Just a sneak peek at what we might have to look forward to over the next Presidency and Congressional session...
(Note you'll have to read down a bit to catch the link here, but it's there if you care to find it. In fact, I'm gonna make it really easy to see momentarily...)
From The Washington Post:
Does Ethanol Raise Risks?
Studies Tie Bacteria in Beef to Fuel Byproduct
Last year scientists noted an uptick in the prevalence of potentially deadly E. coli O157:H7 bacteria in beef products. Frequently found in the digestive tracts of cattle, the bug can wind up in ground beef during the slaughter and grinding process.
There were 21 beef recalls in the United States in 2007, compared with eight the year before. About a third of the recalls were prompted by reports of human illness, while none of the 2006 recalls were.
This year, meat inspectors from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have continued to see more contaminated beef samples. Through mid-October, they had recorded 50 percent more than at the same time last year.
Officials have assumed that these numbers reflect an overall increase in the prevalence of the E. coli strain in cattle, but no one has been able to explain why the dangerous bacteria have become more abundant.
Now scientists are looking into a possible explanation -- one that's related to alternative fuels and the economics of farming.
...
Researchers at Kansas State University who were studying the types of bacteria that live in cattle feces unexpectedly found higher levels of E. coli O157:H7 in the feces of cattle fed a diet that included an ethanol {by}product called distillers grain.
Distillers grain is what is left after the starch from corn is removed to make ethanol. It has been around for decades, but its popularity as a feed ingredient has surged in recent years. One reason is that demand for ethanol, fueled by rising gas prices and federal mandates and subsidies, has pushed the price of corn -- and in turn, corn feed -- to record levels, said Darrell Mark, an economist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Distillers grain is also cheaper than corn and is high in the proteins and fats that help cattle put on more weight, said David M. Smith, a University of Nebraska researcher. For cattle ranchers, who are being squeezed by lower beef consumption and higher prices for fuel and grazing land, such benefits are important.
Hopefully that isn't too easy to see there 
So, it seems that in the quest to make cleaner fuels and reduce our dependence upon foreign oil we're creating by-products in the ethanol process that get fed to beef cattle who then wind up carrying more E Coli bacteria around in their systems to potentially poison us with.
As they say, if it's not one thing it's another...
Think on this though: if we wind up with a President Obama and Vice President Biden (which is entirely possible as I write this without paying that much attention to the election returns news) we'll be electing the team that has basically promised to bankrupt the coal industry. Their quest for clean coal technology could have similar unintended consequences that may take a few years to show up. The question then is will it all be too late to undo and eliminate the negative health effects that may have sprung up along the way?
Oh, wait, never mind it's not going to matter anyway since we're gonna get a new, improved health care program that will fix all of our health issues for us, right?
