Dangerous foodstuffs were imported into Finland from China and the United States, among other countries, last year. The number of reports of dangerous foods was nevertheless down on previous years. Last year most problems were found in fruit and vegetables, according to the Finnish Food Safety Authority Evira.

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PUNE -- A seven-year-old boy and his five-year-old sister died after drinking tea, which, according to the police, was contaminated with insecticide. The grandmother and great grandmother of the siblings, who also had the same tea in their house in Shirur taluka, around 60 km from here, were taken ill. Their condition is said to be critical but stable.

LIMA, Peru -- Peru’s Health Ministry says food donated for a nutrition program became contaminated with pesticide in an Andean hamlet and poisoned 89 children and five adults. Three children have died. The ministry says the National Food Assistance Program distributed the food at a school in Redondo. The hamlet is 310 miles (500 kilometers) northwest of Lima.

People believe a lot of things that we have little to no evidence for, like that vikings wore horned helmets or that you can see the Great Wall of China from space. One of the things I like to do on my blogs is bust commonly held myths that I think matter. For example, I get really annoyed when I hear someone say sharks don’t get cancer (I’ll save that rant for another day).

WASHINGTON -- A group of agricultural scientists reported in today's issue of the journal Science that corn that has been genetically engineered to produce insect-killing proteins isolated from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) provides significant economic benefits even to neighboring farmers who grow non-transgenic varieties of corn.

Food in the European Union has become even safer over the past year thanks, in part, to the withdrawal from the market of harmful pesticides and the strengthening of the Union's border control activity. As of January this year, the EU has in essence established a common control border as regards certain fruits and vegetables.

Consumers shouldn't assume that, because a product is organic, it's also environmentally friendly. A new University of Guelph study reveals some organic pesticides can have a higher environmental impact than conventional pesticides because the organic product may require larger doses.

A man in Connecticut has been arrested on charges of using chemicals after police said hot dogs laced with the pesticide Furadan were strewn around his crop fields in an attempt to kill raccoons.

It’s end-of-year, so lists are big, and I’m fond of my Top-5 Records label list. But some are just dumb, and it’s good to see the science types in New Zealand calling out some BS.