Are Governments attempting to stop citizens from growing their own food?

Permanent Culture Now

I have watched and followed with some worry and considerable concern during the last few years at various Governments attempts to ban people from growing organic food and medicinal plants in their home gardens. No Conspiracies here!

At first glance this looks like something that you would expect to come from conspiracy theorists, in many ways I wish that it was just a conspiracy, but sadly there is no conspiracy here, no half truths with the bits in-between filled in with wild and fantastic stories of New World Orders, and three headed Aliens trying to control us.

The evidence

The first thing I read that started the alarm bells ringing for me was the two Bills S.425 and H.R.875 which were introduced both in the House and Senate of the US Congress by Democrat Rosa DeLauro, this caused immediate controversy as Rosa De Lauro is married to Stanley Greenberg, who is Chairman and CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, who have carried out work for Biotech company Monsanto.

Outwardly these Bills that are currently before the Senate in the US are masquerading as a set of new food safety standards, however these Bills are so vague and open ended that if they were fully implemented there would be a high risk of Organic and Heirloom seeds, and the general production of organic food being banned. One of the central aims of the Bills is to completely industrialise all food production in America. If implemented it would be illegal to grow food in your garden, and also illegal to give that food away to your friends and family. Other parts of the Bill attempt to restrict and control the usage of valuable minerals and vitamins that have proven beneficial effects on peoples well being.

There have been some successes in stalling and changing bits of these Bills in the US, but the rushed implementation of them is still going on where the Obama Government are pushing the Bills without any public consultation whatsoever in a bid to get them on the Statute books as quickly as possible.

Neoliberals in the US are quick to make claims that the two Bills have nothing to do with banning organic food growing and Heirloom seeds, but there is some very recent evidence that flows contrary to their claims. The Rawsome food company in California who produce and sell raw organic food have been visited and arrested by armed S.W.A.T Police on two occasions. The two issues that drew armed S.W.A.T teams to the Rawsome Food Company were the sale of naturally produced milk, and the sharing and giving away of surplus food.

In another case, The Police and Nevada Health District team raided Quail Hollow organic farm in Nevada in 2011, with claims that the fresh vegetables which were grown on the farm and were being used to feed a local get together of growers and their families were a toxic bio-hazard, meat that was reared on the farm was also classed as toxic, and all food from the event was confiscated and destroyed.

Similarly the New Zealand Government are currently trying to push through the Food Bill 160-2 onto their statute books, it has already passed through the first stage of going onto their statute books, once fully implemented it would mean that it would be completely illegal for people to grow and share food from the back garden plot or smallholding and only those involved in agribusiness would have the right to grow and produce food. The New Zealand Bill has developed out of demands from the WTO (World trade organisation) The WTO represent the interests of businesses and companies and is not a Statutory Government body with the welfare of the world citizens at heart. And just like the American Bills that are before their Senate (S.425 and H.R.875) the New Zealand 160-2 Bill also prohibits the use of Heirloom seeds and seed saving.

Europe legislates against herbal preparations

There have also been developments in Europe, particularly with the use of Herbal plants as medicines, in April of 2011, the European Union set in place rules governing the use and classification of herbs and herbal preparations, these rules have effectively denied thousands of NHS patients the use of traditional herbs, it also puts in place registration rules that enable herbal practitioners to operate under strict licensing rules, the registration process alone costs between £80-120,000, which of course means that only larger more corporate type companies can afford to pay to register.

This European legislation was sold to us as something that has been put in place to protect our health and well being, but research into fatalities from herbal and none herbal medical drugs paints a biased picture, in the US between 75-100,000 people a year die from Proscribed pharmaceutical drugs, whist Dr. Christianson ND looked into deaths from herbal preparations and found no evidence to suggest that any deaths had occurred other than a few dozen cases where people had either combined prescribed drugs with herbal, or where people died from plain ignorance by ingesting essential oils, his research found that no deaths had occurred from proscribed herbal remedies that were given out by trained herbalists. What we can do about it?

Protesting is always a very valid and useful strategy to bring about social change, and this case is no exception, as large scale protest and outcry in the US has halted the Bills from becoming enshrined in law up to now, however we believe that the main means of fighting back that we should be employing is disobedience.

With something as important as the food that we eat, our disobedience should be that we continue to grow our own food, and save our own seeds, and also help and encourage others too, we should accelerate this process where ever possible

If any of this legislation does become enshrined in law, it will mean that our efforts to live an ecologically sound life whilst reducing our reliance on fossil fuels also becomes illegal, we must resist these measures at every level!

Tens of millions of Florida bees mysteriously drop dead in one day, beekeepers blame pesticides

Real Farmacy (by Natural News)

Authorities have already ruled out disease, including the infamous “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD), as the cause of a recent honeybee holocaust that took place in Brevard County, Florida. The UK’s Daily Mail reports that up to 12 million bees from roughly 800 apiaries in the area all dropped dead at roughly the same time around September 26 — and local beekeepers say pesticides are likely to blame.

CCD is the term often used to describe the inexplicable mass die-off of honeybees around the world, which typically involves honeybees leaving their hives and, for whatever reason, never finding their way back home. Mass die-offs associated with CCD often occur at seemingly random locations around the world, and typically involve a gradual process of disappearance and eventual colony collapse — and the dead bees are typically nowhere to be found.

But the recent Florida event involved hundreds of colonies from 30 different sites in a one-and-a-half mile radius literally dropping dead all at the same time and leaving their carcasses behind, which is why authorities have dismissed CCD as the cause. Based on the appearance of the dead bees, as well as the synchronous timing of their deaths, pesticide sprayings appear to be the culprit in this case.

“I’m a pretty tough guy, but it is heart wrenching,” said Charles Smith of Smith Family Honey Company to News 13 in Orlando. His family’s company lost an estimated $150,000 worth of bees in the recent die-off. “Not only is it a monetary loss here, but we work really hard on these bees to keep them in good health.”

The Florida die-off coincides with a recent county-wide mosquito eradication effort, during which helicopters flew over various parts of the county and sprayed airborne pesticides. Officials, of course, deny that this taxpayer-funded spraying initiative had anything to do with the bee genocide, though.

“The fact that it was so widespread and so rapid, I think you can pretty much rule out disease,” said Bill Kern, an entomologist from the University of Florida (UF) to Florida Today. “It happened essentially almost in one day. Usually diseases affect adults or the brood, you don’t have something that kills them both.”

Many of the beekeepers who lost their hives in the mass killing raised their bees to sell to American farmers, who then used them to pollinate food crops. Because of their massive losses, many of these beekeepers could end up losing their entire beekeeping businesses.

Sesame Street Says ‘P’ is for ‘Prison’ And That’s OK

Infowars

A new series of videos created by the folks on Sesame Street is a propaganda program designed to help children accept the fact that daddy is in jail. It’s OK kiddies, it’s almost inevitable given that 3 percent of the American population is currently under some type of correctional supervision. Just write him a letter and you’ll feel fine.

In the first video, “What is Incarceration,” young Alex, whose father has been incarcerated, is told that laws are “grown-up rules” and if someone breaks the rules they have to go to prison or jail.

In the second video, “Alex’s Big Feelings,” Alex explains that sometimes he’s OK, but other times he gets angry. “I get really upset but I just miss him so much. I just hurts inside. Sometimes I feel like I just want to pound on a pillow and scream as loud as I can.”

Sophia, the adult human who’s schooling Alex on the acceptability of having a father who’s broken the ‘grown-up’ rules and been incarcerated, explains to Alex that it’s OK to feel angry or confused because that’s exactly how she felt when her father was incarcerated.

“When my dad was incarcerated I was really confused about all the different feelings I was having. So I talked to my mom about it. She let me know that it was OK to have lots of big feelings, and that I could always talk to her and talking made me feel better.”

According to Sophia, all you have to do is talk about your feelings, draw a few pictures, write letters to your dad, and toddle off to visit him in jail every now and then and everything will be all rainbows and lollipops.

“I like to draw so sometimes I drew pictures of the way I was feeling. That helped, too. It also helped to keep in touch with my dad. My mom would help me write letters to him. We’d send him photos and we’d visit him whenever we could. And sometimes we even got a letter back from my dad. It made me feel good to know that he was OK and that he was thinking of me, and even though we had to be apart I knew mom was here for me to help me feel better.”

In October 2012, Mitt Romney made headlines during the first presidential debate when he said one of the things he’d do to bring down the deficit was cut funding for PBS. Millions of Americans took to Twitter and thrashed Romney for threatening to kill Big Bird, but they didn’t listen to the whole statement.

What Romney really said was: “I will eliminate all programs by this test: Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to finance it? …I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to other things. I Like PBS, I love Big Bird… but I’m not going to keep spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”

After Romney’s “Death to Big Bird” speech, American Thinker asked why, Elmo, Bert & Ernie, and Big Bird should continue to receive more than $7 million annually in federal subsidies when, according to the tax forms, Sesame Street was paved in gold.

“[T]he President of Sesame Workshop, Gary Knell, received in 2008 a salary of $956,513. In that sense, Big Bird and Sen. Harry Reid embody the same mystifying phenomenon: they’ve been in “public service” their entire lives and have somehow wound up as multimillionaires.”

“[T]he 990 also revealed that Sesame Workshop received $44,984,003 in royalties last year, which includes sales of Sesame Street brand merchandise like “Tickle Me Elmo” dolls. That means Big Bird made five times in merchandise sales than what he received in government grants.”

So why the need for a government subsidy for a street full of already uber-rich puppets? Because the creators of Sesame Street are doing the government’s work so they deserve a piece of the government pie.

The Sesame Street incarceration videos are designed to desensitize Americans of all ages and help us to feel comfortable with the idea that prison is an inevitability for most. But the fact is, prison is Big Business these days and we need to keep the machine well-oiled.

The daily news is splattered with reports of serial killers, child molesters, and random atrocities but in reality most of the “criminals” locked up in our jails and prisons are poor people who’ve committed small, nonviolent crimes in order to put food on the table. According to Global Research, “Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, and injuries occur in just 3%.”

Using those big crimes to create an atmosphere of fear allows lawmakers to implement legislation for tougher penalties and to criminalize even more mundane acts, like the 14-year-old who’s facing jail time for wearing a pro-NRA t-shirt.

But what it really does is allow them to push through funding for more and more prisons so they can house more and more prisoners and use them as free labor.

According to Global Research:

For private business, prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No unemployment insurance or workers’ compensation to pay. No language problem, as in a foreign country. New leviathan prisons are being built with thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret. All at a fraction of the cost of “free labor.”

Prisoners can be forced to work for pennies because they have no rights. Even the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which abolished slavery, excludes prisoners from its protections.

And, more and more, prisons are charging inmates for basic necessities from medical care, to toilet paper, to use of the law library. Many states are now charging “room and board.” Berks County prison in Pennsylvania is charging inmates $10 per day to be there. California has similar legislation pending. So, while government cannot (yet) actually require inmates to work at private industry jobs for less than minimum wage, they are forced to by necessity.

Prison industries are often directly competing with private industry. Small furniture manufacturers around the country complain that they are being driven out of business by UNICOR which pays 23 cents/hour and has the inside track on government contracts. In another case, U.S. Technologies sold its electronics plant in Austin, Texas, leaving its 150 workers unemployed. Six week later, the electronics plant reopened in a nearby prison.

Use government handouts to keep Americans poor and down-trodden, then criminalize every minute behavior such as riding a bicycle on the sidewalk or wearing a hoodie and walking in the wrong neighborhood, and of course daddy’s going to inevitably end up in jail where he can “pay” for his crimes.

Related:  Look At What the Schools Are Teaching the Kids

How Schools Use Fear to Brainwash Students to Trust the System: A Parent’s Story

Activist Post
by Melissa Melton

The school went on lockdown mode without even bothering to inform me, her parent, and while it turned out to be nothing at all, the impression left on my child that day will not soon be forgotten.

In 2005, a federal court upheld that our nation’s public schools trump parent rights:

Parents and politicians alike were shocked when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on Nov. 2 that parents’ fundamental right to control the upbringing of their children “does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door,” and that a public school has the right to provide its students with “whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise.

The court went on to clarify:

Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed.

What this decision essentially says is that, as a parent, your rights to control what your children are being taught end at the school door.

Mainstream media reports continue to reveal the larger government indoctrination agenda at work in America’s public school system.

One California elementary school hosted a “toy gun buyback program” last week aimed at scaring kids into getting rid of anything even resembling a fake gun, and ultimately, to scare them away from active self defense, real gun ownership and the natural right to bear arms protected by our 2nd Amendment.

According to a CBS affiliate in San Francisco, the school’s principal held the event “as a lesson for children who may see guns as part of everyday life”:

“As they get older, it becomes just a natural thing,” [Principal] Hill told KPIX 5. “If they have a real gun in their hand, they’ll pull the trigger just as quick. I mean, they don’t fear it.”

The key word there? Fear. As in, ‘they don’t fear guns’ enough…yet.

These programs are popping up at schools and churches across the nation following the Sandy Hook shooting last December. Since the tragedy, schools have gone overboard hyping the fear of guns and pushing gun control programming into overdrive, with young kids being suspended and arrested all over the country for paper guns, pink bubble guns and even making their fingers into the shape of a gun on the playground during a harmless game of ‘cops and robbers’.

Likewise, schools across the country like my daughter’s have begun jumping at ghosts, going into lockdown mode for almost any reason and putting the kids on a perpetual fear roller coaster akin to the atomic bomb drills following World War II.

While fear rules the day at our nation’s public schools, the flipside to this coin is a continual normalization of total compliance with the system.

CBS Los Angeles recently reported that new palm scanners in two local schools would “speed up the lunch lines”. These schools join others who have implemented similar biometric payment systems that read vein patterns connected to the children’s meal plans with an infrared light.

Parents in Louisiana spoke out against the new palm scanners in their children’s school cafeteria, calling the program the Mark of the Beast. School officials there were quick to defend the system, saying these palm scans are just more “technology that is used throughout our lives. Everywhere.”

Everywhere, indeed. Poor argument actually, because if it is the Mark of the Beast, then wouldn’t it technically need to be everywhere?

Elsewhere in Florida, one school district was testing a new iris scanning software without even informing the parents at all. When the parents found out and protested, and the program got shut down, the media reported that it “could keep kids safer,” as if to imply the parents were just not as concerned for their children’s safety as the school was that they would deny their kids the ability to have their irises scanned every time they get on a school bus.

Other schools are forcing students to wear RFID tracking chips that trace their every step via computer. It began in one San Antonio, Texas school district, and when a student spoke out because she felt the practice infringed on her religious beliefs, she was kicked out of school for refusal to be chipped. Her case went all the way to federal court before being struck down, setting a precedent that student rights — religious or otherwise — no longer matter once our children set foot on school grounds.

There’s a reason Rutherford Institute founder and constitutional lawyer John Whitehead refers to schools as one more part of America’s ever-expanding ‘electronic concentration camp‘. Our kids are being taught that giving up privacy and basic freedom to go about their daily lives chipped, tracked and trace is normal.

Many American parents cannot afford private schools and do not have the time or ability to homeschool their kids, leaving their children at the mercy of public schools as their only viable education option. The Obama Administration has been toying with the idea of a federal preschool program and longer school days with less summer vacation. That means that, all waking hours considered, students will spend more time for more of their adolescent lives at school than at home with their families. Parents will have to work extra hard on building up their children’s critical thinking skills, to help them wade through a river of government propaganda to find the kernels of truth.

Cervix vaccine issues trigger health notice

Japan Times

The health ministry has issued a nationwide notice that cervical cancer vaccinations should no longer be recommended for girls aged 12 to 16 because several adverse reactions to the medicines have been reported.

“It is necessary to gather information immediately to accurately grasp how often (the side effects) are occurring,” said Mariko Momoi, who chairs the panel at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry that decided to suspend the recommendation. Momoi is vice president of the International University of Health and Welfare.

Cervical cancer vaccines are a recent addition to the regular vaccination list and were added after a revision to the Preventive Vaccination Law took effect in April. In Japan, cervical cancer is second only to breast cancer among those aged 20 to 39 and is estimated to strike nearly 9,000 women each year.

Despite the notice, issued Friday, most local governments will likely keep the vaccinations in question on their lists of free vaccines. But a ministry official said the vaccination rate is certain to drop sharply.

The two vaccines sold in Japan are Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKlein PLC of Britain, and Gardasil, made by Merck Sharp & Dohme, known as Merck & Co. in the United States.

Mika Matsufuji, 46, who represents an association of cervical cancer vaccination victims’ parents, said the health panel’s decision was a “big step forward.” Her daughter, who was vaccinated with Cervarix in 2011, lost the ability to walk and is now in a wheelchair, she said.

The group is calling for the vaccinations to be halted.

The panel said there was a strong possibility that severe prolonged pain was caused by some of the vaccinations. It concluded that active recommendation of cervical cancer vaccinations should thus be halted until a more complete picture of their side effects can be attained.

The ministry said this is the second time it has suspended a recommendation related to the regular vaccine program since problems cropped up with the Japanese encephalitis vaccine in 2005.

In 2011, however, Pfizer Inc.’s Prevnar and Sanofi SA’s ActHIB vaccines were suspended for about a month following the deaths of four children.

The panel focused on 38 cervical vaccine recipients who reported widespread pain. Given the timing of their symptoms, the panel concluded that a causal link to the vaccines could not be ruled out in many of the cases.

There were 245.1 reports of side effects per million vaccinations for Cervarix, and 155.7 reports per million for Gardasil — more than two other, separate vaccines that affect both sexes and were added to the regular list at around the same time.

Reports of side effects from the other two medicines came to 89.1 per million for a set of pneumococcus vaccines and 67.4 per million for Japanese encephalitis vaccines.

Lord Christopher Monckton Ends the Global Warming Debate and Proves its a Hoax

YouTube




A prominent figure in the fight against global warming lies, Lord Christopher Monckton is a hotly required speaker in climate change and global warming debates. This is a presentation he gave to an audience in California where the government wanted to introduce climate change legislation.



Lord Christopher Monckton can almost be considered a neutral observer in the climate change and global warming debate, as he is neither a believer in the scaremongering global warming statistics, or on the opposite side who denies global warming altogether. Instead he takes a middle ground and says he does believe in global warming, but when you evaluate the statistics correctly, the impact on the environment is so negligible that the entire global warming fiasco is effectively a hoax.




This powerful presentation covers most of the standard arguements used by global warming propagandists, and demonstrates the deceptive tactics and outright fraud that they use to manipulate public opinion on this matter with their fake graphs. Furthermore, he covers the topic from an economic standpoint, and points out that the climate change hoax is nothing more than another tax grab from greedy politicians.




In fact, Lord Christopher Monckton even using the climate change scientists own figures to do some simple maths, and shows that with their proposed tax schemes to stop global warming, $450 billion dollars will only reduce the effect of global warming by 1/1000th of a degree fahrenheit. Its an absolute disgrace, a massive scam, and without doubt global warming is maybe the greatest hoax of our lifetime.

What the Cellphone Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know About Radiation Concerns

AlterNet

AlterNet
by Brad Jacobson

In her 2011 book Disconnect, National Book Award finalist, former senior White House health advisor and internationally regarded epidemiologist Devra Davis revealed that the cellphone industry is knowingly exposing us to dangerous levels of electromagnetic radiation. No small problem when you consider that of the roughly 7 billion people on this planet, about 6 billion of us now use mobile phones.

In a recent analysis for the Huffington Post, Davis examined the cellphone industry's long-term strategy, devised in the early '90s, to deal with studies showing cellphone radiation damages DNA: "war-game the science." Noted in a 1994 Motorola memo, this strategy, wrote Davis, "remains alive and well" today, the latest example occurring just last month. When the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published newly detailed documentation for its yearlong 2011 expert review—which declared cellphone radiation a "possible human carcinogen" (same as lead and DDT)—the multi-trillion-dollar cellular industry responded by citing a new dubious report out of Taiwan.

Davis, the founding director of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the U.S. National Research Council, pointed out that the online abstract concludes "with some highly unscientific language that sounds as though it was crafted for the PR section of Foxconn, the Taiwanese producer of phones for Apple, Motorola, and Sony:

'In conclusion, we do not detect any correlation between the morbidity/mortality of malignant brain tumors and cellphone use in Taiwan. We thus urge international agencies to publish only confirmatory reports with more applicable conclusions in public. This will help spare the public from unnecessary worries.'"

In a recent phone interview with AlterNet, Davis, founder and president of the Wyoming-based Environmental Health Trust, discussed the cellphone industry's longstanding covert battle against inconvenient science, strategies it has learned from the tobacco industry, our chemical addiction to mobile devices, and simple ways we can limit our exposure without losing touch with civilization.

Brad Jacobson: You've written that the cellphone industry's long-term strategy for responding to studies showing its products damage DNA is to "war-game the science." What exactly does this strategy entail?

Devra Davis: The example in the 1990s, which is documented in my book, was that [University of Washington researchers] Henry Lai and Narendra N.P. Singh found significant evidence of DNA damage caused by cellphone light radiation comparable almost to the damage you would get from X-rays, which is ionizing. At the time, it was generally believed by some people that non-ionizing radiation, which comes from a cellphone, could not possibly be physically damaging because it was so weak.

Well, it's true that non-ionizing radiation lacks the power to have damage. But its damage seems to come from its modulated signal. So every 900 milliseconds, if you have a cellphone in your pocket, it's getting half of that radiation which is getting into you as it seeks the signal from the tower.

So the industry understood this could be of enormous consequences, so they did three things. First, they wrote to the university and tried to get the scientists fired for violating the rules of the contract that they were working under at the time. They then wrote to NIH [National Institutes of Health]—and all of this has been documented in my book and there's been no lawsuits filed about any of the statements I'm making to you—and they accused the scientists of fraud for misusing funds to do the study. Then, when that didn't work they actually had somebody meet with the journal editors to try to get the article accepted for publication unaccepted.
Continued

Related:  New concerns over cell phone radiation

Glyphosate Found to Fuel Cancer Cell Growth, Pose Carcinogenic Threat

Natural Society
by Mike Barrett

A groundbreaking new study has found that the active ingredient in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup is responsible for fueling breast cancer by increasing the number of breast cancer cells through cell growth and cell division. The effects are so potent, in fact, that the cancer cell proliferation is driven even when we’re talking about Roundup in the parts-per-trillion (PPT) range.

The study, which is to be published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology, focused on glyphosate, the main chemical ingredient within the most widely used herbicide today – Monsanto’s Roundup. After comparing how hormone-dependent and hormone-independent breast cancer cell lines were affected by glyphosate, the researchers found that glyphosate fuels cancer cell lines that are hormone dependent.

“…In summary, we found that glyphosate exhibited a weaker estrogenic activity than estradiol. Furthermore, this study demonstrated the additive estrogenic effects of glyphosate and genistein which implied that the use of glyphosate-contaminated soybean products as dietary supplements may pose a risk of breast cancer because of their potential additive estrogenicity.”

Additionally, the researchers concluded that due to glyphosate’s estrogenic properties, the chemical is likely considered what is known as a “xenoestrogen“. As NaturalSociety has covered before, xenoestrogen is foreign estrogen which mimics real estrogen in our bodies. This type of xenohormone can cause numerous problems, including increased risk of various cancers, infertility, thyroid issues, early onset puberty, and more.

“This finding should raise concern about the existence of more than one xenoestrogen such as phytoestrogen and contaminants in plant derived food which may be beneficial or harmful depending on the hormonal and pathological status of consumers. This study implied that the additive effect of glyphosate and genistein in postmenopausal woman may induce cancer cell growth.”

But of course this is far from the only nasty effect Roundup has on the human body. Scientists have found in some research that Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide Roundup causes toxicity to human cells, and actually kills human kidney cells at low doses.

What’s more, other researchers testing Roundup on rats found that within 1 to 48 hours of exposure, testicular cells of the mature rats were either damaged or killed. The study is yet another reminder that ingredients used in pesticides and herbicides have detrimental effects on the human body and should be avoided whenever at all possible. We need to raise awareness on how Monsanto’s chemical creations and herbicides at large are poisoning the mass population.

Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods To Autoimmune Disease

True Activist

The modern diet of processed foods, takeaways and microwave meals could be to blame for a sharp increase in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, including alopecia, asthma and eczema.

A team of scientists from Yale University in the U.S and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, say junk food diets could be partly to blame.

‘This study is the first to indicate that excess refined and processed salt may be one of the environmental factors driving the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases,’ they said.

Junk foods at fast food restaurants as well as processed foods at grocery retailers represent the largest sources of sodium intake from refined salts.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal sent out an international team of researchers to compare the salt content of 2,124 items from fast food establishments such as Burger King, Domino’s Pizza, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and Subway. They found that the average salt content varied between companies and between the same products sold in different countries.

U.S. fast foods are often more than twice as salt-laden as those of other countries. While government-led public health campaigns and legislation efforts have reduced refined salt levels in many countries, the U.S. government has been reluctant to press the issue. That’s left fast-food companies free to go salt crazy, says Norm Campbell, M.D., one of the study authors and a blood-pressure specialist at the University of Calgary.

Many low-fat foods rely on salt–and lots of it–for their flavor. One packet of KFC’s Marzetti Light Italian Dressing might only have 15 calories and 0.5 grams fat, but it also has 510 mg sodium–about 1.5 times as much as one Original Recipe chicken drumstick. (Feel like you’re having too much of a good thing? You probably are.

Bread is the No. 1 source of refined salt consumption in the American diet, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Just one 6-inch Roasted Garlic loaf from Subway–just the bread, no meat, no cheeses, no nothing–has 1,260 mg sodium, about as much as 14 strips of bacon.

How Refined Salt Causes Autoimmune Disease

The team from Yale University studied the role of T helper cells in the body. These activate and ‘help’ other cells to fight dangerous pathogens such as bacteria or viruses and battle infections.
Previous research suggests that a subset of these cells – known as Th17 cells – also play an important role in the development of autoimmune diseases.

In the latest study, scientists discovered that exposing these cells in a lab to a table salt solution made them act more ‘aggressively.’

They found that mice fed a diet high in refined salts saw a dramatic increase in the number of Th17 cells in their nervous systems that promoted inflammation.

They were also more likely to develop a severe form of a disease associated with multiple sclerosis in humans.

The scientists then conducted a closer examination of these effects at a molecular level.

Laboratory tests revealed that salt exposure increased the levels of cytokines released by Th17 cells 10 times more than usual. Cytokines are proteins used to pass messages between cells.

Study co-author Ralf Linker, from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, said: ‘These findings are an important contribution to the understanding of multiple sclerosis and may offer new targets for a better treatment of the disease, for which at present there is no cure.’

It develops when the immune system mistakes the myelin that surrounds the nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord for a foreign body.

It strips the myelin off the nerves fibres, which disrupts messages passed between the brain and body causing problems with speech, vision and balance.

Another of the study’s authors, Professor David Hafler, from Yale University, said that nature had clearly not intended for the immune system to attack its host body, so he expected that an external factor was playing a part.

He said: ‘These are not diseases of bad genes alone or diseases caused by the environment, but diseases of a bad interaction between genes and the environment.

‘Humans were genetically selected for conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, where there was no salt. It’s one of the reasons that having a particular gene may make African Americans much more sensitive to salt.

‘Today, Western diets all have high salt content and that has led to increase in hypertension and perhaps autoimmune disease as well.’

The team next plan to study the role that Th17 cells play in autoimmune conditions that affect the skin.

‘It would be interesting to find out if patients with psoriasis can alleviate their symptoms by reducing their salt intake,’ they said.

‘However, the development of autoimmune diseases is a very complex process which depends on many genetic and environmental factors.’

Stick to Good Salts

Refined, processed and bleached salts are the problem. Salt is critical to our health and is the most readily available nonmetallic mineral in the world. Our bodies are not designed to processed refined sodium chloride since it has no nutritional value. However, when a salt is filled with dozens of minerals such as in rose-coloured crystals of Himalayan rock salt or the grey texture of Celtic salt, our bodies benefit tremendously for their incorporation into our diet.

“These mineral salts are identical to the elements of which our bodies have been built and were originally found in the primal ocean from where life originated,” argues Dr Barbara Hendel, researcher and co-author of Water & Salt, The Essence of Life. “We have salty tears and salty perspiration. The chemical and mineral composition of our blood and body fluids are similar to sea water. From the beginning of life, as unborn babies, we are encased in a sack of salty fluid.”

“In water, salt dissolves into mineral ions,” explains Dr Hendel. “These conduct electrical nerve impulses that drive muscle movement and thought processes. Just the simple act of drinking a glass of water requires millions of instructions that come from mineral ions. They’re also needed to balance PH levels in the body.”

Mineral salts, she says, are healthy because they give your body the variety of mineral ions needed to balance its functions, remain healthy and heal. These healing properties have long been recognised in central Europe. At Wieliczka in Poland, a hospital has been carved in a salt mountain. Asthmatics and patients with lung disease and allergies find that breathing air in the saline underground chambers helps improve symptoms in 90 per cent of cases.

Dr Hendel believes too few minerals, rather than too much salt, may be to blame for health problems. It’s a view that is echoed by other academics such as David McCarron, of Oregon Health Sciences University in the US.

He says salt has always been part of the human diet, but what has changed is the mineral content of our food. Instead of eating food high in minerals, such as nuts, fruit and vegetables, people are filling themselves up with “mineral empty” processed food and fizzy drinks.

Fish on Prozac become angry, aggressive and KILL their mates, new study finds

Daily Mail

Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found that minnows administered Prozac became aggressive, anti-social and sometimes homicidal. But why put a fish on Prozac? It's not a fix for sad fish - rather, human medications are ending up in waterways and creating ecological effects scientists are only just beginning to research.

Anti-depressant drugs are the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S. -  about 250 million prescriptions are filled every year. They're also the most-documented drugs contaminating waterways.

Traces of the drugs typically get into the water when people excrete them. Sewage treatment plants discharge the filtered effluent, but most aren't equipped to filter out the drugs.

The scientists wanted to study the effects of this drug exposure, and chose the fathead minnow, a fish common fish in Midwest waterways, as their subject. Rebecca Klaper, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Great Lakes Water Institute, presented results of the study at the meeting of the North American division of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Long Beach, California.

Fathead minnows usually display complex mating behavior, with males building the nests where females comes to lay their eggs. After they're laid, the males fertilize them and keep watch, cleaning away fungus and dead eggs.

Klaper said that the fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, was given in very low concentrations - 1 part per billion - which is the same as that found in waste water discharged into waterways.

The male of the species spent more time hiding alone, hunting and ignoring females.

Female fathead minnows seem to be unaffected by the chemical except for producing fewer eggs.

When the concentration of fluoxetine was increased to the highest levels found in waterways, male minnows started to spend more time building their nests. Scientists increased the dose tenfold, in an effort to see what might happen in our waterways in the future, and the males 'become obsessive, to the point they're ignoring the females', Klaper said.



When fluoxetine concentrations are increased again, fathead minnows stop reproducing all together and turn violent: 'The males start killing the females,' said Klaper.

Strangely, if the females are introduced a month after the males are exposed to the chemical, the males don't show aggressive behavior towards them - but the females still don’t lay any eggs. The research has shown that exposure to the drug can alter the genes responsible for building fish brains and controlling their behavior.

The drugs seem to cause these changes in behavior by scrambling how genes in the fishes' brains are turned on and off. The minnows were exposed when they were a couple of months old and still developing.



Klaper said there appeared to be 'architectural' changes to the young minnows’ brains.

'At high doses we expect brain changes,' Klaper told the conference. 'But we saw the gene expression changes and then behavioral changes at doses that we consider environmentally relevant.'

These new findings build on Klaper’s previous research, which tested minnows exposed to the drug to see how they dealt with predators. The fish swam longer distances and made more directional changes, which suggests that the drugs induced anxiety.

It is unclear whether any of these effects are being felt by wild fish populations, but Klaper said that any changes in reproduction, eating and avoiding prey can have devastating impacts for fish populations. The most vulnerable fish populations are those downstream of sewage treatment plants, where prescription drugs consistently show up in higher levels than in other waterways.

Steve Carr, supervisor of the chemistry research group at the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts told Environmental Health News that in the past decade technology has allowed plants to test for chemicals in their waste water and in waters downstream - but most don't.

Studies have shown that drugs can build up in some fishes' systems, meaning the drug levels could accumulate in fish the longer they are exposed to even low concentrations.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers pharmaceuticals an 'emerging concern,' and that chemicals from prescription drugs may pose risks to wildlife and humans, but there are no federal regulations in place as yet.  While traces of prescription drugs in drinking water is 'unlikely to pose risks to human health' according to the World Health Organization, we are discovering that the effects on wildlife could be serious.

'Fish do not metabolize drugs like we do,' Klaper said. 'Even if environmental doses aren’t thought to be much for a human, fish could still have significant accumulation, and, it appears, changes in their brain’s gene expression.'

Genetic Roulette: The Gamble of Our Lives

Youtube
Medical Documentary on Genetically Modified Food

University of BC Doctors Expose Vaccination Cover-up: Official Documents Released From The UK

Collective Evolution

Dr Chris Shaw, from the University of British Colombia’s (UBC)  Department of Ophthalmology, Visual Sciences, Experimental Medicine and Neuroscience published a paper in the Journal Inorganic Biochemistry along with his colleague, Dr.  Lucija Tomljenovic that revealed Government experts have known about the dangers associated with vaccinations. They investigated information exposing a 30 year scandal of official meetings by UK government vaccine committees and independent medical ‘experts’ with drug industry connections. The paper is at the bottom of the article under “sources”.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed with the CDC  seeking information on what the CDC knows about the dangers of vaccines, had by law to be responded to in 20 days. Nearly 7 years later a judge ordered the CDC to turn over the documents on September 30th, 2011. These documents were part of the study discussed in this article.

The paper has received a lot of attention. UBC even held a symposium about vaccination safety as a result in an effort to arouse more critical thinking and discussion around the topic. The response was disturbing  with a number of UBC professors upset that the discussion was taking place in the first place. It’s disturbing to know that there are those out there who wish to silence an opposition to vaccination, and not even keep an open mind to potential dangers. Much of the medical literature examined by researchers comes straight from pharmaceutical company-sponsored medical research. It’s time for us to wake up and make some obvious connections. Here is a quote from the published, peer reviewed paper.

Deliberately concealing information from parents for the sole purpose of getting them to comply with an “official” vaccination schedule could be considered as a form of ethical violation or misconduct. Official documents obtained from the UK Department of Health (DH) and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) reveal that the British health authorities have been engaging in such practice for the last 30 years, apparently for the sole purpose of protecting the national vaccination program(1).

The documents reveal that vaccinations don’t work, and that they cause the disease they are supposed to prevent. They also indicate scientific fraud, that government ‘experts’ are working to conceal information. The 45 page paper was published in 2011 and presented at the BSEM scientific conference. (2)

Here I present the documentation which appears to show that the JCVI made continuous efforts to withhold critical data on severe adverse reactions and contraindications to vaccinations to both parents and health practitioners in order to reach overall vaccination rates which they deemed were necessary for “herd immunity”, a concept which with regards to vaccination, and contrary to prevalent beliefs, does not rest on solid scientific evidence as will be explained. As a result of such vaccination policy promoted by the JCVI and the DH, many children have been vaccinated without their parents being disclosed the critical information about demonstrated risks of serious adverse reactions, one that the JCVI appeared to have been fully aware of. It would also appear that, by withholding this information, the JCVI/DH neglected the right of individuals to make an informed consent concerning vaccination. By doing so, the JCVI/DH may have violated not only International Guidelines for Medical Ethics. –  Dr Lucija Tomljenovic.

She also mentions evidence of ties between vaccine manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies.

The transcripts of the JCVI meetings also show that some of the Committee members had extensive ties to pharmaceutical companies and that the JCVI frequently co-operated with vaccine manufacturers on strategies aimed at boosting vaccine uptake. Some of the meetings at which such controversial items were discussed were not intended to be publicly available, as the transcripts were only released later, through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). These particular meetings are denoted in the transcripts as “commercial in confidence”, and reveal a clear and disturbing lack of transparency, as some of the information was removed from the text (i.e., the names of the participants) prior to transcript release under the FOI section at the JCVI website – Dr Lucija Tomljenovic.

The documents go on to show that when strong evidence was presented against vaccination, they were completely ignored and overlooked by the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunizations. Furthermore, the committee has constantly dismissed independent research and downplayed vaccine concerns while over inflating the benefits. They’ve also promoted and elaborated a plan for introducing new vaccines of questionable efficacy and safety into the routine pediatric schedule, on the assumption that the licenses would eventually be granted. All of these violate the JCVI’s own code of conduct.

Alternative media outlets continue to raise awareness about vaccinations and their potential dangers. With the world handing over credibility to a certain criteria, we thank all of the researchers out there who continue to examine all information, and a wide variety of sources. With the work of these researchers and doctors, the truth about vaccinations continues to spread across the planet.

For more articles about vaccinations, you can browse through our health, science/tech, and alternative news sections. Thank you for reading and spread the word!

Sources:

(1)http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

(2)http://www.ecomed.org.uk/publications/the-health-hazards-of-disease-prevention

http://www.vancourier.com/Responses+vaccine+paper+problem+free+scientific+inquiry+expression/6073466/story.html

http://nsnbc.me/2013/05/10/the-vaccine-hoax-is-over-freedom-of-information-act-documents-from-uk-reveal-30-years-of-coverup/

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/government-experts-cover-up-vaccine-hazards/

“Occupy Your Home”: Confronting “Electro Pollution” and Smart Meter Toxification

Global Research

An overwhelming majority of US and Canadian citizens are entirely unaware that an especially dangerous device has been attached to their homes. While installation of “smart meters” across North America has continued apace since 2009 the health effects such devices pose have yet to be fully realized. Left unaddressed the broad use and continued deployment of such equipment will almost certainly influence human health for many generations to come.

On May 22 my household received a “Notification Letter” from Florida Power and Light (FPL) stating the company’s intent to replace our existing analog meter with a new device equipped to communicate with other such meters in the utility’s wireless “mesh network.” According to FPL we are among roughly 20,000 of Florida homes that have rejected the new digital device in lieu of an analog model. The letter carries the industry’s familiar line–that the “meter upgrade” is intended to “provide you with more information so you can take more control over your energy use and monthly bills” while more readily “identify[ing]” and resolving power outages.

The correspondence came as quite a surprise since in late 2011 after explaining to FPL the health-related consequences of such electro-pollution and expressing concerns for my family’s well-being, the company agreed to remove the “smart meter” and replace it with one that does not emit such energy. This was done only after conducting my own investigation, providing the company with substantial medical research documenting the negative health effects of RF microwave radiation, and threatening legal action.

FPL was in fact much more reasonable in addressing my concerns than was the Florida Public Service Commission, whose legal counsel informed me flatly that the body had no authority over smart meter deployment and referred me to the Federal Communications Commission. Only after submitting a public records request to the agency did I discover that the information Commission members accepted to evaluate the safety of such equipment in terms of human health consisted largely of smart meter manufacturer and utility boilerplate, including a FPL “PowerPoint”-like presentation seemingly pitched to a fifth grade audience.

Upon receiving FPL’s May 22 letter I took a few hours to write a response to the company’s president, taking care to outline my past communication with them, the concerns I have over the device’s potentially negative effects on my family’s health, and the fact that they recognized and fulfilled my opt out request almost two years ago. A few days after sending my letter off, the executive’s assistant called to inform us the notification letter was likely the result of a computer glitch and should have never been sent.

The foremost danger of smart meters is that they are designed to communicate with each other by emitting substantial and frequent bursts of radio frequency (RF) microwave pollution several thousand times per day–a cumulative burden on one’s genetic and biological makeup that children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to given their respective developing and degenerative conditions. Yet the documented health effects are something FPL never voluntarily told me about, and your power utility will likely not tell you.

For example, FPL spokeswoman Elaine Hinsdale disingenuously remarked that smart meters’ radio frequencies are akin “to those in a garage-door opener and hundreds of times less than emission limits set by the Federal Communications Commission.” According to Hinsdale, “You’d have to stand right next to the smart-meter for more than a year to equal the radio-frequency exposure of a 15-minute cellphone call … Once we talk to our customers and explain how it will repair power outages faster and safer, they understand.” In 2011 when I contacted FPL via telephone to inquire on the overall safety of the devices I was similarly told that RF radiation is emitted only “a few times per day.”

Yet other sources I consulted observed that such emissions are much more frequent. I thus purchased a German-made Gigahertz Solution HF35C Elektrosmog Analyzer and did my own measurements. To my surprise I found that FPL’s meter was emitting RF bursts in excess of 2,000 microwatts per square meter at a distance of five feet several times every thirty seconds to one minute. This pulsing radiation was detected in varying degrees of intensity elsewhere throughout the home and may have at least partially explained the common symptoms of electro-hypersensitivity I was experiencing.

If the US public was served by a more honest and diligent press smart meters and RF radiation in general would not endanger public health to the extent they do today. This is particularly the case since a multitude of scientific studies exist that point to the deleterious health effects of RF energy exposure–especially in children and the elderly. Such information is intentionally overlooked by power utilities and little-if-any acknowledgement of negative health effects appear in any of the vacuous paraphernalia they provide their customers–and state regulators–promoting the meters.

When I pressed FPL representatives on what studies the company had conducted on smart meter safety they sent me a privately commissioned 2011 report, Florida Power and Light Advanced Meter Infrastructure & Distribution Automation RF Exposure Survey, produced by an obscure Arlington Virginia firm called Site Safe. [Matthew J. Butcher, Florida Power and Light Advanced Meter Infrastructure & Distribution Automation RF Exposure Survey, Arlington Virginia: Site Safe, June 10, 2011. In author’s possession.] The study’s findings assert that one receives almost the equivalent amount of RF radiation standing one meter away from a smart meter as they would within the immediate vicinity of a cell phone tower–an especially alarming observation!

However, the research’s overall flaw and deceptive nature lies in the absence of suitable methodological parameters for examining how smart meters pulse lesser amounts of such microwave radiation throughout the home up to 190,000 times per day. Germany’s Standard Building Biology Measurements of 2008 caution that specifically in terms of human health “pulsed signals [are] to be taken more seriously than continuous ones.” When I contacted the author of the Site Safe study via telephone and email to evaluate his credentials for authoring such a study, he refused to provide me with any information that might confirm such training and expertise.

In May 2011 the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified RF as a Class 2B carcinogen. This means that caution should be applied because exposure to RF and EMF may cause cancer. Given such an admission power utilities should be exercising the precautionary principal lest they further endanger human health with the continued wide-scale deployment of smart meters. FPL and the broader power industry have produced no compelling scientific evidence to date that even tentatively confirms the safety of smart meters. With this in mind, and in terms specifically related to human health, the power industry writ large is executing a transparently dangerous and criminal fraud against the US public.

A half century ago tobacco and asbestos were known menaces to health and over the long term exposure to these substances culminated in a variety of cancers and other terminal diseases compelling the government to intervene on the public’s behalf. The credible scientific evidence suggests the same holds true for exposure to RF microwave radiation. In fact, government and academic research dating to the 1960s points to the potential health dangers of sustained RF and EMF exposure. While the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Communications Commission, and the American Cancer Society claim that RF and EMF pose no health risks, their conclusions are based on dubious and outdated studies often funded by the telecommunications industry itself.

Current independent scientific and medical research paints an entirely different picture. For example, in 2012 the American Academy of Environmental Medicine generated a list of 86 scientific studies and bibliographies on the health effects of EMF, RF and  extremely low frequency (ELF) microwave radiation dating to 1971. Referencing this literature, in January 2012 the AAEM Board issued a public statement to the California Public Utilities Commission expressing its concern over smart meter installations across the state. “[E]xisting FCC guidelines for RF safety that have been used to justify installation of ‘smart meters’ only look at thermal tissue damage and are obsolete,” the Board observed,  since many modern studies [such as those used by the FCC] show metabolic and genomic damage from RF and ELF exposures below the level of intensity which heats tissues … More modern literature shows medically and biologically significant effects of RF and ELF at lower energy densities.

These effects accumulate over time, which is an important consideration given the chronic nature of exposure from “smart meters”. The current medical literature raises credible questions about genetic and cellular effects, hormonal effects, male fertility, blood/brain barrier damage and increased risk of certain types of cancers from RF or ELF levels similar to those emitted from “smart meters”. Children are placed at particular risk for altered brain development, and impaired learning and behavior. Further, EMF/RF adds synergistic effects to the damage observed from a range of toxic chemicals. Given the widespread, chronic, and essentially inescapable ELF/RF exposure of everyone living near a “smart meter”, the Board of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine finds it unacceptable from a public health standpoint to implement this technology until these serious medical concerns are resolved.

Along these lines in 2007 and again in 2012 the BioInitiative Working Group, an international body of academic scientists, medical doctors and public health professionals released a comprehensive review of over 2000 scientific studies and reviews, concluding that RF and EMF exposure can contribute to childhood leukemia and lay the groundwork for a variety of adult cancers.

Aside from long term adverse health effects, smart meters also pose more immediate safety and privacy concerns. The equipment has not been inspected by and thus does not meet  the protocols of the internationally recognized authority on consumer appliance safety standards, Underwriters Laboratory, a potential violation of numerous state and local municipal codes. Careless installation or the limited integrity of smart meter engineering and design have been pointed to as the possible cause of house fires. “We have encountered an unusual amount of fire incidents involving smart meters,” an Ontario Fire Marshal explains to the Vancouver Sun. “New meters may have defects that cause electrical failures (or they may be caused by) careless installation during a changeover.”

Finally, the collection and uncertain wireless transmission of intimate data related to a family’s domestic power usage and everyday life encompassed in residential occupancy also serve as a potential basis for the violation of protections from illegal search and seizure guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. This lifestyle-related information relayed throughout the mesh network via RF microwave may be easily “hacked” and the broader network attacked by any number of third parties, including criminals and terrorists. Such data may also be easily accessed by police or other government agencies that would otherwise need a warrant and probable cause to access such information. Utility customers should remind power companies that they do not consent to any personal data related to electrical usage and living patterns aggregated and sold to third parties, including marketers, appliance manufacturers, or data analyst subcontractors.

Already RF is involuntarily yielded to through the ubiquitous radiation emitted from local area networks (“Wi-Fi”) in places of employment and public areas. This is compounded by the voluntary exposure to RF through close quarter cell phone and household Wi-Fi use. With the combined financial and advertising power of the telecommunications service and wireless-manufacturing industries the research clearly pointing to the harmful health effects of RF remains to a large degree unknown. Given their wide scale use and around-the-clock activity, smart meters complete the circle of what is now ceaseless RF bombardment; their broad deployment anticipates a not-too-distant future when they will engage with “smart” appliances within the home, further disseminating such radiation while arbitrarily exerting power over everyday energy use and unlawfully collecting vital and likely profitable data on behavior and lifestyle.

Genes Are Not The Problem, It's The Food Genius

Prevent Disease
by Karen Foster

Two-thirds of disease would vanish if society could revert to the way it did certain things just 100 years ago. The emphasis on faulty genes is misplaced and a misguided attempt to cast blame on a culture that has lost its way in terms of survival. Genes are not the problem since their products are largely dependent on lifestyle choices. Our quality of food, activity levels and family structure is essentially killing this generation of human beings.

Our food supply has been completely adulterated over the past few decades alone, more drastically than during any other time in history. Although our genes have hardly changed, our culture has been transformed almost beyond recognition during the past ten thousand years, especially in the last century. We have strayed so far from our ancestral diets and lifestyles that the human metabolism has been unable to adapt and modern diseases have flourished.

Food is the raw material for our cells and even our very thoughts could not have arisen without these building blocks. Food even controls the very expression of our genes. We are connected to our food and where it comes from in ways that we have not yet fathomed. The 'prophylactic' removal of of body parts due to what is considered faulty genes is a disturbingly popular trend, and despite the lack of scientific evidence for the effectiveness of this approach, it is increasingly being celebrated in the mainstream media and medical establishments as a reasonable choice. But genes are not the problem...it's the food!

Ancient peoples and even isolated hunter-gatherer cultures that still exist today ate wild, fresh foods in their natural state with minimal processing and certainly without synthetic chemicals. Their lifestyles were also very different from ours. They cooperated as family units to source and prepare food and with that came a level of activity that does not exist today. They did not suffer the same rates of degenerative diseases that plague modern society.

The majority of food we spend our money on is packaged, processed, sweetened, chemically-altered and genetically modified foods. It may resemble food, but it certainly is not real food. It is virtually devoid of nutrients. Food manufacturers oftentimes must add vitamins and minerals that have been lost during the processing back into the food. Enriched flour is really just refined flour that has had a few nutrients re-added to it, but not enough to make any food made from this nutritionally worthy. Enriched vitamins and minerals are artificial and unrecognizable by the body as nutrients that can be assimilated.

These synthetic vitamins and minerals, usually isolated from their natural forms, act more like anti-nutrients than nutrients in these foods, adding to the body’s chemical burden. Modern methods of food preparation and processing have effectively depleted many nutrients and co-factors necessary for the absorption and utilization of foods that in order for the body to process these modern foods, it must use its own store of nutrients.

When talking about our food system, we are referring to everything from the farm to the plate--food production, harvesting, processing, marketing and distribution. Industrialization describes the increasing tendency of economists, policymakers and agribusiness companies to treat farms as rural factories, with off-farm inputs (energy, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified seed) marshaled in the service of producing caloric energy (feed corn and starches, soybeans and refined flour). Industrialization also describes a system in which economic return is paramount--more important than concern for the public’s health, the potential health effects of pesticide exposure, the long-term resilience of the land where crops are grown, and the methods by which food is processed and delivered.

Most of the calories we consume come from the added fats, sugars and refined grains commonly found in highly processed foods and junk foods. These specific types ofl calories have overwhelmingly come from genetically modified sources including corn (corn starches, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, feed corn fed to livestock), soybeans (soy proteins, vegetable oils, salad oils, partially hydrogenated oils, and fryer oils in fast-food restaurants) and wheat (refined flour) which has been defined as the perfect chronic poison by experts. These three crops account for the vast majority of crop acreage planted in the United States.

Factory farms and monoculture are responsible for most of the food that makes it to your plate. Consider factory farms -- the animals from these operations are given massive doses of drugs not only to stave off disease in such conditions but to increase their growth as well. They are fed unnatural diets and have little or no access to their natural environment leaving them prone to disease and suffering. Their meat is unhealthy and should not even be considered fit for human consumption. Agriculture has been around for thousands of years, but the way it exists now is a far cry from what has existed before this modern age. Intensive farming and monoculture has left our soil depleted resulting in poor quality plant foods, which then affect the nutrient composition of animal foods. Also, with today’s technology, we are able to manipulate the genes of plants and animals, something that nowhere near resembles selective breeding techniques used by our ancestors.

The hallmark of any system is that--for better or for worse--it functions as a complex whole, making it impossible to easily divorce one part from another. The plethora of problems in and related to our food system do not exist in isolation. They are intimately connected. Put another way, the healthfulness of our food, the health of the natural world (the soil, water, bacteria and genetic resources that gives rise to it), and the health of our patients cannot be considered apart from one another.

More than 60% of disease would vanish if we would start focusing on food as our medicine. We don't have to live in a medicated world, but we certainly choose to even though there are natural counterparts to almost every prescribed drug in the world. At one time, it was thought that cancer was a “disease of civilization,” belonging to much the same causal domain as “neurasthenia” and diabetes, the former a nervous weakness believed to be brought about by the stress of modern life and the latter a condition produced by bad diet and indolence. It turns out all may be true since our food convenience is at the root of our health woes.

But we cannot place all the blame on food manufacturers because we play a part in the food system. We demand convenience and cheaper foods and that’s what we got. We must examine the cultural and socio-economic factors that spurred the demand for convenience foods. For example, considering the busy lives most people have nowadays, it often becomes difficult to prepare homemade meals for the family (much less yourself) every breakfast, lunch and dinner. It ultimately boils down to our priorities. If we place high priority on our health and understand that what we eat determines and shapes not just our physical characteristics but also our personalities as well, we’d all take what we eat much more seriously.

We have an abundance of food that is easily accessible at any time of the day whereas our ancestors did not have this luxury. They hunted and gathered their food and farmed later on, allowing nature to do most of the work but they also expended a certain amount of energy in food preparation. The family meal may be more important than ever and mothers play a critical role. Researchers speculate that maternal attitudes towards the importance of family meals may reflect a broader respect for good nutrition. This might extend to practices such as keeping healthy foods in the house or limiting the amount of times their children can eat "junk food." People who are more concerned about family meals are also more concerned about nutrition.

We have lost the family connection at it all starts there. A higher incidence of family meals is associated with a better nutrient intake and healthier meals. If we want to reverse the disease trend and stimulate a health trend, we must transform the food supply to one that relies on fresh nutrient dense foods free from chemical alteration, from start to finish, and place a greater emphasis on family which fosters a dependence on health rather than sickness.

Dick Van Dyke Traces Mystery Illness to Dental Implants

Newsmax Health

Legendary actor Dick Van Dyke says he has solved a medical mystery that has baffled him and his doctors for years. The cause of pounding headaches that have plagued him for seven years are his titanium dental implants, he says.

Fans and friends of the 87-year-old star had been concerned about his health ever since he canceled a public appearance in April and announced that he was fatigued and suffered from insomnia as a result of an undiagnosed neurological disorder.

Van Dyke was so desperate that he appealed for help from his fans through Twitter. "My head bangs every time I lay down," he said. "I've had every test come back that I'm perfectly healthy. Anybody got any ideas?"

The beloved star of TV's The Dick Van Dyke Show and the movie Mary Poppins added, "It's been going on for seven years. I've had every test you can think of, including an MRI and spinal tap."

Van Dyke took to Twitter again to announce that the source of his mystery illness had been discovered — titanium dental implants. "It seems that my titanium dental implants are the cause of my head pounding," he Tweeted. "Has anyone else experienced this?" he asked. "Thanks for all your replies."

Dental implants replace damaged or missing teeth. The "roots," which are usually made from titanium, are placed within the jawbone.

Dr. David Brownstein, holistic doctor and author of Dr. Brownstein's Natural Way to Health newsletter, says that problems with dental implants often cause patients to go from doctor to doctor for years without finding a solution. "As long as there's no infection, no one considers the implants as the source of the patient's problems," he tells Newsmax Health.

There are tests for titanium allergies, says Dr. Brownstein, but that doesn't explain what happened to Dick Van Dyke.

"Titanium is metal and it creates kind of a lightning rod in the head," he said. "It doesn't happen to everyone, and most doctors don't look for it. Most people have other metals in their mouths, like fillings, and saliva combines with the metal to give a battery-like effect.

"Any metal can do this, and it can be a big problem," he says. "I just had a patient with issues similar to Van Dyke's — headaches and facial pain that no one could identify."

Although titanium is generally considered safe, one study showed that patients had severe health problems after receiving dental implants. Medical issues included neurological problems, depression, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Once the implants were removed, the patients' health improved dramatically.

Studies have also found that implanted titanium can cause abnormal cells to form, which could precede the beginning of oral cancer. Two articles published in the Journal of the American Dental Association indicated that dental implants either caused or aggravated oral cancers.

"There's no easy answer," Dr. Brownstein says. "If a patient has a hole in his mouth, his bite is going to be compromised. The dentist is going to have to do something to fix that space and most of the answers involve some kind of metal.

"I don't advise people not to have dental implants," he says. "I am just cautious and say that if problems develop, the implants should be considered as a possible cause."

Zirconium dental implants, which use high-impact ceramic (zirconium oxide), are more compatible with the human body and may be a safer choice. "Zirconium is an inert metal, and zirconium implants are becoming more widely available in this country," says Dr. Brownstein.

"I think zirconium would be a better choice than titanium.

"Putting any type of metal in the mouth can disrupt the electrical activity and result in a lot of problems," says Dr. Brownstein. "This includes fillings, root canals, caps, bridges, and implants.

"So, if you are suffering and not getting any answers, fillings, root canals, and implants should be considered as possibly upsetting the electrical activity of the head and neck causing headaches, brain fog, and other symptoms people don't ordinarily connect with dental implants."

Related:   Dick Van Dyke Undergoes Tests for "Cranial Throbbing"

Prostate Cancer-Fighting Compound Found in Jamaican Allspice

Science Blog

Essential to jerk seasoning, allspice is known for flavoring Jamaican and other cuisines around the world with a blend of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper but, according to a new study by Miller School researchers, the aromatic spice could be known one day for impeding the growth of, or maybe even preventing, prostate cancer, the No. 2 cancer-killer of men in the U.S.

In the study published online May 8 in the Oxford Journals’ Carcinogenesis and led by Bal L. Lokeshwar, Ph.D., professor of urology and radiation oncology and Co-Director of Research in the Department of Urology, researchers demonstrated that Ericifolin, a complex compound in the allspice berry, significantly slows the growth of prostate cancer tumors by suppressing the androgen receptor (AR). A molecule central to the growth and metastasis of prostate cancer, AR enables prostate cancer cells to survive even after hormone therapy, which along with surgery and radiation is the standard treatment for prostate cancer.

“Androgen receptor, or AR for short, is the principal drug target for the treatment of prostate cancer, but there is no drug that completely eliminates AR. This complex compound in allspice seems to do that,” Lokeshwar said. “The most interesting data shows that it actually kills tumor cells which express the very specific prostate cancer marker, the androgen receptor. That is not to say that people should start eating allspice with every meal, but there exists the potential that the slow and steady consumption of this chemo-dietary agent may slow or even prevent prostate cancer.”

For now, Lokeshwar and his study team, including first author Shamaladevi Nagarajarao, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research associate, and Lei Zhang, a graduate student, have demonstrated that Ericifolin kills prostate cancer cells and reduces tumor growth by more than 50 percent in animal models, specifically mice that were injected with prostate cancer cells, then, either fed or injected daily doses of an aqueous allspice extract.

“To our surprise, it worked very well,” Lokeshwar said. “It was surprising because lots and lots of products kill cells in the test tube, but they are not effective when consumed or injected in animal models. In this case, the tumors did not disappear, but they grew about 50 percent more slowly with both methods. Further, these mice did not exhibit any obvious toxicity associated with other anticancer drugs.”

Next the researchers hope to determine whether Ericifolin, a member of the family of polyphenols, the richest source of antioxidants in our diet, can actually prevent prostate cancer from developing altogether. With a $1.5 million NIH grant, they are currently exploring Ericifolin’s anticancer activities — and its translational potential as a cancer chemopreventive agent for humans — in mice that have been genetically programmed to naturally develop prostate cancer at a certain age.

They also hope to begin a clinical trial in the near future with UHealth patients who are under active surveillance for early-stage or slow-growing prostate cancer, which does not yet warrant treatment. Since allspice is not toxic, Lokeshwar reasons those patients would be ideal candidates to take Ericifolin as a daily dietary supplement.

A biologist who began exploring the feasibility of natural anticancer agents about seven years ago, Lokeshwar turned his sights on allspice at the suggestion of a former research associate, Dominic A. Lyn. A co-author on the study, Lyn happened to be from Jamaica, the world’s No. 1 exporter of allspice, which is the dried, unripe berry of Pimenta dioica, an evergreen tree native to Jamaica. “He said, ‘Let’s try allspice. It’s from Jamaica, and it’s unique,’” Lokeshwar recalled.

At the time, there were — and still are — few scientific studies on allspice, but the researchers were intrigued by what they learned: Not only is allspice a popular folk medicine remedy for a number of maladies, but “pound for pound,” Lokeshwar said, “it has the highest amount of antioxidants of any food we know.”

Their interest would escalate when they performed some rudimentary experiments with a jar of allspice powder Lyn borrowed from his wife’s kitchen. Turning the powder into a water extract, they applied it to cancer cells and found it inhibited their growth. More elaborate and sophisticated experiments with allspice purified and liquefied in the Lokeshwar lab would produce the same results, first in cells, then in mice.

The next step, which would prove harder, was pinpointing which of the hundreds of compounds in allspice blocked the antigen receptor. Fortunately, Nagarajarao mistakenly knocked on Lokeshwar’s door inquiring about a job in a different lab. When Lokeshwar learned she was a chemist and biophysicist, he enlisted her in the hunt. With analysis provided by collaborators in the University of Kentucky’s College of Pharmacy, the team eventually isolated Ericifolin as the anticancer agent.

In an intriguing footnote, Zhang, a student in the Sheila and David Fuente Graduate Program in Cancer Biology, has since demonstrated that their aqueous allspice extract also impedes the growth of breast cancer cells, but with a different polyphenol, not Ericifolin. They are not sure yet which one but, in Lokeshwar’s mind, that discovery raises the possibility that allspice may have many anticancer properties worth exploring.

In addition to Lokeshwar, Nagarajarao, Lyn and Zhang, other co-authors of the study, “Ericifolin: a novel antitumor compound from allspice that silences androgen receptor in prostate cancer,” are Khaled A. Shaaban, Ph.D., and Jurgen Rohr, Ph.D., of the University of Kentucky, and Susana Villate, a former research associate in the Department of Urology.

Top 5 Alkaline Foods and Why You Should Care

Natural Society
by Elizabeth Renter

We’ve all heard the term pH balance before, but do you know what it actually means? The pH scale is one that measures the acidity or alkalinity of something. In the case of alkaline foods, we are concerned with the pH of your body. Eating certain foods may affect this measurement, which can lead to several potentially negative health effects.

Ph levels are measured on a scale of 0 to 14. 7.0 is considered neutral; 0 is completely acidic, and 14 is completely alkaline. Your blood needs to be slightly alkaline, with a pH somewhere between 7.35 and 7.45. Generally, your body adjusts its pH levels automatically, keeping your blood right within that target area. However, some argue that many of today’s processed and unhealthy foods are acid-forming and throw off that natural balance.

Too much acid, and your body begins to experience some negative health effects including: fatigue, dental issues, compromised immune function, pain and inflammatory conditions, and even premature aging. By eating foods that are alkaline-producing, you are not depending on your body to balance the acidity, and therefore can avoid some of these health problems.

Alkaline Foods for Better Health

Fortunately, eating a diet rich in alkaline-forming foods is quite simple. Sticking with fresh produce is a good place to start. Here are 5 alkaline foods to get you started.

1. Lemons are possibly the most alkaline foods around, plus, they offer many health benefits. Starting your day with a glass of lemon water is a good way to work towards balancing your pH levels first thing. While lemons are initially acidic, the end result is alkaline.

2. Watermelons are another great alkaline-forming food, and are a great diuretic to boot. Check out some other health benefits of watermelons here.

3. Cayenne peppers have numerous benefits even beyond being alkaline-forming. From their antioxidant concentration to their potential added benefits in weight loss ventures, these peppers should be a part of every diet.

4. Leafy Greens, like many other alkalizing foods, have a wealth of health benefits. Things like spinach, kale, chard, and collards are rich in folate and vitamin K. They are also great helpers for the digestive system.

5. Apples have a pH level of about 8.0. They are also rich in fiber, which makes them great for digestion.

Related:  TOP 10 ALKALINE FOODS