As few as one diet soda daily may increase the risk for leukemia in men and women, and for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men, according to new results from the longest-ever running study on aspartame as a carcinogen in humans. Importantly, this is the most comprehensive, long-term study ever completed on this topic, so it holds more weight than other past studies which appeared to show no risk. And disturbingly, it may also open the door for further similar findings on other cancers in future studies.
The most thorough study yet on aspartame - Over two million person-years
For this study, researchers prospectively analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for a 22-year period. A total of 77,218 women and 47,810 men were included in the analysis, for a total of 2,278,396 person-years of data. Apart from sheer size, what makes this study superior to other past studies is the thoroughness with which aspartame intake was assessed. Every two years, participants were given a detailed dietary questionnaire, and their diets were reassessed every four years. Previous studies which found no link to cancer only ever assessed participants' aspartame intake at one point in time, which could be a major weakness affecting their accuracy.
One diet soda a day increases leukemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphomas
The combined results of this new study showed that just one 12-fl oz. can (355 ml) of diet soda daily leads to:
- 42 percent higher leukemia risk in men and women (pooled analysis)
- 102 percent higher multiple myeloma risk (in men only)
- 31 percent higher non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk (in men only)
These results were based on multi-variable relative risk models, all in comparison to participants who drank no diet soda. It is unknown why only men drinking higher amounts of diet soda showed increased risk for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Note that diet soda is the largest dietary source of aspartame (by far) in the U.S. Every year, Americans consume about 5,250 tons of aspartame in total, of which about 86 percent (4,500 tons) is found in diet sodas.
Confirmation of previous high quality research on animals
This new study shows the importance of the quality of research. Most of the past studies showing no link between aspartame and cancer have been criticized for being too short in duration and too inaccurate in assessing long-term aspartame intake. This new study solves both of those issues. The fact that it also shows a positive link to cancer should come as no surprise, because a previous best-in-class research study done on animals (900 rats over their entire natural lifetimes) showed strikingly similar results back in 2006: aspartame significantly increased the risk for lymphomas and leukemia in both males and females. More worrying is the follow on mega-study, which started aspartame exposure of the rats at the fetal stage. Increased lymphoma and leukemia risks were confirmed, and this time the female rats also showed significantly increased breast (mammary) cancer rates. This raises a critical question: will future, high-quality studies uncover links to the other cancers in which aspartame has been implicated (brain, breast, prostate, etc.)?
There is now more reason than ever to completely avoid aspartame in our daily diet. For those who are tempted to go back to sugary sodas as a "healthy" alternative, this study had a surprise finding: men consuming one or more sugar-sweetened sodas daily saw a 66 percent increase in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (even worse than for diet soda). Perhaps the healthiest soda is no soda at all.
Sudden chest pains landed Diane Zachor in a Duluth, Minn., hospital overnight, but weeks later she had another shock — a $442 bill for the everyday drugs she also takes at home, including more than a half dozen common medicines to control diabetes, heart problems and high cholesterol.
"I just couldn't believe some of these prices they charge," said Zachor, 66. "It's just atrocious." For the price she was charged for her insulin during her 18-hour stay at St. Luke's Hospital, Zachor would have enough to cover her out-of-pocket expenses for a three-month supply under her private Medicare Advantage plan. The tab for one water pill to control high blood pressure could buy a three-week supply. And the bill for one calcium tablet could purchase enough for three weeks, when she gets them over the counter from a national chain pharmacy.
Even though her health plan covers medical and drug expenses, her policy would not pay the hospital drug bill because St. Luke's never formally admitted her, instead billing the visit as observation care, which is considered outpatient service.
That observation label excludes thousands of patients every year from full Medicare coverage. Many have spent more than a day in the hospital and had regular hospital rooms and service and, as with Zachor, never realized they weren't admitted.
These observation patients might wind up paying a larger share of their hospital bills than inpatients, since they usually have a co-payment for doctors' fees and each hospital service.
But Medicare doesn't pay at all for routine drugs that observation patients need for chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol — drugs that Zachor could have brought from home if the hospital allowed it and she had time to get them. Medicare has no rules for what hospitals can bill for non-covered drugs, so they can charge any amount.
A shock, afterward
It's an unwelcome surprise for patients who may not get the bad news until they receive a hospital bill. Medicare has no rules requiring hospitals to tell patients when they are in observation status or that they will be responsible for paying any non-covered Medicare services, said Ellen Griffith, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
"St. Luke's carries out 'observation' and all other health care policies as prescribed by Medicare rules," said Mary Greene, a St. Luke's Hospital representative, in an e-mail. She referred any questions to Medicare.
Drug prices have also surprised seniors in other parts of the country:
•In Missouri, several Medicare observation patients were billed $18 for one baby aspirin, said Ruth Dockins, a senior advocate at the Southeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging.
•Pearl Beras, 85, of Boca Raton, Fla., said in an interview that her hospital charged $71 for one blood pressure pill for which her neighborhood pharmacy charges 16 cents.
•In California, a hospital billed several patients $111 for one pill that reduces nausea; for the same price, they could have bought 95 of the pills at a local pharmacy, said Tamara McKee, program manager for the Health Insurance Counseling & Advocacy Program at the Alliance on Aging in Monterey County, Calif., who handled at least 20 complaints last year from Medicare beneficiaries about excessive hospital drug bills.
The most recent government statistics show the number of observation claims that hospitals submitted to Medicare rose 46% to 1.4 million from 2006 to 2010, and the number of cases lasting longer than 48 hours more than tripled.
The American Hospital Association, in a 2010 letter to Medicare officials, said several factors explain that growth, including increasingly restrictive Medicare criteria for the hospital admission and rising use of audits to monitor hospital decisions and billing. In addition, it said, physicians sometimes try to keep seniors in the hospital because they may not be well enough to be home, even when they're not sick enough to be admitted.
"I don't blame the hospitals," said attorney Gill Deford at the Center for Medicare Advocacy, based in Connecticut, which has filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government on behalf of observation patients who, because of their observation status, become ineligible for Medicare coverage for nursing home care when they leave the hospital.
The lawsuit seeks to either eliminate observation status or require hospitals to tell patients when they're admitted for observation and allow them to appeal the designation. Observation status "is a big money-saver for the Medicare program," he said. Medicare officials recommend to hospitals — but do not require — that patients remain under observation for no more than 24 to 48 hours. After that, the patients should be switched to inpatient status or discharged, the officials recommend. But patients can linger in observation for several days and often don't know they haven't been admitted.
Difference in pricing
Since the program does not limit the prices for drugs that Medicare doesn't cover, that can create an opportunity that hospitals might find hard to resist.
Hospitals use their pharmacies to help generate revenue to subsidize the other operating costs of the facility, said Miriam Mobley Smith, dean of the College of Pharmacy at Chicago State University. She said the "upcharge" is based on numerous factors, including personnel, insurance and facility costs.
"I'm not justifying the charges," she said, "but there's a huge difference between the cost of operating a retail pharmacy compared to a hospital pharmacy."
Even patients with private Medicare Part D drug insurance may find that their policies don't cover their everyday — or "self-administered" — drugs given to them in the hospital.
"These drugs may be covered under certain circumstances," according to the Medicare website. But there is no requirement that Part D beneficiaries must be fully reimbursed for these drugs.
Seniors advocate Dockins said that requiring hospital pharmacies to participate in the Medicare Part D drug plans would help control pricing because the beneficiaries would get discounts negotiated by the plan.
To avoid drug charges, she tells seniors to bring their pills in the original bottles when they go into the hospital. But hospitals are not required to let patients use their own medicine from home, said Leta Blank, coordinator for the Senior Health Insurance Assistance Program in Montgomery County, Md.
Dockins suggests that low-income seniors apply for a hospital's charity care program so that the charges can be waived or reduced, if they qualify.
Zachor, who works as an office manager for the Minnesota Citizens Federation, a consumer advocacy group, contacted her Medicare Advantage plan to appeal its decision to not cover her hospital drug bill.
In February, her insurer said it requires hospitals with which it contracts "to notify a member before delivering a non-covered service." Because the hospital didn't obtain Zachor's written consent to accept those charges, the plan's rules say the hospital cannot bill her for them.
However, other Medicare Advantage plans — which cover about a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries — may simply follow the traditional Medicare program, which does not require advance notice. Beneficiaries should check with their insurance companies.
Zachor's $442 drug bill was scrapped. She had to pay only $50, the co-pay for an emergency room visit.
"What if I didn't know there was a route to go to appeal to my plan?" Zachor said. "I was thinking about other people older than myself who don't know what to do, and they would probably have to go without food or medications — for how long — to pay a bill they didn't have to pay."
Switzerland's health regulator imposed an immediate ban on Novartis AG's NOVN.VX +0.09% flu vaccines Thursday after possibly contaminated flu shots were found in batches in Italy, in a further embarrassment for the Swiss drug maker, which has struggled with a raft of manufacturing problems recently.
Medical watchdog Swissmedic halted deliveries of up to 160,000 doses to doctors and pharmacies as a precaution following a similar move by Italian authorities. The ban comes at an awkward time shortly before the flu season starts. There is already a shortage of flu vaccines in Switzerland and Italy this year after Netherlands-based vaccine maker Crucell, a unit of American drug maker Johnson & Johnson, JNJ -0.34% had suspended a delivery of seasonal flu vaccine across Europe last week.
In Austria, health authorities said they've issued a recommendation to doctors and pharmacies to switch to other flu vaccines than the Novartis products.
Novartis said the Italian health ministry had acted after the company itself reported the presence of small particles in the vaccines.
Problems with its flu vaccines represent a new blow for the Swiss drug maker, which has struggled with a series of manufacturing problems recently. The Basel-based company is still trying to resume production at its troubled facility in Lincoln, Nebraska, which was shut down in December because of manufacturing flaws, and recently had to recall a birth-control pill because of a packaging error.
Novartis Chief Executive Joe Jimenez in a call with journalists sought to reassure that its flu shots are safe, adding that the company is cooperating with health authorities.
"We are confident that the safety of the vaccines is assured. The lot in question had a deviation, it has been identified and put on hold and has not been released to the market," he said. "The manufacturing of vaccines is a complex procedure. Italian authorities are free to continue investigating," but there is evidence that such deviations wouldn't affect safety or efficacy, Mr. Jimenez said.
Novartis produces a big chunk of its flu vaccines in Italy, from where they are shipped to Europe and parts of Asia. Mr. Jimenez said he didn't expect more countries to ban the vaccines, even though he couldn't rule it out. Vaccines for the U.S. market are produced in Liverpool, England, and aren't affected, Novartis said.
Italian and Swiss authorities have advised doctors and nurses not to use the flu shots after small white particles were spotted in the syringes. Swissmedic said that it is possible that some of the ordinary components of the vaccines had clumped together. Novartis said these particles are proteins, which are normal and necessary components of flu vaccines.
"It is now Novartis's task to find out what is wrong and which batches are concerned," Swissmedic spokesman Daniel Lüthi said, a process that may be complicated because of the high number of doses potentially affected. "We have to wait until they can give us new results and more evidence." If the products are found to be contaminated they have to be destroyed by the manufacturer, Mr. Lüthi said.
Italy had ordered 3 million doses from Novartis, but it wasn't immediately clear how many of those had already been delivered to date.
The ban could create further embarrassment to the company, even though contamination issues are an industrywide problem, analysts say.
"Injectable drugs are very difficult to produce, and the risk of contamination is higher in liquids than it is in solids, such as tablets. It can affect not only vaccines but also cancer therapies, even though flu vaccines are much closer to consumers than chemotherapy drugs, so that's an additional reputation problem for Novartis," said Birgit Kulhoff, who manages a health care portfolio for private bank Rahn & Bodmer in Zurich.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year sent a warning letter to Novartis's generics unit, Sandoz, saying the unit had failed to correct repeated manufacturing violations in the U.S. Over the past few years, other pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi have been warned over manufacturing issues at their plants.
Also in Italy, authorities last week started an investigation into alleged widespread corruption at Sandoz, whose representatives in the country are suspected of allegedly offering perks including trips and cash to 67 doctors, including pediatricians, to increase the number of their drugs prescriptions.
Mr. Jimenez declined to comment on the Italian investigation regarding Sandoz because it is still under way. "If there's any issue within Novartis regarding compliance and marketing practices we would act immediately," he said, without elaborating.
Thousands of women who take anti-depressants during pregnancy are endangering their unborn babies, researchers have warned.
The widely prescribed pills have been found drastically to raise the odds of miscarriages, premature birth, autism and life-threatening high blood pressure, they say.
Harvard researchers believe far too many women are taking the drugs during pregnancy because their GPs are not aware of the dangers.
They also suspect that drug companies are trying to play down the risks because anti-depressants are so lucrative to them.
They focused on the complications linked to a group of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which include Prozac and Seroxat.
Between 2 and 3 per cent of pregnant women in the UK are thought to be on these drugs – up to 19,500 every year.
But the researchers have found that they increase the risk of a miscarriage by 17 per cent and more than double the likelihood of pre-eclampsia – high blood pressure during pregnancy – which can be fatal.
They also double the chances of the baby being born premature, or developing autism.
In addition, the researchers say, the babies are more likely to suffer from heart defects and problems with their bowels.
SSRIs treat depression by boosting the level of the ‘happy hormone’ serotonin in the brain. But the researchers believe that serotonin is also getting into the womb and harming the development of the foetus’s brain, lungs, heart and digestive system.
Dr Adam Urato, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Tufts University School of Medicine, in Boston, who was involved in the study, said: ‘I am absolutely concerned – very concerned.
‘We are witnessing a large-scale human experiment. Never before have we chemically altered human foetal development on such a large scale.
'And my concern is why I am trying to get the word out to patients, health care providers, and the public.’
Dr Alice Domar, assistant professor in obstetrics, gynaecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, said there was little evidence the pills effectively treated depression.
She said GPs were handing out prescriptions for the drugs even though depression could be far better treated through exercise, talking therapies and even yoga.
‘These are probably not particularly safe medicines to take during pregnancy,’ she said. ‘We’re not saying that every pregnant woman should go off her medication.
'Obviously you don’t want a pregnant woman to attempt suicide.’
The researchers, who presented their findings to the annual conference of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine in San Diego, California, have analysed more than 100 existing studies looking at the risks of SSRIs.
Their findings are due to be published next week in the respected journal Human Reproduction.
The researchers say that if women take the pills when they are trying for a baby but come off as soon as they find out they are pregnant, it may be too late.
Dr Urato added: ‘Many of the experts in this area receive funding from the anti-depressant majors. These experts continue to downplay the risks of these agents and to promote the benefits of their use in pregnancy.’
A spokesman for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said: ‘Clinical decisions about the treatment of depression are complex and must be made by clinicians in consultation with individual patients, regardless of whether or not they are pregnant.’
Your body is currently under direct assault. This is what we are facing, and it is up to you to make the difference.
The old health paradigm relies on cutting, burning, and drugging to 'treat' disease, while the new health paradigm looks to utilize the beneficial powers of natural healing substances and natural health as a whole.
Currently, the funding for the scientific advancement pertaining to the study of natural herbs like turmeric is nothing compared to the massive amount of financial backing that is packed into research for the latest pharmaceutical drug. Millions more are even pumped into GMOs, or genetically modified organisms on a global scale.
Even with limited funding and research, turmeric alone has been found to positively affect over 525 conditions, this includes cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. So why is the mainstream medical establishment ignoring these advancements and discoveries?
This is really what we are facing.
It is up to you to help aid in re-shaping the health 'crucible' which currently exists within the United States and elsewhere. It is only through peaceful action and the spread of information will serious change occur.
In what most likely has to be one of the most convoluted, twisted up, insane things to have come along in quite some time, the Centers for Disease Control (Contamination) have come up with what has to be one of the all-time idiotic rationales concerning vaccines. This collection of mad scientists, government hacks, and NWO puppets has just published one of the most idiotic, screwed up explanations for why their “one size fits all vaccine even if it kills ya” is backfiring in a major way.
The polio vaccine that Bill Gates, an admitted population reduction advocate, has been funding in the forced vaccination of every one in third world countries, is killing some and paralyzing many, many more as the polio virus mutates in response to the vaccine. This has created a far more virulent and aggressive strain of polio. India is a prime target. Currently, an estimated 50,000 have succumbed to vaccine induced polio paralysis which as it turns out is far more virulent than the strain they claimed the vaccine would prevent.
Not to be deterred by anything that might resemble a precautionary truth, the CDC has decided that the reason the vaccine induced, virulent, mutated, strain of polio is sweeping India is NOT so much from the new strain being easily transmitted by those infected, or that the new strain is appearing only in those who got that magic polio vaccine, its because there are still unvaccinated children who are causing the disease to spread. Yeah…that’s it. Only they don’t have it.
In the magical, mystical world of the CDC, anything can be explained away simply by choosing to refuse to acknowledge the reality of a situation and instead, creating an implausible excuse for why this mutation is spreading. According to the CDC, it is the fault of the UNvaccinated.
People who never received the vaccine are causing a viral mutation from the vaccine that they never got, and they are still to be blamed for spreading a disease they never had.
The bottom line here is that they’re blaming the unvaccinated for spreading new versions of polio that are mutations from their vaccines. In spite of the fact that they may be giving the wrong vaccine for the polio that’s causing disease, and that vaccine’s virus is mutating into a new form of polio, the people to blame are those who could not possibly have had anything to do with it. And, even though people who have received the vaccine can also fall victim to the new polio, thus incubating it and passing it to others, it’s still the fault of the unvaccinated!
The argument that most vaccine advocates like to use these days, is that somehow un-vaccinated children create huge costs in the health care system. No one can come up with any reputable resource to back this up, but thats beside the point. Still, I have to wonder what the health costs to India will be to treat and care for these 50,000 plus, children who are now permanently crippled, if they haven’t died? And since they are even now continuing to force the vaccination of defenseless children against a polio strain that occurred rarely and have created a whole new strain for which there is no “vaccine”, what will it cost India in the long run?
Personally, I think India should set them selves up one of those hocus, pocus kangaroo vaccine injury courts like we have. Then a panel of medical experts who have absolutely no medical training can tell parents that their vaccine injured child is not really suffering from a vaccine injury after all. Of course there will be no mention of the other 49,999 other cases of vaccine injury. The state is off the hook, the pharmaceutical companies are off the hook and you get to take your injured child home to suffer the consequences, with no help. And of course! The sale of deadly vaccines will go on unimpeded!
I believe everyone at the CDC should receive this polio vaccine….and they should be treated the same way the rest of us are when dealing with the results.
Where do parents and teachers get the idea there's "something wrong" with their kid and only an expensive drug can fix it? From Pharma's seamless web of ads, subsidized doctors, journals, medical courses and conferences, paid "patient" groups, phony public services messages and reporters willing to serve as stenographers.
For many, the face of the drugs-not-hugs message is Harold Koplewicz M.D. author of the pop best seller It's Nobody's Fault , and former head of NYU's prestigious Child Study Center. In a 1999 Salon article, Koplewicz reiterated his "no-fault" statement, assuring parents that psychiatric illness is not caused by bad parenting. "It is not that your mother got divorced, or that your father didn't wipe you the right way," he said. "It really is DNA roulette: You got blue eyes, blond hair, sometimes a musical ear, but sometimes you get the predisposition for depression."
Many regard the NYU Child Study Center which Koplewicz founded and led before leaving in 2009 to start his own facility, as helping to usher in the world of brave new pediatric medicine in which children, toddlers and infants, once expected to outgrow their problems, are now diagnosed with lifelong psychiatric problems. The Child Study Center is "a threat to the health and welfare of children," and its doctors are "hustlers working to increase their 'client' population and their commercial value to psychotropic drug manufacturers," charged Vera Sharav, president of the watchdog group, the Alliance for Human Research Protection.
A look at the Center's stated mission provides no reassurance. Its goal of "eliminating the stigma of being or having a child with a psychiatric disorder," and "influencing child-related public policy," sounds a lot like a Pharma sales plan. And its boast about having "a structure that allows recruitment of patients for research studies and then provides 'real-world' testing for successful controlled-environment findings," could send chills down the back of parents afraid their kids will be guinea pigs or money-making subjects.
In 2007, the fears of the Center's skeptics were confirmed when it launched an aggressive, scare tactic marketing campaign called Ransom Notes in 2007. "We have your son," said one ad, created with bits of disparate type like a ransom note from a kidnapper. "We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. This is only the beginning"Autism."
"We have your daughter. We are forcing her to throw up after every meal she eats. It's only going to get worse," said another ad signed "Bulimia."
"We are in possession of your son. We are making him squirm and fidget until he is a detriment to himself and those around him. Ignore this and your kid will pay," said another add from "ADHD." Other ransom ads came from "kidnappers" named Depression, Asperger's Syndrome and OCD.
Created pro bono by advertising giant BBDO, the ads were planned to run in New York magazine, Newsweek , Parents, Education Update . Mental Health News and other publications and on 11 billboards and 200 kiosks said the press release.
Immediate Outrage
The hostage campaign drew immediate public outrage and more than a dozen advocacy groups joined together in an online petition calling for an end to it. "This is a demonstration of the assaultive tactics used by psychiatry today--in particular, academic psychiatrists and university based medical centers that are under the influence of their pharmaceutical partners," Vera Sharav wrote in alerts to AHRP's mailing list. "If Dr. Koplewicz et al are not stopped, the campaign will be hitting the rest of the country," she warned, and informed readers that the campaign was formulated by BBDO, "a major direct to consumer prescription drug advertising firm," asking the New York State Attorney General's office to investigate.
Days after the backlash, the Center revoked the advertising campaign "after the effort drew a strongly negative reaction, " reported the New York Times. Koplewicz told the Times the decision was made by the Center with no pressure from New York University and they planned to introduce a new campaign in the next three months. However, he left the Child Study Center at NYU in 2009 to start his own facility, initially called the "Child Study Center Foundation," but changed to the "Child Mind Institute," in 2010.
Though Koplewicz' Child Mind Institute is supposedly a "non-profit," it is ensconced on Park Avenue in Manhattan and Koplewicz' hourly rate "can be as high as $1,000 (three to four times that of the average Manhattan therapist)," says the Times . In a chilling interview on Education Update Online about the Institute Koplewicz says the reason the facility works closely with schools "is simply that's where the kids are," drawing an analogy to Willy Sutton who said "the reason he robbed banks is that's where the money is."
Last month in the Wall Street Journal , Koplewicz wrote that "no studies have examined the effect of long-term use" of ADHD meds, but they "have been in use for 70 years, and there is no evidence that suggests any adverse effects." But there has been a large federal study of the long-term effects of the drugs and it shows they are "ineffective over longer periods," and "that long-term use of the drugs can stunt children's growth," reported the Washington Post. Oops.
Two features that characterize the pediatric medicine practiced by the pill enthusiasts are they term the "diseases" they identify under-treated and under-diagnosed and they urge early treatment when symptoms first appear. (Before the symptoms go away say cynics.)
Yet the very fact that such diseases are lifelong conditions is reason to wait to medicate kids say highly respected doctors. Nor can parents with medicated children know if their kids even needed the drugs since symptoms from the drugs are often called the "disease," says Peter Breggin, M.D. in a recent interview.
One thing doctors on both sides of the pediatric drug controversy agree on is the decision to put a child on drugs will likely sentence him or her to a lifetime of medications. What they disagree about is whether that is good or bad thing.
Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind. - Edward Bernays 1929
Weapon of Mass Persuasion Television Predictive Programming : A great reason to get rid of you TV. We are being manipulated by main stream news by their lies and reporting biases and omissions. So many people believe what they see on main stream news as fact. Man made global warming hoax, Treyvon Martin case by showing a picture of an 18 year old with a picture when he was 9, not reporting of the passing of the NDAA, the 9/11 fable, KONY 2012. I haven’t had TV for about 6 years now.
An upcoming series of mini-documentary videos about GMOs, this Gary Null production delves into the reality of GMO health risks. Gary Null calls it a "GMO ticking time bomb."
This video reveals some of the health problems caused by GMOs, including infertility, accelerated aging, organ damage, immune malfunction and more.
Daily Mail
by LAURA CLARK
Bedtime stories are dying out as children’s attention spans shrink, a survey found today.
A declining ability to concentrate is threatening children’s enjoyment of reading, according to a poll of teachers and parents.
One in four parents of young children admit they never read a bedtime story or only do so once every six months.
Parents report that their children are more interested in screen-based activities such as watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the web.
Teachers say that growing claims on children’s attention are undermining their ability to concentrate for long periods.
Ninety-one per cent of teachers polled said children’s attention spans were shorter than ever before in the classroom.
Almost all teachers said parents needed to do more to encourage reading at home.
The findings, based on a poll of 410 English teachers and 2,000 parents of children aged between two and 11, will fuel concerns that children are losing their love of reading.
Research earlier this year found that a generation of children who have grown up with video games and the internet believe reading is not ‘cool’ and would be embarrassed to be seen with a book by a friend.
The latest findings claim that children are spending three times as much time in front of screens, including the TV, games console and internet, as they do reading.
Only half of parents said they read to their children every day. Some 17 per cent said they never read bedtime stories and eight per cent said they do every six months or less.
More than four in 10 - 42 per cent - said they only read bedtime stories once a week or less.
The survey also showed that a fifth of parents waited until their child was at least two years old before reading their first book to them.
The findings were released by publishing and education giant Pearson, which is running a national ‘Enjoy Reading’ campaign aimed at inspiring an early and life-long love of reading in children.
Rod Bristow, president of Pearson, said: ‘Study after study has shown that reading for pleasure is a key indicator of future success for children, but demands on children’s attention and the difficulty of inspiring reluctant readers mean many are missing out.’
Research by the National Literacy Trust earlier this year found that that only 33.5 per cent of youngsters reading was ‘cool’ - and only 14 per cent of boys aged 14 to 16.
Some 17 per cent admitted they would be ‘embarrassed if my friends saw me read’.
Children were found to be reading fewer books, comics, magazines and even websites than seven years ago, prompting the charity to warn of a ‘worrying shift’ in reading habits.
But the study said it was ‘essential’ for children to make time to read because children who read outside lessons do better in exams.
Young people who read outside class on a daily basis were 13 times more likely to read above the expected level for their age.
Genetic modification of food has come under severe criticism from the scientific community as new health risks are being discovered. Do genetically modified vaccines carry any less risk? The study below outlines just a few of the unanswered questions about one of the genetically engineered vaccines currently in use, namely Gardasil®.
According to Dr. Lee’s research (sponsored by SaneVax Inc.), during the manufacture of Gardasil, Merck may have inadvertently created a new chemical compound composed of HPV L1 gene fragments chemically bound to the aluminum nanoparticles of the AAHS adjuvant used in the vaccine.
If this is true, the toxicity of this chemical has not been tested. No one knows what the potential health consequences the injection of this ‘ingredient’ may be.
Consider some key points extracted from the article by Dr. Lee:
A total of 16 samples of Gardasil® received from Australia, Bulgaria, France, India, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Spain and the United States were found to contain fragments of HPV-18-L1 gene DNA which was readily detected in 15 of 16 samples tested, or HPV-11-L1 gene DNA, or a mixture of both. After submission of the manuscript, HPV-16-L1 gene fragments were also detected among these samples by a special protocol, Dr. Lee noted in his report.
Dr. Lee stated: Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced that Gardasil® indeed does contain recombinant HPV L1-specific DNA fragments, the physical condition(s) of these HPV DNA fragments in the final vaccine product has not been characterized.
Dr. Lee presented experimental evidence to assert that the binding mechanism between the HPV L1 gene DNA and the amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate (AAHS) nanoparticles in Gardasil® is of a chemical nature through ligand exchange of phosphate for hydroxyl, independent of the electrostatic forces. When aluminum (Al3+) and DNA interact, the binding site for Al3+ on the DNA chains is the phosphate groups on the DNA backbones.
For the average medical consumer, if the bond between the DNA and aluminum were electrostatic, it would be much like when you rub a balloon against your head until the static electricity builds up to the point where you can stick the balloon to a wall. As you may have noticed, given a short period of time, the balloon loses the static electric charge and falls off the wall. This is much the same as a vaccine in which the bond between the antigen and adjuvant is electrostatic. Once the vaccine is injected, the recipient’s normal pH level reduces the electrostatic attraction making the antigen and adjuvant separate from each other.
On the other hand, if the bond between the DNA and aluminum is chemical, it is more like taking a blob of super-glue and sticking the balloon to the wall. In this instance, no one knows how long the bond will remain intact.
In light of this substantial difference, Dr. Lee concluded:
The short-term and long-term impact of the residual fragments of HPV L1 gene DNA, or plasmid DNA, if chemically bound to the mineral aluminum of AAHS nanoparticles is largely unknown and warrants further investigation.
In Sept 2011, the SaneVax Team informed the FDA that HPV DNA fragments had been found possibly attached to the aluminum adjuvant in 100% of Gardasil samples tested by Dr. Sin Hang Lee of Milford Hospital.
The FDA response included the following statement with no references to back it up:
Recombinant technology has been used for many years to manufacture medicinal products. Gardasil does contain HPV L1-specific DNA fragments. This is expected, since DNA encoding the HPV L1 gene is used in the vaccine manufacturing process to produce the virus-like particles. The presence of these expected DNA fragments, which are inevitable in vaccine production, is not a risk to vaccine recipients, is not harmful, and this DNA is not a contaminant.
As you can clearly see, there is no mention whatsoever about these fragments possibly being attached to the aluminum adjuvant. The SaneVax Team as well as many eminent scientists and medical professionals around the world believe this ‘tiny’ detail should not be ignored.
If this ‘ingredient’ is indeed an ‘inevitable’ component of recombinant technology, medical consumers have a right to know when, for how long and under what circumstances it was tested for safety.
After an entire year of multiple communication attempts receiving no scientific documentation from the FDA that this ‘ingredient’ did not pose a health threat, the SaneVax Team sent another letter to the FDA Commissioner with one simple request.
This letter asked for copies of documents from the FDA showing:
1) The date when the FDA and the manufacturer first knew small quantities of residual recombinant HPV L1-specific DNA fragments remain in the vaccine.
2) The physical condition of the HPV- L1-specific DNA fragments in the Gardasil® vaccine.
To date, the FDA has made no effort to respond to this request. Do they have any documentation? If so, why do they not provide this critical information to medical consumers?
Surely, considering the fact that these fragments are an ‘inevitable’ component of recombinant technology, they have requested safety studies to determine any potential health impact. After all, they are responsible for the health and safety of medical consumers – aren’t they?
One more critical point:
Why did Merck not detect the residues of HPV-18-L1 gene DNA during the production of Gardasil®?
Dr. Lee offered the following explanation:
…all HPV-18 isolates can be classified into 3 subtypes based on alignments of the DNA sequences of the variants, (i.e. the European, the Asian-American and the African subtypes). In Europe, it has been reported that all of the HPV-18 isolates from patients are found to be of the European or Asian-American variants. In the U.S., 91% of the HPV-18 isolates from white women are reported to be of the European and Asian-American variants, and 64% of the HPV isolates from African American women belong to the African variant.
Since the prevalence of the African variants of HPV-18 among European patients is negligible, the Dutch researchers who originally developed the HPV INNO-LIPA kit naturally selected an HPV-18 probe targeting a homologous sequence shared by all European and Asian-American HPV-18 variants for the testing. However, the HPV-18 L1 protein-coding gene chosen by the manufacturer for Gardasil® closely related to an African subtype. Failure to detect a target sequence of an African variant HPV-18 DNA in the vaccine Gardasil® with a hybridization probe specifically designed for the European and Asian-American DNA variants may simply reflect the diversity of the L1 protein amino acid sequences within the genotype of HPV-18.
For medical consumers, this brings additional questions. Has Gardasil® been tested for efficacy against all three HPV-18 variants?
Are families in the United States and Europe putting their children at risk of unknown health consequences resulting from the injection of a new chemical with untested toxicity in order to obtain ‘protection’ against only one type of oncogenic HPV?
The time has come for medical consumers to hold their national health ‘authorities’ accountable. These questions must be answered before any more children become ‘one less.’
The Daily Mail received a lot of attention this week for an article entitled, "3,000 doctors putting patients on 'death lists' that single them out to be allowed to die."
Now, some of the feedbacks that the Mail received claimed that the End of Life Care Strategy (Fourth Annual Report) implied nothing of the sort.
But on page 8 of the report, we come to the following statement, "Find Your 1%, which aims to engage GPs in identifying the individuals on their lists who might be in their last year of life, so that they can undertake end of life care planning with them, has reached its midpoint target of 1,000 GPs signed up by August 2012."
This is fairly clear. General practitioners are being encouraged by the Government Department of Health to make lists of people who they believe are not going to live long. But that's not all. There are other unmistakable statements in the report that make it clear the mandate to provide end-of-life care is going to be aggressively implemented throughout the British state-run health care system.
Ministers have made a commitment to evaluate progress on end of life care to determine whether it is possible to introduce a right to choose to die at home. Over the next year the focus will continue to be on supporting people to be cared for and to die in their place of choice, providing community-based services to enable this to happen. Integration of services is key to this and will be a theme for the new Improvement Body, which will enable us to continue to work with our range of partners in the statutory, voluntary and private sectors. At the same time the Transform programme will continue to support improvement in end of life care in hospitals. The local Electronic Palliative Care Coordination System/ End of Life Care Locality Register is about to go live which will be vital for communication between the agencies involved in the care of these patients. The CCG has also developed a 'Gold card' scheme, which identifies these end of life care patients to health and social care professionals as well as helping patients access appropriate care.
Unlike many other socialized systems that are quasi-private in some elements, the British system is full-on government run. This makes what's going on especially worrisome. There is no government in the world, historically speaking, that has ever handled life and death situations fairly over time. Bureaucrats are incapable of dealing with such situations fairly.
More likely, the power to wield death is abused. The more opportunities government has to wield death, the more those involved will do so. This is simply an ineluctable prerogative of government.
Death programs are like any other government service, actually. They will be continually expanded and made more complex to ensure the expansion of the departments in question. Eventually, people could die simply to ensure that a department meets certain quotas.
All this is written indelibly unless this program is stopped now. But it won't be stopped. There is reason to believe, in fact, that it is gaining in momentum. It is meant to gain traction in tandem with the US program called Obamacare.
This is how the power elite works. They tend to advance certain activities not unilaterally but in harness with several great powers at once. Whether it is monetary regulation, education or other regulatory facilities, programmatic specifics are pushed forward together in an unstoppable rush.
The US has passed a health care plan that will support British policies, and no doubt we'll see exactly the same sort of regulation evolving throughout Europe and then in the developing world. China surely won't put up any resistance. The Daily Mail does us the favor of bluntly cataloguing the possibilities as follows:
Thousands of patients have already been placed on 'death registers' which single them out to be allowed to die in comfort rather than be given life-saving treatment in hospital, it emerged last night. Nearly 3,000 doctors have promised to draw up a list of patients they believe are likely to die within a year, Department of Health figures showed yesterday ... They have been asked to earmark elderly patients who show signs of frailty or deterioration during routine consultations at their surgeries. Although more than 7,000 patients nationwide have already been put on the list, there appears to be no obligation for doctors to inform them. Some medical professionals went public with their worries yesterday following the Daily Mail's disclosure of the NHS request to doctors to put one in every 100 of their patients on death lists. Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, warned about the risks of drawing up 'quotas' for the dying. 'We all know that doctors' estimates of patients' lifespans can be sometimes accurate but sometimes wildly inaccurate,' he said. 'A skilled doctor can in the great majority of cases assess when a patient is within a few hours or days of death. However, once we start to talk about weeks or months we know that we can often be right, but equally very badly wrong.' The NHS is pushing for the death lists at a time when a keystone of its 'end of life strategy', the Liverpool Care Pathway, has come under fierce criticism from leading medical figures and families who believe their loved ones have been wrongly picked out in hospitals as dying.
None of this will end well. It will start with the aged and infirm and logically proceed to infants that will be diagnosed as having little or no chance at a "quality of life."
Finally, it will provoke outright eugenics. It was trending in that direction in Hitler's Germany and the same entities that helped fund that unsavory period of the 20th century are no doubt behind this, as well, one way or another.
The path being chosen is the one that turned the 20th century into one of the world's bloodiest with some 150 million murdered by government policies, wars and incarceration.
Ultimately there is nothing caring about these "end of life" policies. And they warn us of much worse to come.
Innocente Marcolini, 60, an Italian businessman, fell ill after using a handset at work for up to six hours every day for 12 years.
Now Italy's Supreme Court in Rome has blamed his phone saying there is a "causal link" between his illness and phone use, the Sun has reported.
Mr Marcolini said: "This is significant for very many people. I wanted this problem to become public because many people still do not know the risks.
"I was on the phone, usually the mobile, for at least five or six hours every day at work.
"I wanted it recognised that there was a link between my illness and the use of mobile and cordless phones.
"Parents need to know their children are at risk of this illness."
British scientists have claimed there is insufficient evidence to prove any link to mobiles.
But the respected oncologist and professor of environmental mutagenesis Angelo Gino Levis gave evidence for Mr Marcolini — along with neurosurgeon Dr Giuseppe Grasso.
They said electromagnetic radiation emitted by mobile and cordless phones can damage cells, making tumours more likely.
Prof Levis told The Sun: "The court decision is extremely important. It finally officially recognises the link.
"It'll open not a road but a motorway to legal actions by victims. We're considering a class action."
Mr Marcolini's tumour was discovered in the trigeminal nerve — close to where the phone touched his head.
It is non-cancerous but threatened to kill him as it spread to the carotid artery, the major vessel carrying blood to his brain.
His face was left paralysed and he takes daily morphine for pain.
Alasdair Philips of Powerwatch, which campaigns for more research on mobile use, said: "This is an interesting case and proves the need for more studies.
"People should limit mobile and cordless use until we know more."
The World Health Organisation urged limits on mobile use last year, calling them a Class B carcinogen.
But a spokesman for Britain's Health Protection Agency said: "The scientific consensus is that mobile phones do not cause cancer."
International radiation biology expert Michael Repacholi said: "Studies show no evidence of cancer. But if you are worried, use a headset, hands-free or loudspeaker."
Media lawyer Mark Stephens said the verdict could "open the floodgates" — even though there is no direct obligation on British courts to follow the Italians' lead.
He said: "It is possible people will begin legal action here, but I think the chances of success are less. I think they'll join any class action in Italy."
If you like to express yourself through painting, writing, or any other form of artistic action, scientists now say that you must be suffering from a mental illness of some kind. In a new display of how truly insane the mainstream medical health paradigm has become, mainstream media outlets are now regurgitating the words of ‘experts’ who say that those who are creative are actually, more often than not, mentally ill.
After all, more than 50% of the United States is, by definition of the psychiatrists of the nation, mentally ill. Even questioning the government is considered a mental disorder. It should come as no surprise to know that upwards of 70% of the psychiatrists who write the conditions are — of course — on the payroll of those who produce the drugs to ‘treat’ the conditions. It should also therefore come as no surprise to note that the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the foundation of the entire diagnosis system) now contains over 900 pages of bogus disorders.
And perhaps creativity may soon be added to the massive textbook, which labels people who are shy, eccentric, or have unconventional romantic lives as mentally ill.
Is it any wonder that the 4th edition of the manual, which added hundreds of new ways to diagnose patients, led to a 40 times increase in bipolar disorder diagnoses. Even the lead editor of the DSM-IV Allen Frances, MD, has stated the book is utter nonsense:
“There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bull****. I mean, you just can’t define it,” he said.
Real information like this is what has led the mainstream news to re-title their pieces regarding the new classification of creativity as a mental illness, changing the headlines to more ‘ginger’ ways of linking the two together. Meanwhile, the writers of the study claiming that creativity is part of a mental illness are quite clear in stating that creativity is literally a mental illness. The extent in which you wish to ‘treat’ your creativity, however, is apparently up to you and your doctor.
Be of caution, however, as you have to decide at ‘what cost’ you will allow your creativity to exist. As the study writer stated:
“If one takes the view that certain phenomena associated with the patient’s illness are beneficial, it opens the way for a new approach to treatment. In that case, the doctor and patient must come to an agreement on what is to be treated, and at what cost.”
As expected the way to ‘treat’ your creativity is of course to take pharmaceutical drugs in the form of anti-depressants or hardcore psychotropic drugs. The same drugs that virtually all suicidal massacre shooters have taken before or during their rampages.
As virtually everything we think and do is classified as a symptom of a mental disorder, the mainstream psychiatric paradigm will continue to grow like a massive parasite alongside the pharmaceutical industry that profits off of the absolute laughable diagnoses of regular adults, children, and even toddlers. Until we realize that we need to shift into a new health paradigm that is centered around personal health freedom and shed corporate science as a whole, we will continue to see insane headlines classifying thought and emotion as mental illness.
Radioactive cesium levels above the government’s new limit have been found in beef from Miyagi Prefecture, the prefectural government said.
Meat from a cow shipped by a farmer in Tome was found to contain more than 150 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram, the Miyagi Prefectural Government said Wednesday.
The stricter limit of 150 becquerels for beef and rice took effect Oct. 1. The previous limit was 500 becquerels per kilogram.
...
Miyagi Prefecture told the farmer not to ship any more cows until the investigation is completed, and asked nearby ranchers to suspend shipments voluntarily.
“The International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology has studied mercury, fluoride, BPA, nickel, root canals, periodontal infections and a whole lot more over the last 28 years and has taken scientifically based positions against the use of mercury and systemic fluoride.” -Dr. David Kennedy
Your local grocery store is serving up death in every aisle. Even you shop carefully, you run the risk of being like a bug to be exterminated, unknowingly bringing home glossy, sweet-smelling poison to the rest of your colony.
GMOs masquerading as healthy fruits and vegetables, produce and meat tainted with salmonella due to unsafe handling, and processed foods laced with neurotoxins lurk on every aisle. Food “safety” is for sale and it really doesn’t matter, as long as the big companies continue to turn a profit.
In a special report, Bloomberg Markets broke the story last week about paid food safety auditors that are basically paid to look the other way when inspecting food processing facilities. Every day, people are dying from unsafe practices while auditors are awarding gold stars to the people who are paying them.
The food industry hires for-profit inspection companies — known as third-party auditors — who aren’t required by law to meet any federal standards and have no government supervision. Some of these monitors choose to follow guidelines from trade groups that include ConAgra Foods Inc. (CAG), Kraft Foods Inc. and Wal-Mart. The private inspectors that companies select often check only those areas their clients ask them to review. That means they can miss deadly pathogens lurking in places they never examined.
According to the Bloomberg article, the FDA, who is charged with the safety of our food supply, inspects only 6% of the food production facilities in the country every year. According to the CDC, over 3000 people per year die because of unsafe food production.
The FDA, it seems, is more interested in harassing providers of raw milk, family farms and health food stores. Over the past few years outbreaks of deadly illnesses like salmonella and listeria have affected peanut butter, cantaloupe, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce and carrots, all items a healthy eater would be happy to place into his or her shopping cart.
We must all keep in mind the other important function of the FDA: that is aiding their friends at Monsanto. The grocery store roulette game doesn’t end with poor food-handling practices. You know those gorgeous tomatoes that are the reddest red you’ve ever seen or the strawberries that are the size of your fist? Two words: Science Project. And guess who the guinea pigs are?
GMO foods were introduced to the North American food supply in 1994, with the Flavr Savr tomato. No labeling was done, no research on the long-term effects of this genetically spliced lab creation on the human body was performed – the tomato just appeared in produce sections all across America. The tomato was soon followed by such an abundance of genetic modification that by 2006 89 % of the planted area of soybeans, 83 % of cotton, and 61 % maize were genetically modified varieties.
How did Monsanto, the main creator of genetically modified “foods”, get past the FDA, that agency of protection of the health of the American people? It’s easy when you can load the jury with your own people. Here are just a few connections between Monsanto and the federal government:
Michael Taylor: VP of Monsanto –> Deputy Commissioner of the FDA
Roger Beachy: Director of the Danforth Plant Science Center (paid for by Monsanto) –> director of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Elena Kagan: Obama Solicitor General (when she famously took Monsanto’s side against organic farmers in the Roundup Ready Alfalfa case) –>US Supreme Court justice.
Clarence Thomas: General Counsel for Monsanto –>US Supreme Court justice.
Margaret Miller: Monsanto supervisor –> Deputy Director of Human Food Safety
Donald Rumsfield: Board of Directors for Monsanto’s Searle Pharmaceuticals –> US Secretary of Defense
Ann Veneman: Monsanto Board of Directors –> US Secretary of Agriculture
Linda Fisher: Assistant Administrator at the EPA –>VP of MonsantoàDeputy Administrator of the EPA
Dr. Michael A.Friedman: Deputy Commissioner of the FDA –>Senior VP of Monsanto
Just so we’re clear, the label “FDA Approved” now means “The company that produced this product has enough money and clout to allow it to be sold.”
An article by Paul Adams, published by Activist Post, discusses the only long-term study on the effects of GMO, which was performed in France. The study confirmed many disturbing conclusions:
The recent and long-term French study from the University of Caen found that eating genetically modified corn and consuming trace levels of Monsanto’s Roundup chemical fertilizer caused rats to develop horrifying tumors, widespread organ damage, and premature death. This study has been deemed “the most thorough research ever published into the health effects of GM food crops and the herbicide Roundup on rats.” The study found: Up to 50% of males and 70% of females suffered premature death. Rats that drank trace amounts of Roundup (at levels legally allowed in the water supply) had a 200% to 300% increase in large tumors. Rats fed GM corn and traces of Roundup suffered severe organ damage including liver damage and kidney damage. The study fed these rats NK603, the Monsanto variety of GM corn that’s grown across North America and widely fed to animals and humans. This is the same corn that’s in your corn-based breakfast cereal, corn tortillas and corn snack chips. The study caused Russia to ban imports of U.S. GM corn due to the cancer risk. France and most of Europe have effectively banned feeding GM crops to humans and Monsanto was found guilty of ‘chemical poisoning’ earlier this year.
Now, if you manage to somehow avoid the consumption of improperly handled food and GMOs, the next hurdle to avoid is the addition of deadly neurotoxins, which are also approved by the FDA, classified “Generally Recognized as Safe.”
According to Dr. Russell Blaylock, who has dedicated his career to researching these “excitotoxins”: Excitotoxins are food additives that can stimulate nerve cells in the brain to death. The most common excitotoxins in the diet are MSG and aspartame. MSG, in particular, is present in almost all processed foods, but is often called by different names. It can even be in foods labelled ‘No MSG’
Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and nutrasweet, as well as flavor additives like MSG (and its many aliases) have been proven to cause brain cell death and 230 other side effects, yet the FDA still classifies these products as “safe” for our consumption.
How can we run the grocery store gauntlet and feed our families safe food?
1.) Garden: If possible, produce some of your own food.
2.) Buy organic: organic foods are not genetically modified, however they could have still been handled unsafely.
3.) Be careful of the origin of the foods you buy: some countries do not have the same levels of food safety. Although the US process is lacking, it isn’t as bad as is described in some farms in South and Central America, where workers do not have access to running water.
4.) Avoid processed foods – purchase ingredients instead of items that are “heat and eat”. If you must purchase processed foods, read the label carefully and avoid items with unpronounceable names in the list.
5.) Carefully wash and prepare produce. Some food prep guidelines from Eat Safe:
Cantaloupes/melons: scrub the skins with water and a brush before you cut them. (If you do not, cutting them could transfer pathogens from the rind to the flesh).
Berries, lettuce, and other non scrubbable fruits and vegetables: wash them with fast running water. The friction of running water helps remove bacteria. That’s better than soaking.
Wash fruit even if you plan to peel it. If there are microbes on the peel, they can contaminate the rest of the fruit when you peel it.
Eat only cooked sprouts
We can vote with our wallets by refusing to put our health at risk to make the wealthy even richer.
Grocery shop as though your life depends on it – because it does.
Glyphosate, the most well-known ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, has recently been the focus of an intense debate over whether or not it is dangerous, even carcinogenic, to those exposed to it through food and the environment.
Monsanto, the original creator and patent-holder of glyphosate, and of the most famous glyphosate formulation Roundup, has funded research denying the emerging glyphosate-cancer link, but the latest (and only known) long-term feeding study from an industry independent research group out of France indicates that the transgenic material within Roundup-Ready Monsanto corn, as well as Roundup itself, are highly carcinogenic, and should be banned to protect the millions who are already consuming it on a daily basis.
Glyphosate, however, is only one dimension of a complex toxicological problem. What is often overlooked is the role of adjuvants in glyphosate formulations like Roundup, which while being labeled "inert" or "non-active," are in no way neutral, and which amplify glyphosate toxicity far beyond what toxicological risk assessments presently are designed to ascertain.
Glyphosate-Formulations Dramatically More Toxic Than Glyphosate Alone
Back in Feb. of 2012, the journal Archives of Toxicology published a shocking study showing that Roundup is toxic to human DNA even when diluted to concentrations 450-fold lower than used in agricultural applications.[i] This effect could not have been anticipated from the known toxicological effects of glyphosate alone. The likely explanation is that the surfactant polyoxyethyleneamine within Roundup dramatically enhances the absorption of glyphosate into exposed human cells and tissue.
If this is true, it speaks to a fundamental problem associated with toxicological risk assessments of agrichemicals (and novel manmade chemicals in general), namely, these assessments do not take into account the reality of synergistic toxicologies, i.e. the amplification of harm associated with multiple chemical exposures occurring simultaneously.
"Inactive Ingredients" In Herbicide Formulations Are Actively Poisoning Us
But adjuvants in glyphosate formulations do not just increase the toxicity of glyphosate -- they are themselves highly toxic. Indeed, a study published in the journal Toxicology September, 2011 titled "Ethoxylated adjuvants of glyphosate-based herbicides are active principles of human cell toxicity," found 24 hour exposures on liver, embryonic and placental cell lines at concentrations as low as 1 ppm – a dose well within "acceptable" environmental and occupational doses – resulted in negative effects on cellular respiration and membrane integrity.[ii] The authors reported their findings as such:
Altogether, these results challenge the establishment of guidance values such as the acceptable daily intake of glyphosate, when these are mostly based on a long term in vivo test of glyphosate alone. Since pesticides are always used with adjuvants that could change their toxicity, the necessity to assess their whole formulations as mixtures becomes obvious. This challenges the concept of active principle of pesticides for non-target species.
What the consumer of GM-contaminated food must understand is that glyphosate, and the many insufficiently tested "inactive" ingredients sprayed on these foods, enter the body and have real, adverse effects that are cumulative, even if mostly subclinical. The only way we can be sure to reduce our exposure to these agrichemicals is through consciously refraining from consuming them. And how do we do that? Get the stuff labeled, and give the consumer a choice not to eat it.
Please lend your support to California's Proposition 37, and vote with your fork as well, by buying only organic food, whenever possible.
A magnetic method of killing cancer cells has been developed by scientists in South Korea.
The technique uses a magnetic field to flip a "self-destruct" switch in tumours.
Researchers have demonstrated that the process works in bowel cancer cells and living laboratory fish. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, is one of the body's ways of getting rid of old, faulty or infected cells.
In response to certain signals, the doomed cell shrinks and breaks into fragments. These are then engulfed and consumed by amoeba-like immune cells.
Often in cancer, apoptosis fails and cells are allowed to keep dividing uncontrollably.
The magnetic therapy involves creating tiny iron nanoparticles attached to antibodies which bind to "receptor" molecules on tumour cells. When the magnetic field is applied, the molecules cluster together, automatically triggering the "death signal" that sets off apoptosis.
In laboratory experiments, bowel cancer cells were exposed to the nanoparticles and placed between two magnets. The cells were designed to light up green to signal that apoptopic clustering was taking place.
More than half the exposed cells were destroyed by magnetic activation, whereas no untreated cells were affected. In another experiment, magnetically-induced apoptosis in zebra fish caused the creatures to grow abnormal tails.
Details of the research, led by Professor Jinwoo Cheon, from Yonsei University in Seoul, appear in the journal Nature Materials.
The scientists wrote: "We have demonstrated that apoptosis signalling can be turned on in-vitro (in the laboratory) and in a zebra fish in-vivo (living) model by using a magnetic switch. Our magnetic switch may be broadly applicable to any type of surface membrane receptors that exhibit cellular functions on clustering."
Over the past few years, an interesting pattern has emerged, where political supporters of genetically engineered (GE) foods are feasting on organics, while promoting unlabeled GE foods for everyone else.
Most recently, Mother Jones discussed how Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney – whose ties to Monsanto go back to the late 1970's when GE crops were still in the R&D phase – reportedly makes sure his own meals are nothing but organic...
According to Peter Alexander of MSN Today:
"On Romney Air, or Hair Force One – as Reuters' Steve Holland like to call it – Mitt Romney has his own galley in 'forward cabin.' And, while I've never been invited up front, sources close to the campaign tell me the shelves are stocked with a wide variety of healthy fare. Kashi cereals, hummus, pita, as well as organic applesauce. Everything's organic, I'm told, including the ingredients to Romney's favorite, peanut butter and honey sandwiches."
Even more interesting, in a 2002 article about Romney's wife, Ann, she credits a combination of organic foods and holistic medicine for turning her health around after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998. The profile reads in part:
"...She was 49 at the time, and the disease was progressing rapidly, she says, prompting the doctors to put her on steroids, which made her so sick she could barely get out of bed. 'They were killing me,' she says of the treatment. 'You have bone loss; they are so bad for you.'
Mrs. Romney was introduced to several practitioners of holistic medicine, who persuaded her to adopt alternative therapies. She now eats organic foods and very little meat. She practices reflexology and undergoes acupuncture treatments. She credits the lifestyle with turning her health around...
'Everyone has to find their own way,' she says. 'Three years ago I was really, really sick and not able to function at all. A lot of the symptoms are [now] gone...'"
Mrs. Romney isn't the only success story in which food played a center role in beating multiple sclerosis (MS). Last year I posted an article about Dr. Terry Wahls, who reversed MS after seven years of deterioration on the best conventional treatments available, simply by changing her diet.
Wouldn't it be a nice change of pace if our agricultural authorities, not to mention our President, could reach into their hearts and find the humanity to fight for everyone's right to eat wholesome food that doesn't contain foreign DNA, built-in pesticides, and an inordinate amount of synthetic chemicals so that diseases such as MS and cancer could be curtailed before they even get a foothold?
If GE Foods are So Great, Why Won't the Elite Eat Them?
While Obama has been a huge supporter of Big Biotech during his term, Romney is just as "tight" with Monsanto, having actually successfully guided the company out of lawsuits with Congress in the shameful aftermath of Agent Orange (a Monsanto creation, which was supposed to be harmless to everything except vegetation), and heinous chemical dumping incidents in Missouri and Alabama.
He's also in favor putting the "Monsanto rider" provision in the 2012 Farm Bill – a rider that would prevent a federal court from putting in place court-ordered restrictions on a GE crop, even if the approval were fraudulent or involved bribery, among other things.
Unfortunately, Mitt Romney is just one in a line of politicians who support and promote GE foods as being just as safe and "natural" as conventional foods while privately serving up nothing but organic for their own families. President Obama, as his predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have all reportedly insisted on an organic diet.
Mother Jones writes:
"What's my evidence that the Clintons and Bushes ate organic? Get this, from someone who knows – Walter Scheib, who served as White House executive chef during the Clinton and Bush years:
'From 1994 to 2005 I was the executive chef at the White House. This offered me not only the personal honor of serving two unique and interesting first families, but the professional challenge of fulfilling Hillary Clinton's mandate of bringing contemporary American cuisine and nutritionally responsible food to the White House.' This meant that nearly all the product used was obtained from local growers and suppliers. There was a small garden on the roof of the White House where produce was grown. The ethic of the purchasing and the cooking at the White House under my direction and under the continuing direction of [current Obama White House executive chef] Cris Comerford is one of respect for the pedigree of the product and manner it is grown, gathered, raised or caught. The Clinton and Bush families dined regularly on organic foods. Both wagyu and grass-fed beef were frequently used."
Scheib was again quoted in a 2009 article by Think Progress, stating that Laura Bush was "adamant that in ALL CASES if an organic product was available it was to be used in place of a non-organic product." Meanwhile, the article lists a number of atrocious food policies instituted by her husband. Who knows, perhaps she was so adamant about organics because she knew the quality and safety of conventional food was rapidly going down the toilet?
Guess Who Said: "Everything That's in a Bottle or Package is Like Poison in a Way That Most People Don't Even Know"
The Obama White House may be even more progressive about healthful dining than previous Presidents. In a 2008 article about First Lady Michelle Obama, published in The New Yorker:
"...One morning, during a roundtable at Ma Fischer's, a diner in Milwaukee, Elizabeth Crawford, a recently divorced caterer with two children, brought up the subject of the eating habits of American families. 'I really, really hope that Barack will jump on that,' she said. Then, having given thoughtful but boilerplate responses most of the morning, [Michelle] Obama suddenly departed from her script. It was the most animated I saw her on the campaign trail. 'You know,' she said, 'in my household, over the last year we have just shifted to organic for this very reason. I mean, I saw just a moment in my nine-year-old's life – we have a good pediatrician, who is very focused on childhood obesity, and there was a period where he was, like, 'Mmm, she's tipping the scale.' So we started looking through our cabinets... You know, you've got fast food on Saturday, a couple days a week you don't get home. The leftovers, good, not the third day! ...So that whole notion of cooking on Sunday is out. ... And the notion of trying to think about a lunch every day! ...So you grab the Lunchables, right? And the fruit-juice-box thing, and we think – we think – that's juice. And you start reading the labels and you realize there's high-fructose corn syrup in everything we're eating. Every jelly, every juice. Everything that's in a bottle or a package is like poison in a way that most people don't even know..."
Yes, high-fructose corn syrup is one of the most atrocious ingredients in the American food supply today in terms of what it does to your health. Not only is fructose a major contributor to metabolic syndrome, diabetes and obesity, the vast majority of it is also derived from genetically engineered corn, which has its own increasingly well-documented ill health effects. Most recently, the world's first lifetime feeding study using Monsanto GE corn found it caused massive breast tumors, kidney and liver damage, and other serious health problems.
Michelle Obama is certainly not the only one who has referred to high-fructose corn syrup as a poison. According to Dr. Robert Lustig, excess fructose does act like a toxin in your body, and Dr. Don Huber has spoken out about the two-fold toxic effects of GE crops: 1) due to the genetic alteration of the plant itself, and 2) the glyphosate sprayed on GE Roundup Ready crops.
President Obama Aware of Issue But Doing Nothing About it
Sadly, while the Obama's are undoubtedly well aware of the health dangers of processed foods in general and genetically engineered foods specifically, their personal belief system has not filtered into the food policies that affect the rest of the population.
On the contrary, the President has spent the last four years appointing one Monsanto shill after another into key federal positions that wield near-absolute power over agricultural issues. Mrs. Obama's efforts to promote organic foods, which included a much publicized White House organic garden, were also quickly tempered and toned down by a personal visit from The Mid America CropLife Association, an agribusiness media group, who "urged the first lady to give conventional agriculture equal time," according to a 2009 Politico article.
Topping it all off, the President has also completely ignored his pre-election promise to IMMEDIATELY label GE foods, should he win, "because Americans should know what they're buying."
Well, it's become abundantly clear that Big Biotech and their political lackeys will not even allow us to make an informed decision on this issue by reading our own food labels. And you'd have to be supremely naïve to not question the absurd dichotomy between public policies on GE and organic foods, and the private decisions made by those in charge and "in the know."
Monsanto Runs and Regulates US Agriculture
In the first three years of the Obama Administration, 10 different genetically engineered crops, and even a genetically modified animal, have been approved by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), according to Food & Water Watch. All without a single shred of proof that these foods are actually safe for long-term consumption (or in the case of today's children – lifetime consumption). Could this have anything to do with the fact that highly influential people within the USDA were previous employees of, or have other personal ties to, Monsanto?
The Secretary of Agriculture is Tom Vilsack, a strong Monsanto supporter selected by President-elect Obama in 2008. As governor of Iowa, Vilsack frequently traveled in Monsanto's private jets, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization.
The director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture is Roger Beachy, a former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center.
The General Counsel for the USDA is Ramona Romero, who came straight from DuPont, another major biotech company with GE crop patents, where she held a number of key positions, including Corporate Counsel for complex commercial and antitrust litigation, and Corporate Counsel and Manager of Operations and Partnering.
Even the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has old ties to Monsanto via the Rose Law firm.
Getting the picture? The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other federal agencies are similarly stacked with former Monsanto employees. Likewise, when it comes to selecting which Presidential candidate might be better for organic foods and our agriculture system, both Romney and Obama's actions speak louder than words. They do one thing privately, and "sell" another agenda to the public. Neither of them is a champion for Real Food in the US, and both of them cater and yield to the wills of multinational food and biotech companies.
Monsanto VP Now US Food Safety Czar – What's Wrong With This Picture?
In 2009, President Obama appointed former Monsanto VP for Public Policy, Michael Taylor, as a senior adviser for the FDA, turning a deaf ear to the loud protests from consumer groups. Taylor is currently serving as the deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA – a position that includes ensuring food labels contain clear and accurate information. He also oversees strategy for food safety, and planning new food safety legislation.
To say he's a fox guarding a hen house would be an understatement. This sentiment is shared by most people who are even remotely aware of food safety issues. At the time of Taylor's appointment, GE expert Jeffrey Smith commented:
"The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke."
Now, the opposition is gaining steam yet again with an online petition13 calling for Taylor's removal.
"President Obama, I oppose your appointment of Michael Taylor. Taylor is the same person who was Food Safety Czar at the FDA when genetically modified organisms were allowed into the U.S. food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety or risks. This is a travesty," the petition reads.
Passing Prop 37 is Key to Expanding Sustainable Agriculture in North America
Organic foods specifically prohibit genetically engineered ingredients along with synthetic agricultural chemicals, and eating organic is essentially the only way to ensure you're not accidentally consuming GE foods, since the US still does not require such ingredients to be labeled.
So what's with the double standard?
Is genetically engineered food the "cake" fit only for the paupers of the 21st century? Heck, even the staff cafeteria at Monsanto's UK headquarters reportedly banned GE foods from the menu back in 1999.
So really, why are the elite making organic foods a priority for their own families? And why won't they support labeling, so the rest of us can make an informed decision about the foods we eat? And why are they imposing regulations that limit the availability of organically- and/or locally-grown foods for so many communities?
It's quite evident that we have no real champions for food safety and labeling of genetically engineered foods within the federal government. But right now we do have a great opportunity to change this situation by circumventing Monsanto's posse entirely.
Twenty-four U.S. states have, as part of their state governance, something called the Initiative Process, where residents can bring to ballot any law they want enacted, as long as it has sufficient support. California has organized such a ballot initiative, known as Proposition 37, to get labeling for genetically engineered foods sold in their state.
Although many organic consumers and natural health activists already understand the importance of Proposition 37, it cannot be overemphasized that winning the battle over Prop 37 is perhaps the most important food fight Americans – not just Californians – have faced so far. But in order to win this fight for the right to know what's in our food, we need your help, as the biotech industry will surely outspend us by 100 to 1, if not more, for their propaganda. Please remember, the failure or success of this ballot initiative is wholly dependent on your support and funding! There are no major industry pockets funding this endeavor. In order to have a chance against the deep pockets of Big Biotech and transnational food corporations, it needs donations from average citizens.
So please, if you have the ability, I strongly encourage you to make a donation to this cause. You can also contact EVERY person you know that lives in California and encourage them to view some of these videos and get educated on the issues so they can avoid succumbing to the propaganda, as Monsanto and company are paying tens of millions of dollars to deceive the voters in California. We need EVERY vote we can to win next month. The election is only FOUR weeks away.
It's important to realize that getting this law passed in California would have the same overall effect as a national law, as large companies are not likely going to label their products as genetically engineered when sold in California (the 8th largest economy in the world), but not when sold in other states. Doing so would be a costly PR disaster. So please, I urge you to get involved and help in any way you can, regardless of what state you live in.
Whether you live in California or not, please donate money to this historic effort, through the Organic Consumers Fund.
If you live in California and want to get involved, please contact CARightToKnow.org. They will go through all volunteer requests to put you into a position that is suitable for you, based on your stated interests and location.
No matter where you live, please help spread the word in your personal networks, on Facebook, and Twitter. For help with the messaging, please see CARightToKnow.org.
Talk to organic producers and stores and ask them to actively support the California Ballot. It may be the only chance we have to label genetically engineered foods.
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