Archive for May 14th, 2015
What your mum never told
Posted on: May 14, 2015
What your mum never told
Ten things your mum never told you (more reasons to love your mum!)
Pumping Antibiotics in animal farms: Lethal Consequences
Cruel factory farms are pumping healthy animals full of antibiotics so that they can produce more meat, faster and cheaper.
This insane cruelty is also creating drug-resistant superbugs that can kill us!
Several European countries have already drastically cut use of antibiotics, and now EU ministers are negotiating laws to do so across the continent.
Reducing cruelty to animals while saving human lives is such a no-brainer that even McDonald’s said it’ll stop selling chicken reared with some antibiotics in the US.
But the farm and pharma lobby is out in full force to stop the new EU laws.
Ministers from across the EU meet tomorrow, and many have yet to make up their minds.
Let’s build a million-strong call to outlaw the cruel and deadly abuse of antibiotics in factory farms, and deliver it to each of them. Once we win in Europe, we’ll take this around the world. Sign now, then share with everyone:
The World Health Organisation has issued stark warnings that superbugs may make antibiotics useless in combating infectious diseases like tuberculosis or pneumonia.
Much of modern medicine depends on antibiotics, including cancer treatments, and surgery and a major report estimates that 10 million more people will die per year by 2050 if we don’t save antibiotics.
Constant low doses of antibiotics breed superbugs.
And though human misuse also contributes to this growing resistance, little is being done to reduce the massive amount of antibiotics given to livestock — two thirds of the volume of antibiotics in the EU and US!
(And African sick people are denied efficient antibiotics for curable diseases)
Even in Japan, the amount of antibiotics used for livestock exceeded 1,000 tons in 2011.
Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands have shown it’s possible to produce meat with far less antibiotics, but with meat and bugs travelling across borders, we need to bring other countries on board.
Many would like to shut down dangerous factory farms once and for all.
These new EU laws will be a massive step towards improving animal welfare, and improving human health. But experts say the Ministers aren’t feeling any public pressure to act — we can change that right now.
Sign the petition and spread the word — once we reach one million signers, Avaaz will run opinion polls, and work with champion countries to bring our petition right into the room before the EU votes:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/antibiotics_factory_farms_loc/?bFAfecb&v=58121
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/food-farming-antibiotics-health-challenge-business
How Cheap Meat Practices Beef Up Superbugs Like MRSA (ABC News)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/moms-doctors-aim-mrsa-superbugs/story?id=16352562
Why antibiotic resistance must be tackled at the farm, too (EurActiv)
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/health-consumers/why-antibiotic-resistance-must-be-tackled-farm-too…
Antibiotic resistance now ‘global threat’, WHO warns (BBC)
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27204988
KFC faces pressure after McDonald’s says no antibiotics in chicken (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/us-usa-antibiotics-yum-insight-idUSKBN0M80B720150312
Antibiotics – Antimicrobial Resistance Briefing (CIWF)
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/research/human-health/antibiotics-briefing-antimicrobial-resistance/
Balancing Acts: Ballerinas, mothers and kids
Sixteen years ago, photographer mom Lucy Gray decided to create a series of images that would capture the experience of working motherhood.
A chance encounter with a prima ballerina at the market led her to the world of the San Francisco Ballet and the dancers who balanced their onstage careers with their roles as mothers.
Over the course of 15 years, Gray photographed three ballerinas who had children — Katita Waldo, Tina LeBlanc and Kristin Long.
The photographer followed these women as they navigated motherhood and the professional dance world — pumping during breaks backstage, dancing while pregnant, and playing with their children after curtain call.
“I wanted to get their experiences as dancers and as mothers,” Gray told The Huffington Post.
“I wanted them to forget about me and become a near silent witness.”
Gray turned her series of intimate black and white photos into a book called Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers.
“What I learned was that their hallmark was dedication, and that made them effective as dancers and as mothers,” Gray said.
While the women had risked “losing it all” when they decided to bear children while working in their competitive field, the photographer said her subjects actually became better dancers when they became mothers. ”
For these three dancers, letting go of single-minded self-driven rewards and performing for their children put their vocation in perspective.”
“It was the fact of doing both simultaneously that made them better at both occupations — work and child-rearing.
This was possible because of supportive husbands who were also working but doing the lion’s share of child caring.
They all brought the children to the ballet which kept the mother’s connected through dancing seasons until they were off and could spend more intense time with their children.”
Gray hopes that Balancing Acts will resonate with the millions of working mothers in the U.S.
“Half the work force are women, and we might accept that that is a good thing, a necessary situation, and that that does not preclude us from succeeding as mothers as well,” she said. “If we as a culture accept this reality then we might begin to support working mothers.
If there is any phrase I have come to dislike it is ‘having it all.’ Why do we tell women that if we are mothers we must give up anything else or fail at everything we do? It just isn’t true.”
The photographer also wants people to feel the joy and pleasure in her subjects’ lives as they embraced the challenge of having children while working.
“These ballerinas created babies and roles on stage, perhaps their span of experience is greater than most of ours, but that gives us a bar to aspire to. They became better dancers after they had children and were better mothers because they kept dancing.
They needed to work to support their children but they also knew that having careers kept them more interested at home. Both sides to their lives fed the other.”
Keep scrolling and watch the book trailer for a preview of some of the stunning images from Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers.
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2015 -
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Adonis Diaries 