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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Disturbing news in Haiti where it has been discovered that a diet consisting of US processed rice has been the killer responsible for the deaths of hundreds of prisoners in Haitian penitentiaries. According to the findings of an investigation into a fatal wave of beri beri that has been sweeping through Haiti's National Penitentiary, the US rice fed to prisoners twice daily as their sole subsistence, is stripped of its natural Vitamin B/ thiamin component during manufacturing. US companies replace the nutrient by merely coating the exterior of the rice grain with a mixture containing the vitamin replacement, but this nutrient never makes it to the prisoner's stomachs. The report revealed that Haitians traditionally scrub all rice before cooking, which means that the much needed vitamin B is again stripped away, resulting in the prisoners being fed a meal which, according to the report, "has less nutritional value than cardboard." The report further stated that "the only reason the general population of Haiti is not also suffering from beri-beri to the same degree is that they must get vitamin B/thiamin from other sources. The prisoners, on the other hand, get no other food." If left untreated, beri-beri slowly attacks its victims' nervous systems, eventually causing congestive heart failure. Treatment simply consists of the correct administration of a multivitamin supplement
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