychotic drugs at once. While some drugs include Risperdal, Seroqueland, and Zyprexa, some of these young children are also given major tranquilizers, which were originally developed to 'treat' schizophrenia but are now used as all-purpose drugs for almost any psychiatric syndrome.

A recent study published in the the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition identified a new protein in celiac patients that may help detect the disease earlier than some of the traditionally used lab tests.

Immune Response to Non Gluten Protein

The protein is called Glo-3A. It is a non gluten storage protein found in wheat.

Production of antibodies to Glo-3A is being studied as a marker to help in earlier diagnosis of gluten issues. In a study of children at high risk of developing the celiac disease, which attacks cells lining the small intestine, high levels of antibodies to Glo-3A were detectable in blood earlier than antibodies to tissue transglutaminase (TTG), a serologic marker frequently used to diagnose celiac disease.

"The present study shows that higher levels of Glo-3A antibodies are associated with celiac disease both at the time of clinical diagnosis and before that point,"

Washington - People who ate canned soup for five days straight saw their urinary levels of the chemical bisphenol A spike 1,200 percent compared to those who ate fresh soup, US researchers said on Tuesday.

The randomized study, described as "one of the first to quantify BPA levels in humans after ingestion of canned foods," was done by Harvard University researchers and appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association's November 23 issue.

"We've known for a while that drinking beverages that have been stored in certain hard plastics can increase the amount of BPA in your body," said lead author Jenny Carwile, a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.

NIH-funded study finds dyslexia not tied to IQ Research on brain activity fails to support widely used approach to identify dyslexic students

Regardless of high or low overall scores on an IQ test, children with dyslexia show similar patterns of brain activity, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. The results call into question the discrepancy model - the practice of classifying a child as dyslexic on the basis of a lag between reading ability and overall IQ scores.

In many school systems, the discrepancy model is the criterion for determining whether a child will be provided with specialized reading instruction. With the discrepancy model, children with dyslexia and lower-than-average IQ scores may not be classified as learning disabled and so may not be eligible for special educational services to help them learn to read.

"The study results indicate that the discrepancy model is not a valid basis for allocating special educational services in reading," said Brett Miller, Ph.D., director of the Reading, Writing and Related Learning Disabilities Program at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the part of the National Institutes of Health that funded the study. "It follows that, whether they have high IQ scores or low IQ scores, children with great difficulty in learning to read stand to benefit from educational services to help them learn to read." The study findings were published online in Psychological Science. The study was conducted by Fumiko Hoeft, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University, in Stanford, Calif., and colleagues at Boston College; York University, in Toronto; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge.