Fresh Talk/discussion board roundup

Fresh Talk Poll question - 2 days left: As to the question if United and PMA should merge, 71% of the limited number voting so far say yes. That's higher than I would have suspected, but we'll see what the numbers say at the end of the poll period.

Discussion board threads Monday morning:

USDA announces additional funds to combat light brown apple moth Link to USDA news release by Big Apple

FDA takes action against Iowa dairy High level of antibiotics spur FDA move, link posted by Big Apple

Dengue fever expanding foothold in Texas Big Apple posts story noting: Dengue fever expanding its foothold in Texas. Dengue fever is gaining a firmer foothold in southern Texas, putting residents at risk for the most dangerous form of the disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says. A dengue outbreak in the Brownsville, TX, area in 2005 involved 25 hospital cases, 16 of which were classified as DHF, the CDC says. The 2005 outbreak in the Brownsville area was heralded by a DHF case in a Brownsville woman who fell ill in late June. The CDC says the woman's illness marked the first DHF case in a Texas resident native to the Texas−Mexico border area. A locally acquired DHF case in the area was reported in 2004, but the patient was originally from Southeast Asia and probably had acquired her first dengue infection there. About two months after the Brownsville woman's case, in late August of 2005, Mexican health officials in Tamaulipas state, across the border from Brownsville, told their Texas counterparts that a dengue fever outbreak in the state had grown to 1,251 cases