No treatment for smokers or the obese: Doctors back measures to deny procedures for those with unhealthier lifestyles

Daily Mail

More than half of doctors across the UK have backed controversial measures to withhold treatment to smokers and the obese.

According to a new survey around 54 per cent of those who took part said the NHS should have the right to deny non-emergency treatments to those who fail to lose weight or kick their smoking habits.

Members of the networking website doctors.net.uk were asked 'Should the NHS be allowed to refuse non-emergency treatments to patients unless they lose weight or stop smoking?' And although the poll was optional 593 of the 1,096 doctors who participated answered yes.

It is believed that some procedures are less likely to work on those with unhealthier lifestyles and medics say they should not use their already limited resources for such work.

In some parts of England smokers and the obese are already being rejected IVF treatment as well as hip and knee replacements by private clinics but patient groups have reacted angrily to calls for the NHS to follow suit, saying it denies them their basic human rights.

Speaking to The Observer Dr. Tim Ringrose, doctors.net.uk's chief executive, said the shift in attitudes is a result of the need to make huge cut backs.

He said: 'This might appear to be only a slim majority of doctors in favor of limiting treatment to some patients who fail to look after themselves, but it represents a tectonic shift for a profession that has always sought to provide free healthcare from the cradle to the grave.'

Dr. Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, also told the paper: 'Clearly, giving up smoking is a good thing, but blackmailing people by telling them that they have to give up isn't what doctors should be doing.'

Pulse magazine has already reported that around 25 of 91 Primary Care Trusts in England have imposed some treatment bans since April last year.

A move to help save the £20bn, expected by the Government, before 2015.

But treatment bans of any kind were slammed by Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, who added: 'There are occasions where a doctor may advise an obese person to lose weight before surgery can safely go ahead.

'But treatment bans are wholly unacceptable.'

Photographer: X-ray-like image shows how radioactivity has spread throughout bodies of Fukushima wildlife

ENENEWS

 This image was published on the photo blog of Takashi Morizumi. It appears Dr. Satoshi Mori was responsible for the x-ray-like view showing black dots spread throughout the body of a small bird from Iitate Village. The dots are said to be radioactive particles of Cs-137 internalized by eating contaminated insects.

“Takashi Morizumi is a photojournalist who covers topics in Japan and overseas such as the effects of US military bases and environmental problems. In particular, since the later half of the 90s, he has covered the damages caused by nuclear mining, testing, power plants, and the use of depleteted uranium and other nuclear weapons.” -Source

h/t Fukushima Diary

Related: 33% of prized bird species disappears after summer near Fukushima — Those making it back “were in a poor condition” says New Zealand gov’t researcher

America's Mad Cow Crisis

Common Dreams

Americans might remember that when the first mad cow was confirmed in the United States in December, 2003, it was major news. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been petitioned for years by lawyers from farm and consumer groups I worked with to stop the cannibal feeding practices that transmit this horrible, always fatal, human and animal dementia. When the first cow was found in Washington state, the government said it would stop such feeding, and the media went away. But once the cameras were off and the reporters were gone nothing substantial changed.

In the United States, dairy calves are still taken from their mothers and fed the blood and fat of dead cattle. This is no doubt a way to infect them with the mad cow disease that has now been incubating here for decades, spread through such animal feeding practices. No one knows how the latest dairy cow was infected, the fourth confirmed in the United States. Maybe it was nursed on cow's blood. Perhaps it was fed feed containing cattle fat with traces of cattle protein. Or perhaps there is a mad cow disease in pigs in the United States, which simply has not been found yet, because pigs are not tested for it at all, even though pigs are fed both pig and cattle byproducts, and then the blood, fat and other waste parts of these pigs are fed to cattle.

All these U.S. cattle feeding methods are long banned and illegal in other countries that suffered through but eventually dealt properly with mad cow disease. Here, rather than stopping the transmission of the disease by stopping the cannibal feeding, mad cow is simply covered up with inadequate testing and very adequate public relations. US cattle are still fed mammalian blood, fat and protein, risking human deaths and threatening the long term safety of human blood products, simply to provide the U.S. livestock industry with a cheap protein source and a cheap way to get rid of dead animal waste.

I began researching this issue around 1989, long before the disease was confirmed to have jumped from cattle to the people eating them, as announced by the British government in 1996. In 1997 I co-authored Mad Cow USA, warning that the disease was likely already here and spreading, since the animal cannibalism that caused its outbreak in Britain and spread it to other countries was actually more widespread in the United States than anywhere.

Some years ago responsible U.S. beef companies wanted to test their animals for mad cow disease and label their beef as being disease free, but they were forbidden under penalty of law from doing so. Only the USDA can test for mad cows in America. In 2004 and 2005, after two additional mad cows were discovered in Texas and Alabama, the United Sates government declared that obviously mad cow wasn't much of a problem and gutted it's anemic testing program. Today only about 40,000 cattle a year are tested, out of tens of millions slaughtered. It's amazing that the California cow was even detected given this pathetic testing program that seems well designed to hide rather than find mad cows.

The prevention of mad cow disease is relatively simple. If your country has it, test each animal before it goes to slaughter to keep the diseased animals out of the food chain. Cheap, accurate and easy tests are now available in other countries but illegal here. Testing cattle both identifies the true extent of the disease, and keeps infected animals from being eaten in your sausage or hamburger. In this manner countries like Britain, Germany, France and Japan have controlled their problem through testing and a strict ban on cannibal feed.

Once mad cow disease moves into the human population of a country, all bets are off as to what could happen next. It's a very slow disease, it develops invisibly over decades in someone who has been infected, and it is always fatal. We'll know a lot more in fifty years, but the future looks worrisome. In Britain people are dying from mad cow disease, people who never consumed infected meat. They used medical products containing human blood, and that blood was infected because it was from infected people. There is no test to identify infectious prions, the causal agent, in blood.

Almost none of this information appeared in news stories about the California mad cow. Instead the headlines and the talking heads fed us the line that the United States fixed this problem long ago, and the fact that only 4 mad cows have been detected so far is proof of our success. Oprah Winfrey once tried via her talk show to warn about this, way back in 1996, but Texas cattlemen dragged her and her guest Howard Lyman into court and she had to spend many millions of dollars defending herself from the supposed crime of slandering meat.

Oprah won her case, which was probably unfortunate for the rest of us because had she been convicted the ensuing appeals court trial might have gotten enough attention to wake up Americans to the truth. Instead Oprah learned her lesson - shut up and you won't get sued. Other media learned too that if the government and industry can silence Oprah, they can muzzle anyone. (One of the 4 confirmed U.S. mad cows was later found in Texas, appropriately enough.)

There are a handful of dedicated activists such as Howard Lyman who have been sounding the alarm on this. They include the ecologist Dr. Michael Hansen of Consumers Union and Dr. Michael Greger, a physician. Terry S. Singeltary Sr., whose mom died of a version of the human form of mad cow disease, has been a relentless, unpaid activist on this issue.

Despite their dedicated work, there is no indication that anything is going to change here in America. The U.S. government refuses to implement the feed ban and the animal testing necessary. It doesn't matter if the President is named Clinton, Bush or Obama because their bureaucrats in the USDA and FDA stay the course and keep the cover up going. Docile, eating what they are fed, trusting the rancher all the way to the slaughterhouse. Is that just the cows, or is it us too?

Infant Monkeys Given Standard Doses of Vaccines Develop Autism Symptoms

Vaccination Risk Awareness Network


Infant Vaccines Produce Autism Symptoms in New Primate Study by University Of Pittsburgh Scientists - Routine Safety Study That Government Scientists Refused to Do Illustrates Vaccine Program and Mercury Health Risks Atlanta, GA: Findings released today showed that infant monkeys given vaccines officially recommended by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) exhibited autism-like symptoms. Lead investigator Laura Hewitson of the University of Pittsburgh and colleagues presented study results at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in London. Safety studies of medicines are typically conducted in monkeys prior to use in humans, yet such basic research on the current childhood vaccination regimen has never before been done.

The abstracts presented at IMFAR, the world’s top autism science conference, describe biological changes and altered behavior in vaccinated macaques that are similar to those observed in children with autism. Unvaccinated animals showed no such adverse outcomes. The vaccines given were those recommended for U.S. infants in the 1990s, including several with the mercury preservative thimerosal and the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine. Rates of autism spectrum disorder among children born in the 1990s surged dramatically, from about 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 150 children.

“This research underscores the critical need for more investigation into immunizations, mercury, and the alterations seen in autistic children,” stated Lyn Redwood, director of SafeMinds. “SafeMinds calls for large scale, unbiased studies that look at autism medical conditions and the effects of vaccines given as a regimen.”

The group’s request for research echoes that of Dr. Bernadine Healy, Former NIH Director, in a CBS interview earlier this week. She asserted that public health officials have been too quick to dismiss an autism-vaccine connection when the research has been insufficient. The government recently conceded a federal vaccine court case which agreed that a child regressed into autism as a result of 9 vaccines given on one day.

“The full implications of this primate study await publication of the research in a scientific journal,” noted Theresa Wrangham, president of SafeMinds. “But we can say that it demonstrates how the CDC evaded their responsibility to investigate vaccine safety questions. Vaccine safety oversight should be removed from the CDC and given to an independent agency.”

Why Are These Fraudulent Papers Unretracted?

CounterPunch

According to Science Times[1], the Tuesday science section in the New York Times, scientific retractions are on the rise because of a “dysfunctional scientific climate” that has created a “winner-take-all game with perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and, in some cases, commit acts of misconduct.”

But elsewhere, audacious, falsified research stands unretracted–including the work of authors who actually went to prison for fraud!

Richard Borison, MD, former psychiatry chief at the Augusta Veterans Affairs medical center and Medical College of Georgia, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a $10 million clinical trial fraud[2] but his 1996 US Seroquel® Study Group research is unretracted.[3] In fact, it is cited in 173 works and medical textbooks, misleading future medical professionals.[4]

Scott Reuben, MD, the “Bernie Madoff” of medicine who published research on clinical trials that never existed, was sentenced to six months in prison in 2010. But his "research" on popular pain killers like Celebrex and Lyrica is unretracted.[6] If going to prison for research fraud is not enough reason for retraction, what is?

Wayne MacFadden, MD, resigned as US medical director for Seroquel in 2006, after sexual affairs with two coworker women researchers surfaced[7], but the related work is unretracted and was even part of Seroquel’s FDA approval package for bipolar disorder.[8]

More than 50 ghostwritten papers about hormone therapy (HT) written by Pfizer’s marketing firm, Designwrite, ran in medical journals, according to unsealed court documents on the University of California–San Francisco’s Drug Industry Document Archive.[9] Though the papers claimed no link between HT and breast cancer and false cardiac and cognitive benefits and were ghostwritten by marketing professionals not doctors, none has been retracted.

Pfizer/Parke-Davis placed 13 ghostwritten articles[10] in medical journals promoting Neurontin for offlabel uses, including a supplement to the Cleveland Clinic[11] but only Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews and Protocols has retracted the specious articles.[12]

Nor is the phony science just a product of “Big Pharma.” In 2008, JAMA was forced to print a correction stating that authors of an article arguing for a higher recommended dietary allowance of protein were, in fact, industry operatives. [13] Sharon L. Miller was “formerly employed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association,” and author Robert R. Wolfe, PhD, received money from the Egg Nutrition Center, the National Dairy Council, the National Pork Board, and the Beef Checkoff through the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said the clarification. Miller’s email address, in fact was smiller@beef.org, which should might have been the JAMA editors’ first tip-off.[14] The article has also not been retracted.

Martha Rosenberg’s is an investigative health reporter. Her first book, Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, has just been released by Prometheus books.

Notes.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/rise-in-scientific-journal-retractions-prompts-calls-for-reform.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[2] Steve Stecklow and Laura Johannes, “Test Case: Drug Makers Relied on Two Researchers Who Now Await Trial,” Wall Street Journal, August 8, 1997

[3] Richard Borison et al., “ICI 204,636, an Atypical Antipsychotic: Efficacy and Safety in a Multicenter, Placebo-Controlled Trial in Patients with Schizophrenia,” Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology 16, no. 2 (April 1996): 158–69

[4] Alan F. Schatzberg and Charles B. Nemeroff, Textbook of Psychopharmacology (New York: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2009) p. 609

[5] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-medical-madoff-anesthestesiologist-faked-data

[6] Scott Reuben et al., “The Analgesic Efficacy of Celecoxib, Pregabalin, and Their Combination for Spinal Fusion Surgery,” Anesthesia & Analgesia 103, no. 5 (November 2006): 1271–77.

[7] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-42840768/astrazenecas-sex-for-studies-seroquel-scandal-did-research-chief-bias-the-science/

[8] http://www.lifesciencesworld.com/news/view/12152 (BOLDER study)

[9] Martha Rosenberg, “Flash Back. The Troubling Revival of Hormone Therapy. Consumers Digest, November 2010

[10] Kristina Fiore, “Journals Aided in Marketing of Gabapentin,” MedPage Today, September 11, 2009

[11] United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, Report on the Use of Neurontin for Bipolar and Other Mood Disorders,http://i.bnet.com/blogs/neurontin-09513078512.pdf

[12] P. J. Wiffen et al., “WITHDRAWN: Gabapentin for Acute and Chronic Pain,” Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews and Protocols 16, no. 3 (March 16, 2011); P. J. Wiffen et al., “WITHDRAWN: Anticonvulsant Drugs for Acute and Chronic Pain,” Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews and Protocols no. 1 (January 20, 2010);

[13] http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/299/24/2891.extract

[14] http://www.obesity.org/newsletter/nl200407.html

Does the CDC Tell the Truth About Vaccines and Immunizations?

Daily Bell

Measles cases reached 15-year high in 2011: CDC ... Measles cases in the United States hit a 15-year high in 2011, with 90 percent of the cases traced to other countries with lower immunization rates, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. There were 222 cases of measles in the United States last year, more than triple the usual number, the CDC said. There had been only about 60 cases per year between 2001 and 2010. No one has died of the disease in the United States since 2008. But approximately 20 million people contract the measles virus each year worldwide, and about 164,000 die from it, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the health agency's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The agency said in 2000 that home-grown measles had been eliminated, but cases continued to arrive in the United States from abroad. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: People have to understand that vaccines are good for them, all of them.

Free-Market Analysis: The vaccine wars are heating up and now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stepped in to let us know that measles is on the rise. Should we believe it?

Once we would have without question. Even the name of the CDC inspires confidence and authority. But what we've found out about vaccines, thanks to the Internet, has made us question some of the fundamentals of modern Western medicine.

Anybody reading that measles cases were increasing, according to the CDC, would surely accept such an innocent and factual statement. But having become increasingly aware that all is not always as it seems, we went looking to see if the CDC perhaps fudged statistics.

The answer? A qualified "yes." This is what we found from some "ThinkTwice!" correspondence posted on the Internet. ThinkTwice bills itself as a "global vaccine network." The documents are public record, though we would doubt much was ever done to rectify the situations they describe. Here's an intro to the ThinkTwice documents:

Scientific Fraud and Vaccines ... The Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute occasionally receives email from drug company insiders – people who truly know what goes on behind closed doors. We also receive undisclosed information from CDC, FDA and other government insiders, ethical people who wish to speak out against the scientific fraud that they observed or were forced to participate in. Usually they request anonymity and that their information not be made public for fear of legal retaliation – or worse.

Here's an excerpt from one letter posted on the website:

Thinktwice! recently received from a research analyst who spent 7 years working for the CDC to assess the benefit/risk ratio of the chickenpox vaccine. This analyst quit in disgust when he found that his data proving serious problems with this vaccine was suppressed.

Q. Dear Editor, I have read with great interest various items on your website. First of all, please let me introduce myself. I have served as Research Analyst on the Antelope Valley Varicella Active Surveillance Project, one of three sites supported by a grant from the CDC, for the past 7 years. I recently resigned from this position as I encountered deleterious effects of the varicella vaccine (including increasing incidence of Herpes Zoster among children with prior wild-type varicella experience) which appeared to be suppressed by my supervisors and the CDC; while all positive results were published.

I have three manuscripts that have much technical merit, however, like other manuscripts that support increased incidence of HZ among adults by Brisson et al and Thomas et al, the major U.S. journals (such as Journal of the American Medical Association and New England Journal of Medicine) will not consider them for publication. Do you have any recommendations on other journals, even European ones that might be more objective?

Is there an appropriate manner in which to have the manuscripts objectively peer-reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed journal? Dr. Philip R. Krause, head research scientist of the Biologics Lab of the FDA, had done a preliminary review of one of my manuscripts and suggested there was indeed some merit to the hypotheses presented.

I have also, unbelievably found great manipulation of data by CDC suggesting "no increases in herpes zoster at this time." Yet, they utilized a study that had insufficient power and too small of a sample size to detect increases in incidence less than 400%.

We can see from the above correspondence that significant questions are being raised about CDC data. What then are we to make about the bland statement now issued by the CDC via Reuters that "There have been more than 25 measles cases reported so far in 2012, most of them imported..."?

And their elaboration: "The virus can easily enter the country through foreign visitors or Americans traveling abroad who bring the disease back with them ... Measles cases were found in 31 states in 2011. Last year's count marked the highest number of cases since 1996, when there were 508 cases in the United States."

Are these data accurate? We assume so (don't we?). But we also believe a case is likely being made by public health authorities that people MUST take vaccines in order to create "herd immunity."

As we've been reporting for years, there is increased controversy about vaccines, including about their effectiveness and the side effects. Just yesterday, in an article entitled "Is the Vaccine Industry Beginning to Fail?" we wrote the following:

Here at the Daily Bell, we track these dominant social themes that are used to frighten people into giving up power and control to the globalist institutions that are meant to run the world. We're not sure why the dynastic central banking families apparently want one-world government, but they sure seem to.

And while they're at it, they want control over our minds, habitats and above all, our bodies. Vaccines were a big part of that control. But this meme is falling to pieces. Turns out, as we've documented, that vaccines were never double-blind tested, for "ethical" reasons. And that the statistics that brought vaccines into force were fudged.

And then there is the extraordinary persecution of Andrew Wakefield, who had the temerity to explain that SOME children might have bad reactions to vaccines. It is malodorous and immoral for the medical profession to continue to pump children full of mercury and dead viruses (or live ones) when it knows collectively by now that a certain percentage of children will get sick from these vaccines.

On top of it, for anyone who examines the record without bias, the questions about vaccines and their efficacy are mounting daily. Just because the mainstream media – controlled by the same elites that own the large pharmaceutical companies – claim something is so doesn't make it true. Prove it, we say.

Presumably, those who have been immunized won't get the diseases they've been immunized against. That means those who have NOT been immunized may catch the disease, assuming that vaccines actually repel diseases, which is increasingly being shown to be untrue.

This seems to be the issue that Western medicine must grapple with: Is it fair to demand that all youngsters be immunized when some will likely suffer from side-effects that will result in injury or death?

The answer would be that, supposedly, vaccinations eradicate disease for all – even those who have not received vaccines but who benefit from the larger herd immunity. Granted this is a percentage of all children in a given region. But meanwhile, other children are likely suffering from the side effects of vaccines.

As more and more vaccines are given, the likelihood of increased injury from vaccinations rises. At what point does the trade-off become intolerable?

And here is a larger question: Who empowered public health officials to decide that the injury to some children was a tolerable side-effect to ensure a larger "herd immunity"?

And here is a larger question still: Are there any GOOD figures for the efficacy of vaccines? We know from past research that, for instance, the original claims regarding the polio vaccine were fudged. We know as well that vaccines were apparently never subject to double-blind testing, for "ethical" reasons.

And now, as a result of some preliminary digging on the Internet, we discover that the CDC, which keeps statistics on such things, is itself seemingly unreliable.

We begin to wonder what exactly is true when it comes to vaccines and what is being, well ... covered up.

What we call the Internet Reformation is creating the questions – not just for us but for others as well. As time goes on, even the fundamental tenets of social verities are questioned with greater or lesser energy.

The Roman Catholic Church suffered the same fate during the Reformation after the Gutenberg Press allowed people to read the Bible. Of course, the world didn't end then – when people discovered that institutions they'd trusted in were unreliable.

The world won't end now. But chances are the information WILL come out at some point. We're too far down the track. That goes for vaccines and for other verities as well.

Conclusion: As the elite's dominant social themes begin to collapse, the truth of some variant of it shall emerge. Metaphorically speaking, these elite memes are, perhaps, a kind of "dead men walking."

Vitamin C cured polio during the epidemic of 1948-49

Natural News

It's common for shills and Internet "trolls" commenting on vaccination articles to reference the "eradication of polio" as a vaccine triumph. No mention is made of how polio continues, often from polio vaccinations but under different names.

But worse than that is the shield of silence obscuring a humble small town physician who cured polio victims in the late 1940s and early 1950s using mega-dosages of vitamin C. His name was Frederick Robert Klenner, MD.

His successful healing with high-dose ascorbic acid vitamin C was ignored even after producing papers on his cures and making a presentation of his findings on polio at the Annual Session of the American Medical Association on June 10, 1949 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The allopathic medical monopoly still refuses to acknowledge mega-dose vitamin treatments today. Both orthomolecular medicine and psychiatry are marginalized, forbidding its practitioners to make claims of healing while forcing them to work obscurely in the shadow of AMA/Big Pharma's monopoly.

Polio and other mega dose vitamin C cures hidden in plain sight

Dr. Klenner was an early pioneering orthomolecular physician who treated many different maladies successfully, including polio, with massive doses of different vitamins. Vitamin C was the major medicine he employed for polio.

He had hospital privileges at Reidsville Hospital, where he delivered several babies, dubbed "vitamin C babies" by the staff. Dr. Klenner's wife worked as his only nurse and staff out of a small office in Reidsville, North Carolina. They didn't bill patients if they couldn't pay for treatments immediatley; their patients paid when they could.

Motivated by earlier orthomolecular discoveries, Dr. Klenner simply administered injections of high dose ascorbic acid vitamin C to patients with pneumonia. His trial and error method wound up curing all of them within days.

Note: No grants, no lab testing, and no cruel animal testing were required. Why? Because vitamin C is not a synthetic toxic.

Big Pharma research employs tests and experiments, to the tune of millions of dollars. This "orthodox" system entitles Big Pharma to create patented synthetic toxins that can be monopolized for big bucks with protective policing from the AMA and FDA, including the elimination of any inexpensive competition.

Dr. Klenner received his fair share of polio victims during a 1948 epidemic. He cured them all, even one with both legs paralyzed. He asserted: "When proper amounts are used, it will destroy all virus organisms. Don't expect control of a virus with 100 to 400 mg of C."

He handled the polio virus easily and inexpensively without adverse side-effects before the Salk polio vaccine was introduced. But Dr. Klenner's colleagues simply ignored him.

Dr. Klenner once said, "Some physicians would stand by and see their patient die rather than use ascorbic acid because in their finite minds it exists only as a vitamin." This still happens when healing occurs in plain sight. Recently in New Zealand, Alan Smith was cured of double pneumonia and leukemia with mega-dose IV C and a special type of oral C. He had been on life support and was within a day from having the plug pulled until the Smith family forced the hospital to administer mega-dose C.

After the hospital stopped administering adequate IV C dosages, Alan's family sneaked in special oral liposome encapsulated C packages, which are even better at getting the C into tissue cells than IV C. Liposome encapsulated C can be ordered online or made at home.

After a few short weeks, Alan walked out of the hospital in good health, an example that Dr. Klenner would have no-doubt been proud of.

Radiation risks from Fukushima 'no longer negligible'

Euractiv

The risks associated with iodine-131 contamination in Europe are no longer "negligible," according to CRIIRAD, a French research body on radioactivity. The NGO is advising pregnant women and infants against "risky behaviour," such as consuming fresh milk or vegetables with large leaves.

In response to thousands of inquiries from citizens concerned about fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Europe, CRIIRAD has compiled an information package on the risks of radioactive iodine-131 contamination in Europe.

The document, published on 7 April, advises against consuming rainwater and says vulnerable groups such as children and pregnant or breastfeeding women should avoid consuming vegetables with large leaves, fresh milk and creamy cheese.

The risks related to prolonged contamination among vulnerable groups of the population can no longer be considered "negligible" and it is now necessary to avoid "risky behaviour," CRIIRAD claimed.

However, the institute underlines that there is absolutely no need to lock oneself indoors or take iodine tablets.

CRIIRAD says its information note is not limited to the situation in France and is applicable to other European countries, as the level of air contamination is currently the same in Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, for instance.

Data for the west coast of the United States, which received the Fukushima radioactive fallout 6-10 days before France, reveals that levels of radioactive iodine-131 concentration are 8-10 times higher there, the institute says.

Rain water and tap water

According to CRIIRAD, a huge proportion of the inquiries it has received concern the risks associated with rainwater and drinking tap water.

The institute stresses that there is no risk whatsoever, even for children, of standing in the rain without protection. But consumption of rainwater as a primary source of drinking water should be avoided, particularly among children, it said.

As for tap water, underground catchments or large rivers should not present any problem. But the institute suggests that the situation of water from reservoirs that collect rainwater from one or more watersheds, such as hillside lakes, should be examined more closely.

As for watering one's garden with collected rainwater, CRIIRAD advises watering only the earth and not the leaves of vegetables, as absorption is faster and more significant on leaf surfaces than through roots.

Food chain

Spinach, salads, cabbage and other vegetables with large surface areas are among those food products that are particularly sensitive to iodine-131 contamination, if they are cultivated outside and exposed to rainwater. Washing vegetables does not help, as iodine-131 is quickly metabolised by the plants, CRIIRAD notes.

Fresh milk and creamy cheeses, as well as meat from cattle that have been outside eating grass, are categorised as foods that may have been indirectly contaminated and must also be monitored. Contamination of milk and cheese from goats and sheep may be of a greater magnitude than that of produce from cows.

Level of a risky dose

The Euratom Directive of 13 May 1996 establishes general principles and safety standards on radiation protection in Europe.

According to the directive, the impact of nuclear activity can be considered negligible if doses of radiation do not exceed ten micro sieverts (mSv) per year. Beyond this value, possible measures should be considered to reduce exposure, it says.

While radioactive iodine-131 is mostly present in the air in the form of gas, CRIIRAD notes that in the case of the Fukushima fallout, the main issue is to limit ingestion of iodine-131.

CRIIRAD notes that the amount of iodine-131 capable of delivering a dose of 10 mSv varies greatly depending on the age of consumers. Children up to two years old are the most vulnerable and ingestion of 50 becquerel (Bq) is enough to deliver to the body a dose of 10 mSv, according to the institute.

If the foods (leafy vegetables, milk etc.) contain between one and 10 Bq per kg or more, it is possible that the reference level of 10 mSv may be exceeded within two to three weeks, the institute added.

Radioactive iodine-131 values measured by the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) in recent days show the following, varying levels of contamination: 0,08 Bq/kg in salad, spinach and leeks in Aix-en-Provence, 0,17 Bq per litre in milk in Lourdes and 2,1 Bq per litre in goats milk in Clansayes.

Contamination to continue over coming weeks

CRIIRAD notes that "huge amounts of radioactive material have been released by the Fukushima Daiichi plant since Saturday 12 March 2011. On Tuesday 5 April, 24 days after the accident, the releases continue. This means that the contaminated airborne masses in Europe will last just as long, with a delay linked to the movement of radioactive aerosol gases over some 15,000 km."

It also cited a technical report from the operating company (TEPCO) and the Japanese nuclear safety authorities (NISA) which "fear releases over several more days, even weeks".

If more fires are reported or if the operators are forced to release more steam in order to prevent hydrogen explosions, new massive waste releases will occur, the institute warned.

LIST OF THE TOP 10 TOXIC CHEMICALS SUSPECTED TO CAUSE AUTISM AND LEARNING DISABILITIES

Science Blog

An editorial published today in the prestigious journal Environmental Health Perspectives calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America’s children and presents a list of ten target chemicals including which are considered highly likely to contribute to these conditions.

Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, a world-renowned leader in children’s environmental health and Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center (CEHC) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, co-authored the editorial, entitled “A Research Strategy to Discover the Environmental Causes of Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities,” along with Luca Lambertini, PhD, MPH, MSc, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai and Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute OF Environmental Health Sciences.

The editorial was published alongside four other papers — each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism. Both the editorial and the papers originated at a conference hosted by CEHC in December 2010.

The National Academy of Sciences reports that 3 percent of all neurobehavioral disorders in children, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), are caused by toxic exposures in the environment and that another 25 percent are caused by interactions between environmental factors and genetics. But the precise environmental causes are not yet known. While genetic research has demonstrated that ASD and certain other neurodevelopmental disorders have a strong hereditary component, many believe that environmental causes may also play a role – and Mount Sinai is leading an effort to understand the role of these toxins in a condition that now affects between 400,000 and 600,000 of the 4 million children born in the United States each year.

“A large number of the chemicals in widest use have not undergone even minimal assessment of potential toxicity and this is of great concern,” says Dr. Landrigan. “Knowledge of environmental causes of neurodevelopmental disorders is critically important because they are potentially preventable.”

CEHC developed the list of ten chemicals found in consumer products that are suspected to contribute to autism and learning disabilities to guide a research strategy to discover potentially preventable environmental causes. The top ten chemicals are:

1. Lead
2. Methylmercury
3. PCBs
4. Organophosphate pesticides
5. Organochlorine pesticides
6. Endocrine disruptors
7. Automotive exhaust
8. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
9. Brominated flame retardants
10. Perfluorinated compounds

In addition to the editorial, the other four papers also call for increased research to identify the possible environmental causes of autism in America’s children. The first paper, written by a team at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, found preliminary evidence linking smoking during pregnancy to Asperger’s disorder and other forms of high-functioning autism. Two papers, written by researchers at the University of California – Davis, show that PCBs disrupt early brain development. The final paper, also by a team at UC – Davis, suggests further exploring the link between pesticide exposure and autism.

Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores

The Daily Caller

A proposal from the Obama administration to prevent children from doing farm chores has drawn plenty of criticism from rural-district members of Congress. But now it’s attracting barbs from farm kids themselves

 The Department of Labor is poised to put the finishing touches on a rule that would apply child-labor laws to children working on family farms, prohibiting them from performing a list of jobs on their own families’ land.

 Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

 “Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

The new regulations, first proposed August 31 by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, would also revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA, replacing them instead with a 90-hour federal government training course.

Rossie Blinson, a 21-year-old college student from Buis Creek, N.C., told The Daily Caller that the federal government’s plan will do far more harm than good.

 “The main concern I have is that it would prevent kids from doing 4-H and FFA projects if they’re not at their parents’ house,” said Blinson.

FDA Targets Nanoparticles in Food, Appliances Over Health Risks

Natural Society

Although not known by many people, a number of companies and manufacturers are actually using tiny, engineered particles in consumer products, food, and even clothing. These particles are called nanoparticles, which can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause potential bodily harm. Due to the questionable safety of nanoparticles, regulators are proposing that any company or manufacturer that wants to use nanoparticles in packaging has to prove products are safe through additional testing.

Nanoparticles Usage in Food to Undergo Additional Scrutiny According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN), over 1,300 manufacturer nanotechnology-enabled products are in the global commercial marketplace. Nanoparticles can be found in car batteries, appliances, aluminum foil, non-stick cookware, and is especially present in health and fitness items. The Food and Drug Administration, though, has recently issued new trial guidelines for nanoparticle users.

“At this point, in terms of the science, we think it’s likely the exemption does not apply and we would encourage folks to come in and talk to us…This is an emerging, evolving technology and we’re trying to get ahead of the curb to ensure the ingredients and substances are safe,” said Dennis Keefe, director of FDA’s office of food additive safety.

Nanotechnology is much like organism-based biotechnology, where even supporters of the technologies know there needs to be more long term testing to determine safety. Like genetically modified foods, nanoparticles are being warned against solely based on the lack of thorough safety (in addition to the known complications). Similarly, nanotechnology is believed by some to be the ‘next industrial revolution’, but like genetically modified foods, it has never been proven totally safe for use or consumption.

One study published in the journal Nature titled “Oral exposure to polystyrene nanoparticles affects iron absorption” found that intestinal changes affecting iron absorption occur due to polystyrene nanoparticles. They also expect to see an alteration in absorption of calcium, copper, zinc, and vitamins A, D, E, and K. Another study conducted in 2004 found that nanoparticles cause brain damage in fish and other aquatic species.

The FDA will take comments on the proposal for 90 days, but there is no deadline for the finalization of the documents.

Woman Receives Anonymous Threats after Opposing Monsanto

Activist Post

After losing a 3-day old daughter to kidney failure, a woman named Sofia Gatica from Argentina made a decision to spearhead an anti-Monsanto movement with other mothers of sick children.

Monsanto is a biotechnology, agrochemical company which has been polluting the environment and human health with herbicides, pesticides, genetically modified foods, and other substances for decades. Numerous cases have been brought against Monsanto for biological damage and even death — such is the recent case in which farmers say the biotech giant’s creations spawned ‘devastating birth defects‘.

Near where Gatica lives, there are soybean fields covering the land where farmers spray loads of chemicals on the crops. The primary weed killer used on the fields is the one and only Roundup; the most popular herbicide used by farmers which contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Gatica didn’t initially connect the chemical exposure to her baby’s death until she noticed that many of her friends and neighbors were also experiencing health problems.

'I started seeing children with mouth covers, mothers with scarves wrapped around their heads to cover their baldness, due to chemotherapy…There are soybeans to the north, to the south, and to the east, and when they spray, they spray over the people because there’s no distance,' Gatica said to a Grist reporter. In fact, researchers found that people in her area had three to four agricultural chemicals in their blood, including one chemical, endosulfan, which is banned in over 80 countries.

The researchers also found that 33 percent of the residents were struck with cancer. In other previous German findings, Monsanto’s Roundup was present in all urine samples tested at an amount of 5 to 20-fold the established limit for drinking water, showing how prevalent these chemicals really are.

In retaliation to Monsanto and their highly used chemical creations, Gatica worked to create an international movement against Monsanto with other activists. A few years ago, after co-founding a group called Mothers of Ituzaingó, she and her group initiated the first epidemiological study of the area which found high rates of neurological and respiratory disease, birth defects, infant mortality, and cancer rates more than 40 times the national average. She then continued to find researchers to study the links between pesticides, herbicides, and health problems, while engaging in protests voicing concerns over the issues.

'We blockaded the spraying machines. We would get into the fields to block them. We carried out protests at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Health Ministry. We took sick people to the ministry,' she said. Over the course of a few years, mandatory buffer zones between aerial spraying and neighborhoods have been put in place thanks to the activist movement. In addition, Argentina’s Supreme Court decided that agrochemicals could not be sprayed near living areas.

However, while Gatica and other activists successfully created change, the process wasn’t necessarily easy. In fact, there were even direct threats.

"Somebody came inside my house with a weapon. I was told not to ‘screw around with the soybeans.’ I would get phone calls where I’d be told that I would only have two children the next day,” she said. “I had the police investigate this, but I was told that the file was secret,” she added after being questioned as to whether she ever found out who made the personal attacks.

Interestingly enough, previous research found that Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup exhibits direct toxicity to human cells, effectively killing them off even at low doses. The toxicity and negative impact on young children is even greater, and is most detrimental to infants or unborn babies.

Although Gatica started alone and was even directly threatened, she rose above these complications and effectively ignited change – she will not be the last.

Related stories: Monsanto's Roundup Triggers Over 40 Plant Diseases and Endangers Human and Animal Health

Monsanto's Roundup Shown to be Ravaging Butterfly Population

Nation of Change

Monsanto’s Roundup, containing the active ingredient glyphosate, has been tied to more health and environmental problems than you could imagine. Similar to how pesticides have been contributing to the bee decline, Monsanto’s Roundup has been tied to the decrease in the population of monarch butterflies by killing the very plants that the butterflies rely on for habitat and food. What’s been shown to be an even greater threat to the population, though, is Monsanto’s Roundup Ready corn and soybeans.

Roundup Ready Crops and Glyphosate Leading to Downfall of Insect Populations

A 2011 study published in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity found that increasing acreage of genetically modified Roundup Ready corn and soybeans is heavily contributing to the decline in monarch butterfly populations within North America. Milkweed, a plant butterflies rely on for habitat and food, is being destroyed by the heavy use of glyphosate-based pesticides and Roundup Ready crops. Over the past 17 years, the monarch butterfly population in central Mexico has declined, reaching an all-time low in 2009-2010.

“This milkweed has disappeared from at least 100 million acres of these row crops,” said Dr. Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of Kansas and director of the research and conservation program Monarch Watch. “Your milkweed is virtually gone…this [glyphosate use on RR crops] is the one main factor that has happened…you look at parts of the Midwest where there is a tremendous use of these crops and you see monarch populations dropping. It’s hard to deny the conclusion.”

According to the Department of Agriculture, in 2011 94 percent of soybeans and 72 percent of corn grown in the United States were herbicide-tolerant. Due to this increase, the amount of Roundup used on crops in 2007 was 5 times higher than in 1997, only one year after Roundup Ready crops were available.

Another study published int he journal Crop Protection and conducted by Robert G Hartzler, an agronomist at Iowa State, found that milkweed on farms in Iowa declined 90 percent from 1999 to 2009. Additionally, his study found milkweed only on 8 percent of corn and soybean fields surveyed in 2009, which is 51 percent lower than in 1999.

Although the butterfly population may be suffering, humans are taking heat from Monsanto’s creations as well. Past research has shown that Monsanto’s Roundup ready crops are leading to mental illness and obesity, primarily by destroying the amount of good bacteria found in the gut. The corporation’s Roundup, containing glyphosate, has also been shown to cause infertility and birth defects.

Glyphosate is so present today that it has been found to be polluting the world’s drinking water through the widespread contamination of aquifers, wells, and springs. What may be most shocking is that very high concentrations of glyphosate have been found in 100 percent of urine samples tested in a recent study.

Related stories:  MILD WINTERS ARE DETRIMENTAL TO BUTTERFLIES [pure cornfed propaganda to take Monsanto off our minds...Ed.]

Whoops ... 'Rogue' Vaccine Doc Wakefield's Partner Reinstated

Daily Bell

 "We are absolutely delighted with this judgment, which vindicates Professor Walker-Smith. John Walker-Smith was one of the world's leading gastroenterologists. It was incomprehensible that he should have been threatened with being struck off in the first place. This judgment calls into question the independence and competence of the GMC, which was determined all along to pursue a witch-hunt against Professor Walker-Smith, Dr. Andrew Wakefield and Professor Simon Murch after they reported their research into the link between bowel disease and regressive autism." Throughout the hearings (the longest in GMC history) the GMC deliberately chose to cherry-pick the evidence to suit their prejudice against these doctors, who had always acted in the very best interests of the children they treated." – David Thrower, autism father

Dominant Social Theme: What? Huh? What gives? Ridiculous. These men set vaccines back by a century!

 Free-Market Analysis: Wow. The first reversal. You can see the report in the video below. What a big one it is. Andrew Wakefield himself, the most reviled medical man of the 21st century, is well on his way to being vindicated now, from what we can tell.

This is surely a big story (though please note the media is not treating it as one). And the import is increased because Big Pharma has literally leveled all its guns at Wakefield in an attempt to discredit his claim that some kinds of vaccines might be involved in the development of autism.

If you examine the unfolding saga, you will be provided not just with tempestuous slander of Wakefield, but a timeline of the Internet Reformation itself.

We are fond of writing that the Internet is a process not an episode, and that the power elite that evidently and obviously wants to run the world (formally as opposed to informally) still has no idea how to deal with its revelations.

What happens is that the top elites – those that control central banking and use the proceeds to nurture world government – continually utilize the tools of control that worked in the 20th century but not the 21st. The fabulously wealthy old men seem to have no idea what to do. Or so we surmise.

In the case of Wakefield, everything was seemingly done correctly. The doctor was pilloried in 10,000 news stories; his research was discredited; he was labeled a cheat and a fraud; his livelihood was reduced; he was chased out of his home country of Britain; eventually he was disbarred and forbidden to practice medicine.

That should have been the end of it. But not now. Not in the 21st century. Thanks to the Internet, the ruckus has only continued to grow. Watch the video (below) to see what we mean. Dr. Wakefield's staunch cadre of mothers of children with autism believe in him more than ever. And there are plenty of sympathetic articles to go around now. A growing number.

Wakefield continues to fight back. He is suing one of his detractors and even the paid hacks that jump to pillory him at every opportunity now sound abashed. Maybe they too are experiencing the rough realities of the 21st century. It's not so easy to be a thug these days.

You see ... the Internet is a process not an episode. Like the Gutenberg Press before it, the Internet is making many of the elite's dominant social themes – fear based promotions – unworkable. As a result the top elites are turning increasingly to age-old tools of control: war, depression and brute state-mandated force.

But it doesn't help when the truth can be broadcast regularly. And thanks to the Internet it can be. Dr. Wakefield can certainly be disposed of. He can have an "accident." But his truth is not so easily silenced as it might have been even a decade ago.

Even a few months ago, those that wish to continue mass vaccination despite growing evidence that such programs are in some cases very possibly ineffective (and now and then even deadly), might have been forgiven for believing the worst was behind them. No such thing

Earlier this week, a British High Court judge threw out the verdict of professional misconduct against Professor Walker-Smith. This is the man who along with "rogue vaccine Doc" Andrew Wakefield handled tests for a Journal-published paper suggesting that the MMR vaccine might generate the condition of autism. Here's an excerpt from a UK Telegraph article on the subject:

Both Dr Andrew Wakefield and Professor Walker-Smith were found guilty of professional misconduct over the way the research was conducted and were struck off the medical register in May 2010. The GMC panel's verdict followed 217 days of deliberation, making it the longest disciplinary case in the GMC's 152-year history. In 2004, the Lancet announced a partial retraction, and 10 of the 13 authors disowned it. But Mr Justice Mitting ruled the decision against Professor Walker-Smith "cannot stand", and quashed the findings.

This is surely a quasi-mortal day for Big Pharma. Its campaign against Wakefield is in shreds. The truth is coming out – the REAL truth about vaccines. The truth that vaccines may be a kind of "directed history." Whoops.

The truth apparently (see other article this issue) is that NO credible evidence exists that even proves vaccines perform as CLAIMED. The vaunted double-blind tests do not exist. The statistics were fudged. Polio – supposedly alleviated – was confused (on purpose?) with numerous other diseases that still take their toll today. The beneficiary: Big Pharma, of course, and the elites that control the top companies.

 THIS is no doubt the REAL secret that Big Pharma has been desperate to hide. It explains the almost inexplicable rage against Wakefield. They've used nuclear weapons on a gnat. Why? They feared the gnat's bite would lead to blood poisoning of the entire, rotten corpus.

And so it begins. Like a crime that gradually unravels even though the perpetrators are desperate to stop the unraveling and will do everything in their power to retard it. Too late...

 Serial damage control – the kind that the elites were so good at practicing in the 20th century – means nothing in the 21st. "No man, no problem," Stalin famously said. But he lived then, not now.

And the Internet is a process not an episode.

Stigmatizing Resistance to Authority

Freeman

In 1861 Samuel A. Cartwright, an American physician, described a mental illness he called “drapetomania.” As Wikipedia points out, the term derived from drapetes, Greek for “runaway [slave],” and mania for madness or frenzy.

 Thus Cartwright defined drapetomania as “the disease causing negroes to run away [from captivity].”

 “[I]ts diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers,” Cartwright wrote in a much-distributed paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana. Yet this disorder was “unknown to our medical authorities.”

 Cartwright thought slave owners caused the illness by making “themselves too familiar with [slaves], treating them as equals.” Drapetomania could also be induced “if [the master] abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life.”

 He had ideas about proper prevention and treatment:

 [I]f his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension, and at the sane [sic] time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away. . . .

 If any one or more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good requires that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which was intended for them to occupy in all after-time. . . . They have only to be kept in that state, and treated like children, with care, kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away. [Emphasis added.]

FDA Raids Herbal Distributor Over Cancer Remedies

Natural Society
Patrick Gallagher

It’s no secret that the FDA is responsible for some of the most vastly detrimental products on the consumer market, but did you know that they are capable of raiding and confiscating ‘potentially harmful’ substances that only they arbitrate?

Indeed, the FDA, known benefactors of big pharma, have been succeeding in their rampage across natural health remedy stores, and they could be coming to your town next.

After an alleged complaint against the ‘Notion-n-things’ store in Missouri, the State department of Health and Senior Services managed to embargo the company’s herbal products. Only as recently as three weeks ago did the district judge sign the order for seizure of those products.

 Remember, this is the same organization that has declared walnuts to be illegal drugs.

 The three products now in custody of the FDA are Chickweed Healing Salve, a product based on comfrey; To-Mor-Gone, a product developed for the treatment of cancer; and R.E.P., a natural remedy for various headaches and sinus infections. The FDA’s only reasoning for seizure of the products is that they do not have properly labeled information; something that they are far too concerned with rather than for the health of the American people.

 Of course, none of these products had been approved by the FDA as a safe or effective method of treatment for their prescribed usage, and as such are considered unapproved – and illegal – drugs. The FDA has not yet conducted a formal review of any of these products in order to determine if they actually work or not; either way, the administration describes them as ‘misbranded’ and ‘false’ products.

 The FDA, spoken for by Dara Corrigan, admitted that the administrations’ concerns with these three products, and many others like them, is that cancer patients will choose them over their own ‘effective and proven’ treatments. In other words, only something that the FDA has approved is a valid method of treatment for cancer, and any sort of home or locally manufactured remedy is not only invalid, but also unlawful.

BP's Corexit Oil Tar Sponged Up by Human Skin

Mother Jones

The Surfrider Foundation has released its preliminary "State of the Beach" study for the Gulf of Mexico from BP's ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Sadly, things aren't getting cleaner faster, according to their results. The Corexit that BP used to "disperse" the oil now appears to be making it tougher for microbes to digest the oil. I wrote about this problem in depth in "The BP Cover-Up."

The persistence of Corexit mixed with crude oil has now weathered to tar, yet is traceable to BP's Deepwater Horizon brew through its chemical fingerprint. The mix creates a fluorescent signature visible under UV light. From the report:

The program uses newly developed UV light equipment to detect tar product and reveal where it is buried in many beach areas and also where it still remains on the surface in the shoreline plunge step area. The tar product samples are then analyzed…to determine which toxins may be present and at what concentrations. By returning to locations several times over the past year and analyzing samples, we've been able to determine that PAH concentrations in most locations are not degrading as hoped for and expected.

Worse, the toxins in this unholy mix of Corexit and crude actually penetrate wet skin faster than dry skin (photos above)—the author describes it as the equivalent of a built-in accelerant—though you'd never know it unless you happened to look under fluorescent light in the 370nm spectrum. The stuff can't be wiped off. It's absorbed into the skin.

And it isn't going away. Other findings from monitoring sites between Waveland, Mississippi, and Cape San Blas, Florida over the past two years:

The use of Corexit is inhibiting the microbial degradation of hydrocarbons in the crude oil and has enabled concentrations of the organic pollutants known as PAH to stay above levels considered carcinogenic by the NIH and OSHA.

26 of 32 sampling sites in Florida and Alabama had PAH concentrations exceeding safe limits.
Only three locations were found free of PAH contamination.

Carcinogenic PAH compounds from the toxic tar are concentrating in surface layers of the beach and from there leaching into lower layers of beach sediment. This could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater sources.

The full Surfrider Foundation report by James H. "Rip" Kirby III, of the University of South Florida is open-access online here.

Study: Autism Linked to Industrial Food, Environment

Common Dreams

A new study by Clinical Epigenetics, a peer-reviewed journal that focuses largely on diseases, has found that the rise in autism in the United States could be linked to the industrial food system, specifically the prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the American diet. The study, published yesterday online, explores how mineral deficiencies could impact how the human body rids itself of common toxic chemicals like mercury and pesticides. The report comes just after a different report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, documented a startling rise in autism in the United States.

“To better address the explosion of autism, it’s critical we consider how unhealthy diets interfere with the body’s ability to eliminate toxic chemicals, and ultimately our risk for developing long-term health problems like autism.” said Dr. David Wallinga, a study co-author and physician at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

The report's key findings:

Autism and related disorders affect brain development. The current study sought to determine how environmental and dietary factors, like HFCS consumption, might combine to contribute to the disorder.

Consumption of HFCS, for example, is linked to the dietary loss of zinc, which interferes with the elimination of heavy metals from the body. Many heavy metals like mercury, arsenic and cadmium are potent toxins with adverse effects on brain development in the young.
HFCS consumption can also impact levels of other beneficial minerals, including calcium. Loss of calcium further exacerbates the detrimental effects of exposure to lead on brain development in fetuses and children.

Inadequate levels of calcium in the body can also impair its ability to expel organophosphates, a class of pesticides long recognized by the EPA and independent scientists as especially toxic to the young developing brain.

* * *
Clinical Epigenetics: Abstract

The number of children ages 6 to 21 in the United States receiving special education services under the autism disability category increased 91 % between 2005 to 2010 while the number of children receiving special education services overall declined by 5 %. The demand for special education services continues to rise in disability categories associated with pervasive developmental disorders. Neurodevelopment can be adversely impacted when gene expression is altered by dietary transcription factors, such as zinc insufficiency or deficiency, or by exposure to toxic substances found in our environment, such as mercury or organophosphate pesticides. Gene expression patterns differ geographically between populations and within populations. Gene variants of paraoxonase-1 are associated with autism in North America, but not in Italy, indicating regional specificity in gene-environment interactions. In the current review, we utilize a novel macroepigenetic approach to compare variations in diet and toxic substance exposure between these two geographical populations to determine the likely factors responsible for the autism epidemic in the United States.
* * *
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: Study Links Autism with Industrial Food, Environment

The epidemic of autism in children in the United States may be linked to the typical American diet according to a new study published online in Clinical Epigenetics by Renee Dufault, et. al. The study explores how mineral deficiencies—affected by dietary factors like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—could impact how the human body rids itself of common toxic chemicals like mercury and pesticides.

The release comes on the heels of a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that estimates the average rate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among eight year olds is now 1 in 88, representing a 78 percent increase between 2002 and 2008. Among boys, the rate is nearly five times the prevalence found in girls.

“To better address the explosion of autism, it’s critical we consider how unhealthy diets interfere with the body’s ability to eliminate toxic chemicals, and ultimately our risk for developing long-term health problems like autism.” said Dr. David Wallinga, a study co-author and physician at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).
# # #

Researchers Hid, Ignored Bad Results in Massive Drug Trial Corruption

Natural Society

Pharmaceutical medication has always been very highly regarded in society, and its continued use shows that many individuals seem to use it without knowing — or more likely, even thinking — about the content of the drugs that they so hastily consume. Recently there has been yet another study that shows the Food and Drug Administration, trusted by millions and yet funded with trillions to overlook some of the most detrimental health risks, cares even less about drug trial regulation than previously thought.

The study reveals the varied corruption deeply rooted within the FDA, vying for approval of drugs that serve no medical purpose, sometimes with more harmful effects than good. Specifically, the drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir) — the drug praised as the be all end all cure for the ‘deadly swine flu epidemic‘.

The entire article debunks the use and distribution of the effectively worthless drug, as well as the FDA’s reasons for approval:

“If sales can be considered a proxy for utility, the controversies surrounding even the most successful drugs (such as blockbuster drugs) seem all the more paradoxical, and have revealed the extent to which the success of many drugs has been driven by sophisticated marketing rather than verifiable evidence… Prior to the global outbreak of H1N1 influenza in 2009, the United States alone had stockpiled nearly US$1.5 billion dollars worth of the [drug].”

The researchers continue:

“This analysis, conducted by Kaiser and colleagues, proposed that oseltamivir treatment of influenza reduced both secondary complications and hospital admission. In contrast, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approved Tamiflu in 1999 and was aware of these same clinical trials, concluded that Tamiflu had not been shown to reduce complications, and required an explicit statement in the drug’s label to that effect.”

This study only covers one single drug that has only been approved solely for profiteering; the FDA is known to have approved thousands upon thousands of commercial drugs from the big pharmaceutical corporations over the decades, with many questioning their serious side effects. Such is the case with highly-popular cancer drugs, which have been shown to make cancer worse and actually kill the patient more quickly. It has become abundantly clear that citizens cannot and should not place any sort of trust in many of these corporate-pushed these medications and their supposed ‘benefits’.

Antidepressants Could Cause Harm to Heart, Brain, and Bones

Activist Post

Did you know that roughly 10% of the American population suffers from depression? It isn’t exactly a coincidence, with the FDA approving a wide variety of damaging foods and drugs that many millions of Americans consume each day. The FDA isn’t helping the population with their approval of the dozens of antidepressant medications on the market – it in fact is doing the exact opposite.

The beneficial results of antidepressants have been under the spotlight for quite some time in the health world, and the validity of giving them out like candy to patients in need of a quick and easy solution is under question as well; just how useful is medication for depression?

At best, the tangible results felt by patients are comparable to sugar pills. That is to say, the medication itself does virtually nothing to improve the mood of the patient directly. At worst, antidepressants cause decreased mental stability. Wanting to kill yourself or others around you are feelings which antidepressants have been shown to ignite.

There is even the possibility that while on these terrible drugs you can become even more vulnerable to more serious mental illnesses – all whilst other legitimate non-medication methods for treating depression are being tread underfoot by the FDA.

In more recent studies, there has been surfacing evidence that antidepressants cause arteries to thicken at a faster rate. Research specifically points to an increased thickness of the lining of the carotid artery by up to 5% in men, thereby increasing the risk of heart disease substantially by putting more pressure on the heart.

This occurs when taking either selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs, the primary form of antidepressants), as well as antidepressants that affect other chemicals in the brain. The evidence isn’t completely concrete, but it points towards the change of serotonin in the body caused by the medications.

Another study in women who have gone through menopause unveiled that women who take either variation of antidepressants were up to 45% more likely to suffer from life-threatening brain damage from a stroke. This same study also found that women’s death rates rose 32% more whilst on the drugs.

Other documented side effects are much more prominent, but certainly no less detrimental to your health. These include those suicidal/homicidal thoughts mentioned earlier, as well as an increased risk of diabetes, an increased possibility of stillbirth, lowered immune system support and reduced bone density -- resulting in a higher risk of fractures, primarily in the spinal column.

There are also a few long-term risks with using these detrimental drugs: a conversion from unipolar depression to bipolar depression, and an overall cognitive decline in most users. If becoming bipolar unnecessarily does not steer you away from these, then the overall loss of your mental capacity should be enough to raise a warning flag.

EPA Colluded In Coverup Of Decades Of Monsanto Poisoning

Organic Consumers Association

2,4-D and the dioxin pollution it creates are too dangerous to allow, period, but in the hands of bad actors like Monsanto and Dow Chemical the dangers increase exponentially. What's the Environmental Protection Agency doing? Helping coverup the chemical companies' crimes!

In February, Monsanto agreed to pay up to $93 million in a class-action lawsuit brought by the residents of Nitro, West Virginia, for dioxin exposure from accidents and pollution at an herbicide plant that operated in their town from 1929 to 2004.

That may seem like justice, but it is actually the result of Monsanto's extraordinary efforts to hide the truth, evade criminal prosecution and avoid legal responsibility.

A brief criminal fraud investigation conducted (and quickly aborted) by the EPA revealed that Monsanto used a disaster at their Nitro, WV, plant to manufacture "evidence" that dioxin exposure produced a skin condition called chloracne, but was not responsible for neurological health effects or cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

These conclusions were repeatedly utilized by EPA and the Veterans Administration to deny help to citizens exposed to dioxin, if these persons did not exhibit chloracne.

The EPA knew the truth about Monsanto's dioxin crimes, but it decided to hide it. Why? It would have affected us all. EPA's brief criminal investigation of Monsanto included evidence that Monsanto knowingly contaminated Lysol with dioxin, even as the product was being marketed for cleaning babies' toys.

Here are the details of this jaw-dropping and heart-breaking case of corporate criminality and EPA collusion.

According to Natural News:
In the town of Nitro, West Virginia, Monsanto operated a chemical plant from 1929 to 1995, making an herbicide that had dioxin as a by-product. The name dioxin refers to a group of highly toxic chemicals that have been linked to heart and liver disease, human reproductive disorders, and developmental problems. Dioxin persists in the environment and accumulates in the body, even in small amounts. In 2001, the U.S. government listed dioxin as a "known human carcinogen".

In 1949, at the Nitro plant, a pressure valve blew on a container of this herbicide, producing a plume of vapor and white smoke that drifted out over the town. Residue coated the interior of buildings and those inside them with a fine black powder. Within days, workers experienced skin eruptions, and many were diagnosed with chloracne, a long lasting and disfiguring condition. Others felt intense pains in their chest, legs and trunk. A medical report from the time said the explosion "caused a systemic intoxication in the workers involving most major organ systems." Doctors detected a strong odor coming from the patients they described as men "excreting a foreign chemical through their skins".

Monsanto downplayed the incident, saying that the contaminant was "fairly slow acting" and only an irritant to the skin.

Meanwhile, the Nitro plant continued to produce herbicides, In the 1960's it manufactured Agent Orange, the powerful herbicide used by the U.S. military to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War, and which became the focus of lawsuits by veterans contending they had been harmed by exposure to the chemical. Agent Orange also created dioxin as a by-product.

At the Nitro plant, dioxin waste went into landfills, storm drains, streams, sewers, into bags with the herbicide, and then the waste was burned out into the air. Dioxin from the plant can still be found in nearby streams, rivers, and fish.

According to Source Watch, in 1990, Cate Jenkins, a PhD chemist at EPA, became convinced that Monsanto had deliberately manipulated studies of worker victims of the Nitro disaster showing that dioxin was a human carcinogen.

Dr. Jenkins wrote a memorandum entitled "Newly Revealed Fraud by Monsanto in an Epidemiological Study Used by EPA to Assess Human Health Effects from Dioxins." Read the memo at PureFood.org.

According to her memo:
Dr. Raymond Suskind at the University of Cincinnati was hired by Monsanto to study the workers at Monsanto's Nitro, West Virginia plant. Dr. Suskind stated in published studies in question that chloracne, a skin condition was the prime indicator of high human dioxin exposures, and no other health effects would be observed in the absence of this condition. Unpublished studies by Suskind, however, indicate the fallacy of this statement. No workers except those having chloracne were ever examined by Suskind or included in his study. In other words, if no workers without chloracne were ever examined for other health effects, there is no basis for asserting that chloracne was "the hallmark of dioxin intoxication."

These conclusions have been repeatedly utilized by EPA, the Veterans Administration, etc., to deny any causation by dioxin of health effects of exposed citizens, if these persons did not exhibit chloracne.

The results of Dr. Suskind's studies also were diluted by the fact that the exposed group contained not only individuals having chloracne (a genuine, but not the only effect of dioxin exposure), but also all workers having any type of skin condition such as chemical rash. The workers could have had no or negligible dioxin exposures, but they were included in the study as part of the heavily exposed group. This fact was revealed only by the careful reading of the published Suskind study.

Further, Dr. Suskind utilized statistics on the skin conditions of workers compiled by a Monsanto clerical worker, without any independent verification.

Dr. Suskind also covered-up the documented neurological damage from dioxin exposures. At Workers Compensation hearings, Suskind denied that the workers experienced any neurological health effects. In the Kemner, et al. v. Monsanto proceedings, however, it was revealed that Suskind had in his possession at the time examinations of the workers by Monsanto's physician, Dr. Nestman, documenting neurological health effects.

In his later published study, Dr. Suskind denied the continuing documented neurological health effects suffered by the workers, falsely stating that symptoms "had cleared."

All of the Monsanto dioxin studies also suffer another fatal flaw. The purported "dioxin unexposed" control group was selected from other workers at the same Monsanto plant. An earlier court settlement revealed not only that these supposedly unexposed workers were exposed to dioxins, but also to other carcinogens. One of these carcinogens, para-amino biphenyl, was known by Monsanto to be a human carcinogen and it was also known that workers were heavily exposed.

Another Monsanto study involved independent medical examinations of surviving employees by Monsanto physicians. Several hundred former Monsanto employees were too ill to travel to participate in the study. Monsanto refused to use the attending physicians reports of the illness as part of their study, saying that it would introduce inconsistencies. Thus, any critically ill dioxin-exposed workers with cancers such as Non-Hodgkins lymphoma (associated with dioxin exposures), were conveniently excluded from the Monsanto study.

There are numerous other flaws in the Monsanto health studies. Each of these misrepresentations and falsifications always served to negate any conclusions of adverse health effects from dioxins.

Within days of learning that the Office of Enforcement had initiated a criminal investigation of Monsanto based on Jenkins' allegations, her job duties were withdrawn without warning. She was not given any assignments from August 30, 1990 until she was reassigned on April 8, 1992 to a job which was primarily administrative or clerical.

According to a 1994 report on "EPA's Phony Investigation of Monsanto," by William Sanjour, Policy Analyst, US Environmental Protection Agency, published in Rachel's Hazardous Waste News:

Dr. Jenkins filed a complaint with the Department of Labor claiming that she was being harassed for carrying out perfectly legal activities. The Labor Department investigated and found in Jenkins favor. The EPA appealed three times all the way up to the Secretary of Labor but each time the Department came down in favor of Jenkins finding that "None of the rationales [explaining her transfer] given by EPA ... appear valid".

In August of 1992, EPA quietly closed the criminal investigation without ever determining or even attempting to determine if the Monsanto studies were valid or invalid, let alone fraudulent. ... There was no public announcement that the investigation was closed. Dr. Jenkins didn't learn about it until fifteen months later. Yet Monsanto knew within a few days of EPA's closing the case.

Why did Monsanto and the EPA go to such great lengths to hide the truth? It would have affected us all. EPA's brief criminal investigation of Monsanto included evidence that Monsanto knowingly contaminated Lysol with dioxin, even as the product was being marketed for cleaning babies' toys.

Dr. Jenkin's memo also contained evidence that Lysol, a product made from Monsanto's Santophen, was contaminated with dioxin with Monsanto's knowledge. The manufacturer of Lysol was not told about the dioxin by Monsanto for fear of losing his business. Other companies using Santophen, who specifically asked about the presence of dioxin, were lied to by Monsanto.

This is just one example of why we can't trust the EPA to stop Monsanto and Dow Chemical from poisoning us with dioxin.